My Pen Pal Zhu Yuanzhang

Chapter 260 A God-given Opportunity
"Old Zhu, you may be thinking, since they are worse than pigs and dogs, why don't these people rise up and rebel? Let's have an emperor to take turns to sit on the throne. It will be my turn next year. When it comes to this issue, we cannot use the Chinese way of thinking to speculate on their thoughts.

Old Zhu, you have to understand that the idea of ​​'Are kings, princes, generals, and ministers all born with different species' is unique to the Chinese nation.

The common people's view of the imperial family is actually very simple, that is, whoever can let us have enough food to eat and live a good life is a good emperor. Whoever makes the people hungry and displaced, and forces people to live without hope, then the people will rise up and make him unable to live.

This is why for thousands of years, our emperors have regarded benevolence and virtue as the highest moral standards. Whoever was less violent and imposed fewer exorbitant taxes when he was emperor would be given the posthumous title of Emperor Wen and Emperor Renzong after his death, and would be evaluated as a wise monarch in history books.

For example, Emperor Wen of Han was evaluated in the "Zizhi Tongjian" as "he governed the people with virtue and brought peace to the country, which was rarely matched by later generations."

Anyone who is capable enough to make people's lives better, and who can successfully resist foreign enemies and even expand territory, will be an emperor of all ages for both civil and military achievements.

"If you are like me, Lao Zhu, who can not only found a country, but also expand its territory, and develop industry to enhance national strength, then you are the greatest emperor among all the great emperors, and you can be called the emperor among emperors!"

Hey, Lao Li, I'm not as good as you say.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face turned red when he was praised by Li Han. He called him the emperor among emperors. If outsiders saw what he said, they would definitely say behind his back that you, Li, are a flatterer and call us, Zhu, shameless.

"Except for a few incredible freaks in history, such as the former and latter deposed emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Ziye and Liu Yu, other emperors with normal brains would care about their own evaluation. Even Zhao Gou had to shamelessly label himself as the 'Lord of the Restoration'.

Why did the emperors of China, no matter how incompetent they were, try every means to label themselves as wise rulers? In addition to the moral evaluation from the Confucian system, it was also due to the strong pressure from the people.

After all, there are many emperors in history who were cursed by the people in songs. "

Surprisingly wonderful and bizarre, these two nice words, why do they sound so strange when they come out of Lao Li's mouth? But Lao Li always likes to use nice words in reverse, and I, Lao Zhu, also find it interesting.

In history, Liu Ziye and Liu Yu were indeed rare incompetent and tyrannical rulers. The words "amazing" and "weird" really do add the finishing touch to these two people.

Liu Ziye, the deposed emperor of the former Song Dynasty, had an affair with his own sister Liu Chuyu, and also raped her aunt Liu Yingmei. He even ordered the princesses and concubines to take off their clothes so that they could be insulted and raped by his servants. Such things that went against human ethics were only done by him in the thousands of years of Chinese history.

His cousin, Liu Yu, the deposed emperor of the Later Song Dynasty, was no less evil. He once fell in love with a silly girl on the street, and then had sex with her openly in public, and he even enjoyed it. People couldn't stand it anymore, so they jokingly called the silly girl "Concubine Lu Qiangfei" to satirize Liu Yu's absurd behavior.

My scalp tingles just thinking about it. This is not something an emperor can do. He is even worse than an animal!

Therefore, after the two were killed, even the history books were unwilling to acknowledge them as emperors and gave them the word "discarded".

After Zhu Yuanzhang expressed his feelings, he said that China takes history as a mirror, and everyone from the emperor to the common people actually cares about how future generations will evaluate them.

Could it be that the foreign countries outside of China are not like this? I guess Lao Li laid so much groundwork just to tell himself the difference between foreign countries and China?

We cannot use Chinese thinking to look at foreign countries. Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to have figured something out and continued reading.

"But the situation in Champa, which is a Brahmanic country, is completely different.

Because the country's ruling thinking is religious thinking, not like China, which is a comprehensive evaluation thinking based on the historical and Confucian moral system.

Why religious thinking can dominate? To put it simply, it is the result of believing in religion to the point of being stupid. Let me give you an example to make you understand. There are probably quite a few people in the Ming Dynasty who believe in the obscene gods such as Wutongshen. Those who believe in Wutongshen will often sacrifice their entire family property and even their wives and daughters to the sect.

Not to mention how these people look in your eyes, Old Zhu, any normal person would think that these people are stupid.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty still has the sage saying that "a man should not talk about strange things, supernatural powers, or other things". Therefore, heretical cults like the Wutongshen cult could not gain popularity and were suppressed. "

That's right, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded in agreement. In the areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian, there are many people who believe in Wutong God. He himself has also denounced the evil cult for fooling the people and causing great harm to them.

Although he had used religions before, like the Ming Cult, of course, he had only used the power of the Ming Cult when starting a rebellion.

After he founded the country and ascended the throne, he began to order the eradication of a series of secret folk societies such as the Ming Cult and the White Lotus Sect. He was well aware of the great harm such societies could cause to the country.

"Old Zhu, you should know how foolish people who are controlled by religious thinking can be and what kind of ridiculous things they can do. The entire Champa people are like this!

The reason why Brahmanism can make the people so docile is because of its core caste system.

Of course, Lao Zhu, you may be wondering, this religion divides people into five levels, so why are the levels so fixed?

That’s because in addition to the division of levels, there is also a set of ideological system that ensures the long-term operation of the caste system. This ideological system is the theory of reincarnation. Does it sound familiar?

It sounds familiar, because the Buddhist theory of reincarnation is borrowed from Brahmanism. "

So that's how it is. Zhu Yuanzhang felt as if he had suddenly realized something. He thought back to when he was a monk, he was also thinking about how hard his life was and how he would be reborn into a good person in the next life. He didn't expect that this kind of thinking actually came from Brahmanism.

“In short, the suffering in this life is due to the sins committed in the previous life. After suffering in this life, you can be reincarnated as a high caste in the next life.

The people place their hopes on the afterlife, so they will be obedient in this life and dare not overstep their boundaries. "

"Hiss~"

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but take a breath. At this moment, he finally understood the purpose of Lao Li's going through so much trouble.

Because the people of the two countries have fundamentally different ways of thinking. For the Ming Dynasty, the people will support whoever is good to them, while for Champa, as long as the ruling class is still the upper caste of Brahmanism, the people will let it go.

Lao Li's purpose was to tell himself that conquering Champa by force was not advisable, because the Ming Dynasty would not allow religion to rule the country. Once Brahmanism was banned, the people below would be in great trouble.

"Then the ruling structure of Champa is based on the reincarnation system of Brahmanism. Now that we have figured this out, do you think that using trade to buy off the upper castes will be a better way to control Champa than conquering them by force?"

Yup!

Zhu Yuanzhang slapped his thigh. It just so happened that the envoys from Champa had arrived. Wasn’t one of the purposes of their trip to trade with the Ming Dynasty?
This is a godsend opportunity!
(End of this chapter)