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

Chapter 770: Feudal System (II)
Li Shimin's expression changed suddenly when he heard this. The joy and excitement just now disappeared. His face turned cold and he stared at Li Yan like an eagle.

A murderous aura of surviving a hundred battles and the majesty of an emperor instantly enveloped Li Yan.

Li Yan clearly felt that the temperature between them dropped by several degrees, and the air began to condense. This made Li Yan marvel. Although these ancient warriors did not practice, they had been immersed in the sea of ​​blood and corpses for many years. With a wave of their hands, countless heads fell to the ground, which naturally formed a unique momentum.

It is invisible and traceless, but its presence can be clearly felt.

"do you know?"

Li Shimin's voice was particularly cold and gloomy: "If you were not the crown prince, not my son, I would immediately have you torn into pieces, your property confiscated and your clan exterminated based on your proposal. Since I started my army, no one has ever dared to make such a proposal to me."

"Perhaps some generals have thought about it, but no one dared to bring it up."

When the topic came to this point, Li Yan was no longer as cautious as before, and asked calmly: "I don't understand why the Zhou Dynasty could implement the feudal system, the Han Dynasty could also do so, and the Jin Dynasty could also do so, but why it is not possible in our Tang Dynasty? I hope that father can explain this to me."

"Humph"

Li Shimin thought of the prince's godlike performance just now, and suppressed his anger: "The feudal system is the source of national troubles. The Zhou Dynasty lasted for 800 years, and there were wars for 800 years. The Han Dynasty also had the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion. The hidden dangers left over from the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Han were not truly pacified until the reign of Emperor Wu more than 100 years later."

"Not to mention the Jin Dynasty. The Eight Princes Rebellion in the early days of the founding of the country was one of the most serious royal civil wars in history. It caused serious damage to the social economy and led to the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty and nearly three hundred years of unrest. It was not until the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty that it was quelled."

"So many bloody examples are still not enough to illustrate the fatal threat that the feudal system poses to the country. You know so much about history, I don't believe you don't know these things."

Li Yan nodded slowly: "Father is right, but has Father forgotten the conversation you had with me last night?"

Seeing that Li Shimin frowned and obviously didn't understand what he meant, Li Yan said, "There is no absolutely favorable or unfavorable thing in this world. Everything has its pros and cons. It depends on how you choose at the moment."

"Mr. Zifang knew that Liu Bang's choice of Liu Ying to succeed him would lead to Empress Lü's monopoly of power."

"But he saw the benefits of Empress Lü's monopoly of power to the stability of the Han Dynasty at that time, and used Empress Lü's problems to replace the problem of the instability caused by the absence of Emperor Gaozu of Han, buying precious time for the Han Dynasty and delaying the problem."

"After the unification of the country by the First Emperor, the feudal system was changed to the county system. However, after Liu Bang killed those princes of different surnames, he still enfeoffed the princes of the Liu family. Couldn't he see that enfeoffment of princes might bring hidden dangers to the court?"

"But hidden dangers are things of the future. If Emperor Gaozu of Han were like the First Emperor, and the whole country were in chaos as soon as he left, the so-called hidden danger of the kings causing chaos would be a joke."

“Only when there is a future can we talk about hidden dangers. If there is no future, there will be no time or opportunity to solve hidden dangers.”

Seeing that Li Shimin's emotions had gradually calmed down after his reminder, he no longer had the initial resistance and rejection.

Li Yan continued, "The county system is certainly good, but since its inception, why have the dynasties that implemented it always had such short life spans?"

"The Qin Dynasty fell in the second generation, the Cao Wei Dynasty fell in the second generation, and the former Sui Dynasty also fell in the second generation. Which of the local small countries during the Southern and Northern Dynasties lasted for a long time?"

"On the contrary, the dynasties that implemented the feudal system lasted longer. The Zhou Dynasty lasted 800 years, the Han Dynasty 400 years, and the Jin Dynasty was even more chaotic from the beginning. The whole country was in chaos, and in the end it was even driven south."

"But even if they survived, the two Jin dynasties combined lasted 150 years. This doesn't mean that although the feudal system caused the country to be in chaos for many years, it was of great benefit to the life of the entire dynasty."

"Although the county system has eliminated the ambitions of the princes, over time, after the land dividends at the founding of the country are distributed, they will still enter a long-term state of annexation, and eventually separatist forces will still form in the local area for various reasons."

“As the saying goes, the world will eventually divide after being united, and will eventually unite after being divided.”

"This shows that the current state of social economic development and productivity is not enough to control such a vast territory. After a long period of peace, war is always inevitable. The biggest difference between the feudal system and the county system is that the former is a civil war and the latter is a foreign war."

"The former changes the emperor, the latter changes the dynasty, and the cycle repeats itself endlessly."

Although what Li Yan expressed was not very accurate in some places, Li Shimin no longer cared about those details. Instead, huge waves were rising in his heart.

