Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 437 Suppression! Literacy Education! The Tragedy of Involution!

Although Zhu Yunwen did not explicitly state the abolition of the status of "lowly" (a status indicating social inferiority), he hinted at it on several occasions.

Yang Shiqi, of course, understood the implication and had already made preparations.

Therefore, when refuting this, the words become very sharp.

Wang Zuo, not to be outdone, immediately retorted, "I dare not agree with what Lord Yang has said."

"I humbly believe that abolishing the distinction between household registration and the system of lowly status is an unfeasible proposal."

"The social status of households is the foundation of our dynasty and the key to maintaining social order."

"Since ancient times, scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants have each been content with their place. People of low social status have inherited their positions through generations, either because of crimes or because of their occupations. This is all in accordance with the principles of Heaven and human ethics."

"If it is abolished suddenly, there will be no distinction between the noble and the lowly, the order between superiors and inferiors will be lost, and the people's hearts will surely be in turmoil."

"Imagine, if the lowly were treated the same as the respectable, how could they possibly gain the respect of the people?"

“Those people have long been in a lowly position, or may harbor resentment. Once they are released from their confinement, they may have unrealistic ambitions, disturb the fields, seize the interests of scholars, or even gather crowds to cause trouble and shake the foundation of the state.”

"The imperial court established the register not to treat people harshly, but to educate them, so that they would know their place and keep to their proper roles, thus ensuring the peace and stability of the nation."

“If there is no distinction between household registrations, the law will be abandoned and the country will cease to exist.”

"Your Majesty, I implore you to reconsider. The lowly status of a person should not be lightly abolished, for this is the foundation of long-term stability and peace."

……

The two argued fiercely, their words sharp and veiled, neither willing to yield.

The debate was intense and heated, with voices rising and falling in waves.

Before long, others also got involved in the dispute, and the hall was filled with noise and the arguing was like boiling water, difficult to control.

However, Zhu Yunwen sat upright above, his gaze calm and composed, and he had already discerned the clues in his eyes.

This matter is quite different from other political affairs, and no matter how much debate there is, it is unlikely that a conclusion will be reached.

At its core, this is not a simple debate about right and wrong, but a deeper clash of interests that touches on everyone's fundamental position.

For example, in the college entrance examination of later generations, parents in each province are well aware that those regions that have benefited from the current system would never want their children to share the same test paper or be admitted at the same ratio as those in the most competitive provinces.

Selfishness is a human trait.

The same is true in the Ming Dynasty. The people are loudly proclaiming their support for the new education and their endorsement of "universal justice."

Upon closer examination, their so-called "fairness" is nothing more than a desire to be on equal footing with the high and mighty class, rather than a genuine willingness to share rights with those lowly commoners.

Once their vested interests are threatened, they will rise up in opposition, arguing vehemently and refusing to back down.

No matter how many lofty principles they cite, they can always find a plausible excuse to refute all of them.

Because reasoning only works for those who are willing to listen.

For those who insist on refusing to listen, they have countless ways to muddy the waters and obscure the truth.

What's the point?
They don't want to talk at all; they just want to protect their own interests.

Faced with this situation, Zhu Yunwen knew perfectly well that verbal arguments alone would not be enough to break the deadlock.

Only decisive action can settle the matter once and for all.

Thinking of this, he suddenly stood up and resolutely shouted, "You need not argue any further! My mind is made up on this matter. From this day forward, I will issue an edict to abolish the system of lowly status, and all the people of the world will be good citizens!"

He paused, his tone softening slightly, but still carrying an undeniable air of authority: "When selecting talent, the various departments of the imperial court can still investigate whether their ancestors for three generations committed any crimes."

“In principle, no one may hold an official position for three generations after a criminal.”

"In special circumstances, a report may be submitted to the imperial court, which will make a separate decision after a rigorous examination."

"All other restrictions are hereby abolished and will not be imposed upon you!"

Upon hearing this, the hall fell silent instantly; you could hear a pin drop.

Immediately, Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, Yao Guangxiao, and Xia Yuanji stepped forward in unison, bowed, and said, "Your Majesty is wise!"

"Your Majesty..." Wang Zuo was still unwilling to give up and wanted to remonstrate again.

However, at that moment, Zhan Hui glanced at him without changing his expression, his eyes conveying a hint of approval, and then respectfully echoed, "Your Majesty is wise."

Seeing this, Wang Zuo's lips moved slightly, as if a thousand words were stuck in his throat, but in the end, they turned into a helpless sigh, and he lowered his head and said, "Your subject obeys the decree."

