Established a millennium family since King Wu defeated Zhou

Chapter 990 Collapse
There are not so many fools in this world.

But interests make people willing to be fools.

Many people understand what is good, but pretend not to understand.

The people who do those things know best what is bad, but they must confuse right and wrong and pretend that bad things are good.

Those who oppose Luo Changqing are not a conscious group.

If they were really connected and combined together, they would be truly invincible.

But the fact is that it is impossible. In the same class, there is a life-and-death relationship between each other. There are always people who don't mind using the death of others to make themselves richer.

Since ancient times, most kings have always divided the court into two or more factions.

Some people call this the imperial mindset, and regard it as a guiding principle, believing it to be the only way to govern a country.

Whenever he saw his subjects forced to follow the established route under the emperor's schemes, he would always feel complacent in his heart. Seeing himself playing with people's hearts in the palm of his hand, he would feel a sense of superiority in intelligence from the bottom of his heart.

But this is actually an illusion. Since the rise of the imperial examination system, all the ministers who have climbed up from the bottom have been experienced in many battles. How could they not know the imperial tactics that the king knows? The reason why they have to bite the bullet and go on is that the situation is stronger than people. It is too difficult for a minister to defeat the king.

Luo Changqing dared to launch this top-down reform because he was determined that there would be no united voice against him within the Tang Dynasty.

In the past, this was always the case. He could always find loopholes and then defeat those who opposed him the most fiercely. Then, by defeating some people, he could release some energy into the Tang Dynasty.

But this time he made some mistakes.

The mistake was not because there was anything wrong with his approach, but because he ignored the changes in the external environment.

After he was promoted to the chief chancellor of the empire, what he saw the most was data, data submitted from below. This is what the Luo family had always done in the past.

If it is in the past era, social changes are almost non-existent and the entire world is almost static. Through data and past experience, it is possible to judge the changes in thoughts within the empire and the living conditions of the people.

But now it is different. The land of the empire is so vast. In this vast land, ideas are colliding and communicating, communicating and influencing each other every moment.

Changes within the empire are so rapid that if you don't keep up with it at all times, it's easy to lose track of the grassroots.

For example, within the empire, the exchanges between the Jiangnan Province, Lingnan Province, and Annan Province were far more than the empire had imagined.

The more you communicate, the more conservative you become.

In the vast land south of the Yangtze River and north of Annan in the empire, there are a large number of land nobles and officials.

The Jiangnan region was mainly populated by officials and gentry, and the largest weaving factory in the entire empire was located in Jiangnan. Presumably, the warmer climate in the north allowed Jiangnan to develop rapidly.

In areas further south than Jiangnan and other southern regions, the existence of land aristocrats was very backward.

And it is a conscious backwardness.

There were quite a number of land nobles here who held princely titles. When they saw what was happening in the Annan province, they were deeply frightened and opposed the changes.

If a nobleman had no servants and serfs, no political and economic privileges, had to follow the rules when communicating with merchants, had to pay workers normally, and did not have a large number of people who depended on the royal palace and the duke's mansion for survival, then what was the difference between this nobleman and an ordinary merchant?
A simple title?
In the land of Zhuxia, it cannot be said that the title is useless. After all, it is a symbol of nobility. But without the blessing of power, the title alone is not taken seriously.

Luo Changqing's action of releasing the slave made many people smell something bad almost instantly.

Productivity and production methods promote each other.

After the emergence of a new mode of production, it will force laws and other aspects to adapt to the new mode of production.

In the Jiangnan Province, the status of women was much higher than that in other southern provinces. This was not because the people in Jiangnan Province had a high moral level, but simply because the textile industry in Jiangnan Province was developed, and many women participated in labor and had the ability to survive.

In the Annan Province and the Lingbei Province, this trend far exceeded the imagination of the Central Plains.

Because the war in those years caused heavy casualties among young men in these two regions, women had to be allowed to enter factories after the appearance of steam engines.

