Xuanwu Lake, Zhongshan Mountain in the east, devouring Shence in the west, beautiful scenery, crowning the southeast, is the largest royal garden lake in the Ming Dynasty, known as the "Pearl of Jinling".

In the fourteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, selected Liangzhou in Xuanwu Lake as an archive to store the national household registration and tax documents - the "Yellow Book", and Xuanwu Lake has been used as a forbidden place for a generation, isolated from the outside world for more than 260 years.

The Yellow Book takes "li" as the unit, records the name, place of origin, population and property of each household, as the basis for the state to levy and levy the service, it is of great significance, it is necessary to choose a proper place to store it, in order to prevent damage, Liangzhou, which is surrounded by water, is both waterproof and easy to rescue, and safe and anti-theft, it is the best place to preserve paper archives under the conditions at that time.

The Yellow Book is overhauled every ten years, and the island adds 30 warehouses every ten years, and places 5 or 60,000 newly created Yellow Books, and in the Chongzhen period, there are more than 900 Yellow Book warehouses on Liangzhou Island, and the number of Yellow Books preserved exceeds 1.9 million copies.

Entering the scope of Xuanwu Lake, I saw that there was a mound of earth and a boundary stone every 100 steps around the lake, and I listened to Zhang Guowei's introduction, there were 36 boundary stones around the lake, which surrounded Xuanwu Lake.

It is not easy to enter Xuanwu Lake, even if Zhu Cihong comes in person, he must go through layers of protection, first enter the Taiping Prefecture Review Hall, which is heavily guarded, and all people who enter the island must hold the tiger talisman issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs of Nanjing.

Zhu Cihong sighed: "No wonder there has never been a fire or theft in the Yellow Book of the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years, and the protection here has caught up with the Forbidden City." ”

Zhang Guowei said: "Mengyuan did not have a perfect household registration system, so that less than a hundred years to lose the country, Emperor Taizu took ten years to complete the national population statistics compiled into the yellow book, and then every ten years to rebuild, has formed a system, the yellow book custody is the top priority, if there is a mistake, the entire island will be implicated, they dare not not be serious." ”

Zhu Cihong said: "If the yamen in other parts of the Ming Dynasty can be as serious and responsible as this, it will not be ...... of displaced people."

The large-scale warehouse group is located on Liangzhou, due to the humidity of water vapor, in order to prevent the Yellow Book from rotting and moldy, the Yellow Book Warehouse is all built in accordance with the east-west orientation, which is convenient for making full use of sunlight and keeping it relatively dry.

Looking through a few points of the Yellow Book, Zhu Cihong was full of emotion, the historical significance of the Ming Yellow Book is extremely significant, the Ming Dynasty has been 270 years since the founding of the country, everyone under the rule of the dynasty has been entered into the Yellow Book, Zhu Yuanzhang has stipulated in the construction of the Yellow Book: If there is concealment of cheating, the parents will be executed, and the family members will be exiled.

That is to say, almost everyone who has lived in the land of the Ming Dynasty, their information is stored in the nearly two million yellow books here, what a precious memory, this is a huge project that has not been completed in all dynasties, its value is more precious than any historical materials, but these precious materials were all burned by the Qing army when they entered the customs!

Zhu Cihong said to Zhang Guowei, the head of the household department: "This palace tells you again, these yellow books must be kept carefully!" ”

"Yes!" Zhang Guowei hurriedly received the order, even if the crown prince didn't say it, he didn't dare to slack off, if the yellow book was lost, the court would inevitably take him as a household secretary to ask for blame.

In the pavilion on the island, Zhu Cihong and his party sat around the table, although they were about to enter the wax moon, the weather was cold, but there was no stove in Liangzhou.

Since the Hongwu period, in order to prevent fires, Liangzhou has been forbidden to fire, and there has not been a fire for more than 200 years.

Zhu Cihong rubbed his cold hands and asked Li Yandao: "Yesterday you said that there was a word that could cut off the foundation of the collusion between the officials and gentry, what is it?" ”

Li Yan suddenly came to his senses and replied: "Start with education and reform monopoly education!" ”

Zhu Cihong said: "Talk about it carefully." ”

Li Yan said: "The emperor's treatment of students is very generous, once the child has passed the college examination, after the government examination, he can become a Xiucai, with many privileges, he can see the official without worshipping, exempt from forced labor, and the privilege of lifting people is more than Xiucai, lifting people can not pay national taxes, and the state issues more study subsidies than Xiucai." ”

Zhu Cihong deeply felt the disadvantages of this kind of preferential treatment, and it can be said that he has stepped into the official career with one foot, and he may not be able to become a county magistrate at any time, which is why after Fan Jin was lifted, the relationship between the left and right neighbors suddenly changed, and Fan Jin himself went crazy because of the surprise.

