The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 1191 Li Yan's Enlightenment (Part )
Unification will inevitably lead to the strengthening of overall strength and the weakening of individual strength. The combined strength of the seven major powers in the Warring States Period was many times greater than that of the unified Qin Empire.

The checks and balances and intrigues within major countries, the complicated relationships and internal strife, and all kinds of complex and mind-numbing containment measures are enough to make this group of rabble with their own ulterior motives have no energy to launch foreign wars.

As long as the Ming Dynasty continues to strengthen its national strength, the tribes on the grassland will have no chance to take advantage of it, and they will naturally devour each other for their own strength. The grassland itself is an independent ecological system, a civilization unique to nomadic peoples.

It is their nature to fight against each other, and it is basically impossible to establish a unified dynasty. When they are close to unification, or after they have been unified, they will collapse at the slightest change, and continue to repeat this process over and over again.

Fight or not, it's always the same.
If you don't fight, they will fall into chaos. On the other hand, if you chase them to the grassland, it will be easy to force them to temporarily put aside their differences and fight the enemy together. The principle of brothers fighting outside the wall to defend against insults is not only known to the people of the Central Plains, but also understood by the people on the grassland.

Facing the conquest of the Central Plains Dynasty, the power originally lost in "promoting unity" would be poured onto the invading enemy. This was equivalent to the Central Plains Dynasty sacrificing itself in vain to take on the power that would have been consumed.

Three thousand years of history have long shown that farming peoples and nomadic peoples complement and restrain each other, taking turns to dominate the world, and no one can completely eliminate the other.

If this is the case, then why is there any need to start a war? Mobilizing the entire country to attack them is simply a futile effort.

If you have this time, you might as well learn from the Han Dynasty's marriage alliances, the Sui Dynasty's divisions, and the Tang Dynasty's control. As long as you manage your dynasty well, strengthen your internal strength, and continuously improve your national strength, you will prevent the northern nomads from invading the south.

Facts have proved that the development of the times will naturally solve problems that could not be solved before.

After entering the industrial age, these nations that relied on scimitars, iron cavalry, strong bows and crossbows were naturally eliminated by history. They sang and danced and became the animal husbandry and planting bases and agricultural product supply demonstration sites of major countries, and no longer posed a threat to the Central Plains dynasty.

What worried them was that without the nomads, the Western barbarians would come from the sea, using their powerful ships and cannons to destroy the country again, thus opening the prelude to the great power competition.

Li Yan even had a suspicion that one day, when the earth was unified and everyone became one family, humans would have to deal with aliens again.

Li Yan sometimes finds that history also has its own unique features. For example, the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty are very similar. The Song Dynasty fought with the Liao Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty for a lifetime, and finally the Mongols took advantage; while the Ming Dynasty fought with the Tatars and Wala for a lifetime, and finally the Jurchens took advantage.

During the Southern Song Dynasty's Yashan naval battle, the Song army sank hundreds of warships in desperation. More than 100,000 Southern Song soldiers and civilians, including the emperor, empress dowager, prime minister, officials, soldiers, women, and civilians, were unwilling to obey the brutal Mongol regime and committed suicide by jumping into the sea.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, when faced with the same situation of the sinking of China, and the situation was not as critical as that of the Southern Song Dynasty, what did the officials and ministers of the Ming Dynasty do? If they had half the ambition of the Southern Song Dynasty's soldiers and civilians and the dignity of the Han people, the Ming Dynasty would have been saved.

It is not a problem if you don't know the goods, but it is a problem if you compare the goods. People who compare themselves will die, and goods will be thrown away if they are compared.

Although both countries were destroyed, the situations they faced were completely different.

The Song Dynasty was ravaged by Liao and Jin dynasties that rose in the north for hundreds of years, leaving only half of the country and struggling to survive. The Ming Dynasty rose during the decadent period of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, and after more than 200 years of development, it still controlled the entire Central Plains until the end.

The Song Dynasty was a hell-level difficulty. They had to face Genghis Khan, the peerless warrior who swept across Europe and Asia, conquered almost the entire continent, and destroyed countless countries, as well as his undefeated cavalry. It was not easy for the Song Dynasty to withstand several waves of his attacks and hold on to the end.

The Ming Dynasty was only facing the Jurchens, descendants of the Jin Dynasty, who lived in a corner of the northeast and were the wolf cubs that they had raised with their own hands.

When the country was destroyed and the family was ruined, after losing Shanhaiguan, the civil officials opened the city gates, tied their hands and surrendered, shaved their heads and pledged loyalty, changed their clothes and crowns; the military generals did not resist, but surrendered directly, playing the tiger's account. Facing the Qing cavalry with only 200,000 troops, they let the enemy pacify the whole world like autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

What caused people of the same bloodline to fall into the same situation, but make different choices and their countries to receive different treatments?

Although the emperors of the Song Dynasty were weak and cowardly, few of them were cruel and ruthless. Song Huizong was a king who lost his country. You can accuse him of being incompetent and useless, but you have to admit that he was a benevolent emperor.

Many of his ministers experienced ups and downs, but he rarely raised his butcher knife to kill them.

Such a generous atmosphere, with the people following suit, was appreciated by the people, which led to the rise of the Han Dynasty. The country was able to survive in a corner and lasted for 152 years with nine emperors. In the end, it could not wait for the Mongol Yuan Dynasty to change and was destroyed, leaving behind a masterpiece that will be passed down through the ages.

The Ming Dynasty, which also adopted the Han Dynasty’s clothing and etiquette, was completely different.

