Chapter 651: Old Zhu can be persuaded Zhu Biao was right, this matter indeed made Zhu Yuanzhang happy. How should I put it? It can be said that all his regrets have been made up for. When Chen Han had just arrived in the Ming Dynasty, his eyesight had not yet healed. Then a few of them wanted to ask Chen Han how he, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was doing. At that time, Chen Han did say that he did a good job, but he had some problems, and these problems could cause endless harm. He must be unwilling to accept it. How could a founding emperor like him do such things and yet cause endless harm? But after hearing what Chen Han said at the end, I could only feel helpless. Because what Chen Han said was really right, because Chen Han said that the biggest problem at the time was that in addition to wanting to have complete control over the system, he also wanted to be obedient to everyone every day. Especially those officials. Although this cannot be blamed on Zhu Yuanzhang being too petty, because those officials at that time did have some points that made people feel that they had to be killed. After all, officials at that time had one characteristic, which was the bad habits left over from the Yuan Dynasty. For example, the bad habits under the tax-farming system have always existed, which led to officials never thinking about how to sympathize with the people.

They have only one thought, that is, once they become officials they have to engage in corruption and bribery. Maybe they were not yet accustomed to an emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang. What Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang always thought was that when I was a common people, you officials tried your best to turn all of us into refugees in order to make a little money from us. For this reason, I can't let you succeed now. So you must die. Whoever dares to embezzle will die. If Zhu Yuanzhang could really take care of all the work in the world by himself, then he probably wouldn't want to have officials. In his mind, he never regarded those officials as human beings, but only as tools that could not exist for him to govern the world, or even worse than tools. Although it was not as serious as the later Qing Dynasty, where Han officials were treated as slaves, it was almost the same. Because he truly regarded the world as an asset of his Zhu family. He was the first emperor to establish a distinction between family and country. In his eyes, the world belongs to our Zhu family, and all of you people are farmhands working for our Zhu family. And you officials are just the people who look after the long-term workers for our Zhu family. Don't have any other ideas. That's what he thought. Therefore, he could not tolerate officials who dared to engage in corruption, just like a landlord could not tolerate his farmhands who dared to steal his family's grain. However, those officials do not have this mentality. They probably have read too many books of sages and think that officials like us are ruling the world together with the king. So we can’t say that we enjoy all the rights that the king enjoys, but we have to be given a part of them, otherwise we will have no motivation to work. This was the basic contradiction between Zhu Yuanzhang and being an official. Under this basic contradiction, officials still had that mentality at the beginning. That is, no matter how capable you are, Zhu Yuanzhang, you are still a human being, right? You cannot do without us officials, so you have to think carefully. You can never say that you will die together. This is really naive. It can be seen from the subsequent performance that Zhu Yuanzhang at that time really dared to kill and teach those officials a lesson: you are naive. That is why so many major cases were staged. After the case, all officials in the world felt relieved. Even if they wanted to embezzle money, they could only do it secretly, and it might really be as Chen Han himself guessed.

Chen Han speculated at the time that Zhu Yuanzhang might really have been indulgent towards those corrupt officials. Because of his indulgence, those corrupt officials have been unwilling to stop, and because of his indulgence, the people of the world only know how to resent the corrupt officials. Although Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang did not read so many books of sages, and his level of learning was even lower than that of many emperors in history, it must be said that this man's learning ability and methods were extremely advanced. He can be considered a true genius. He used the "Great Edict", a form similar to a big-character poster, to let the common people know the law, although it was not written very clearly. Instead, he drew illustrations of some of the more famous cases handled by the court on the imperial edicts and distributed them to the common people. But he also knew that the literacy rate of the people in the world was very low, probably only about 1 or 2 percent. In this case, there was no way to implement it. So what should he do? Simple, it invented a promotion method that is particularly amazing, which can also be called a marketing plan. For example, if you have committed a crime and they want to arrest you, the officials will be very interesting. They will not make a decision on you, give you a trial, or even interrogate you first. And what is it? Send someone to your house to see if you have this book "The Great Edict" at home. If so, the crime will be reduced and the punishment of exile will be changed to imprisonment on the spot. A five-year sentence will be changed to three years, a three-year sentence will be changed to one year, and if it is only one year, then he will be released on the spot. In fact, according to modern laws, since there is always this book at home, the person should know something about the law. If he still commits a crime, he should be breaking the law knowingly. But why should the sentence be reduced? This method of judging cases against the law quickly led to the promotion of the book "The Great Edict". In other words, Zhu Yuanzhang popularized legal knowledge at a very low cost, which was much faster than it could be popularized by scholars. Moreover, in this way, most people will be frightened by that case and dare not commit crimes, and only a small number of people will take advantage of this loophole. In this way, everyone will know how strong Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption efforts are, and also know how much His Majesty the Emperor loves his people like his own children. After this reputation spread, the common people, at least on the surface, thought that Zhu Yuanzhang was a good emperor, and that the reason for the emergence of corrupt officials was all because they were insatiable. Another very important point is that Zhu Yuanzhang was an emperor who rose from the grassroots. His thinking was very synchronized with that of the common people and he could resonate with them. Therefore, many of the laws he made were very similar to the tastes of the common people. Ordinary people also hate that officials receive such high salaries, because they always think that you officials must have a lot of gray income. If you have so much gray income, why do you still receive such high salaries? This is why ordinary people resonate with the emperor and think that the emperor is right to do so, because they have the same idea as the emperor. Of course the emperor knew what they were thinking, and as a result, those officials were sometimes speechless. It can even be said that they were completely obedient under the discipline, because it was exactly as he thought. The common people believed what the emperor said, so they subconsciously thought that it would be unacceptable if officials received such high salaries. You have a much better life than us ordinary people, so you should not take such a high salary, and you should be honest and self-disciplined. You should live a hard life every day like His Majesty the Emperor. The emperor himself is very hardworking. Why do you officials say that you are unable to be diligent? There must be something wrong with you people. If it's you who have the problem, you can't blame the environment. So as a result, Zhu Yuanzhang himself had a very good reputation among the common people, but his reputation as an official was quite bad.