His tone was tinged with reluctance, and his shoulders slumped slightly, clearly indicating that he was still struggling internally but had no choice but to succumb to the prevailing trend.

Zhu Yunwen narrowed his dragon eyes slightly, instantly discerning the plans in their minds.

The new learning and new policies have been sweeping through the government and the public for a long time. Now that the reforms are to be implemented in a sweeping manner, the abolition of the lowly status was obviously expected by everyone and can hardly be considered a world-shaking event.

Compared to the ruthless measures taken to divide the land of wealthy landowners, abolishing the status of "lowly" was merely a change in household registration and identity, and had little actual impact on the officials in the court.

After all, most people in the world are good citizens, and those of low social status are relatively few.

This move simply increases the number of law-abiding citizens by a few points.

Wang Zuo's fierce resistance to this matter stemmed from his deeply ingrained conservative views, which considered the distinction between superiors and inferiors to be a matter of course and unshakeable.

On the other hand, it is a hidden scheme to use this incident as leverage to gain more room for maneuver in subsequent negotiations.

His calculations were shrewd: if I make a concession on abolishing the status of citizens, shouldn't it be your turn to make concessions when other new policies are implemented?

This was Wang Zuo's true plan.

His expression was entirely contrived.

However, Zhu Yunwen didn't care at all.

He was confident because the next few new policies would not touch upon any fundamental conflicts of interest, and there was no need to confront his ministers.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yunwen spoke loudly, his tone firm and composed: "The fifth new policy is to build a normal university, cultivate a large number of teachers, and promote the official language of the Ming Dynasty."

"At the same time, it is ordered that public schools be established in various places, not only to enlighten children, but also to provide supplementary courses for adults during the off-season for farming, to teach them to speak Mandarin, read the Da Ming Daily, master basic arithmetic, and completely get rid of the predicament of illiteracy."

Earlier, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang had used an iron fist to promote "compulsory education," ordering the establishment of public schools in various places and even extending the light of education to remote villages.

Although this move was farsighted, it drew criticism from court officials who condemned it as a waste of resources and manpower, with little effect.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang overruled all objections and used his supreme authority to suppress dissent, pushing the matter forward.

Following the normal historical trajectory, these public schools would likely have been abandoned after Zhu Yuanzhang's death.

The officials of the court all regarded it as a bottomless pit, spending countless amounts of silver but seeing little return, and had long harbored resentment.

However, Zhu Yunwen's sudden emergence completely reversed this trajectory.

"My grandfather, the Emperor, established public schools, which laid the foundation for the Ming Dynasty's golden age."

"Now that I have inherited his will, I will surely carry forward this path and make it great, so that all the people of the world will have books to read and their wisdom will be enlightened!"

Zhu Yunwen first raised the banner of the founding emperor high, his tone carrying a sense of solemnity and remembrance.

Inheriting the late emperor's will is a matter of course, filial piety, and also the undisputed "political orthodoxy" of this era.

Anyone who dares to openly disagree on this is essentially courting disaster.

Then, he changed the subject and continued, "As the ancients said, 'Mastering both literary and martial arts is the way to serve the emperor,' but the talent needed by the court is ultimately limited."

"The imperial examination system selects officials, but only one out of a hundred can stand out. Even if a scholar is full of knowledge, he will find it difficult to establish himself in the world if he is not employed by the court."

"As the saying goes, 'A scholar is useless in a hundred ways,' how tragic is this statement!"

Zhu Yunwen's tone shifted slightly: "Now that I have pioneered the path of science and opened up a new era, all walks of life are eager for literate and reasonable people."

"As far as I know, private schools are now seeing a surge in students, with every seat filled."

"I established public schools not for the purpose of selecting talents through the imperial examinations, but to enable all the people of the land to be literate and to acquire skills for making a living!"

"To enable ordinary people to acquire craftsmanship and work in factories, so that even if they have no land, they can still make a living with their skills."

"The imperial court should provide partial subsidies for the expenses required for public schools, and may also charge a small tuition fee as appropriate."

"This move benefits the country and its people; surely you gentlemen would not object?"

The Ming Dynasty is now on the eve of its industrialization, and its need for talent is urgent and desperate.

Zhu Yunwen felt that starting from childhood and nurturing children step by step was too slow and could not keep up with the rapid pace of industrial development.

Only by launching a massive nationwide literacy campaign can we solve this urgent problem!
Admittedly, apart from a few exceptionally gifted individuals, most of the talents nurtured by this "literacy campaign" struggled to grasp advanced cultural knowledge.

Even so, as long as they had a basic understanding of writing and a little arithmetic, they were qualified to work as ordinary craftsmen in the factory.

