Chapter 177: Confucian scholars mistake the country
The world belongs to those who have the right to win the hearts of the people? In fact, these words are the words of a scholar, not a lesson. If you don’t believe it, count the two thousand years and see how many empires have won the hearts of the people but won the world... Qiang Qin, Northern Wei, Northern Qi, Liao
Jin, Meng, Yuan, Manchu and Qing... Almost half of the dynasties were not popular among the people, so the words of Confucian scholars could not be listened to, otherwise they would be killed, such as Huang Zicheng to Jianwen Jun.
In just a few years of his reign, Emperor Jianwen abolished the cruel punishments of Taizu, greatly reduced and reduced land rents all over the world, and also reduced the army and cut expenditures to reduce the burden on the people. The most famous one was the equalization of land taxes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
The heavy taxes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have always been many times higher than those in the world. Emperor Jianwen thought it was unfair and exempted them. Such an emperor would naturally gain the sincere support and love of his subjects, especially after experiencing the severe punishments and laws of the Taizu Dynasty, both civil servants and the people called him
A rare benevolent king, even compared to Song Renzong...
But while some families were happy and others were sad, he offended the nobles and the vassal kings, and these two controlled the military power of the Ming Dynasty...
The noble military generals hated him for blindly favoring civil servants and listening to the advice of Confucian scholars. He tried his best to improve the status of the civil servant group, but he reduced the army and suppressed the military men, causing the status of the descendants of the founding nobles to plummet. This was mainly due to Fang Xiaoru's restructuring of the court institutions.
First of all, he raised the six ministers from the second rank to the first rank, and added the position of minister between the minister and the minister, which greatly improved the status of the six ministers. Then he greatly improved the Imperial Academy, Hanlin Academy
and the establishment and status of Zhan Shifu. The purpose of this is to strengthen the Confucian education of preparatory officials, improve the Hanlin bachelors...that is, their status in the court decision-making, and strengthen the education and training of the heirs of the empire.
, making future emperors more obedient to the words of civil officials.
There were also various reforms to the imperial institutions. To put it bluntly, they strengthened civilian rule in order to weaken the power of the generals and vassal princes. This made the generals complain, and it was for the imperial army to appear in the future confrontation with King Yan.
Failure to work hard has laid the foundation for serious hidden dangers.
Of course, it's okay to offend military generals alone. After all, all the unruly and fierce generals in the Ming Dynasty were killed by Zhu Yuanzhang. The remaining Geng Bingwen, Song Zhong and others were cowards who dared to be angry but dare not speak out, let alone harm him.
The emperor's rebellion.
But at the same time, the young emperor and his nerdy masters offended the vassal king again...
Emperor Taizu was a hero, but he was also a father. His sons had flesh on their palms and backs. Naturally, he wanted every son to live a good life. He sealed nine princes at the border, ordered them to train troops and prepare for the border, and sent a dozen more to the border.
His son was granted seals all over the country. Before his death, he said to Yun Kang: "I hand over the responsibility of resisting foreign aggression to the kings. I will stay still and let you be the emperor of peace."
Yun Kang had a different feeling in his heart, and answered: "If the enemy invades, it is up to the kings to deal with it. If the kings have different intentions, who will deal with it?"
Taizu was silent for a long time before asking: "What do you think?"
"Win his heart with virtue, and restrict his behavior with courtesy. If it doesn't work, cut off his territory; if it doesn't work, change his title to another place. If he doesn't repent, he will have to send troops to attack him." Yun Kang's answer is obviously early.
It was a good idea, and what was even more obvious was that when he became the crown prince, he was already wary of those tough and unscrupulous uncles, and had a long-term plan.
It's a pity that what we say makes sense, but when we put it into practice, we are reckless, make mistakes after mistakes, and give away great things to others...
Qitai Huang Zicheng was a first-class loyal minister, but he lacked strategy and had no strategy. He was simply unable to take on the important task of reducing the vassal state, which was crucial to the country. Huang Zicheng, in particular, was definitely Zhu Di's number one hero. If he had not died out of loyalty, he would have definitely died.
Zhu Di's gold medal undercover... In the thirty-first year of Hongwu, Emperor Taizu passed away. Qi and Huang drafted a posthumous edict instructing the kings not to go to the capital for funerals. The officials appointed by the kingdom were subject to the control of the court.
The first part of the order is easy to say. The kings are unruly and rebellious. They are all elders and do not obey the young master. If someone covets the throne and plots rebellion, it will be very dangerous. But to control the officials of the kingdom, it is obviously to guard against the kings.
Of course, it will arouse great resentment and vigilance. Telling them that I am going to deal with you before taking action will cause complaints first, and Jianwen will make a mistake as soon as he comes up...
Now that his intention to deal with the king was clear and Emperor Jianwen was firmly on the throne, he ordered Qi Tai Huang Zicheng to secretly discuss the steps to reduce the vassal state. At that time, among the nine kings of the town who held military power, the King of Yan Zhu Di was magnificent in appearance, wise and brave, and had great strategies.
During the brutal battles in Mongolia, he grew up to be the strongest general in the Ming Dynasty. He had many elite soldiers and advisors under his command, and his ambitions were unfathomable. He was no different from Emperor Taizu. Most of the fear in the young emperor's heart came from this man.
Qi Tai believed that if King Yan was eliminated, the group would be leaderless and had nothing to fear. He advocated using King Yan to attack first, but Huang Zicheng disagreed. He said that King Yan was too strong and must be carefully arranged to make sure nothing goes wrong before attacking. As for Zhou, Qi, Xiang, and Dai,
The kings of Min have committed illegal acts since the time of Taizu, and they are famous for their crimes. Now we should first ask the king of Zhou, the mother of the king of Yan, to cut off the hands and feet of the king of Yan...
