Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 108: China's Class Distribution over the Past Thousand Years (Subscription Request)
“I never thought that a small middle-class person could have such a big impact on the court.

Sister, it seems that I originally formulated those harsh taxes on merchants who run businesses.

Now it seems to be the right choice.

If these businessmen, or what this bastard calls the middle class, are allowed to develop further.

If the Ming Dynasty encounters a crisis in the future, they might even think of biting us back."

When Zhu Yuanzhang thought about how wise his decision was, he couldn't help but show off to Empress Ma.

But Queen Ma was not impressed by this, instead she thought about it more deeply.

"Chongba, don't be happy too soon. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, you have been suppressing merchants.

There are many businessmen in the private sector who want to run their business properly but fail to do so.

Even many chambers of commerce in the south formed fleets to travel to Southeast Asia.

The middle class's thoughts on the court were indeed fickle, and if they wanted to get something done, the prerequisite was chaos among the people.

Otherwise, these middle-class people only have money but no soldiers, and they are not a threat to the Ming Dynasty.

If you ask me, you should not force these people to be too nervous. Yang Chen also said that these middle-class people only love money.

If you give them a good deal, they will not only pay more taxes to you, but also keep the people stable, right?"

Old Zhu twirled his beard and snorted, without responding to Empress Ma's words.

Because Yang Chen's voice came from the next wall again.

On the podium, after Yang Chen finished talking about the middle class, he began to talk about the petty bourgeoisie.

“What is the petty bourgeoisie?
I believe you can all guess what it is based on the gradually decreasing order of classes that I mentioned earlier, so I won’t beat around the bush.

These petty bourgeoisie are mainly composed of self-employed farmers, handicraftsmen and small intellectuals.

They are relatively independent economically, but face the risk of collapse when faced with natural disasters and social unrest.

Please note that the self-cultivating farmers I mentioned here were already middle peasants and rich peasants for the people of the Ming Dynasty.

They did not need to work as tenant farmers for landlords, nor did they need to sell their bodies for food to survive.

These rich peasants can have enough food and drink relying on their family wealth. Generally speaking, they are not as good as the rich but better than the poor.

You can understand handicrafts as women weaving cloth in rich peasants' homes. There is a premise here.

Don’t attribute these women to the existence of being able to set up shop on the street.

Being able to own a shop, he is already middle class, not petty bourgeoisie.

As for the petty intellectuals, you can understand them as people who have a certain amount of knowledge. For example, someone like me who has no identity but has knowledge and others will pay me to be their teacher can be called a petty intellectual.

Small assets can generally be divided into three types.

The first type is what I said, not as good as the best but better than the worst, they sell their physical and mental strength to get money.

In addition to satisfying your own food, drink, and entertainment every year, you can also save some money.

These people are very profit-oriented. As long as he pays homage to Marshal Zhao Gong, he will worship the God of Wealth crazily during important holidays. He is the first type of person among the petty bourgeoisie.

They don't dare to dream of getting rich, but they always think about climbing up to the middle class. When they see those richer and more respected people than themselves, they will drool with envy.

At the same time, such people are very timid and afraid of officials and revolution.

They didn't have much property to begin with, and once a revolution broke out, or if they offended the officials, everything they had would be reduced to nothing.

For this reason, this group of people tend to think about getting closer to the middle class, and some of them are skeptical about the revolution. The number of people in this group is not large.

The second group of people is larger, such as the Weaver Girl and the teacher I just mentioned. If I were to give more examples, there would be vendors with their own shops on the street and juggling troupes.

These people are eager to get rich, and they are the ones who worship Marshal Zhao the most among the petty bourgeoisie.

Unfortunately, these people often don’t make much money, and Marshal Zhao will not bless them.

And with the emergence of revolution, they will become the targets of exploitation by the comprador and landlord classes.

Think about it, whenever there is troubled times, the imperial court increases harsh taxes. Can these people pay the taxes?
Even if you are unwilling, in order to save your life, you still have to pay the money in the end?"

Zhu Xiongying and Zhu Bo naturally did not understand this, as they had rarely left the palace since they were young.

There is not even a specific understanding of the people.

Zhu Xiongying was very distressed because she couldn't answer the question. She could only pout, frown, and her face gradually turned red. She was angry with herself.

On the contrary, Zhu Chong and Zhu Di were the ones who could best understand the second type of petty bourgeoisie people mentioned by Yang Chen.

Zhu Chong, in particular, spent the most time in his own fiefdom.

Under the instigation of Deng and his own greed, he imposed a lot of taxes.

For example, let’s judge it based on Zhu’s tax system.

People in the Ming Dynasty who make a living outside do not need to pay taxes as long as their income does not exceed three stones.

However, Zhu Chong secretly raised the tax conditions.

To facilitate their own embezzlement of taxes.

Those vendors who make a profit by selling various groceries.

