In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang carried out large-scale feudal division three times, and canonized 27 vassal kings before and after
-- History books generally refer to this act as turning back the clock on history, and it is suspected of ignoring the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms.
However, according to historical records, Zhu Yuanzhang has repeatedly mentioned the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms", but insists that the cause of the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms" is not the shortcomings of the feudal system.
——The root cause is that the Son of Heaven is unkind, does not know how to live in harmony with the nine clans, and easily abolishes the exploitation of the land of the vassal king, so it leads to war.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang combined with the actual situation in the early Ming Dynasty and according to the consideration of defending the old Yuan, he sealed the princes in the frontier.
And because it was necessary to transfer the military power of the meritorious group, it was necessary to place the kings in the interior on a large scale.
In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system, and he embedded large and small vassal kings in the feudal system, hoping to build a great wall of the feudal emperor's family.
At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a series of measures, including arranging for his son to participate in military training, revising the "Ancestral Training" and the "Emperor Ming Ancestral Training".
One of them is to teach the vassal king to obey the law, and the other is to teach the people to respect the Son of Heaven, so as to build a network of kinship relationships above power.
However, it is a pity that Zhu Yuanzhang's efforts came to naught, and after his death, Emperor Ming Hui cut down the feudal domain on a large scale, which led to the outbreak of the Battle of Jingjing.
In the chaos, Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty did not know where to go, and Zhu Di inherited as Taizong of the Ming Dynasty and created the Yongle Dynasty.
In order to prevent the recurrence of the Battle of Jingjing, Ming Taizong began to frantically suppress the vassal kings and launched an unprecedented effort to cut the feudal domain.
- Among other things, depriving the vassal king of the throne and granting the royal court the right to supervise and falsely accuse the vassal king.
According to historical records, a large number of vassal kings were accused of secrets, and Ming Taizong took the opportunity to deprive them of their rights.
Moreover, because Ming Taizong vigorously encouraged everyone to oppress the vassal king, the subordinate officials of the royal palace were originally only assistants, but they actually developed into a large-scale oppression of the vassal king.
For example, in the fifth year of orthodoxy, the good doctor of Shu Mansion and the deputy chief of the honor guard, Shi Liu Zhongheng, embezzled and held the prince hostage.
In the seventh year of orthodoxy, the deputy of the Jin Mansion took the opportunity to hold the king of Yushe hostage and plotted to frame Zhang Tai and replace him.
Qingfu adheres to the two of them and controls the palace, and the princess of Qingzhuang has something to ask for, but neither of them should be.
When King Zhuang was ill, King Jiao refused to allow King Gongchang to visit the patient, and instead led his family into the palace for fun. King Gongchang wanted to play the imperial court, but was stopped by Changshi. Princess Qingzhuang finally became unbearable, and the two were convicted.
Such a strange phenomenon actually happened in the real Ming Dynasty, and the pattern of the vassal king and the son of heaven co-ruled the world built by Zhu Yuanzhang became a tragedy in which the vassal king's life was worse than death.
I have to say that Ming Taizong's "gentleman leopard change" is really breathtaking.
However, this is nothing, because of a change in the entry of a vassal king.
Since Taizong of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the rebellion of the Han kings during the Xuanzong period of the Ming Dynasty, and the rebellion of the two kings during the period of Emperor Zhengde, the emperors of the past dynasties have been frantically increasing their weight on this basis, and frantically compressing the activity space of the vassal kings.
As recorded in the history books, the regulations are as follows:
1. The vassal king was forbidden to go to Beijing for funeral
This precedent was opened by Emperor Hui of the Ming Dynasty, and it was aimed at the later Taizong of the Ming Dynasty.
2. It is forbidden for the dynasties to perform Hajj
The vassal king has been cut off from ** information since then.
, restricting the travel of vassal kingsConfined in a house
This is the most ruthless trick, and the vassal king is not allowed to travel and inspect, so he can only stay in the palace like a canary. So the vassal kings acted recklessly, and the vassal kings were spiritual, which led to the ** phenomenon of the vassal kings, as well as the tragedy of Zhang Juzheng.
4. The vassal kings are not allowed to meet.
This move severed the family relationship between the vassal kings, and the family relationship above the power that Zhu Yuanzhang hoped for no longer existed.
Vassal-king marriages are no longer political.
This avoids the possibility of the vassal king accumulating strength, but ** allows the vassal king to choose his concubine freely, so that the vassal king's concubine is more beautiful, and the harem is no longer peaceful, and the wind of lewdness and indulgence breaks out.
Of course, although the vassal king was almost driven to a dead end, as the saying goes, after all, they are also the emperor's nobles, and how can they also be the face of the emperor, are they really living so badly?
The answer was not entirely true, and the emperor gave them ample financial benefits after paying the price of freedom and political rights.
Time back to the Hongwu period, when there were only 27 kings in the country, and Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to rely on them to gradually replace the power of the ministers of military merit, so he was given the highest level of treatment.
According to the history of the Ming Dynasty, the prince's age was as high as 50,000 stones, the king of Jingjiang was 20,000 stones, and the county king was 6,000 stones. At that time, the country's tax and grain revenue was about 30 million stones, which means that the expenditure of a king accounted for 1,600 yuan of the empire's grain income.
That's a terrifying number, and I don't believe we can translate that into today's income.
- To use a very inappropriate analogy, if you take the standard of China's income of just 10 trillion yuan in 2014, it is equivalent to 167 billion, which is absolutely jaw-dropping.
In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang's move did exceed the standard.
In the 20th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang had to make an adjustment to Suilu, and it was obvious at this time that such a high supply was difficult to implement.
