I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 516 The Current Situation of Ming Dynasty

Zhu Houxuan helplessly discovered that many of the things he had done before had actually greatly increased the resistance to the current reform.
When people are poor, they seek change. Who is willing to reform when they are rich and strong?
This is the current situation of the Ming Dynasty. The current situation of the Ming Dynasty has exceeded everyone's imagination. The situation of the Ming Dynasty is so good, what reform is there?

Zhu Houxuan had no good solution for this trend of thought, because he had no choice but to choose this order of reform.

He also wanted to start the current series of reforms after arriving in the capital in the ninth year of Zhengde. At that time, the court was poor and embarrassed enough, and it was estimated that many officials would support the reforms.

But it was not possible to do so at that time. Zhu Houxun's investigation of the land of the garrisons was to prepare for the nationwide land clearing. The nationwide land clearing was to prepare for the equalization of the land tax. After the equalization of the land tax, officials and gentry would serve as officials and pay taxes together.

If Zhu Houxun had done this in the ninth year of Zhengde, it would be hard to tell how to write the word "death". He also did not have the prestige and power to do it. Not only did he not have it, but Zhu Houzhao did not have it either.

Everyone can see what Zhu Houzhao's style was like in the ninth year of Zhengde. He was simply unable to push forward such reforms.

Therefore, Zhu Houxun could only expand the cake through industrialization and finance, because this was suitable for him who had a shallow political foundation, and because it would not touch the core interests of the feudal forces of the Ming Dynasty and would not cause a backlash from the feudal forces.

Then use Zhu Houzhao's imperial power to protect this part of the cake from being coveted by the gentry and royal family, and then use this part of the cake to help Zhu Houzhao win one victory after another, so that Zhu Houzhao's prestige will continue to increase.

At the same time, it also continuously promotes the growth and development of the Royal Group, making the Royal Group's strength continue to grow.

It took more than ten years of hard work to accumulate enough power and capital to promote these reforms.

Zhu Houzhao, whose prestige was at its peak, had 150,000 of the most elite guards, and the Ming royal group with a population of over ten million. This was the most solid backing for the current reform.

The reason why Zhu Houxuan implemented these reforms at this time was to crack down on the gentry and royal family members, because they controlled a large amount of land and population, and Zhu Houxuan also wanted these resources.

Zhu Houxuan has been committed to increasing the size of the economy over the past decade, and now he is finally able to reform the existing stock of the Ming Dynasty.
Reform is essentially a process of redistribution of interests, and what Zhu Houxuan has to do now is to redistribute the existing interests of the Ming Dynasty, so he felt resistance at the very beginning, but he had to do it anyway despite the resistance.

Another important reason for the reform is that the living conditions of the lower classes of the Ming Dynasty are getting worse. Yes, it is so counterintuitive. As the Ming Dynasty has won one victory after another in foreign wars, the living conditions of the lower classes of the Ming Dynasty have become worse.
The Ming Dynasty was still too big. Although Zhu Houxuan went into industry and finance, the bigger the pie was, the more it could benefit the people who were affected by the Royal Group, while supporting Zhu Houzhao in launching wars. The lives of the people who were not affected by the Royal Group became worse.
After all, the impact of industry on traditional handicrafts is extremely huge. Industrial products produced by factories under the name of the Royal Group are dumped all over the Ming Dynasty, causing traditional handicrafts to go bankrupt and many Ming people to lose a lot of income sources.

Industry and commerce are also the interests of many gentry and royal family members. Their interests in industry and commerce have been impacted by the royal group, and they can only exploit ordinary people even more to make up for their losses in industry and commerce.

As for the financial industry, you should know that the financial industry does not create any wealth, it only transfers wealth. Zhu Houxuan founded the Royal Bank and issued silver coins and silver dollar certificates of various denominations, which brought a lot of convenience to the people of the Ming Dynasty, but in essence it was collecting seigniorage, which was an equal and indiscriminate exploitation of all the people of the Ming Dynasty.

It's just that ordinary people have relatively little wealth, so they have much less resistance to this kind of exploitation, and they can go bankrupt if they're not careful.
Therefore, in the face of this era of constant change, the lives of many Ming people have become worse.
In fact, Zhu Houxuan had already noticed this problem. Although he was a time traveler, he was not a god. The development of the Royal Group still had to abide by the objective laws of development. The Royal Group was really unable to benefit all the people of the Ming Dynasty and reduce the burden on all the people of the Ming Dynasty while supporting the war launched by Zhu Houzhao.

The reason why all parts of the Ming Dynasty remain stable and there are no major disturbances is because Zhu Houxun has the trump card to eliminate unrest in his hands - immigration.

The people of the Ming Dynasty who were in desperate situation had a new choice - immigration!
Changing to a new place and starting over, no matter how passive, helpless, and painful this choice is, it can give them new hope and allow them to continue living.
This is also one of the reasons why Zhu Houxuan has been increasing his investment in immigration in recent years.
Immigrants can not only open up land, but also resolve social conflicts.

In recent years, when social conflicts in a place were about to accumulate to a peak, Zhu Houxuan would ask the Royal Group to organize immigration. Immigration was the pressure relief valve for social conflicts, and local officials also cooperated very well because they were not stupid and could see the conflicts among the people, and they also had the ability to resolve these conflicts.

Zhu Houxuan could not fundamentally resolve these conflicts, at least in the first few years, he did not have the ability or energy to resolve them, so he chose to directly resolve the people who would cause unrest, and emigrated them, and the conflicts were naturally resolved.
This method is quick and effective and has been proven to work.

But now the social contradictions in the Ming Dynasty are becoming more and more acute, and it is no longer possible to suppress them by immigration alone. After all, the navigation technology of this era is just like that, and only a certain number of people can immigrate every year.

So Zhu Houxuan decided to reform. He was going to reduce the burden on all the people of the Ming Dynasty, and let the gentry and royal family bear these burdens.
In addition, Zhu Houxuan also wanted to transform the entire Ming society, transforming it from a feudal society into an industrialized society. This required sweeping away feudal ideas and firmly grasping the grassroots of the Ming Dynasty. These gentry controlled the discourse power of the grassroots of the Ming Dynasty and had a huge influence on the grassroots people of the Ming Dynasty. They were the biggest enemy in Zhu Houxuan's plan.
So Zhu Houxun wanted to use the knife of reform on them.

This is the whole background of Zhu Houxuan's reform.
So facing Liang Chu, who was full of expectations, Zhu Houxuan could only patiently prevaricate.

Liang Chu left with a look of disappointment on his face. He had a vague idea of ​​what Zhu Houxuan was going to do.
(End of this chapter)