Faced with these unreasonable tax systems, they can only be angry but not speak out, and they don’t even think about how to report it.

Instead, they pray to God all day long, praying that their business tomorrow will be better than today.

Yang Chen did not stop and continued to talk, introducing all the third types of people in the petty bourgeoisie class.

"The third group of people are those whose living standards have declined. These people were originally from well-off families.

Due to various changes, the family's financial situation began to deteriorate, but they were not unable to survive. In the end, life became increasingly worse.

The poor living standard is not objective, but rather a subjective view of their own.

To put it simply, I don’t care what you think, I only care what I think.

Every year when they settle their bills at home, they would sigh and say, "Oh! I lost money again!"

These people used to live a good life, but as their standard declined, they even ended up being heavily in debt and gradually lived a miserable life of frugality.

They can't help but look forward to the future. These people are in mental pain because they have a good time in the past to compare with.

They are very important in the revolutionary process and are considered a considerable group of people.

The three types of petty bourgeoisie mentioned above are a great force whether in troubled times or in peacetime.

Especially in prosperous times, the streets and alleys were basically filled with these people.

To this end, if we want to govern the country in peace, we must have a clear understanding of the small asset class.

Who is the enemy? Who is the friend? "

"Write it down, quick!"

Next door, Lao Zhu had moved the stool directly to the wall. He felt a little tired after standing for too long.

So for the sake of convenience, he asked someone to find a higher stool.

And let several trusted subordinates who are good at writing write down all the contents while listening.

He needs to go back and think about it carefully.

Without stopping, Yang Chen continued.

"After that, it's the semi-proletariat, which is the largest group in the Ming Dynasty!
This level includes semi-self-employed farmers, poor farmers, small industrialists, shop waiters, street vendors, etc.

The semi-self-employed farmers I am talking about here are different from the self-employed farmers mentioned earlier. I will explain them in detail later.

Regardless of the time or dynasty, semi-self-cultivating farmers and poor farmers are the group with the most problems and the most trouble.

The reason is that they have the largest crowd!

The so-called peasant uprising problem is mainly their problem.

Semi-self-cultivating farmers, poor farmers and small handicraftsmen are all engaged in smaller production economies, such as brewing their own grains, oils, rice and flour, as well as making and selling baskets woven by their own family.

Therefore, the vast majority of semi-self-employed farmers and poor farmers are "people" at the level of the semi-proletariat!"

Yang Chen placed great emphasis on the word "people"!
Because both Zhu Xiongying and Zhu Bo are there.

He believes that while the children are still young, we should emphasize what the concept of the other person is.
Many times, people have filters for things they have never seen.

But when Yang Chen really appeared in the Ming Dynasty, he discovered that most of the semi-proletarians were not considered human beings to ordinary people!
People belong to the landlords! In their eyes, the semi-proletarians and even more miserable people are not human beings, but cattle and horses! They are beasts!

In fact, this situation still existed in the twentieth century.

Especially in remote rural areas, many semi-self-employed farmers are oppressed by landlords.

And this is what Yang Chen is going to talk about next.

“Similar to the petty bourgeoisie I just mentioned, there are also rough divisions within the semi-proletariat.

It is divided into three categories: upper, middle and lower.

Semi-self-employed farmers live a harder life than petty-bourgeois self-employed farmers. Compared with self-employed farmers who can rely on their wealth to have enough food to eat, semi-self-employed farmers may spend half of the year starving.

The most classic example is when Your Majesty was a child."

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately showed various different expressions.

Zhu Biao was serious, Zhu Di and Zhu Chong didn't care, but Zhu Xiongying was curious and confused?

"Sir? You mean, Grandfather was a semi-proletarian, semi-self-employed farmer? Did he ever go hungry?"

"Yes sir, my father is the emperor of the world, he can have whatever he wants.
How could I possibly be hungry?"

Zhu Bo, who didn't believe it, kept shaking his head to express his attitude.

Hearing this, Yang Chen just smiled slightly.

“Xiong Ying, Zhu Bo, in your opinion, His Majesty may have lived a glorious life, but when he was as young as you.

Forget about eating meat. All year round, we could only eat porridge and pickles dug from the ground.

If you want to eat meat, you can only go to the market to buy lard during the Chinese New Year with the little money you have saved over the year.

When we get home, the whole family will share the lard rice together.

A single meal has to be shared with several brothers and sisters. This is the life of a semi-self-employed farmer.

In fact, His Majesty's life was good enough before. At least he had his own land, right?
Although it is small, the land belongs to him.

However, there are people who are even more miserable than him!

These people did not have enough food to eat and not enough land to cultivate, so they could only sell part of their labor to make up for it. During the spring and autumn, when there was a shortage of food, they had to bear high-interest loans and pay a lot of money to survive. Compared with the self-employed farmers who did not ask for anything from others, the fate of semi-self-employed farmers was very miserable, only better than that of poor farmers.