Li Yan continued: "However, because there are too many benefits for the students, the majority of the people in the middle of the court have encroached on a large amount of land for their families, which has caused the imperial court to lose a lot of taxes, and the benefits issued to the students have also made the imperial court unable to bear it in the later stage, and finally the command gradually dragged down the imperial court. ”

Zhu Cihong nodded, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang attaches great importance to education, there are all kinds of Confucianism, martial arts, sectarianism, and social studies, and a complete school system has been formed from the central to the local.

Guozijian and schools at all levels are collectively referred to as official schools or Confucianism, as the name suggests, official schools are established by the government, in addition, Zhu Yuanzhang has repeatedly ordered the establishment of social studies throughout the country.

Social studies is a kind of non-governmental school, which recruits children under the age of 15 to study and teaches etiquette, customs, laws and regulations, etc., in the name of making young children be influenced by Confucian culture, in fact, it is also a form of propaganda of government decrees.

The imperial court repeatedly asked the local government to rebuild social studies, but the promotion of social studies was not successful, and due to the negligence of local officials or the lack of limited funds, some social studies were abandoned soon after they were established.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial examination was prevalent, and the disadvantages of the rigid imperial examination were gradually revealed.

Later, scholars aimed to enter the imperial examination, and the abandonment of official schools led to the rise of local ethnic studies, mainly based on clan studies established by clans or private schools.

The clan leader will use a part of the income of the clan field for the purpose of learning, because letting the clansmen become officials is the best way to maintain the power of the clan, so even if it is a business family, they will train one or two children to study arts and sciences and prepare for the imperial examination.

Ethnography generally only accommodates clan members and close parents, the number of students in the classroom is about ten, both the purpose of educating the clansmen, naturally do not need to worry about tuition, good ethnography has a perfect accommodation system, food, desks, stationery, clothing and other necessities are readily available, and students with excellent performance have additional rewards.

According to the level, children's education is divided into two types: Mongolian and classical, the former is to provide basic education such as literacy and life knowledge; The latter was set up to participate in the imperial examination.

Li Yan said: "The rise of ethnography has had extremely serious consequences, after the scholars cultivated by the family ascended to the top of the high school, the first thing that came to mind was the family, not the imperial court, and the family would also put the clan property in their name for tax evasion and exemption.

Some poor people who are born without a family, if they have good qualifications, there will be local gentry and merchants to fund their education, and after they have obtained fame, they will also evade taxes by attaching to the fields like the family.

In the long run, the imperial power did not go to the countryside, and the Ming Lijia system gradually collapsed, and the local government could only rely on the gentry to maintain law and order and taxes, so that the taxes were collected less and less. ”

Li Yan finally said: "If Your Highness carries out educational innovation, rebuilds the monopoly of official learning, and then teaches outstanding students to become local officials who are familiar with local affairs, in the long run, the more local officials there are, the more detailed the local control of the imperial court, and there will no longer be local powerful squires to cause chaos, and more and more taxes will be collected." ”

Huang Zongxi, who was on the side, was thoughtful, and suddenly applauded: "There is no squire to support and study, and the first thing that the scholars who have passed the official education and education are the first to miss the imperial court, which is really wonderful!" ”

Zhu Cihong was very surprised by Li Yan's strategy, he ordered the Ministry of Industry to build tens of thousands of schools in several provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, originally in order to reform education, abolish the imperial examination system, and fundamentally disintegrate the relationship between the civilian and official groups, but Li Yan did not expect Li Yan to think of a similar way to deal with the collusion of the official gentry.

Mao Xiang, Wang Fuzhi and others were extremely shocked in their hearts, once the court was like this, the roots of the gentry in the world would be cut off, this trick was really ruthless!

Although several of them are members of the gentry, their future is far richer than the privileges brought by the gentry, and there is no reason not to support them in public and private.

Zhang Guowei, the secretary of the household department, worried: "In this way, the imperial court needs to spend a lot of money on education every year, which is no less than military salaries. ”

Zhu Cihong said: "Don't worry about this, the palace has already ordered the Ministry of Industry to build schools in various provinces, and it should be completed by the end of the year, education is the foundation of the country, and talent is an important cornerstone of the country's prosperity. ”

Zhu Cihong said again: "Li Yan, you can propose this strategy, the palace is very pleased, and the Ministry of Education will hand it over to you and the palace will be relieved." ”

Li Yan bowed down and said: "This thought is also something that the minister only thought of recently, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was far-sighted and thought about it early, and the minister deeply admired!" ”

Zhu Cihong nodded, Li Yan is worthy of being a famous strategist, if Li Zicheng can continue to use him after he defeats the Beijing Division in history, he will not be so embarrassed, it is ridiculous that Li Zicheng actually trusted the fortune teller Niu Jinxing and killed Li Yan, a great talent, so that he became a passer-by of history after winning the world.

(End of chapter)