Chapter 70: Moving the capital to Beiping, North-South confrontation

Tang Dynasty, the third year of Zhenguan.

A group of people looked at each other in bewilderment. They really didn't expect that this secret agency was not enough and they needed another one! The Ming Dynasty was indeed quite magical.

"What do you think? Will the eunuchs' coming to power in the Tang Dynasty be related to this aspect?" Li Shimin put forward an idea. Although he did not set up any secret agencies, he could not guarantee what his descendants would do in the future.

His idea was indeed in line with history to some extent. Later, the Tang Dynasty established two intelligence systems, namely Chashi and Jinzouyuan, but they were not exactly the same as the East Factory of the Ming Dynasty.

Back to the present, the ministers agreed with his idea. Du Ruhui nodded and said, "It is indeed possible. If the emperor encounters a situation where his power is limited, he may also use intelligence agencies to expand his or the eunuchs' power."

So, back to the question: How did the emperor lose power?
Song.

Zhao Kuangyin and others remained silent on this.

After all, Zhao Kuangyin himself set up a special agency directly under him, the Wude Division, to monitor officials, eliminate powerful officials, and control the government. In his view, this was just a means. However, the appointment of eunuchs did have the risk of eunuchs causing chaos. (The Wude Division was incorporated into the Imperial City Division during Zhao Guangyi's reign)
[At the same time, in order to prevent the garrison commanders from monopolizing power, Zhu Di also sent eunuchs to other places to supervise the army, and even appointed eunuchs to serve as military commanders. He also appointed eunuchs when sending envoys to foreign countries because he was worried about the disloyalty of his ministers.

This together with the cabinet formed the two major power systems of the Ming Dynasty, which is also a major feature of the Ming Dynasty.

That is the internal and external parallelism, which is very neat.

The institutions of the inner court and the outer court of the Ming Dynasty were completely symmetrical. There was the Cabinet in the outer court and the Imperial Household Department in the inner court; there were the Three Judicial Departments in the outer court and the Eastern Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard in the inner court; the outer court had governors and provincial governors sent to the local areas, while the inner court also had garrison eunuchs and garrison eunuchs sent to the local areas.

This not only ensured the imperial power, but also led to constant fighting between the two sides. 】

Ming Dynasty, the 13th year of Hongwu.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "Features? How come I don't know that the Ming Dynasty, which I founded, has such features?"

Zhu Di coughed dryly and pretended not to see Zhu Yuanzhang or hear what he said.

When the other brothers saw the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty in the sky, they all felt admiration from the bottom of their hearts, and they all showed great respect to Zhu Di: I never expected that the fourth brother has the ability in this area and dares to come up with such characteristics!

After Zhu Yuanzhang mocked his fourth son, he turned around and saw his other unlucky sons standing together in a group with strange expressions on their faces.

All of a sudden, he felt a surge of anger rushing from his internal organs to his forehead: "What are you doing? You don't even know how to stand properly. Isn't that what I usually teach you? Also, get rid of the water in your brains. I don't know what you're thinking about all day long. It's just a mess!"

All the princes dispersed one after another, stood in line properly, straightened their clothes and manners, but they still complained in their hearts: Our family has always been like this, and you never said anything to us normally. How could you get angry with the fourth brother today and take it out on us?

"Cough," Zhu Biao coughed lightly to remind his younger brothers who were letting themselves go that the old man was watching them!
It was quite natural that the princes and kings below restrained their expressions, and turned them into expressions of guilt as if they had been educated and serious as if they had been taught.

Zhu Yuanzhang watched coldly and was almost laughing out of anger.

The sixteenth year of Yongle.

Zhu Di was somewhat embarrassed, but he had been through many ups and downs and was no match for the one in Hongwu. At least, now he had managed to keep a straight face and a steady heart.

He coughed lightly and said, "I didn't intend to make it a characteristic of the Ming Dynasty. It can only be a coincidence."

Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Zhanji both nodded in agreement, and so did the ministers. Nonsense, if you don't nod, and expose the fig leaf for Daddy/Grandpa/Your Majesty, then he can expose your skin. Besides, we can't persuade him, so let's do what we have to do.

[Zhu Di also did something big, something that changed the entire history of the Ming Dynasty, including all aspects of politics, military and economy. ]

During the Hongwu period, everyone's attention shifted to Zhu Di again.

Zhu Di was a little hesitant. Should he hold his head high or hide?
[That was the relocation of the capital. The location was Beiping, which had been his base for many years, and later Shuntianfu and Beijing.]