Because the poor peasants had no money and no land.

They can only cultivate wasteland, and the harvest is less than half of that of semi-self-employed farmers.

Therefore, the revolutionary nature of semi-self-cultivating farmers is better than that of self-cultivating farmers, but not as good as that of poor farmers.

Poor peasants are tenant farmers in remote areas and are exploited by the landlord class, comprador class and middle class I mentioned earlier.

Xiongying, if I say that your grandfather once went from being a semi-self-employed farmer to a poor farmer, would you believe it?"

Sitting on the stool, Zhu Xiongying focused his eyes and thought about it very seriously. He was originally going to shake his head but suddenly changed his mind and nodded.

"Xiong Yingxin!"

This answer was unexpected, and Yang Chen asked why?
Zhu Xiongying smiled and replied, "Because what you said must have its reasons. You are a very knowledgeable person and the most amazing person I have ever met. You are completely different from those people who can only read books.

Therefore, whatever the gentleman said, Xiongying believed it!"

In the next seat, Old Zhu felt more and more uncomfortable the more he listened.

"No? Sister, we didn't hear what kind of drugs Yang Chen gave to his grandson?

Why does our darling grandson listen to him so much?

You believe everything I say? Is this guy doing something secretly?"

Queen Ma covered her mouth and laughed secretly, squinting her eyes, appearing to be very happy.

"Don't let your imagination run wild. Xiongying is smarter than you and I think. How could he not be able to tell who is the bad guy and who is the good guy?

Didn’t Xiongying say it just now? Yang Chen is different from other gentlemen. He gave Xiongying something he had never seen before.

The child yearns for the unknown, and what Yang Chen did is just what he wants.

How can a good grandson not like it?"

Hearing this, Lao Zhu subconsciously nodded in agreement, but then shook his head.

"That won't do! This kid is very clever, and no one knows whether he will do something bad to his beloved grandson.

We can’t blame our grandson for liking this guy.”

Empress Ma noticed Zhu's tough attitude. The old man was just jealous that Yang Chen could become familiar with him so quickly.

Compared to him, Zhu Biao was much more relieved.

Originally, he planned to let Yang Chen teach Zhu Xiongying to become a successful person, and he was worried that his son would not like this teacher.

Now it seems that this worry is unnecessary.

Zhu Xiongying believed from the bottom of his heart that Yang Chen was the best teacher he had ever seen.

With role models in place, are you still worried that students won’t learn well?
"Your Majesty's family once had their own land, and as semi-self-employed farmers, they lived a miserable life.

But with the advent of the chaotic era of war, the semi-self-employed farmers gradually declined into poor peasants.

In the past, Your Majesty, who was the same age as Xiongying, had to raise cattle for the landlords just to survive.

Do you think that the life of such poor peasants is already miserable?

Wrong! Poor peasants are also divided into upper and lower parts.

Some poor peasants have relatively sufficient farm tools and a certain amount of stored grain, but these farmers receive less than half of the results of their labor each year.

But they could dig wild vegetables, dig out bird nests, catch groundhogs, fish and shrimps, and look for spring bamboo shoots, and they sold their physical labor in exchange for food, and barely made ends meet. In the midst of hardship and desperation, they could still hope to survive the rest of the year. Therefore, their life was harder than that of semi-self-cultivating farmers, but better than that of the lower poor peasants. Their revolutionary nature was better than that of semi-self-cultivating farmers, but not as good as that of the lower poor peasants.

Another part of the poor peasants are even more miserable. They have no farm tools, no fields, and no fertilizers. Where did their land go?
They were annexed by the powerful, by the gentry, by the greedy landlords and compradors!
Your Majesty was at this level before, and you had suffered oppression before. You had lived a diligent life, but the officials who came to collect taxes told you that you owed hundreds of years and thousands of taels of silver in taxes for no reason?

It can be said that the debt is piled up like an ox carrying a heavy load.

This is simply forcing people to death.

These poor peasants are the hardest-working among the peasants and are most susceptible to revolutionary propaganda, as can be seen from the uprisings at the end of each dynasty.

Most of the rebel army's main fighting force is composed of these peasants. As long as they can have something to eat, they are willing to follow you.

However, those small handicraftsmen could not withstand the destruction because their means of livelihood were too simple.

If the farmers cannot survive, it means they cannot survive either, and in the end, everything will be a total loss.

In this regard, they are just like the poor peasants, and are easily receptive to revolutionary propaganda. These people need a revolution to change the status quo! "

Below the stage, Zhu Biao looked extremely solemn.

He knew very well how important what Yang Chen said today was.

In the past, they called everyone in the Ming Dynasty, except the officials, "common people", and they did not understand that there were many different classes among the common people.

The sufferings suffered by each class and how to solve the problems they encounter are completely different.

