Xia Yan's trip to the West was not paid much attention to by many people in the Ming Empire at this time.

Even the fact that the Imperial Navy defeated the Franc fleet at Manraka and acquired Haicheng as a military base in Manraka did not attract the attention of many officials within the Empire.

Within the Ming Empire, most officials of the empire were more concerned about the succession of the emperor's position.

According to the Confucian inheritance system, Zhu Zailei, the son of the empress, should be the best candidate for the crown prince, after all, Zhu Zailei is the eldest son of Emperor Zhu Houzhao.

Because of this, the officials of the empire were more concerned about the issue of the prince going out of the cabinet to study.

Since Zhu En, the left attendant of the Ministry of Rites, invited the eldest son of the emperor's concubine, Zhu Zaili, to study in the cabinet and chose a Confucian teacher to teach him to learn the right way, many officials have successively asked the prince to be established and the prince to go out of the cabinet to study.

Zhu Houzhao had to admit that in this centralized country, most officials of the empire were still mainly concerned about who would sit in the position of emperor in the future, and whether they could expand their political rights and interests through this emperor's successor.

"The country cannot be without a monarch for a day, and if the prince is unknown, the society will be unstable."

This is the most consistent reason given to Zhu Houzhao by civil officials.

But Zhu Houzhao really wanted to tell these people, not to mention the prince, even the emperor, and the country can do without.

But Zhu Houzhao knew that even if he said this, many people would not believe it, even the majority of the people would not believe it, because the current political system of the Ming Dynasty determined that the emperor was not only the head of state but also the real head of the imperial government, controlling all the power of the empire.

From the life and death of a person to the appointment of an official, it is the emperor's own power, and even only the emperor can have it.

The power of the court officials and the clan patriarch was only given by the emperor.

In other words, everything in the world belongs to the emperor, and this is the world!

And once there is a change of emperor or the emperor is gone, the world will fall into chaos, the ruling system will collapse, and half of the population will disappear through war and slaughter, until a new emperor appears.

And to control this emperor or to be the emperor yourself is equivalent to having everything.

Therefore, the officials of any dynasty care very much about the position of the emperor, whether it is an official with bad intentions or an official who really wants peace in the world.

Therefore, King Anhua, King Ning and others all wanted to rebel and want to be emperors.

If Zhu Houzhao is not a traverser, if he is a sensible emperor, he will also follow the imperial officials, appoint the eldest son as the crown prince, and at the invitation of the quasi-civil officials, he will issue an edict ordering the prince to go out of the cabinet to study, in order to cultivate a qualified prince and lay the foundation for the long-term stability of the Ming Empire.

If Zhu Houzhao is an unreasonable emperor, he can also drag it first, and choose a son he likes to be the emperor in the future, or even learn from Wanli to drag it and be fooled by the civil officials through various conspiracies and conspiracy, or set up the prince that the civil officials like as the prince.

But Zhu Houzhao happens to be a traverser!

Although, under political pressure, Zhu Houzhao admitted that he was not a benevolent emperor and never treated political opponents with mercy, but in fact, only he knew that he did not regard himself as a real emperor in his heart, and his ruthlessness towards Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian, etc. was more like a proletarian's rebellion against the ruler.

Zhu Houzhao is now very entangled, entangled in how he should continue the changes in the Ming Empire, especially after a hundred years.

Although Zhu Houzhao didn't know why he was able to cross into this world, he also possessed Zhu Houzhao.

But he has to admit the fact that it is impossible for people to live forever, even if he is a traverser, his body functions and cells have changed with the changes in his body for ten years, which shows that he will age and die.

Death is not scary.

What's more, Zhu Houzhao has already experienced it once.

Even if he had some nostalgia for the living world before his death, Zhu Houzhao felt that he didn't need to be afraid of death because of this, and he now had to seriously think about the inheritance of his empire in a hundred years.

Zhu Houzhao wondered if he should arrange a dictator who overrides countless Han people and does not respect the lives of others after a hundred years, so that hundreds of millions of Han people in China will continue to be this person's slaves.

Zhu Houzhao does not want this phenomenon to continue, he hopes that the Ming Dynasty is a society where everyone is equal, he hopes that the people in power in the Ming Dynasty can respect the lives and legitimate property of others, and he hopes that the Ming government is not a tool for the elites to enslave the common people, but an institution elected by the people themselves and provides public services and organizes public undertakings for the people by collecting taxes from the people.

