Zhu Yuanzhang, who commanded the wind and rain, lived a long and arduous life.

"Why is the industrial and commercial tax in the Great Yun Dynasty so low?"

"The problem originated with the late Emperor Dayun. He valued agriculture and suppressed commerce. Any farmers who left their hometowns and did not farm but went to do business were considered idle vagrants, and the government had to bring them back to continue farming."

"He also strictly prohibited overseas trade and changed trade to a tributary system. This tributary system was somewhat like that of Ryukyu and Annam. Poor relatives like them would come to the rich households to beg for food. They would bring a watermelon to the door, and the Dayun Dynasty would have to return a cart of grapes to them. It was a losing proposition."

"In order to discourage more people from engaging in commerce, the late Emperor Dayun also established a social hierarchy: scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Merchants were the lowest level of normal society, and their descendants were not allowed to participate in the imperial examinations."

"In 1381, an order was issued that peasant families could wear silk and gauze, while merchant families could only wear rolled cloth. However, if one member of a peasant family was engaged in business, the entire family was not allowed to wear silk or gauze."

"The late Emperor of Dayun did not blindly suppress merchants. He also took other effective measures to promote commercial development. Overall, he emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce because too many people died in the founding war, too much land needed to be cultivated, and he did not have the energy to deal with the chaos along the coast."

"Under the circumstances at the time, restoring production was the top priority, and there was no problem with emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce. Some historical records say that because the suppression of merchants' consciousness was too severe, in order to compensate them, the late Emperor Dayun stopped collecting taxes from merchants."

"That's not right. The late Emperor of Dayun did collect commercial taxes, but he collected them very lightly. The reason he collected them lightly was not to compensate the merchants, but because he was afraid that heavy taxes would lead to high commodity prices and increase the burden on the people."

"In 1369, Dayun stipulated that commodity transactions must be taxed. In 1364, Xuanke Si was established, and Tongke Si was established in prefectures, states and counties to be specifically responsible for collecting commercial taxes."

"In 1362, the commercial tax was 1/15. Two years later, the late emperor of the Dayun Dynasty believed that too much taxation would affect prices and the people could not afford it, so he changed it to 1/30. Some daily necessities were simply exempted from taxation."

"All of Emperor Dayun's measures were in line with the productivity situation at the time, and were aimed at [expanding the peasant population and suppressing the merchant population], so as to prevent merchants with excessive mobility from taking the dominant position in society."

"The late Emperor of Dayun was not wrong. The mistake was that when things changed, the people of Dayun continued to abide by the ancestral rules and were unwilling to change."

"And this ancestral rule appeared almost throughout the entire Great Yun Dynasty, in its rise and fall. To summarize the ancestral rule in one sentence, it is the rule established for the late Emperor of Great Yun."

"There are many rules, from laws and regulations to institutional setup, the emperor's words and deeds, the norms for officials, the conduct of the harem, and so on. Moreover, anyone who breaks the rules will be severely punished."

“Those who commit serious crimes will be executed by slow slicing, and their entire family will be put to death. The specific contents include the Huangyun Ancestral Instructions, the Great Proclamation, the Hongwu Ritual System, the Rites and Ceremonies, the Record of Filial Piety and Compassion, the Great Yun Law, etc.”

"The ancestral rules established by the late Emperor of Dayun were enforced with extreme ruthlessness in the early stages, and were implemented at the drop of a hat, but most of them gradually crumbled later on."

“The heavy use of eunuchs, luxurious clothing, the establishment of a cabinet, fine wine and beautiful women, etc., are all violations of ancestral rules.”

"Later emperors could come up with all sorts of new tricks, and the ancestral system eventually became a shield. People selectively believed in it, using it only if it suited their interests and ignoring it if it didn't."

"The ancestral system established by the late Emperor Dayun was originally intended to regulate the emperor's supreme authority and construct a network of checks and balances in the operation of power. However, as it was used, it was turned against the imperial power by the civil service group."

"When Yongle and Wanli were choosing their heirs, the civil officials collectively cried and shouted, citing ancestral rules to oppose the emperor's power. Wanli's empress could not have children. Once, when he went to pay his respects to his mother, he suddenly had sex with one of his mother's maids."

"A few months later, the palace maid became pregnant with a son, but Wanli felt ashamed that he had slept with a palace maid and wanted to deny it. His mother then took out the 'Daily Records of the Emperor' and said, 'Son, don't even think about running away. I'm going to keep this grandson.'"

"Therefore, the palace maid was promoted to the rank of Consort Gong of the Prince."

"Zhu Changluo was raised in the palace as the eldest son of the legitimate wife and was groomed to be the heir to the throne. After a few years, Wanli found his beloved Consort Zheng and had a son with her, Zhu Changxun. Because he was so infatuated with Consort Zheng, he intended to make Zhu Changxun the crown prince."

"But doing so would be against orthodoxy. So they wanted to first establish Consort Zheng as Imperial Noble Consort, giving her a higher status in the palace than Zhu Changluo's mother, in order to test the reaction of the officials."

"The ministers all saw through Wanli's little scheme. Jiang Yinglin, the supervising secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, was the first to submit a memorial, saying that this was not acceptable."

"Wanli hated him for meddling in his family affairs, saying that he was "suspicious and disloyal to the emperor," and punished him by sending him to Datong to be a minor official. Unexpectedly, this blow angered the ministers, who were not afraid of Wanli's punishment and rushed to demand that Zhu Changluo be formally established as the crown prince, which tormented Wanli to the point of nervous breakdown."

"By 1601, Wanli and his ministers had been locked in a struggle. Zhu Changluo was already 20 years old, and Zhu Changxun was 16. Time was running out, so Wanli was forced to make Zhu Changluo the crown prince and they married in February of the following year."

"In the end, Zhu Changluo became the Taichang Emperor, but he was poisoned to death after only one month on the throne. The carpenter Tianqi Emperor succeeded him, and Zhu Changxun, the beloved son of Wanli and Consort Zheng, was granted the title of Prince of Fu."

"The civil service group didn't actually have a deep relationship with Zhu Changluo. The reason they used ancestral rules to pressure Wanli was mainly to compete for the right to speak. This right to speak, which may not seem to have much significance, was actually a kind of declaration of power."

"It was a way of showing the other side that I have plenty of ways to deal with you. This was a power struggle between the imperial power and the civil service group, and Wanli was ultimately defeated."

"His final defeat also signifies that the power of the civil service group, at least in some respects, did indeed surpass that of the imperial power."

"I'm afraid... Emperor Da Yun never imagined that the ancestral system he used to maintain imperial power would eventually become a tool for civil officials to resist imperial power. And the emperors who were unwilling to lose in the political power struggle were naturally willing to fatten up the eunuchs and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and let them go out to suppress the civil official group."

"In fact, whether it is the imperial power or the civil service group, too much power is not necessarily a good thing. When the imperial power becomes too great, the emperor thinks about how to exploit the world and satisfy his personal desires."

"The civil service group has become too powerful, and they are thinking about how to exploit the world and satisfy their own selfish desires. The first emperor and the third emperor of the Great Yun Dynasty were both people who had risked their lives on the battlefield. Before they favored civil officials, the early Great Yun Dynasty maintained a structure of imperial power plus military merit group, which suppressed the civil service group."

"The emperor directly controls the military officers, who in turn control the Five Military Commands. The emperor directly controls the violent institutions."