Women are certainly not as good as men in most aspects of physical strength, but sometimes it's okay to be useful. The Tang Dynasty was already open-minded, and after women ruled the country, the status of women was high. It can be said that it was natural to let women participate in work.

It can be said that the Tang Dynasty had already made most of the preliminary preparations for social industrialization.

But there are always a large number of conservatives in any country. The imperial examination for women promoted by the Luo family before was like a toy of the upper class and an embellishment of the empire. It did not fundamentally shake the core of the patriarchal system.

But when industrialization came, conservatives discovered that the laws had changed, and with women working, the patriarchal system was really destroyed, so a strange phenomenon appeared in the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang Dynasty was moving forward, but internal divisions were becoming more and more serious. The Luo family naturally embraced change. For the Luo family, they could transform into any class.

The Luo family relies on knowledge to exist in this world. No matter what the world becomes, knowledge will always be needed. Knowledge is power, and the Luo family will always be the powerful family.

But others are not like that. There is a considerable number of families that rely on the patriarchal system to demonstrate their power, so they are becoming more and more conservative. In the past few years, quite a few people have written to the emperor asking him to ban some unfavorable remarks.

These remarks originated from some of the more progressive areas of the empire, and behind them were some emerging classes who advocated abolishing the original natural economic land system, freeing the people from the constraints of the land, allowing them to enter factories, and then building larger factories.

The reason for such calls is mainly because many emerging classes in the Central Plains have felt the pressure in the competition with provinces such as Annan. The labor cost in Annan is too low and the environment in all aspects is better.

When operating in Central China, the first problem to be faced is the shortage of manpower.

That’s right, the empire has a huge population, but it lacks manpower because most of the population is tied to the land and cannot participate in industrial production.

The second thing is to face the powerful government and the ubiquitous nobles, especially the competition from the nobles, all of whom only leave but never gain.

Knowing that you are a waste, but you are hindering more advanced people and cannot move forward, it makes you feel extremely annoyed, but there is nothing you can do.

In the Tang Dynasty.

The nobles held decisive power.

At this time, Luo Changqing appeared. When this decree appeared, most people had the same feeling, it was indeed the Luo family.

No one was surprised that this was done by Luo.

Perhaps only the Luo family could convince the emperor to do this so quickly.

Of course, the emerging class cheered loudly, believing that this was a new beginning and the beginning of change for the Tang Dynasty.

The old nobles were in great grief, and simply releasing the slaves would not make them too upset, but as the saying goes, one should nip a bad problem in the bud, and if they released the slaves now, they dared not imagine what the Luo family would do in the future.

Oppositions flew to the emperor's palace like snowflakes. Faced with such a huge wave of opposition, the emperor was a little panicked and said to Luo Changqing carefully: "Lord Luo, what's going on? I think this decree should not cause such a big reaction. The population of lowly people does not occupy a large proportion of the world."

Luo Changqing was also a little shocked at first, but after receiving additional information from the Luo think tank, mainly intelligence from the Jiangnan region, he already knew what had happened.

The Luo family in the Jiangnan region is probably the best developed one among all the branches and has provided a lot of help to the main branch.

Luo Changqing first analyzed the reasons for their opposition to the emperor, and then said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, there is a law for reforms since ancient times.

The more this group of powerful people oppose, the more we should do it. These people only know how to undermine the country and benefit themselves at the expense of the public interest.

In the end, the country fell into decline, but their families became wealthy.

Now it is obvious that this matter is beneficial to the country and not excessive, but even so, they still oppose it.

It is easy to imagine what these people are thinking. They don’t care about the future of the empire at all.”

When it comes to speaking ill of the king, the Luo family generally doesn't do it, not that they don't know how to do it. With just a few words, Luo Changqing labeled all those who opposed him as treacherous people who couldn't bear to see the country doing well.

The emperor trusted him very much, and what Luo Changqing said always made sense. He nodded and said, "What Prince Luo said makes sense. Just do as Prince Luo thinks. I will give you enough support. All these memorials will be kept in my palace and not sent out. Let them see my attitude."

