Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1066 Centralization and Constitutionalism

From the current perspective, the Ming Dynasty can be said to be thriving. With the strong suppression of the Donglin Party and several other parties, the imperial power has also been consolidated. In addition, the military power is also controlled by the emperor. With the support of the nobles and the military, the long-standing tradition of the Ming Dynasty has been changed. Although it has not yet recovered to the level of the Taizu and Taizong period, it is much better than the previous situation where the nobles and military generals were suppressed by the civil official group.

It can be said that Zhu Shenzhu was the emperor with the most stable imperial power since Zhengde. Zhengde was the last emperor in history who truly controlled the military power and could directly compete with the civil service group. After Zhengde, although Jiajing used political means to balance and controlled the court for decades, he was not as good as Zhengde in controlling the imperial power. Apart from other things, he was almost killed by assassinations many times, and finally hid under the pretext of practicing Taoism and did not see people or attend court.

As for the emperors after Jiajing, although Longqing made some political reforms, he died too early. Needless to say, Wanli lived under the shadow of Zhang Juzheng in the first 20 years, and then he destroyed the reform results of Zhang Juzheng himself because of the instigation of the civil service group in the next few decades. After waking up, he resisted in vain and finally died in despair.

After Wanli's death, the Taichang Emperor, who reigned for less than a month, did nothing but destroy the system left by Wanli and vigorously promoted the Donglin Party at that time. After the death of Emperor Taichang, Emperor Tianqi came to power. Emperor Tianqi did something and was very resourceful. He used Wei Zhongxian to suppress the Donglin Party, established the Emperor Party on the grounds of the Eunuch Party, seized the right to speak, consolidated the imperial power, and defended against the Jiannu. Internally, he stabilized the finances by strengthening the taxation in Jiangnan. During the Tianqi period, the overall situation of the Ming Dynasty was relatively stable, and the people lived a good life. Even with natural disasters and foreign wars, the Ming Dynasty as a whole was still as stable as Mount Tai.

Unfortunately, it was these actions of Tianqi that angered the emerging class group, which led to Emperor Tianqi's fall into the water and death for unknown reasons. The way of his death was almost identical to that of Emperor Zhengde before him, which made people wonder what the problem was.

After Emperor Tianqi passed away, Chongzhen came to power. Not to mention the problems of Chongzhen, in just a few years, he made the country go from bad to worse, the people were living in misery, and rebellions broke out everywhere. If Zhu Shenzhu had not led his troops into Beijing in the name of pacifying the rebellion, thus controlling the government and eventually replacing him, it would be a question whether the Ming Dynasty would still exist.

But even so, Zhu Shenzhui has been considering the future institutional issues of the Ming Dynasty.

With the thoughts of later generations, Zhu Shenzhui did not have the rigid thinking of today's people, or he did not oppose some changes or even reforms in the Ming Dynasty. But the problem is that where the butt is, the head is there. In other words, the butt determines the thinking, which even Zhu Shenzhui cannot avoid.

Power is like poison, beautiful and tempting. Moreover, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Shenzhui is now the ruler of the world. From his own perspective and for the sake of future generations, it is impossible for Zhu Shenzhui to give up the imperial power and hand over the power in his hands.

Moreover, even if he did this, who could guarantee the stability and complete safety of Zhu Shenzhu and his descendants? There was no guarantee that these class groups that took over power would govern the country well. This has been proven by history. The country is not only not good in the hands of these people, but also has great disadvantages. Whether for public or private reasons, Zhu Shenzhu would not easily hand over power.

Chinese politics is different from Western politics. In Chinese history, political concessions are impossible. Once you retreat, you will face an abyss, and not only will you die without a burial place, but your family will also be unable to survive.

There is an old Chinese saying, "If you don't cut the grass at the root, it will grow again in the spring breeze." This is even more true in politics. The struggle is extremely cruel, and this is true for both ministers and emperors. Some have a good ending, such as Emperor Xian of Han, Liu Houzhu, Li Yuan, and Zhu Youjian, but many more end up dying and their countries being destroyed, and being completely eradicated.

Zhu Shenzhui was not a three-year-old child, nor was he naive like a saint. He knew that even if he wanted to carry out reforms, he had to do so step by step, and the premise was to ensure the stability of his rule. If he took a big step, he would not only get hurt, but also lead to extremely serious consequences.

In addition, Zhu Shenzhui also knew that the centralized rule of China or the Ming Dynasty had reached its peak. The Ming Dynasty can be said to be the highest point of the political structure during the feudal period in Chinese history. Although the Qing Dynasty in history was nominally called the culmination of Chinese feudal society, from Zhu Shenzhui's point of view, although the Qing Dynasty in history continued the Ming Dynasty in terms of political structure, due to the ethnic reasons of the Qing Dynasty, the dual system from the beginning made its political foundation unstable and inherently deficient. Later, in order to safeguard its own rights and interests, the ruling class carried out ignorant rule and cruel suppression for political purposes, coupled with various means such as enslavement and literary inquisition, so the political system of the Qing Dynasty in history was actually regressing, which also led to the Qing Dynasty falling behind the world and being beaten up by Western countries.