By doing this, he greatly protected the foundation among the people. However, after Chen Han arrived, he also pointed out directly that doing so would only make officials increasingly resistant to imperial power. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang also discovered this problem, and found that it was very serious, because as Chen Han said. Because he always wanted to make officials afraid to take bribes, he formulated extremely harsh laws. However, he did not expect that even so, it could not prevent the emergence of corrupt officials. He originally thought that since everyone had this awareness, it should be easy to deal with, but he didn't expect that it was not the case at all. Even though they had experienced such strict laws in these times, and even though everyone saw that they had killed so many officials, they still did not stop them from taking bribes. He also reflected on many reasons, but he refused to admit that it was because the salary he gave them was too low, and this was just one reason. The remaining reason is that there were problems with his economic system, or that the world was in decline at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. Under such circumstances, it should be understood that the economy would definitely be affected, so one should not be too harsh. The economy of those officials has already been greatly affected. If you make it impossible for them to survive, they will have to work hard to make money through illegal means in order to survive. It is estimated that Zhu Yuanzhang saw this problem, but he was unwilling to change it. Anyone who wants to be an official must strictly demand himself, otherwise you will not be qualified to be an official of the Ming Dynasty. Under this vicious cycle, we can see that the officials under Zhu Yuanzhang's governance were very helpless. Because they wanted to survive, but at the same time they wanted to live a more comfortable life, but the emperor simply did not allow them to live a comfortable life. Instead, he insisted that they must live a hard and simple life. You must finish what you should do, and you must also finish what you shouldn’t do. To be honest, his attitude really disgusts the officials, but there is nothing they can do about it. Under such high pressure, officials can only endure it for now. After you die of old age, I wonder how you will be able to control us in the next environment without such strong pressure and such powerful means as yours. This is also why, when Zhu Yunwen, the emperor who succeeded Zhu Yuanzhang, ascended the throne, there was an immediate violent backlash. A large number of officials began to tamper with Zhu Yuanzhang's policies. Even though they know that such changes may not necessarily be good, they still want to change them, and it may even be a bit of an overreaction. This is why so many things happened when Zhu Yunwen was emperor, and why Zhu Yunwen began to change Zhu Yuanzhang's policies on a large scale as soon as he ascended the throne. Because this is a backlash from the civil servants. This was a premeditated and violent backlash that had been accumulating for a long time. And this is where Zhu Yuanzhang failed. This led to those officials going too far in correcting the wrong, and directly implementing the system of reducing the power of the feudal lords too hastily, which should not have been done so hastily. It was because they were too impatient that so many princes were forced to rebel. It can even be said that the old man also had a certain responsibility for Prince of Yan Zhu Di's rebellion. After hearing what Zhu Biao said, he thought about it and said, "In that case, let's do as you wish. “Since you think officials’ salaries should be raised, then raise them a bit, or even give them more subsidies. "Back then, I thought these people shouldn't take so much, but now it seems that if I want them to be obedient and work, I really have to feed them first. "If we don't feed them, they will exploit the people even more, and we will end up harming the people.

"Now that we are this old, I admit that when I first became emperor, I wanted to take back all the power in the world. "But now, I no longer have this idea. I am also thinking about making life better for the common people. I am also thinking about not being unable to face those old brothers in the underworld after I die. "My old brothers have helped us build this kingdom. If we fail to protect it, it will be a disgrace to us." When Zhu Yuanzhang said this, a rare hint of redness appeared in his eyes. At his age, he has seen through everything and has seen too much of the world, so he has no other thoughts at all. Now he just wants to leave a good reputation for future generations to see. Those officials had a hard time under my leadership. If I could make their lives a little better and be better to the people, it would be a great merit I had done. Hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's words, Zhu Biao also smiled slightly, "Dad, you have said this, you have accumulated great virtue, don't worry, although the people of the world don't know that you increased the salaries of officials for their own good, but the officials know it. "There are always some officials who are honest and have clean hearts. They will definitely sing your praises." Zhu Yuanzhang laughed after hearing what Zhu Biao said. "If I were 30 or 40 years younger, I would still be interested in this kind of false reputation. But now, I just want to have children and grandchildren and hope that you can be better. I will bear all the infamy for you. "You guys start over and decorate our Ming Dynasty according to your ideas. From now on, I should really let go and hand over all the power to you. I will just look after your grandchildren and hug your children for you." …… (End of this chapter)