That is enough.

Future generations will naturally have a higher level of cultural literacy, passing on the torch from generation to generation.

Unlike his father, Zhu Yunwen, who left the public schools to be managed independently in various regions, Zhu Yunwen was determined to find a different path.

The teachers will be trained in a centralized manner and then sent to various places to establish schools.

The teaching materials are standardized, and the teaching methods are consistent.

This would significantly reduce the expenses required to run the school. Just the cost of printing and publishing books in a unified manner could save a considerable amount of money.

It can also be an opportunity to popularize scientific and cultural knowledge, instead of just teaching the Four Books and Five Classics like the old private schools.

In addition, we should take this opportunity to promote the official language of the Ming Dynasty.

Get more in one fell swoop.

Zhan Hui bowed slightly, his tone respectful yet composed: "Your Majesty's actions are a great achievement for generations to come, benefiting all the people. I deeply admire them and have no objections."

"However, I dare to suggest that the court's financial resources are limited, and when implementing this policy, we must proceed with caution and within our means."

Wang Zuo followed closely behind, cupping his hands in agreement: "Your subject agrees with Lord Zhan's words."

Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, and others naturally had no objection.

None of the six ministers opposed Zhu Yunwen's new policy; they only reminded him to keep it within the limits of the court's financial resources.

This reaction was exactly what Zhu Yunwen had anticipated.

For thousands of years, educating and enlightening the people has been the imperial court's duty.

Enlightening the people and imparting the wisdom of sages has always been the foundation of governing a country.

When the imperial court promotes education, who dares to openly oppose it?
If one really wants to disagree, the only way is to use the excuse of "insufficient financial resources." There is no other way.

Of course, this will still be a major obstacle when it comes to its implementation.

The "compulsory education" system that Lao Zhu established is the best example.

However, the finances of the Ming Dynasty are not what they used to be.

Zhu Yunwen was also confident that he could carry it out.

Immediately afterward, Zhu Yunwen continued, "Besides this, I have several other plans to implement."

"First, improve the recruitment system for the new army, making it more rigorous and standardized, and making up for minor oversights."

"Secondly, the issuance of war bonds was not only to raise military funds, but also to allow the people to benefit from them, to unite the people's hearts, and to jointly carry out the great cause of expanding the territory abroad."

"Third, implement the Five-Year Plan for National Economic Development, coordinate the construction of roads, transportation, and farmland irrigation across the country, increase the number of manufacturing plants, with a particular emphasis on shipyards, in order to strengthen ties with overseas countries."

The new army has already taken shape; now it's just a matter of refining the system to ensure it's watertight.

Issuing war bonds, ostensibly for fundraising, actually conceals a deeper purpose.

This would allow more people to benefit from the war, thus contributing to the imperial court's grand ambition of expanding its territory.

As for the construction of the economy, roads, water conservancy and factories, these had already begun. However, there were no precedents for these things before, and they were all promoted by Zhu Yunwen alone, with each department of the court doing its own thing.

Now it's just a matter of unifying and coordinating.

Upon hearing this, Zhan Hui, Wang Zuo, and others relaxed their brows slightly and did not object vehemently anymore.

After all, most of these measures had already been put into practice, and it was only a natural progression for the court to put them on the right track.

Even if there are occasional dissenting opinions, they are limited to considerations of execution details and are harmless.

Next, Zhu Yunwen proposed a crucial national policy: environmental protection!

In the agricultural era, the concept of environmental protection was completely different from that of later generations. In later generations, the core challenge of environmental protection lies in controlling various types of pollution.

Water pollution, air pollution, solid waste pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, and many other forms of pollution are emerging one after another.

In this era, the focus of environmental protection is the excessive exploitation and abuse of resources.

From the Han and Tang dynasties to the Yuan and Ming dynasties, China's natural ecological environment has been struggling with severe deterioration.

The root cause is not complicated; it is simply the sharp contradiction between the rapid expansion of the population and the carrying capacity of the natural environment.

The most direct manifestation of this contradiction is the unrestrained logging of trees, which has led to the gradual disappearance of vast forests.

As the saying goes, "The seven necessities of life are firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea," with firewood being the most important.

In those days, buildings required a lot of wood, but the more common uses were for heating and cooking.

Imagine an era without natural gas, electricity, and where coal was rarely used by ordinary people. How easy would it be for ordinary people to obtain enough firewood?

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, trees across the country have been subjected to large-scale logging, and ecological damage has intensified.

