readx(); Long after Zhu Yujian and Zhu Youlang withdrew from the palace, Zhu Youzhen was still pondering on the throne. Please search ()! How to deal with the clans, including the vassal kings, was a headache for him!

At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang made a feudal king, and told the world: "The world is so big, we must build a feudal screen, defend the country, and live in peace." Now that the sons are long, it is advisable for each to have a title and divide the towns into kingdoms. I am not a personal relative, but I follow the system of the ancient sages and kings, and it is a plan for long-term peace and long-term rule. ”

Although Zhu Yuanzhang's idea is good, it is difficult to avoid two problems. First, the vassal king was in charge of the army, which posed a threat to the imperial power. Later, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, really entered Nanjing to seize the throne in the name of "Jingnan".

Zhu Di himself did this, how could he not be afraid that other vassal kings would do the same? Therefore, since the Yongle Dynasty, the army of the vassal king has been gradually deprived and can no longer resist the imperial court. This first problem was finally solved by Zhu Di for Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the second problem is more difficult to solve. Zhu Yuanzhang was afraid of living a poor life when he was a child, for fear that his descendants would suffer such a crime again, so he stipulated that all the clans were supported by the imperial court, "never being a eunuch, and not practicing the people's business".

During the Hongwu Yongle period, because of the strong national strength, the number of clans was relatively small, and it was not a big problem. However, with the reproduction of generations, the population of the clan became more and more, and by the Wanli period, there were more than 100,000 people registered on the jade of the Zongren Mansion alone. So many people do nothing and have to be supported by the imperial court in vain, which undoubtedly becomes a heavy financial burden.

Take the vassal king as an example, when a vassal king is divided into one place, he can obtain thousands or even tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land, and the household department will allocate silver to create a luxurious palace. Every year, the vassal king's own rice is 10,000 stones, and although the princess and the side concubines do not have rice, there are regulations for meat and oil and non-staple food cloth fat powder every month, and it is at least more than 1,000 taels of silver in a year.

The most terrible thing is that the vassal king gave birth to children, and the "prince" of them will inherit the throne in the future, and all treatment will remain unchanged; The other children are knighted by one block. Under the prince, the sons except the prince are all crowned kings of the county. The prince and the prince can be hereditary.

And all the sons of the king of the county except for the prince are all named Zhenguo generals, and the sons of Zhenguo generals are all auxiliary generals, and then the following are Fengguo generals, Zhenguo lieutenants, auxiliary state lieutenants, Fengguo lieutenants, and so on. When you reach the lowest level of Fengguo Lieutenant, it is no longer lowered, and it is also Fengguo Lieutenant for many generations. But even in the lowest grade, Lieutenant Bongkook's Lumi still reached two hundred stones.

Sun Didi is not alone in hating the moon and hating

"Fathers give birth to sons, children give birth to grandchildren, and children and grandchildren are infinitely scarce", the further back they go, the faster the number of clans increases, and even increases geometrically. In the Wanli period, according to the standard treatment of the clan, the annual payment of Lu rice reached more than 8 million stones, and the imperial court could not earn more than 4 million stones a year.

Sun Didi not only hated Suoyue Keyang, but the mountain of "ancestral system" was pressed on his head, but he couldn't change it if he wanted to. In the past few days, Zhu Youzhen racked his brains, and ordered people to take various regulations of the royal family from the Zongren Mansion to study them repeatedly, and even picked out the words word by word, and finally found a little eyebrows.

In desperation, the imperial court had no choice but to reduce the amount of rice owed to the clan. However, the ancestral system also stipulates that the clan must not have any livelihood, and most of these clans are also the children of gentlemen, without any survival skills, and those from poor families will inevitably starve, and even starve to death, or deliberately commit crimes and go to prison in order to eat the absurd things of prison.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen wanted to save the Ming Dynasty and implement reforms, and the clan problem was a hurdle that could not be bypassed. However, the issue of the clan is extremely thorny, not only because of the constraints of the ancestral system, but also because of the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people, not to mention that the vassal kings in the clan have been operating in the domain for more than 200 years, and the interests of the local gentry are intertwined.

But no matter how difficult it is, Zhu Youzhen must also change. Previously, he cut the domain of the King of Shu, and abolished the father and son of King Fu as concubines, and the strength was not small, but it had not touched the fundamentals. In the past few days, he has been away from the court in Changchun Garden, so that Zhu Youzhen has time to think about this problem.

Obviously, in this era, it is neither realistic nor possible to completely eliminate the privileged class of the clan. If Zhu Youzhen really did this, then he might not be able to sit on the throne. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen is thinking of a workaround, and his focus is on "the clan prohibits life". If you don't do anything, and you don't have enough rice, of course you will starve to death; But if you do what you can and have an income, won't you be able to survive?

But the mountain of "ancestral system" is pressing on the head, and it is not possible to change it if you want to. In the past few days, Zhu Youzhen racked his brains, and ordered people to take various regulations of the royal family from the Zongren Mansion to study them repeatedly, and even picked out the words word by word, and finally found a little eyebrows.

First, according to the rules, Jinyiwei, as the emperor's personal guard, can recruit the children of the clan. In the past, people were generally selected only from the descendants of the princess or the relatives of the concubine, but this was only a common practice, and there was no explicit provision that other clans would not work.

Second, the ancestral system stipulates that "the eunuchs are not accustomed to the people's business", which means that the clan can neither be an official nor engage in the "people's business". This civil industry refers to the four industries of "Shinong, Industry and Commerce", which basically covered most of the population and occupations of the whole society for the natural economy of the Ming Dynasty.

But Zhu Youzhen found inspiration from here: If it does not belong to the "Shinong Industry and Commerce", isn't the ancestral system prohibited? There is a folk saying of "three religions and nine streams", for which he also consulted Huang Zongxi, and learned that the three religions refer to Confucianism, Taoism, and interpretation, and the nine streams refer to all occupations, which are specifically divided into the upper nine streams and the lower nine streams:

Upper nine streams: first-class Buddhas are second-rate immortals, third-rate emperors and fourth-rate officials, fifth-rate pots and sixth-rate dang, seven merchants, eight guests and nine farms;

Middle nine streams: first-class Xiucai second-rate doctors, third-rate feng shui and fourth-rate batches, fifth-rate Danqing and six-rate phases, seven monks, eight ways and nine qin chess;

Lower nine streams: first-class witches, second-rate prostitutes, third-rate gods and fourth-rate gangs, five shaved heads, six blowers, seven plays, eight beggars and nine selling sugar.

"Shinong industry and commerce" all belong to the upper ninth stream, while the middle ninth stream and the lower ninth stream mostly belong to the service industry, which is all carried out by the world. However, the occupation of the upper ninth rate is explicitly forbidden by the ancestral system, but the middle ninth rate and the lower ninth rate are not banned!

Of course, these professions are "lowly", not to mention the clan, they are ordinary people, but as long as they can eat a mouthful of food, they can't pull their faces down to do it. But for Zhu Youzhen, there is at least a way to solve this problem: don't people in the world think that a certain profession is despicable? I'll find a way to raise the income and social status of this profession, so that he is more popular than the "upper ninth-rate"!

For example, doctors, painters, performers, chess players, and actors are indispensable and hot professions in modern society. There are also sports athletes, and now Daming doesn't have this industry! Wouldn't it be possible to break the ice by letting the children of the clan engage in these industries? As for the vassal king...

Just as he was thinking of this, a loud voice interrupted Zhu Youzhen's contemplation: "Zeng Mengxue, the head of the Ministry of Ministers, knocked on Your Majesty, long live my emperor!" ”

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