"The Ming Dynasty was destroyed by the rebel army led by Li Zicheng, but fundamentally speaking, it was not destroyed by the rebel army."

Zhu Di's majestic gaze showed a rare sad look.

A hero, but he was powerless to protect the Ming Dynasty under the erosion of the long years, towards that final ending.

Even just hearing about the possible outcome makes you feel sad.

Zhu Di said softly: "Mr. Jiang, let's talk to me." ”

Jiang Xinghuo's hands were on his knees, and unconsciously, he had unconsciously grasped until his muscles were exposed.

Jiang Xinghuo slowly told this distant and extraordinarily true story in a tone that Zhu Di had never heard before.

"When the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty ascended the throne, the Xiaoice River period had reached its peak."

"In the first year of Chongzhen, there was a great drought in Shaanxi."

"The father forsakes his son, and the husband gives his wife a mouthful of food."

"However, the food is running out, and the people have no choice but to dig grass roots and pick grass in the mountains to eat."

"It's a pity that it didn't take long for the bark and grass roots to run out, and the white stones in the mountains were mined to satisfy hunger."

Hearing this, even if he was as hard-hearted as Zhu Di, he couldn't help but subconsciously rub the corners of his eyes and listen to it again.

In Jiang Xinghuo's bland words, there was a sadness that could not be hidden.

"Some of the people were unwilling to die by eating stones, and began to gather together as bandits, so the people who had a little savings were robbed by them, and seeing that the government could not prohibit them, the looting began to expand wildly."

"The government was obstructed by the orders of the higher authorities and sent troops to capture the bandits, and the bandits then coerced the hungry people to form rogues."

"In the following ten years, the rogue crisscrossed Shaanxi, Gansu, Shanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Sichuan, and the officials and troops were inexhaustible, and the more and more the rogue was suppressed, so the world was eroded, and many rogue bandits grew, and Li Zicheng was the most powerful one of them."

Zhu Di frowned and asked, "Why can't you reduce taxes and give relief to the victims?" ”

"Huh."

Jiang Xinghuo let out a sneer of unknown meaning.

"After the tax is reduced, who will pay the salary? Without Liao, what will happen to the Jurchens outside the Guan? Oh yes, it's not just Liao, in order to exterminate the rogues, you have to send more money to the yeoman farmers of the Ming Dynasty, it's useless to have enough money to pay money, you have to train soldiers, right? I have to send another training salary. ”

"Ridiculous!"

Zhu Di suddenly changed color, slapped the arm of the chair hard, and the sawdust was splashed everywhere.

"Just Jurchen, what kind of salary do you need?"

Jiang Xinghuo said with a straight face: "The Jurchen entered the customs and committed a lot of atrocities, and it was difficult to write about it, Jiang hated it deeply, but the so-called people who know you best are often your enemies. The regent of the Jurchens, there is a saying that is true. ”

"Hmph."

Zhu Dilongwei added to the sea, and the Jurchens were just ants-like existence in his eyes, which could be easily erased, and he disdained to take the initiative to listen to what the Jurchen regent of later generations said.

"The worst thing for the people is to increase the salary, so that the people are poor and thieves, and then increase the salary, and then practice for each side, and increase the salary. However, these three salaries, several times the positive supply, tired of the small people, fat scraping, far away for more than 20 years, near more than 10 years, the world is screaming, day and night. ”

Zhu Di didn't say a word, just clenched his fists deep in his sleeves and asked in a muffled voice.

"How did the Jurchens grow up?"

Jiang Xinghuo did not answer Zhu Di's question directly, but raised his chin slightly, signaling Zhu Di to look back at the secret room behind him.

Zhu Di glanced at it.

Jiang Xinghuo asked, "When did you listen to the lecture here?" ”

Zhu Di was not embarrassed, and simply replied: "Cut the domain." ”

"Then you should understand that if the Ming Dynasty does not change, what kind of imbalance will the civil and military forces go."

"Needless to say, the high-level military ministers and nobles don't need to say much, no matter how bad the prince is, he can also do an errand in the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, but what about the middle-level border army guards? What about the guards at the bottom? ”

There is no need for Zhu Di to imagine, Jiang Xinghuo directly gave the answer.

"The soldiers of the low-level guard station, who have been farming for generations, have no combat power, and have long become tenant farmers of officers at all levels of the border guard station."

"The officers of the border guards are cutting the salaries of the soldiers to make money, and raising elite families as the main force of the soldiers to consolidate power."

Zhu Di's face was solemn, gloomy as if he was about to drip water.

Jiang Xinghuo continued: "The so-called cunning rabbit is dead and the lackey cooks, and the birds are good and hidden, and in the face of the civilian-dominated court, in order to continuously obtain an endless stream of military exploits and salaries, the generals of the border army will inevitably embark on the road of raising their own respect. ”

"The Jurchens, in fact, were raised by the general of the Liaodong Military Town from the beginning to help the Liaodong Military Town fight against the Koreans and even the Japanese."

"It's like a servant raising a vicious dog, but unfortunately in the end it got off, the vicious dog was full of meat, and began to bite the servant back, the servant couldn't resist, so he had to ask the master for help, the master in order to prevent the vicious dog from biting his weak and bloated heart, had to tighten his pants and bring the servant to send money to expect him to protect himself, but in the end, the servant who took so much money became a slave of the vicious dog, took the vicious dog into the door, and bit the master to death."