But that's easier said than done.

Not to mention the current Ming Dynasty, Rao is in the 21st century, have not been truly realized, although the law of nature is cruel, it seems that all living things are following the truth.

But Zhu Houzhao still wants to work hard again, and strive to let the bottom people have a more equal and free society.

Rich or poor, high or low, in the future, at least in the law that has been expressly laid down, they will not kneel down to the highest, and those who work hard will receive their due material rewards, while those who are lazy will have to bear their due price.

Zhu Houzhao felt that he had to at least try to make the Ming Dynasty close to the civilization level of later generations.

Zhu Houzhao had to admit that the current Ming Dynasty is still much worse in terms of civilization than the future generations, and the phenomenon of Zhulian and private executions still exists, and even his own emperor has done so, turning back the clock on history;

In addition, the phenomenon of women being forced to bind their feet still exists, and even the phenomenon of widows being forced by the clan to hang themselves to observe the festival also exists, and it has been repeatedly written into the official recital as a commendable matter of loyalty, and presented to his own emperor.

Whenever Zhu Houzhao saw such a thing of loyalty to a woman, Zhu Houzhao didn't know how to deal with it.

In his heart, Zhu Houzhao knew that this was a ritual society that was eating people, but he couldn't stop it, because the widow hanged herself because the widow did it herself, and even if he, the emperor, did not give her the archway of chastity, it would be unreasonable.

Turning back to the words, Zhu Houzhao led a series of things, he now thinks that he seemed to have done very logically at that time, and no one in this logical empire can legally say that what he did is wrong, but he is always asking himself in his heart, is he still a modern person who respects the lives of others and never regards himself as superior or unconsciously inferior?

Zhu Houzhao was very bored, although this society gave him everything that he could not have in the later life, such as the palace gardens that he could not imagine at all in the later life, and many beautiful beauties, as well as the endless delicacies of the mountains and seas that he could eat every day, he found that he was still a little out of place with this world.

Zhu Houzhao hated the civil officials for using Confucian etiquette to restrain him, so he chose to resist, but he also hated the appearance of civil officials like slaves facing their masters, who only knew how to wag their tails and beg for mercy without any people.

Zhu Houzhao doesn't want to become the people he hates in later generations, those who like to be slapped by the whiskers, like to be arrogant, like to bully and disrespect others.

Zhu Houzhao knows that his arrogant people will not end well in the end, and those who treat others as inappropriate people will eventually perish, and he may rely on the strong national strength he has established and the large number of people he has won and die well, and his descendants in later generations, if the Zhu family nobles have never regarded others as tools of enslavement, they will only be overthrown in the future, even if they have the backbone to find a tree and hang themselves, it is only better than the Zhao family who surrendered to the Jin State, and after all, it will not change the fate of being abandoned by the people.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao hopes that his children and grandchildren can understand this truth, and even not only his own children and grandchildren, but all the rulers of the empire must understand that as a ruler, he is not a strong man to exploit a weak person, but also has the obligation to safeguard the interests of the country and complete public undertakings when he has the power to rule.

Regardless of whether the people passively accept the rule of this government or are actively elected through elections, as those who hold public power, they should understand that their power is given by the people, and once this government does not work for the well-being of the people, it will only be abandoned by the people.

In fact, these truths are not absent in the words of the sages, otherwise there would not be such words as the people are precious, the monarch is light, and the society is secondary, and there would be no ancient saying that water can carry a boat and overturn a boat.

But it's just that many people have recited the scriptures incorrectly, and they only care about maintaining their privileges and forget their obligations.

Later generations of Confucian scholars emphasized patriarchal authority and husband's authority, emphasizing that the son should obey the father, the wife should obey the husband, and the minister should obey the king, but they forgot to stipulate that the father is the husband and the king, and some may be deliberately downplayed and ignored.

However, sometimes in the court, sometimes the civil officials do not know how to limit the monarch's power, and even know that the emperor is required to fulfill his obligations, but many times the civil officials do not limit their power to be a father and husband, so that it is not contradictory to set up a hall in the family and ask the emperor to obey the advice in the court?

Zhu Houzhao knew that he still had a long way to go if he wanted to turn Daming into his ideal country, but he would not give up because of the long and difficult.