'No wonder Brother Yang said that as long as you master his method, you can tell who is the enemy and who is the friend.

By disassembling them one by one, it is not impossible to find the root cause of the problem.

Seconds are wonderful.'

Zhu Biao had just ordered someone to find paper and pen, and he wrote down everything himself.

These things are so important that they are comparable to the teachings of saints.

In Zhu Biao's mind, only a "person" who is above the saint can clearly distinguish the differences between the common people.

Seeing the eager eyes of the crowd, Yang Chen ignored his dry throat and continued:

"Next, it's the proletariat.

In fact, in the entire Ming Dynasty, among the 60 million people, there are many people of this level.

Where then are these proletarians?

Workers working as coal miners in the mountains and as coolies at the docks lost their original land because their hometowns suffered from natural disasters and man-made calamities.

It is also possible that their land was taken away by powerful landlords, and they were unwilling to become tenant farmers, so they wandered around to make a living.

They have nothing but their hands.

Among the large-scale uprising army, they have the strongest fighting power! Their status is generally similar to that of semi-self-cultivating farmers and poor farmers.

As for the last item, it is the peasant uprising army or the bandits in the mountains.

A group of people led by one person, with no political aspirations, the only way for them to fight the war is to stick together.

In fact, these people should have no name, but if we have to discuss them, they can actually be called vagrant proletarians.

They are composed of refugees without any products. If they can emerge victorious, they will be the strongest fighting force against the imperial court.

This group of people are brave and good at fighting, but they also have great destructive power and do not know how to unite. There are only two ways to deal with them.

The first one is undoubtedly killing!

Self-righteous, arrogant and ignorant, he does not accept the control of rules. He is an insurgent during the day and a bandit at night. What's the point of keeping such people alive if not killing them?
The second way is to persuade them and make them a force in the revolution.

In the last years, there are countless similar examples. "

"To sum up, do you know how to govern the country?"

Yang Chen turned sideways, pointed at the rows and columns of words on the blackboard, and asked questions to everyone.

Unfortunately, although they know how to distinguish levels, they don’t know how to distinguish friends.

Many times, it’s not about right or wrong, but where the butt sits, what he says belongs to that place.

Seeing that everyone was silent, Yang Chen touched his nose.

"Well, in that case, I will just announce the answer.

All bureaucrats, comprador classes and reactionary intellectuals who harbor evil intentions and mislead people and affect peace are our enemies.

What are reactionary intellectuals?

Those who have been away from the grassroots for too long, have never experienced a day of hardship, but talk big are reactionary intellectuals.

In their eyes, they can be high-ranking officials or big landowners.

The reason why the people rioted was not because they were bullied and oppressed by them!

It is because the people are stupid, greedy and do not know how to be satisfied.

Whether in peacetime or wartime, these people are always deceiving their superiors and subordinates.

As for the big landlord class and above that you represent, it is easy for them to be confused by the above-mentioned class.

Think about how many dynasties perished, where the rebels had already reached the city gates, but the emperor sitting in the court didn't even know about it?"

Yang Chen's words quickly made everyone next door think of someone.

Emperor Chongzhen!
They clearly remembered that Emperor Chongzhen convened a court meeting before his death, but all the officials had already fled and dispersed.

Who cares about his status as emperor?
In the end, he could only hang himself on the mountain with a eunuch.

"And who are our friends? All the forces led by the industrial proletariat, all the semi-proletarians and petty bourgeoisie are our friends!
Only by uniting all the oppressed and exploited peasants can we defeat those enemies!
During this period, there will be some people who are wavering, and these people are the middle class.

They will be divided into two groups, one group maintaining the comprador rank and wanting to improve their own rank afterwards.

The other faction supports the revolution. We can use these people, but we must pay attention to what they do afterwards.

Otherwise it would be easy to steal the fruits of the revolutionary victory.

Just like Your Majesty did in the past, waiting for the Northern Yuan Dynasty to withdraw from the Central Plains before competing with other overlords.

These people do not understand the overall situation and have no sense of the overall situation. They would rather be rats in Jiangdong than surrender and allow the Central Plains to restore a unified situation.

What's worse, some of them thought they had not failed, so they fled the Central Plains with their scattered soldiers and generals, colluded with foreign enemies, and invaded and affected the situation in the Central Plains.

These people are the losers after the middle class supporters.

Perhaps there are such people in our team, so we must find them out and be on guard against them at all times.

We must not let them distract us from the right direction.”

The haze that had originally shrouded everyone's hearts finally disappeared after hearing Yang Chen's words.

All doubts became clear.

To govern a country is to find friends and fight enemies to the death!

If you know how to distinguish classes, you can find friends and identify enemies!
Ahem. Some words cannot be mentioned, they are easy to be praised, I hope readers don’t mind

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(End of this chapter)