After Luo Changqing left the palace, his steps became a little heavy.

"What will the future of the empire look like?"

He was a little confused.

Although he spoke passionately in the palace just now, he actually understood very well that sometimes something is good for the world but not necessarily good for the royal family.

The operation of imperial power is not just military, but also involves a series of things that run in conjunction with the system.

The nobles are one of them. If there are problems with these, it may lead to the collapse of the entire empire.

The nobles need the emperor, and the emperor needs the nobles. This is a mutual system. If a system does not need the emperor, or even if the emperor becomes an obstacle, then the emperor's mission will come to an end.

……

With the strong support of the emperor, Luo Changqing first started to eliminate the slaves from the south where opposition was most intense and granted them normal citizenship. This word was imported. In the Tang Dynasty, there were no citizens. This word meant free people, which in the past meant farmers, merchants and artisans among the four classes of scholars, farmers, artisans and artisans.

The voices of opposition from all over the world were particularly loud at the beginning, and many scholars even cursed Luo Changqing directly, and their curses were particularly harsh.

The most cruel one is that he has forgotten his ancestors. Most of these systems were established by your Luo family ancestors, but now you want to abolish them and say that this is wrong.

And the most clichéd thing is that many of these lowly people were judged by Luo himself, but now Luo is acting as a good guy and is called a hypocrite.

Many scholars began to write books privately to record Luo Changqing’s “atrocities” and make him “infamous for all eternity.”

Luo Changqing mainly ignored the behavior of these people and thought it was ridiculous. He thought they were overestimating their own abilities.

He was not the kind of person who would not fight back when being scolded, and the people standing opposite him were a group of "lawbreakers" who had violated the laws of the Tang Dynasty, and many of those who opposed him were sent to prison.

Luo Changqing brought up something that had been criticized many years ago, that is, Party Imprisonment.

However, Luo Changqing's Party Imprisonment was naturally different from that of the late Han Dynasty. Luo Changqing put those who committed more serious crimes into the Party Imprisonment.

In the past, these people would be beheaded, their property confiscated, and then exiled, and their families would be reduced to slavery.

Now that the slavery system has been abolished, those who opposed it are the first beneficiaries. Their family members, who should have been punished, are sentenced to be banned from taking the imperial examinations or entering government service for three generations.

From the perspective of criminal law, this is a typical case where the law is influenced by the current society, and the laws of the Tang Dynasty are adapting to the changes.

……

After realizing that this approach wouldn't work and that the Luo family was always very ruthless, they decided to try another approach.

For a strong central government, as long as the monarch is determined, reforms can be accomplished.

There are only two reasons why most people give up halfway. One is that the king himself is not firm. Faced with a lot of opposition, he becomes afraid and thus has the mentality of retreating. This reason mostly occurs in people who are not very outstanding, but this kind of king accounts for the majority.

The second reason is more common, that is, the king himself does not particularly trust the ministers who carry out the reforms.

The reason why the king agreed to the reform was simply because his ministers persuaded him, which is actually very dangerous.

Because this means that if another minister who opposes the reform also convinces the king, the reform will stop. And it is not difficult to convince a king. In thousands of years of practice, there are mainly two ways.

The first one is to discredit the people who proposed the policies. This method is very useful. Although we often emphasize not to discard things or people because of words, and to look at things dialectically, the more something is lacking, the more it is emphasized.

But who can do it?
If a person is defeated, his words and actions will become taboos. Even if you say that some of his words are correct, you will be accused of "supporting him by spreading his words."

No amount of excuses will be of any use, so it is difficult to knock down the person without knocking down the matter.

The second type is to present the failure of reform and exaggerate it. This is not a rare thing in reform. Most reforms are unlikely to have immediate results, and there are too many areas where we can take action during the reform process.

After submitting these things, there will basically be excellent results.

pity.

