Yun Xi finished introducing the course he was going to set up temporarily, waiting for Chen Ji to ask questions. Chen Ji did ask a question, but the question was beyond Yun Xi's expectations. "Your Majesty, don't you set up a course on conquest?"

"In the future, when they are older, we will set up a course on conquest. But Chen Qing, why do you ask this question? Yun Xi asked rhetorically.

"Your Majesty, the minister sees that the students recruited by His Majesty to set up this school are all the sons of nobles, and I think that Your Majesty wants to train commanders who can fight well from an early age. Since it is necessary to train commanders who can fight well from an early age, it is necessary to set up a course on warfare even if they are still young. Chen Ji replied.

"Chen Ji, your guess is not what I meant. I don't just want to train commanders who can fight well, but I want to train ministers who can assist me. Yun Xi then said what he said to Yun Xi and the others last night.

"In that case, Your Majesty, why do you only recruit the children of the nobles, but not the children of the civil ministers and the children of the people?" Chen Ji asked.

Yun Xi suddenly remembered the events of last night. After Yun Yun, Yun Zhi, Yun Xu, Wen Yao and others left, and Min'er also took her younger brother to sleep, Xi Yao also asked him the same question: "Husband, since you want to train auxiliary ministers, why don't you recruit Wen Chen's children to enroll?" Why is the husband, like the Song Dynasty, not to rule the world with scholars, but to rule the world with nobles? Husband, although the concubine's father was also rewarded by the imperial court and sealed the throne, the concubine thought that all dynasties were military rebellions, and she had never heard of civil rebellions, so it was more appropriate to rule the world with scholars? ”

And at that time, Xiyao also asked another question: "Why did the husband let the concubine and his sister, as well as the Yunyun and Yunzhi sisters, listen to such a matter of court politics?" ”

Yun Xi thought of what happened last night, glanced at Chen Ji again, got up from his chair, and walked to the window. Chen Ji's question is easy to answer and difficult to answer. The reason why it is good to answer is because Yoon-hee has a clear purpose; It's hard to answer, because he can't talk to Chen Jizhi for this reason.

All emperors in Chinese history, especially those who wanted to make a difference, probably thought about how to make their dynasty's rule more durable, and Yunxi was no exception. And the emperors of all dynasties have thought about the same result: to take power into their own hands as much as possible, and even if they have to divide power, they must disperse power as much as possible.

From the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, all emperors basically did this. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty first established the Inner Dynasty as his advisor, and the status of Shangshu, who was originally in charge of documents, was improved; At the same time, the post of prime minister was abolished and replaced by the three dukes, and later the military power of the general was established. The power of the Eastern Han Dynasty fashion book was further expanded, dividing or replacing the power of Jiuqing. Make power more decentralized.

From Wei to Sui, because of the long-term war and the rise of the scholars, the emperor was unable to carry out large-scale reforms, so the official system did not change much. The two emperors of Sui Wen and Sui Yang tried to reform, but they were overthrown before they could achieve results.

The Tang Dynasty was a time of drastic change. In terms of the selection of officials, the imperial examination system was consolidated, and the system of three provinces and six ministries was implemented in the central government, but instead of establishing the Zhongshu Decree and the Shangshu Order, they were replaced by left and right servants, further weakening the power of ministers. The Song Dynasty even set up a dazzling array of official positions to divide the power of the prime minister.

The power to weaken the prime minister eventually reached its peak in the early Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the position of prime minister and directly governed six ministries, which is equivalent to serving as the prime minister himself, that is, as the head of state and the head of government.

Yun Xi thought a long time ago that these emperors were right, and that if the emperors of later generations had the energy to work with Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Dynasty would be enough to sustain the Ming Dynasty until the population really exceeded the carrying capacity of the land, and the population could only be reduced through large-scale wars.

Through so many years of traveling from south to north, and his own summary of the past dynasties, and then linking what he had learned in his previous life, Yun Xi found that there was a huge problem with their approach: that is, in the process of weakening the power of everyone except the emperor, the emperor gradually became a real loner, and there was no ally, and all the officials had to be dealt with by one person.

In any case, even if it is a work model like Zhu Yuanzhang, his energy is limited, and he can't take care of everything, and various problems will still arise over time, and the emperor does not have enough energy to solve all the problems one by one, and as the problems accumulate and eventually erupt, the country will still perish.

Therefore, Yun Xi believes that as an emperor, he cannot become a real loner, and he must also find an ally.

The emperor of the Song Dynasty was vague and probably aware of this problem, so he also looked for allies and designated him as a scholar. On the one hand, the Song Dynasty weakened the power of each official position, and on the other hand, set up a system of preferential treatment of scholars, the emperor's power was not limited by a specific official, but the scholars as a whole could greatly limit the emperor's power, and if the central court seal officials jointly opposed a certain system of the emperor, they could almost 100% reject the emperor's will.

