The Hongzhi Emperor in history is indeed commendable in virtue, and if he is not Chongzhen in terms of diligence, he can be regarded as the last diligent emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

The history books also have a very high evaluation of him, and he is called Hongzhi Zhongxing during his reign.

It's just that there is a very debatable record, which is the number of households and the population of the Ming Dynasty.

According to the records of the "Ming Shilu", the population increased in the early Ming Dynasty, reaching 66 million and 65 million respectively in the first year of Yongle and the tenth year of Yongle.

After that, it fell all the way, until the Chenghua period, when the faint monarch Zhu Jianshen in the literati ascended the throne and faced the subsequent impact of the Tumubao Change.

He endured the mess of millions of displaced people, and he made the population of Daming skyrocket to 60 million.

By the fifteenth year of Chenghua, the population of the Ming Dynasty at this time was the peak recorded in the Ming Dynasty, reaching 71 million.

However, during the reign of Emperor Hongzhi, the lord of Zhongxing, the population plummeted to 50 million.

Judging from the reforms that have been carried out, there were basically no reforms during the Hongzhi period, and there were not as many reform measures as carried out during Zhu Houzhao's reign.

Therefore, Emperor Hongzhi is a real king of success, without much action, diligent in internal affairs and private morality, in the eyes of scholars, this seems to be the perfect emperor.

It's a pity that this perfect emperor, in terms of merits, is definitely not as good as a generation of faint monarch Zhu Jianshen.

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Three days later, the Eastern Qin delegation landed in Haiyang, Dengzhou, and after giving a briefing, they went to Beijing through various post stations under the reception of Wang Heng.

However, in one day, Ashin and Zhang Sanfeng, through the observation of the carriage, found that although there were tall, wealthy, and populous cities in Shandong at this time, there were skinny poor people everywhere in the countryside, and these people were like the victims who had just arrived in the quarantine area.

They saw the carriages of the officials, and one by one they were so frightened that they knelt on both sides of the road, waiting for the officials to pass first.

This little thing made Ashin pay special attention, and he immediately came to a conclusion, that is, the officials of the Ming Kingdom could never win the trust of the people!

In the education of officials in the Eastern Qin Dynasty, the most important thing was to ask them to understand what the common people thought, rather than giving orders from above.

In such a comparison, Ashin can guarantee that the officials of the Ming Kingdom will definitely not be able to mobilize a huge amount of people!

After another day of leaving, Wang Heng asked the Eastern Qin delegation to wait for a long time in a place called Qufu, saying that they were going to worship Confucius.

After Ashin and Zhang Sanfeng passed Qiu Ruicai's explanation, they understood what kind of place Qufu was. also understood why Wang Heng and Ma Wensheng took the opportunity to worship Confucius.

The two of them were very surprised, it turned out that in the Ming Kingdom, a Confucian temple could actually involve the country.

For the country, they only know that Dongqin is productivity-oriented and people-oriented!

Ashin wrote in his diary that day: The day after arriving in the Ming Kingdom, according to the adviser Qiu Ruicai, we traveled through a total of three counties. The situation in the three counties is similar, the rich people in the Ming Kingdom seem to be very rich, but the poor are very poor, and there are quite a few beggars and children sellers! Along the way, I didn't see anything advanced, I didn't see any workshops, but I saw peasant women spinning yarn at home.

It's a pity that we have been in the carriage all the time, and we can't go down in person to talk to the people of the Ming Kingdom, otherwise we will definitely know more news. However, from the analysis of the situation we have seen, the poor people of the Ming Kingdom should lack the necessary sense of identity and cohesion for the Ming Kingdom, if they can spend a few taels of silver, they can make them follow you honestly, and they will even be willing to help you to fight those officials and rich people of the Ming Kingdom......

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The next day, the group set off again, but soon after, the frame was blocked in the road.

After a while, Ashin realized what ceremony was going on.

They watched from afar, Zhang Sanfeng took out a telescope, and after looking at it for a while, he handed the telescope to Ashin.

Ashin frowned after taking a look.

It was not a ceremony, but an execution, in which a woman was tied to a stake.

Right next to a strange row of stone gates, in the midst of the anger of the crowd, someone stripped her of her shirt.

Then the two strong men used sharpened wooden skewers to nail through the woman's collarbone.

The woman let out a loud wail, and blood flowed from the wound.

After Qiu Ruicai saw it, he sighed and said: "This is a sandalwood punishment, and it is the clan's private disposal of women who do not abide by women's morals!"

Ashin was shocked and said, "Isn't it the state that can exercise the right of law?" There is no law institute in the local area? ”

"The local government generally doesn't care, in the Ming Kingdom, this is ...... This is the duty of the clans and the squires! "Qiu Rui has only been in Dongqin for a long time, and he feels a little ridiculous at this moment.

He pointed to those stone arches and said: "Those door-like things, that is, the archway of chastity, if a young woman has the unfortunate death of her husband, she did not marry, but chooses to observe the festival or martyrdom, the clan can report to the government, and after the approval of the imperial court, you can build the archway of chastity!"

Ashin and Zhang Sanfeng were stunned, they wondered, why didn't they let these young women who had lost their husbands remarry?

Qiu Ruicai sighed again and said: "The chastity arch can be used as a commendation for political achievements, the more chastity arches of a clan, it also shows that the clan style is good, and it shows the education of a place!"

"This matter is in Dongqin, I'm afraid that the king will shoot this group of people!" Zhang Sanfeng said secretly.

Ashin also felt that this matter was incomprehensible, why should the political achievements and educational achievements be reflected in women?

After a long while, the execution ended, Wang Heng and Ma Wensheng deliberately ran over and explained with a little pride why they had to wait until the execution was over.

Their faces made Ashin and Zhang Sanfeng feel that this Ming country was sick!

When passing by the archway of chastity, Ashin and Zhang Sanfeng deliberately lifted the curtain and looked at the blood stains left behind.

The woman's body had been taken away by her family, and her parents seemed to be ashamed to close their eyes and watch it, and when they were out of breath, they cried and pulled the body away.

Ashin pondered about this matter and felt that if there were local people who could ignore the law and execute someone, it would definitely become another force in the local area.

Is that good? Definitely not good! Law enforcement should be in the hands of the militias, and justice should be in the hands of the law courts, so that it can be fair to all.

What he didn't understand was why Ma Wensheng and Wang Heng would tell them about this matter in a proud tone.

Is it commendable for a group of people to kill a weak woman without asking if she is innocent or not?

Ashin felt that the Ming country had a problem, and it was not a small problem, but a big problem.

He counted some arches of chastity, and found that there were seventeen, and these seventeen arches stood quietly, and they could not make crops grow better, nor could they make weaving faster.

It is not the martyrs who died in the war for the country, not the people who made contributions to the country, but only a few women who did not marry after their husbands died, or committed suicide after their husbands died.

This made him feel that the honor of the Ming Kingdom was different from the honor of the Eastern Qin.

What Ashin doesn't know is that behind this is actually a question of values, and there is also a question of ideology.

Etiquette is based on the Three Principles and Five Constants, and the values shaped by it naturally make the children of the saints feel that having a woman is a work of education, and being able to spontaneously dispose of a woman who has lost her temperament is also to defend the religion of etiquette.

Therefore, they feel proud, thinking that in a barbaric place like Dongqin, where women's crotches are not tightly covered, there must be no such festival women, and there must not be such a style of education!

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