These methods are of no use to Luo Changqing. As mentioned before, Luo Changqing is the one who has always met with the emperor. It is good enough for him not to be disrespectful to others, let alone others be disrespectful to him.

Luo Changqing knew all the tricks these people used, and he was better at them than them.

The abolition of slavery was largely completed under such tense circumstances, but Luo Changqing did not feel the slightest bit of joy. Instead, he felt extremely uneasy.

It took so much effort just to abolish slavery. If we want to completely eliminate the small peasant economy and break the current economic situation, can we really do it?
and.

The emperor may not support him next time. After all, according to what he knows, the next step is to really limit the power of the king.

This restriction is not the same as the restriction of the prime minister system in the past, but is to deprive the emperor of the power of life and death. In other words, even if the emperor has power, he cannot kill people at will if something happens in the future.

We must break the emperor’s absolute authority and power.

The reason for doing this is not simply to target the emperor, but to target a series of systems derived from the emperor.

The existence of the emperor not only represents himself, he also represents a huge family. Of course, in the Tang Dynasty there are two families, the emperor's maternal family, the emperor's wife's family, and the families of various concubines. These are all in-laws.

With every emperor, countless such families will emerge. These families will rise suddenly and possess powerful strength.

They will say something to the emperor.

"That factory is great, can you give it to me?"

This factory was owned by a young man with a talent for mechanics who had worked hard for decades.

“I like that invention.”

This invention should have made a young man famous and brought him countless wealth.

"That's the guy I want working for me."

In this way, a person loses the path to pursue freedom, and then enters a mansion, getting an unknown ending.

In the feudal era, this was not considered a particularly bad ending. After all, in that era, working for the royal relatives was probably the best ending for most people.

It's hard for other people to even stay alive anyway.

But in this day and age, this is not the case.

Luo Changqing thought a lot. He was actually very young. After all, he had grandchildren.

Now, among the descendants of the Luo family, only one or two remain in the Divine Capital to take care of him. Many of the remaining young people are not even in the Central Plains, such as the nephew whom he once left a deep impression on.

He really wanted to talk to the young people of the Luo family and find out what they thought about the world today.

What is your opinion on the current...Tang Dynasty...

He was worried about hearing some comments, but he knew that he was bound to hear some comments.

……

Luo Changqing's actions naturally attracted the attention of many people, including the young people of the Luo family, who paid more attention to the Tang Dynasty than most people.

"From the imperial edict issued a few days ago, it seems that the head of the family has realized the problems within the Tang Dynasty and is preparing to start a top-down reform. The empire should enter a new period of vigorous development in the future."

They had a relatively high evaluation of Luo Changqing's reforms. A small ship is easier to turn around, but a big ship is not an easy task to carry out reforms in a huge empire, as one move will affect the entire body.

"But the future outcome will not change. The Tang Dynasty is the center of the world. It is not one of those small countries far away from the center of the world. Its fate cannot be changed."

In international politics, there is a truth that only big countries are qualified to decide their own destiny, while small countries are pawns. Everything about small countries depends on the wishes of big countries. This is indeed a true saying, but it also contains another meaning.

The fate of a small country is determined by a big country, so the fate of an individual or ethnic group in a small country is also determined by a big country.

For some royal families, this is actually a good thing, because without the intervention of a big country, the royal families of small countries cannot maintain their rule. Over the countless years, the Tang Dynasty has supported many such royal families of small countries.

A great power can independently determine its own destiny among many countries in the world.

So what determines the fate of a great country?

By the objective laws of historical development!

This is something that no one can control unless there is a powerful existence interfering from the outside. In this world, this is impossible unless the complete Ji Zhao takes action.

The Tang Dynasty is the center of the world. Who can interfere with the Tang Dynasty?

Therefore, the evaluation of the Tang Dynasty by these young people of the Luo family is that no matter how hard they struggle, they will inevitably move towards their destined fate.

These young people who came from the Luo family had feelings and sighs in their voices.

No member of the Luo family wants to see the end of the Tang Empire. This was the dynasty their ancestors had fought for four hundred years. This dynasty was filled with the blood of the Luo family and the glory of the Luo family.