But he had to admit that in order to make the empire his ideal kingdom, the first thing to do was to limit his power, first, he had to obey the rules and respect the lives of others, and second, he had to try his best to establish a more reasonable political system, a system that could protect the most basic rights and interests of people and limit people's greed.

Of course, the most important thing is to let social development and productive forces develop, so that the people can have more knowledge and means of production.

Only in this way can the people have more power to contend with the rulers, and the rulers can take into account the feelings of the people, and the balance of power can achieve mutual respect and equality with each other.

Zhu Houzhao is not worried that there will still be powerful people above others for a long time, and they are still enslaving the people, but he is worried that the people feel that they should be enslaved.

If this continues, the Han people will remain numb, and will only stay in the two states of being complacent about enslaving others and wanting to be slave owners, so that they don't care who is riding on their heads, and only hope that they can also ride on the heads of others.

Zhu Hou complied with the invitation of Zhu En, the left attendant of the Ministry of Rites, and decided to let the prince go out of the cabinet to study.

However, he did not let only the eldest son of the imperial concubine go out of the cabinet to study according to the wishes of Zhu En and other civil officials, but let the four four-year-old princes go out of the cabinet to study at the same time, and he did not want these four princes to only receive Confucian education.

Zhu Houzhao decided to cultivate the literacy ability of the four princes first, just like the local social studies, and the way to cultivate them was no longer the traditional Confucian enlightenment method of teaching the Three Character Classic, but to use the newly compiled pinyin to assist all kinds of catchy poems and articles for enlightenment, and Zhu Houzhao asked the Hanlin Academy to compile the "Daming Dictionary", which was similar to the Xinhua dictionary of later generations, as the main reference book for the four princes during their primary compulsory education.

At the same time, Zhu Houzhao did not follow the meaning of the civil officials, and chose a good teacher to teach him as a Zhan official, but issued an edict to set up a palace social science (hereinafter referred to as palace science) in accordance with the social science regulations, specializing in training the children of the royal family and nobles for primary education, and the social science teacher was not a court official who only knew how to drop the book bag to explain the Confucian scriptures, but specially selected experienced social science teachers from local social science to recruit the palace school as teachers, and the study subjects also became three subjects: Chinese studies, arithmetic, and general knowledge.

Zhu Houzhao edicted the royal nobles to select school-age children to study in the palace, in addition to the four princes, some of the sons of vassal kings, princesses and the sons of relatives were also recruited into the palace school.

Among them, it is worth mentioning that Zhu Houxi, the son of Xingwang Zhu Youqi, that is, Zhu Houzhao's cousin, was also ordered to enter the palace to study.

Zhu Houzhao's purpose in doing this is very simple, so that his princes can also learn how to get along with others, how to observe people's hearts, how to know how to make friends and solve conflicts when getting along with people, instead of letting them grow up in the deep palace or only obey the teacher's teachings, or even follow the teacher's words as a guideline and lose the ability to think for themselves.

Zhu Houzhao's actions naturally disgusted most civil officials, because in this way, they could not achieve the purpose of influencing the future court situation through the opportunity to educate the prince.

However, these civil officials did not dare to openly oppose Zhu Houzhao, after all, Zhu Houzhao was the emperor and had the highest decision-making power in the empire.

Therefore, these civil officials only advised Emperor Zhu Houzhao to establish the crown prince first, and said that they asked the emperor to establish the prince for the sake of the Ming Dynasty, after all, the position of the prince is uncertain, which will make the courtiers fall into party strife and cause instability in the court.

Zhu Houzhao knew that if the prince did not stand, it might indeed cause party disputes, and the Nine Dragons of the Manchu Dynasty in history was an example, and Wanli did not establish the prince for a long time, causing serious internal friction in the country, and even gave birth to the Donglin Party, but it was not good for the prince to be established early, and the emergence of the princeling party would also make many officials only know that they were befriending the prince and following the prince to bend the law for bribes.

But Zhu Houzhao would rather not set up a prince now, rather than go to great lengths to abolish an unqualified prince in the future, who will rule the hundreds of millions of people in the empire in the future, this should not be the final say of Confucianism, nor should it be his own decision, but the hundreds of millions of people themselves have the final say.

However, Zhu Houzhao didn't know how to let the people choose the head of the empire they wanted, but he was not in a hurry, he had to train many qualified imperial rulers and train many people with their own thinking, only then would the people know how to choose.

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