When the country was in danger, the Liaoxi military leaders nurtured the bandits and let the tigers run wild; the wealthy merchants in the north secretly communicated with the enemy and made a fortune; the southern nobles colluded with the Japanese pirates and plundered the countryside; the officials in the capital were greedy and greedy; the people in all directions were wailing and living in misery. Faced with internal and external troubles, the officials did not think about quelling the civil strife and resisting foreign enemies, but stepped up to make money. First, they welcomed Li Zicheng, the King of Rebellion, and then surrendered to the Jurchen Dorgon. With a change of hair and official uniform, they transformed themselves into founding heroes of the new dynasty.

Everyone vied with each other to please the new master, and they wished they could tie up Chongzhen and send him before the Manchus. Everyone offered suggestions and clever plans to help the Jurchens rule China, for fear that the Ming Dynasty would not be dead yet and would make a comeback.

Why are the Ming Dynasty and the Song Dynasty so different? I'm afraid we have to look back to the founding of the country.
Zhao Kuangyin gave up his military power with a toast, and although his old brothers suffered some grievances, most of them were able to settle down smoothly, enjoy wealth and live out their lives in peace and contentment; Zhu Yuanzhang, on the other hand, launched a major case and executed all his old brothers and heroes who had helped him build the country.

Even those who had retired were called back to the capital and transferred there. Worse still, some were beheaded and skinned, and the whole clan was wiped out. Countless people died unjustly.

Expelling the Tartars and restoring China was not the work of Zhu alone. Even without him, Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng might have been able to do it. Moreover, turning the family into a country, ascending to the throne, and having all his descendants become kings, such a great reward is enough.

Those heroes who have gone through mountains of swords and seas of fire have devoted their entire lives. Which family does not have fathers, brothers, and sons who died on the battlefield and sacrificed their lives for the country?

Even if the country is at peace and arrogant, and has some flaws, and cannot curb its banditry for a while, then we should punish those who have violated it and seek truth from facts.

We cannot expect to be shown leniency, but we cannot fabricate charges or impose severe punishments.

Law enforcement must be based on the law. It is not acceptable to be too lenient, abuse harsh punishments, or increase the severity of the punishment. These arrogant and brave generals who have made great contributions to the founding of the country may be guilty of capital punishment, but they should not be punished nine times, and their descendants should not be spared, and their bloodline should not be cut off.

These are all heroes who recreated Han clothing and restored Chinese orthodoxy!

Zhu treated them like pigs and dogs, skinning them and eating them, lingchi execution, exterminating their three clans, killing their nine clans, sending their wives and daughters to the Jiaofang Bureau, and making their descendants slaves forever. Compared to this, what kind of meritorious official is this? They are even worse than ordinary people.

Ordinary people could still live a miserable life, but if they became meritorious officials of the Zhu family, they would die without a burial place and bring trouble to their descendants.

Li Yan found it unacceptable that he did not travel through time to the Ming Dynasty.

If he really goes back to the era of Old Zhu, he will stop it at all costs and will definitely stand against Old Zhu, causing a fierce conflict.

To be honest, during the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, when Li Yan lived, these tortures were rarely seen. Beheading was already a severe punishment. Lingchi, skinning, and extermination of the entire family were even rarer. Even Li Yan had never heard of such severe punishments in the Han Dynasty.

I always feel that this is a product of the slavery era. In Li Yan's limited impression, before this, this kind of punishment only appeared on a large scale in the late Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the era of strict laws and punishments in the Qin Dynasty. In later generations, it only existed in the primitive tribes on the snowy plateau.

It was hard to imagine that this was torture carried out by the more advanced and brilliant Ming Dynasty thousands of years later. Li Yan was a little puzzled. How could Lao Zhu, a farmer's son from an extremely poor family, learn these bad habits?

Could it be a legacy of the Yuan Dynasty's rule?
Zhao Kuangyin strengthened the trunk and weakened the branches, made use of civil and military officials, and sent his ministers to garrison various places; while Zhu Yuanzhang enfeoffed his sons as kings and treated the entire country as the Zhu family's farm. As long as one had his blood, everyone had a share.

As long as they were his sons, each of them could be granted a piece of land to exercise their power and wealth, and the national treasury would pay tens of thousands of taels of salary and various subsidies every year. However, the monthly salary of an official in the court, even if he was the first rank, would not exceed 100 dan.

If his son committed a crime, even if it was killing people for fun, he would only be reprimanded.

If an official took more than 60 taels of silver, he would be skinned and eaten with grass, and his entire family would be punished. This standard for treating sons and foreign officials was really too double-standard. Imagine a minister who grew up in such an environment, facing such a king, who could be loyal to the king and serve the country?

Who would be willing to die for such a king?
After Zhu Di successfully put an end to the rebellion, he abandoned most of the few remaining ministers of the Hongwu dynasty and the old ministers of the Jianwen dynasty, and even dealt with the descendants of his eldest brother Zhu Biao. After Zhao Guangyi inherited his brother's throne, he not only treated the founding heroes well, but also did not do much to the descendants left by his eldest brother.

The axe light and candle shadow imply that Zhao Guangyi coveted the throne and killed his brother Zhao Kuangyin.

In Li Yan's opinion, Zhao Guangyi may have coveted the throne, but the killing of his brother was a fabrication. Just from how Zhao Guangyi treated his eldest brother's descendants, it is clear that if Zhao Kuangyin was really killed by Zhao Guangyi, none of Zhao Kuangyin's descendants would have survived.

This is what Yang Guang did, what Li Shimin did, and what Zhu Di did. None of the sons of Yang Yong, Li Jiancheng, and Zhu Biao survived.

(End of this chapter)