If possible, no one really wants the Tang Dynasty to end.

"There have always been people among the people who want the Luo family to become a royal family."

"But that's impossible."

"The Luo family has not been a king for two thousand years. If they can't abide by it at this time, it will really become a joke."

If the Luo family had become a royal family, especially after the Tang Dynasty, the loyalty and righteousness they had practiced for thousands of years would have become a joke.

“All history can no longer be trusted.”

This is one of the most important reasons. If the Luo family became a royal family, who would believe the records in history?

The deeds of the Luo family in every dynasty.

The choices made by Luo at every critical moment in history demonstrated the brilliance of humanity, his adherence to benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness, and his interpretation of loyalty.

They will all vanish the moment Luo ascends to the throne.

They would say, "Who knows whether the history has been embellished, making the history of the previous dynasty look bad in order to highlight their own glory. That must be the case."

If you think about this kind of words for a moment, you will know that they are bound to happen.

Why did the emperors of every generation trust King Luo so much, far more than other ministers, and even more than the trust they had in Li’s own princes?

Because from the time Li and Luo united to the present point, no one had ever thought that there was any possibility that Luo might usurp the throne.

During the Han Dynasty, the Luo family had a high political reputation, but not to this extent. Therefore, during the Han Dynasty, entrusting an orphan to act as regency was an extremely high-level matter.

It is the royal family's immense trust in the Luo family.

But for the Tang Dynasty, isn’t it normal for the Luo family to be regent?

At that time, Empress Wencheng was neither the empress dowager nor the regent. She was merely a regent appointed by the prime minister. It can be said that legally, she was not a minister with much power, but she chose three emperors for the Tang Dynasty in succession.

The first two can be said to be based on the order of succession, but when choosing Emperor Guangwu of Zhongzu.

However, the throne had been vacant for a long time, and no one thought it was inappropriate for her to be the regent openly. She also openly chose an emperor for the Tang Dynasty, and no one thought it was inappropriate, but directly acknowledged Zhongzu's throne.

This is the status of the Luo family in the Tang Dynasty.

With such a status, how could Luo do anything?

What could be more important than the reputation that the Luo family has accumulated over two thousand years?

Is it power?

Does the Luo family still need those things now?

You may think about it when implementing reforms, but it is not worth paying so much for it. Moreover, trampling on the bottom line for those things may cause greater harm to the world.

After all, what Luo represents, in some ways, is the bottom line of human morality. As long as Luo is still there, people will always have a scale in their hearts and still believe that there are some important things in this world, such as human nature.

……

"Since the Patriarch has realized the problems in the empire, he will definitely take action next. However, what he has to do next is very difficult. I don't know if there is still time to reform the entire empire, and I don't know what the empire will look like after the reforms are completed."

This speculation was immediately opposed. "It is not possible to consider the future at all. The aristocracy in the Tang Dynasty is extremely powerful, and the emerging class now has a slight advantage, but it is all false.

You see, soon the nobles will really take action. The emerging class cannot beat the Tang Dynasty nobles. At that time, they will either be dogs in the empire or return to the old era.

Or move to a place that is out of reach of the Empire."

"Yes, we have already reached a conclusion. The current situation within the empire cannot be changed now. The empire's army is too powerful.

Any force that attempts to overthrow the empire can be easily defeated unless the whole world unites."

"Powerful empires always begin to collapse from within, and the world is changing so fast right now. Recently, there seems to be a new discovery in the laboratory. If there is another industrial advancement like the steam engine, it is hard to say what the world will become."

"Brothers, if, I mean if, the Tang Dynasty really collapses one day, what should the head of the family and the clan members who are fed by the emperor in the Tang Dynasty do?"

After saying this, everyone fell into silence. This was a question that had been avoided all along, and no one knew how to do it.

"Will the great Su Wang give us an answer?"

Someone asked this, but no one responded.

(End of this chapter)