But this also produced a very serious problem, that is, the Song Dynasty could not fight. Some cite figures and say that the Song Dynasty had the highest rate of winning foreign wars. Of course, this is not fake, but the Song Dynasty took the initiative to attack very rarely, and they were all at home to defend against the enemy's attack, while other unified dynasties have many records of large-scale active attacks, and the winning rate is not good.

More importantly, the scholar class had its own interests, which were not completely consistent with the emperor, and they gradually introduced many policies in favor of the scholar class, squeezing the emperor upwards and oppressing the people downward. The people of the Song Dynasty lived a very hard life, and there were many uprisings/rebellions of all sizes, and no other dynasty had so many uprisings/rebellions in the Song Dynasty when the country was prosperous and rich.

It is not possible to rule the world with military generals. In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, due to the slaughter of the nobles of the clan, it was almost a matter of ruling the world with military generals, but it led to the Anshi Rebellion, and the disaster of the feudal towns that lasted for more than 200 years and was only really solved in the Song Dynasty.

Yun Xi searched and searched in the history books, in the memories of his previous life, and finally found the alliance he thought was the most suitable: Xungui, or nobleman. Of course, the current aristocracy is not exactly what he wants, and it needs to be modernized. At the same time, it will absorb the rising stratum and establish a new ruling class.

The most important thing to see if a class or class is suitable as an alliance is to see whether it has the same interests. The aristocratic class, as a generational inheritance of the family business through blood, was in line with the emperor himself, and had the same interests. In fact, in the face of peasant rebels or foreign regimes, the nobles insisted on resisting to the end.

After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the civil officials surrendered before the shaving order was issued, but the nobles surrendered only as a last resort; The Mu family, who was sealed to Yunnan, even insisted on refusing the Manchu persuasion to surrender, and still insisted on resisting after the loss of Kunming, and even insisted on opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty after the Yongli Emperor was killed and the Ming Dynasty was officially destroyed.

This is certainly not because they are inherently morally superior to civil officials, but because their interests are highly aligned with those of the Ming Dynasty.

The second only thing is to see whether this class or strata can play the role of assisting the emperor. Ruling the world with scholars and doctors or ruling the world with military generals is relatively biased, and it is easy to have a situation where the emphasis is on literature and light on military force or military over literature, and the aristocracy will not have this problem. The aristocracy itself does not have a distinction between civil and military, but only traditional Chinese military merits can be knighted, and it is difficult for civil officials to make meritorious contributions, so that most of the knights are military generals, as if nobles are military generals.

But this tradition will be broken. Yun Xi set up the General Political Department and sent civilian military attaches to the army, and these civilian military attaches were also rewarded when they were rewarded for their meritorious deeds. The commander is a marquis, and the civilian military attache of the commander-in-chief, logistics, military doctors, etc., can be made an earl. In this way, the shortcomings of the nobility were filled.

Some people may cite examples of aristocracy in history who are uneducated and prodigal. Yun Xi believes that it is because they have neither power nor responsibility, and it is useless to study hard, and being enthusiastic about government will do bad things, so they can only play in order to pass the time. Give them power and responsibility, of course, there will still be people who do not learn and do not know, but there will also be people who can do things.

However, the reason that really made Yunxi decide to rule the world with the aristocracy, second only to the fact that he had common interests, was the example of a foreign country. The country that first entered the capitalist plundering of the world, and still dominates the international trading system by virtue of its first-mover advantage, is the United Kingdom. And the people who ruled the country in England after the bourgeois revolution were the monarchs, the aristocracy and the new big capitalists. Since there are foreign pearls and jades in front of them, it is natural to learn valuable experience.

Of course, Yunxi does not have to follow the example of foreign countries in everything. The system of sub-feudal system will only be implemented in the newly opened frontier areas, and will not be practiced in the traditional Han lands. What he said about ruling the world with the aristocracy is to divide a part of the central power, especially the decision-making power, to the aristocracy, rather than to assign a place for each person to play for himself.

Naturally, sharing power with the nobility was also risky. The aristocracy may not only be willing to be a nobleman and not want to be an emperor. There are also examples of foreign nobles seizing the throne from the monarch in various ways.

Therefore, Yunxi will not abandon the current civil service system, especially the imperial examination system. The officials selected by the imperial examination system were naturally in a state of opposition to the aristocracy, and the nobles might be able to co-opt one or two, but it was absolutely impossible to co-opt all of them, so as to serve as a check and balance and prevent them from seeking to usurp the throne. Moreover, the imperial examination system also shoulders the heavy responsibility of maintaining the class mobility of the country, and even if there are many drawbacks, it cannot be completely abandoned for these two points.