Chang'an and Kaifeng, these two magnificent capitals that once housed millions of people, were, behind their splendor lay a desolate landscape where it was difficult to find a single tree within dozens of miles.

Every branch that could be lit and burned was cut down by the starving and freezing people, turning into wisps of smoke in the stove.

The lush mountains that later generations see are mostly the result of modern afforestation efforts.

In those days, trees were always sparse and pitiful in densely populated areas.

The logging, the endless logging, has reached an alarming level.

The Loess Plateau, once a fertile land shaded by green trees, has been turned into a barren wasteland due to excessive logging, with sandstorms raging and vegetation struggling to survive.

This scarcity of resources not only plagued ordinary people, but even the high-ranking royal family was not immune.

During the Han and Tang dynasties, the palace architecture was magnificent and imposing.

However, by the Song and Ming dynasties, the scale and grandeur of the palaces gradually paled in comparison to those of the previous dynasties.

It wasn't that the emperors of the Song and Ming dynasties didn't want to build palaces like those of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Rather, it's because those towering trees have long been cut down and are now hard to find.

The imperial court had no choice but to send people deep into remote mountains and forests to search for giant trees.

The transportation costs are so high that even with the resources of a single nation, it would be difficult to recreate the grandeur of the past.

People toil for a living, and when they chop down trees with axes, they may not think much about it; all they care about is their immediate sustenance.

Emperors and generals, sitting on their dragon thrones, could only lament their bad luck in the face of increasingly scarce resources.

The disappearance of trees is not only a lament for nature, but also a helpless microcosm of an era.

Old Zhu was well aware of this, and he attached great importance to afforestation.

However, the most troublesome thing was that even though the imperial court ordered the planting of saplings, it could not fundamentally solve the people's urgent need for firewood.

Those newly rooted saplings, before they could grow into towering trees, were secretly cut down by the starving and freezing people under the cover of night.

This practice of draining the pond to catch all the fish persists despite repeated bans, not because the people are ignorant, but because the pressure of survival leaves them with no other choice.

Imagine, what's the point of talking to a farmer who can't even gather enough firewood to boil water and cook rice, or find any kindling to keep warm on a cold night, about "long-term interests" and painting a beautiful picture of a future with lush green trees?
His current predicament is far more pressing than any distant hope.

The people are not unaware that excessive logging will destroy their homes, but when their stomachs are empty and the cold wind is biting, who can resist reaching out to the last remaining trees?

The imperial court tried various means, including strict prohibitions and heavy penalties, but faced with millions of people scattered throughout the country, the so-called prohibitions became laughable and meaningless.

Those who take risks always manage to find a place to breathe through the gaps in the law.

Human resources are limited, and greed is hard to suppress; ultimately, prohibitions cannot stop the instinct for survival.

While guards can be stationed at key locations, it is impossible to guard trees planted in the wild everywhere, nor is it possible to protect them.

If future generations fail to step into the threshold of industrial civilization and allow this plundering of the environment to continue endlessly, the soil will become increasingly barren due to the lack of fertilizer, and trees will be indiscriminately cut down but unable to regenerate. The consequences will be unimaginable.

The land will gradually lose its vitality, the population it can support will become increasingly sparse, and it will eventually fall into a vicious cycle.

This is the tragedy of a highly involutionary system.

In order to prolong their lives, humanity has no choice but to squeeze the last drop of blood and sweat from nature.

However, once nature is depleted, its ability to give back to humanity is completely lost.

The existence of Easter Island is proof of this.

That once incredibly prosperous tribe became a living hell due to its excessive exploitation of the environment, a truly regrettable situation.

The wars at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty caused countless people to be displaced, many villages were abandoned and deserted, overgrown with weeds, and trees were able to breathe, and the ecology recovered slightly.

However, with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty and the stabilization of the population, the destructive forces returned.

This was not unique to the north; the mountains in the south also suffered the same fate, mostly turning into barren, desolate slopes.

Outside Nanjing, only the area designated by Emperor Zhu as his mausoleum was spared from the axe and felling because a large number of trees were planted there and heavy troops were stationed to guard it. The rest of the area was still cut down so much that not even one-tenth of it remained.

After all, in the bustling capital of Nanjing, the amount of firewood needed for cooking and heating by the millions of people each day would be astronomical.

Fortunately, this predicament began to turn around after Zhu Yunwen came to power.

Because he had already ordered people to explore for mines and mine coal everywhere, and to use ships to continuously transport this black treasure into Nanjing.

The scarcity of firewood was gradually replaced by the warmth of coal.

This is precisely Zhu Yuntong's trump card in turning around the environmental crisis.

……

(End of this chapter)