Zhu Di frowned when he heard this, but he still maintained his sanity and did not lose his temper because of this.

After all, the situation of the future Ming border army in Jiang Xinghuo's mouth is actually related to Zhu Di's current understanding of the situation of the guards.

During the Battle of Jingjing, Zhu Di clearly realized that after two generations, the guards were not good enough.

"But even so, there are still some explanations that don't make sense, and the court doesn't care?"

Although Zhu Di trusted Jiang Xinghuo's words, he still suspected that there might be other hidden secrets.

Jiang Xinghuo smiled and said: "It's very simple, the general of the border army is also the disciple of the bigwigs of the faction in the DPRK and China, and the spokesmen of these gentry groups, they are the culprits behind the self-esteem raised by the border guards." ”

"Do you remember the Zhang Juzheng I just mentioned?"

"I'm not a photo, I'm a photo!" Zhu Di squeezed out a cold word from between his teeth.

"Could it be that this is the beginning of Zhang Juzheng?"

If it weren't for the fact that this was someone born hundreds of years in the future, Jiang Xinghuo would probably not tell him specific information, and Zhu Di couldn't wait to directly slaughter all the eligible Zhang Juzheng's suspected ancestors.

After all, for Zhu Di, it doesn't matter how capable a minister is in the future, even if this person promulgates the examination law.

The important thing is that this man is so crazy that he says that he is not the prime minister, but the regent?

Who gave you courage?

Have you asked me about the knife in my hand?

Daming, the surname Zhu or the surname Zhang?

Jiang Xinghuo said lightly: "Yes and no." ”

"This mode of getting along with civil and military forces, although it is obvious in Zhang Juzheng and Qi Jiguang, but it was by no means a negative effect at that time, on the contrary, Zhang Juzheng reused the famous anti-Japanese general Qi Jiguang to preside over the defense of the north, so that Jizhen has not seen soldiers for ten years, and the people live and work in peace and contentment.

"It's a pity that the later land annexation of the DPRK and China, the party and the disagreement, and the ability to seek the country are less than one-tenth of Zhang Juzheng; The generals of the border army lack Qi Jiguang's outstanding military quality and humble character, and only care about their own fame and fortune, so the situation is getting worse and worse. ”

"The root of the problem is not a certain person, but the civil service system and the health center system."

Hearing this, the little nameless anger in Zhu Di's heart also shifted direction.

Zhu Di knew very well that Jiang Xinghuo was right, if something happened to Daming, then the problem must not be blamed on someone.

Civil service!

The health system!

Zhu Di wrote down these two questions in his heart, and at the same time, he couldn't help but sigh that the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty was really a little unlucky.

Even if the Xiaoice River period is over, he also encountered the border army town to raise Kou self-respect, and raised a Jurchen to sit big.

That's it, if the court can work together, it can't be said that it can also tide over the difficulties.

On the contrary, the princes of the DPRK and the Central Committee are all engaged in land annexation in their hometowns, and the party and the people who fight against different people in the DPRK and China.

No wonder, in the edict of the last emperor, it will be said that the ministers are mistaken.

Probably guessed Zhu Di's heart, Jiang Xinghuo simply made up for it.

"Although Chongzhen is diligent and thrifty, and his virtue is not lost, he is rigid and self-serving, eager to achieve success, and suspicious of ministers."

"In the seventeenth year of his reign, he changed nineteen cabinet chiefs and assistants, and killed seven military department secretaries."

"Wait!"

Zhu Di probably knew that the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty also wanted to take the blame for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, but at this time, his attention shifted to another topic.

When Zhang Juzheng was mentioned before, Jiang Xinghuo only said "Shoufu", and Zhu Di subconsciously thought that this was the emperor of the later generations of the Ming Dynasty, and the prime minister was re-established, but the term was changed.

Zhang Juzheng's sentence "I am not a photo, but a photograph" also aggravated Zhu Di's wrong impression.

And now it sounds like Jiang Xinghuo is talking about "the first assistant of the cabinet", which makes Zhu Di suspicious.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty system has never explicitly stipulated the name of "Shoufu", and it is customary to call the chief scholar of the cabinet as the first assistant, and has relatively special powers and status, and the system of "Shoufu" was born in the political practice of the middle of the Ming Dynasty, roughly appeared in the Tianshun period of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, and began with Li Xian.

So it's normal for Zhu Di not to react for a while.

"Shoufu, Mr. Jiang, the first assistant of the cabinet, is saying that the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty in the future will be the bachelor with the heaviest authority in the cabinet?" Zhu Di asked in surprise.

"Yes, civil officials from the gentry class will generally enter the cabinet and become cabinet ministers by boiling their qualifications, and they are also respectfully called 'cabinet elders', among which the first in the order is the first assistant, and the second in the order is the second assistant."

"The civil officials decided all the government affairs of the Ming Dynasty through the cabinet votes."

"What is a vote?" Zhu Di asked.

"Vote drafting, that is, from various places in the Ming Dynasty, before sending to the emperor for instructions, by the cabinet with a small ticket ink book, that is, the approval of the proposal written on the paper and pasted on the opposite side of the note to submit, the right to vote in the hands of the cabinet first assistant, in fact, is to prepare the 'imperial approval' of the manuscript for the emperor to adopt."

Jiang Xinghuo's fluttering words made Zhu Di's heart start to burst out.

"And the initiator is actually you who don't have the ability to handle government affairs like Emperor Hongwu."

(End of chapter)