In the subsequent 22nd year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang had to stop the reign of King Shu for 5 years in order to alleviate Yunnan's tax problems. After that, he changed the age of King Min to 600 stones, and cut more than half of it at once.
All these signs show that Zhu Yuanzhang's Suilu system itself is unrealistic.
But Zhu Yuanzhang still refused to give up his system, and after many adjustments, he finally wrote the system into the "Emperor Ming Zuxun": Prince Lu rice 10,000 stones, county king 2,000 stones, raided the county king and regarded the first county king Sui Lu by half.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang has reduced his expenses by 1 5, when converted into today's proportion, there is also a personal pure annual income of 3.3 billion per person, which still puts a lot of pressure on the empire.
And note that this was the early years of the Ming Dynasty, and the empire had only 27 kings.
After Ming Taizong ascended the throne, in order to stabilize the world vassal kings, Ming Taizong launched another round of salary increases.
For example, the Liao King Suilu has increased by 500 stones, the chess king has also increased from 1,000 stones to 10,000 stones, and the aforementioned unlucky Dan Min King has also increased by 400 stones to 2,000 stones.
- It is especially worth noting that King Zhou, the younger brother of Taizong Zhu Di, actually "gave him 20,000 stones of rice stored in Henan, not in Changlu." In other words, King Zhou alone has 30,000 stone years, which is simply rich.
Combined with the above content, on the one hand, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di had crazy salary increases, and on the other hand, the vassal king was raised like a canary, so the vassal king began to desperately have children, and with the appearance of the vassal king's update and iteration, the expenses of the Ming Dynasty became more and more beyond their means.
During the period of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, the income of the Ming Dynasty was already difficult to provide for the year, so a large number of vassal kings wrote to ask for an increase in the year, so that every year was the season of crying poverty, and some people even began to ask for their own storage.
Under the unprecedented pressure of financial burdens, the emperors began to unleash their hands, and the vassal kings began to gain the right to collect taxes on their own.
There is no doubt that this is a privilege for a vassal king to override the regulations of the political secretary, and it will undoubtedly bring serious ills. During the Ming Yingzong period, the Jingjiang Wangfu and the Ningwang Mansion increased by 3 or 4 times to exploit the people, and the contradictions between the people and the royal family became more and more acute.
By the time of the Jiajing Dynasty, problems erupted in a concentrated manner, and during this period there was the famous Zonglu crisis.
- The most famous of them is the direct bankruptcy of Shanxi Suilu, during the reign of Jiajing, the number of arrears in Shanxi Suilu was as high as 22 times, and Shanxi's financial system completely collapsed.
As a last resort, Emperor Jiajing could only embezzle salt and silver subsidies.
For example, in the 10th year of Jiajing, the imperial court allocated 89,350 taels ** as a fixed royal palace. But unfortunately, this money was far from enough, so Emperor Jiajing transferred more than 44,000 taels of salt into the subsidy clan in 27 years.
But this is not a way, under the patchwork of things, the final deficit subsidized by the clan, which in turn led to the empty logging of the imperial court's inner treasury, and the salt department of the Hedong Transportation Division lost money, and the household department had no one or two left.
This can be seen in combination with the beginning of the TV series "Ming Dynasty 1566", which is simply a true portrayal of reality by art.
Moreover, it is precisely because the vassal king emptied the country that there is the famous Hai Jui speech and Hai Jui's Shangshu, which is deafening and deafening:The big disadvantage in the world lies in the vassal king! Jiajing is said to be clean and has no money
I have to say that Hai Rui saw it really clearly, and his remarks were said thoroughly.
It's a pity that Hai Rui's hesitation and shouting did not have much impact, and the later Zhang Juzheng's reform did not dare to touch the fundamentals, and he could only take revenge on the King of Liao for his grandfather, and then there was no more.
The vassal system continued to grow, and as time went on, the number of vassal kings grew, so much so that how could the imperial court afford what was later called the millions?
Most scholars believe that the wealth is controlled by the Donglin Party, and the wealth is controlled by the vassal king, and it can only be exploited by the people a hundred times, so how can the regime not die?
And it is worth noting that in addition to these astronomical years, the vassal king also has a terrifying ability to expand land.
According to historical records, in order to make up for the political deficit of the vassal king, the vassal king was allowed to frantically annex land.
For example, the law stipulates that the kings of the Ming Dynasty not only enjoyed the Sui Lu, but also other economic benefits such as fields, lakes, commercial taxes, and salt.
The combination of these privileges was the annexation of land in the feudal era, in which tens of thousands of lands fell into their hands and tens of thousands of people were reduced to abject poverty.
This phenomenon continued to worsen, so much so that from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of imperial courts wrote to accuse the vassal kings, hoping that the imperial court would return the business of the small people. This move formed a wave at the time, but the crowd was turbulent, but all the anger and writing were lost.
During this period, Ming Xianzong and Jiajing made adjustments, and also issued orders prohibiting the palace from encroaching on the land and requiring the palace to return the land. But the sad thing is that the two emperors attacked the clan from the county king down, and the princes who occupied the majority did not move at all.
As Hai Rui said, I dare not talk about the big evils of the world, and I dare not touch the bigger evils hidden behind the **, this is the biggest problem in the world.
As Hai Jui encountered, the Ming Dynasty eventually perished at the hands of Chongzhen, and one of the main reasons for its demise was the financial collapse.
From Zhu Yuanzhang to Emperor Chongzhen, the far-sighted political design of the past has finally become such a rotten thing, I don't know what Zhu Yuanzhang will think if he knows about it?