Although the political structure of the Ming Dynasty was more complete than that of the Qing Dynasty in history, the Ming Dynasty was not without weaknesses and problems. Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty would not have become like that before Zhu Shenzhui and almost perished.

Although Zhu Shenzhui has pulled the Ming Dynasty back from the cliff and has a faint atmosphere of revival, and Zhu Shenzhui believes that if he is given 20 years, the future Ming Dynasty will surely be glorious again and enter a prosperous era again. But what does it matter? Even so, the Ming Dynasty has only experienced another reincarnation. Just like the two Han dynasties in history, after the demise of the Western Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty rose again, but as time goes by, many actual contradictions will continue to erupt. When these contradictions accumulate to a certain extent, the Ming Dynasty will still not be able to escape the ending of changing dynasties. This can be said to be sad and helpless.

Chinese history has nearly 2,000 years of feudal dynasties, and none of these dynasties escaped the vicious cycle of rise, prosperity, decline, and destruction. The end of a dynasty is also the time when another new dynasty rises. Flowers bloom and fall, spring goes and autumn comes, and the new replaces the old, which is eternal and unchanging.

This seems to have become the inevitable outcome of all dynasties in China. If Zhu Shenzhui only wanted to restore the Ming Dynasty, he could easily do it. But it is not so easy to avoid this vicious circle, and even Zhu Shenzhui himself is not sure.

The key lies in the limitations of Chinese people's thinking. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty promoted Confucianism as the only doctrine and abolished all other schools of thought, Confucianism has become a tool of the rulers. This thinking has been deeply rooted over the past two thousand years. In addition, later dynasties have tampered with and purposefully promoted Confucianism many times out of the need to rule, leading to the current situation.

Zhu Shenzhui was not a god, and he had no way to completely change the situation. He also knew that it was impossible for him to do such a thing. Because the rule of the Ming Dynasty was built on this basis, and as the emperor, he was the biggest vested interest. Once these were denied, the Ming Dynasty would no longer exist.

In other words, the emergence of the capitalist class or the embryo of capitalism in Jiangnan was actually a progress from the perspective of history. However, this progress had a fierce conflict with the existing ruling class and political system, which led to the emergence of factional struggles in the Ming Dynasty and the situation that almost destroyed the country.

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Shenzhui had actually become a factor that "hindered social progress". If he were in history books of later generations, he might be evaluated as a negative example, or even thought that it was the emergence of Zhu Shenzhui and his brutal suppression of the Donglin Party, including the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, that curbed the progress of capitalism in China, thus reversing history.

Of course, Zhu Shenzhui didn't know whether this was true or not, and he couldn't travel back to the future to see with his own eyes how history would evaluate him. But given the current situation, continuing the way of the previous dynasties was a dead end, and completely letting go would not work either, which was also a dead end.

That is why Zhu Shencui resorted to external expansion and even used the policy of sealing off clan members from the outside to ease domestic conflicts. If the external sealing was done well, and the Ming Dynasty gained ground overseas, then in the future the Ming Dynasty could greatly ease the problems of land annexation and population explosion within the Ming Dynasty through immigration and other means. In addition, new crops would increase grain production, which Zhu Shencui had already done a long time ago, and the effect was quite good.

But this can only delay the contradiction or delay the outbreak of the problem. The essence of the contradiction is still there and has not been truly resolved. This is also the main reason for the change of dynasties in Chinese history. Zhu Shenzhui is very clear about this. If you want to really jump out of this vicious circle, the only feasible way is to start with the political system itself, or to completely change the fundamental supremacy of the monarchy and centralization, so as to gradually open up the people's wisdom, weaken the rule of Confucianism, change the existing solidified class, and even weaken the imperial power, and finally achieve constitutional monarchy and transition from feudal society to capitalist society.

This outcome has been proven by history. In later history, the surviving monarchies are often constitutional monarchies. The king or emperor is merely a symbol of the country and no longer possesses the powerful power he had before. More power is held by the cabinet, parliament and various political parties. It is also for this reason that the dynasty can be better continued and the transcendent status of the royal family can be ensured.

Those centralized and powerful countries in the past gradually disappeared in the subsequent history, such as the Qing Dynasty, the French Empire and the German Empire that were once powerful in Europe, as well as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, etc. The monarchs of these countries were once powerful, but they all disappeared in history. On the contrary, the monarchs of constitutional monarchies survived and were still active in world politics until the 21st century.

Zhu Shenzhui was aware of this, but he also understood that it was not easy to accomplish this in the Ming Dynasty. Even in Europe, constitutional monarchy was never the result of the king's voluntary concession, but was the result of class confrontation and political struggle.

It can be said that the wiser the ruler, the less likely it is that a constitutional monarchy will occur. Just like the French Emperor Napoleon and the German Emperor William I, it was because of their strong reign and the strength of their country that a constitutional monarchy could not occur. On the contrary, countries with weak kings are more likely to have such a situation. This has to be said to be an interesting phenomenon.

(End of this chapter)