Once the two people's opinions were expressed, it can be seen that Qi Tai was still better than Huang Zicheng. At least he knew that "shoot the man first, shoot the horse first, and capture the thief first, capture the king." At that time, Emperor Jianwen was the heir of Emperor Taizu, and he was in a great position.
, is the orthodoxy of the country, and the military and civilians are all based on it, and all civil servants and generals follow it. If he uses thunderous methods on King Yan from the very beginning, Zhu Di will have no power to fight back. On the contrary, it will be a great opportunity for the new king to establish his authority.
Huang Zicheng's words sounded nice, but in fact he was just trying to test the reaction of King Yan first. If King Yan was a weakling, he would naturally be frightened into submission, but everyone knows that Zhu Di came from the vast desert, the mountain of blood and corpses.
A peerless strong man walks out of the sea. Will such a person be frightened? Only a man like Huang Zicheng would believe it...
It's a pity that when Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng disagreed, Emperor Jianwen would always listen to the latter, probably because his IQ was close to that of Huang Zicheng and he had a stronger resonance.
So Emperor Jianwen took the throne less than a month ago, and sent people to arrest the five emperors and brought them to the capital. They showed no kindness to their subjects. However, those trumped-up charges were not enough to convict the vassal kings. Emperor Jianwen wanted to bring his five uncles to justice.
However, after Qi and Huang fought hard, the five kings were finally convicted. At this time, tragedy happened. King Zhu Bai of Xiang could not explain himself during the interrogation, so he burned his palace to death out of sorrow and anger. The world was shocked and Zhu Di was completely
Make up your mind to rebel in advance
The reason why it is said to be ahead of schedule is that Zhu Di, under the instigation of the monk military advisor Dao Yan, had long had the intention to rebel. He recruited people with extraordinary talents to build weapons secretly and train soldiers secretly. However, Zhu Di had never made up his mind before. One was him.
As a prince, one person is already inferior to ten thousand people. If the rebellion fails, there is only one way to die. After witnessing the fate of his brothers, this became not a problem, because he knew very well that he would be the next unlucky one.
Another concern was that his three sons were still stranded in Beijing. If he rebelled, the three sons would be executed. For this reason, he wrote a letter claiming to be ill and requested that the three sons be returned. At this time, Qi and Huang's opinions conflicted again.
Qi Tai advocated taking the third son as a hostage, but Huang Zicheng thought it was better to release him to dispel King Yan's doubts. After the court arranged the arrangements, he would send troops to raid and capture him in one fell swoop.
There is no more suitable word to describe Brother Huang than 'idiot'. At that time, his brother had already changed all the commanders and envoys in Peking, where King Yan's fiefdom was located. He also sent troops to Shanhaiguan as an excuse.
As a result, half of King Yan's elite soldiers were transferred away, and his military power was taken away in disguise. Against the background of five brothers being killed one after another, with these tense arrangements, could King Yan figure out the court's intentions even with his toes?
Huang Zicheng actually thought that by returning the son of the King of Yan, he could hide the truth from the King of Yan. This is simply a cover-up. You are so stupid that you have already killed all his brothers and placed him under residential surveillance. How do you expect to paralyze him? What if he had not been bribed by Zhu Di?
Yes, that is an idiot. And history has proven that Huang Zicheng is a loyal minister, so he is a pure idiot
As mentioned before, when Qi and Huang disagreed, Emperor Jianwen always listened to the latter, so he let his cousin go. But this kind of opinion can also be obeyed. I have to say that it is still between idiots.
, have a common language.
When the three princes returned to Peiping, King Yan was overjoyed and shouted, "God help me." From then on, he no longer had any scruples and began to plot a rebellion in full swing.
At this time, the disparity in strength between the two sides was like that of an ant to an elephant. Jianwen had millions of troops from the imperial court and the human and financial resources of all provinces in the country. When Zhu Di raised his army, he only had 800 guards from his direct lineage and only occupied one city in Peiping.
Food, weapons, and finances were all supported by this isolated city. In this case, Jianwen could lose everything, and would really make Emperor Taizu crawl out of the Xiaoling Mausoleum.
It is no exaggeration to say that Zhu Di was able to conquer the world with one city. His own strength was not the main reason, but relying on his opponents was too stupid.
For example, before Zhu Di was about to rebel, a minister from Peiping reported to the court, so Jianwen decided to take action against his uncle. At that time, there were heavy troops from the court in Peiping, and the generals were loyal. Zhu Di only had 800 guards in the palace. Who knows what would happen overnight?
Peiping was captured by Zhu Di... The reason turned out to be that Jianwen's secret decree did not mention the capture of Zhu Di, but only mentioned the capture of his subordinates. The generals who besieged the palace were overwhelmed and died in vain, and all the troops surrendered to Zhu Di...
Another example is that Geng Bingwen, who initially suppressed the rebellion, was mature and prudent, saw through Zhu Di's weaknesses, and was ready to kill him. However, Huang Zicheng thought that he was not in a good position to fight and was too old to be useful, so he asked Jianwen to be replaced by Li Jinglong, who was young and energetic, and talked about the art of war very well...
Emperor Jianwen was so knowledgeable that he must have known the allusions to armchair warfare. Geng Bingwen was the Lianpo whom Emperor Taizu left to guard the country, and Li Jinglong was the second ancestor Zhao Kuo. The result was the same as the Battle of Changping, with half a million officers and soldiers being killed.
Thirty thousand Yan troops were defeated and defeated.