Yes
I haven't noticed before why everyone says that the feudal system is not good. It is obvious that countries that implement the feudal system are almost always in war, but the lifespan of the country is surprisingly long. The highly centralized county system is obviously more advantageous, but all of them are short-lived dynasties.

Why? Li Shimin was a little confused. He looked at his son who looked serious. The feeling of being hit continuously came back. His son looked like a wise man who had experienced many vicissitudes of life, while he looked like a lost lamb who needed to be cleared up.

"Why do you think this is?"

Li Shimin asked subconsciously. He no longer wanted to care whether it was face-saving or not. He just wanted to know the answer urgently.

In the past, the advantages and disadvantages of the feudal system and the county system had already been determined in history, and the talented and wise people in the court also had a one-sided view, so that Li Shimin had never thought about this issue in detail, but just followed the crowd.

I always think that everyone sees the problem in this way, so even questioning it is stupid, so I naturally stop thinking about it.

Thinking about it now, it was really irresponsible.

Li Yan didn't think too clearly about these things, but he knew that the county system was indeed good, but the timing for its implementation was wrong. It required objective conditions such as convenient transportation, developed communications, and the idea of ​​great unification being deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In ancient times when transportation was extremely backward, it would take ordinary people at least three months to travel from Chang'an to Yazhou, the southernmost city, not to mention the military post stations. It would take more than a month to reach the south of the Yangtze River, and it would take as much as two months to reach Hexi.

This inconvenience in travel is the biggest obstacle to Jiangshan's expansion, not how difficult those places are to conquer.

Genghis Khan's time was only five or six hundred years after the Tang Dynasty, yet he was able to conquer most of the Eurasian continent. This shows that the problem has never been whether or not it can be conquered, but rather the difficulty of transportation. Even if one can conquer the continent, one cannot defend it, even if one can defend it for a while.

Over time, it is easy for a situation to emerge where one dynasty is nominally involved, but in reality it becomes an alliance of various forces.

The so-called feudal system actually caters to this objective condition.

In ancient times, it was the same for the court and the local areas. If you don't have the ability, you can secede from one side. If you have the ability, you can eliminate the barbarians and bring them under the central jurisdiction, or you can quell the rebellion and purge the emperor in the local areas, and achieve unification in the same way. In the final analysis, you will be replaced.

However, if the feudal system is implemented, each family will have one surname, and even if the throne changes, it will be within the family, with generations changing but not dynasties, just like the Ming Dynasty.

If the kings of the opposite sex were enfeoffed, the name would be changed, just like the Zhou and Qin dynasties.

The implementation of the county system would either lead to the dynasty being overthrown by the rest of the world at the very beginning, as happened in the Qin Dynasty, or to rely on successive wise rulers to maintain it, as happened in the Tang Dynasty in history. But in reality, the court did not have the ability to maintain it for a long time.

Once the benefits of land distribution during the founding period ended, the country would fall into local self-government. Over time, whether the court was willing or not, a situation of actual separatist rule by local towns and fierce competition for supremacy would be formed.

In fact, the Han Dynasty was no exception. It just happened that the greatest prince among them also had the surname Liu. After conquering the world, he naturally regarded himself as the orthodox Liu. If Liu Xiu had the surname Zhu, then sorry, the Han Dynasty would have lasted only two hundred years.

The real county system was not truly implemented until the Qing Dynasty. Of course, it was not very accurate. After all, in the feudal era, imperial power did not extend to the countryside, and the court had no control over the township level. Power at this level was still in the hands of local tyrants.

The county system in the true sense had to wait until the new era of the industrial age.

Li Yan briefly explained why the county system could not be fully implemented due to objective conditions, and then said, "Father, the county system is a product of the highly centralized imperial power, but it cannot adapt to the vast territory."

"It takes nearly two months to travel from Chang'an to Youzhou, Jiangnan or Hexi, separated by mountains and rivers."

"Power and responsibility have always been inseparable. Although the power of the feudal system was decentralized, the responsibility of maintaining the local areas and the mission of suppressing local disobedience also fell on the local princes. Although the county system received power from the court, local affairs and troubles also needed to be resolved by the court."

“The area that a force can directly manage is limited, and the local opposition forces that an interest group can suppress are also limited.”

"The highly centralized power of the imperial court has become the common goal of all prefectures, provinces, and counties to erode the imperial court."

"When a dynasty was founded, after years of war, the land was scarce and the population was large. Officials were efficient and people were content. The court was able to collect enough taxes and had sufficient financial resources to meet the various needs of the localities. However, when the dynasty entered the middle, the distribution of benefits changed from land grabbing to a period of strong annexation."

"The large number of births during peacetime will increase the consumption of resources and land exponentially. How can the court have so much financial resources to solve so many local problems? This year's Shandong flood and next year's Jiangnan drought will both require the court to allocate funds for disaster relief."

"When the court runs out of financial resources, it will also lose control over the local areas. In the end, the so-called court will only be able to govern the capital."

(End of this chapter)