As the story was told, the scene on the sky screen also changed to the appearance of Beijing after its restoration: palaces with red walls and yellow tiles, majestic city walls, and the towering Great Wall to the north...

Ming Dynasty, the 13th year of Hongwu.

Zhu Di was a little surprised, and everyone was surprised.

"You moved the capital to Beiping?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked. He was not surprised by the move of the capital. In fact, he also had the idea of ​​moving the capital, otherwise he would not have sent Zhu Biao to survey it in the future. It was just that the place he had in mind was Chang'an and Luoyang.

Zhu Di nodded: "Maybe my son is more familiar with that place, and in order to defend the border, he chose Beiping."

Xu Da thought of a question from a military perspective: "Then His Royal Highness the Prince of Yan regards Beiping as the capital. The defense pressure of the capital and the northern border should not be underestimated."

Many dynasties noticed this point. Even if they were not very clear about the specific situation of the Ming Dynasty's border defense, when they saw the scene of the Great Wall to the north of Beijing in the miracle, they naturally realized the problems faced in making Beijing the capital.

Qin Dynasty.

"To regard the frontier as the capital, it means that the emperor must guard the border. Zhu Di is indeed a man of extraordinary courage." The emperor smiled. He saw it very clearly. If Beijing was really regarded as the capital, then for the sake of the emperor himself, the imperial mausoleum, etc., the emperor and the court would have to seriously defend the northern frontier. In this way, even if the pressure of guarding increased, the motivation would also be very strong.

But it doesn't apply to the Qin Dynasty.

But there were also dynasties when the focus was on another aspect.

Song.

Looking at the picture of Beijing on the sky curtain, Zhao Kuangyin almost cried: "Youzhou, it's Youzhou! The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun..."

His younger brothers and sons also shed tears. How could they not be excited when the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun returned to the hands of the Han people? Zhao Kuangyin spent his entire life struggling to unify the north and regain the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. Naturally, the court followed his footsteps and regarded this goal as the highest goal.

[In fact, Zhu Di's relocation of the capital was not abrupt. When the Ming Dynasty was first established, Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and his ministers had a long discussion about where to set the capital. They had thought of making Yingtianfu Nanjing and Bianliang Beijing, implementing the two capitals system. It was not until later that Yingtianfu was completely set as the capital.

But later, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to move the capital again. Before his death, Crown Prince Zhu Biao went to Chang'an and Luoyang for an inspection, and then died of illness. So far, Zhu Yuanzhang had nothing to do with the move of the capital.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he began to work on moving the capital.

In the first year of Yongle, Zhu Di changed Beiping to Beiping Prefecture, and changed Beiping Prefecture to Shuntian Prefecture, which was called "Xingzai" (the place where the emperor stayed when he went out on tour). At the same time, he began to relocate people to enrich Beiping; these people included refugees from various places, wealthy families in Jiangnan, and merchants from Shanxi.

In the fourth year of Yongle, an imperial decree was issued to build the imperial palace and city walls in Beiping based on the Nanjing imperial palace.

In the seventh year of Yongle, Zhu Di used Beiping as a base for the northern expedition and began to build the Changling Mausoleum in Changping near Beiping. Building his mausoleum in Beiping instead of Nanjing proved that he had made up his mind to move the capital.

In the eighth year of Yongle, after returning from the expedition, Zhu Di ordered a meeting to open up the canal to facilitate the transportation of supplies. The project was completed in the thirteenth year of Yongle, and from then on, the supplies needed by Peking could be transported through the canal at a lower cost.

In the 15th year of Yongle, construction of the Forbidden City in Peking officially began.

In the 18th year of Yongle, the Beiping Imperial Palace and Beiping City were completed. Zhu Di issued an edict to officially move the capital, and the original capital was changed to Nanjing, and the six central ministries were still set up to serve as the capital.

Ming Dynasty, the 13th year of Hongwu.

This simple narrative contains a lot of content.

"Immigration?" Zhu Yuanzhang pondered. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the southern population has been encouraged to migrate to the north. On the one hand, it is to supplement the northern population and restore the northern economy. After all, after years of war, the situation in the north is almost devastated;

On the other hand, it also eased the contradictions between the North and the South. Due to historical and various reasons, southerners, especially southern scholars, often looked down on or even hated the North, and also disliked the northern regions. This was very unfavorable to the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

But so far, the second goal has not been achieved.

Zhu Yuanzhang thought of moving the capital. It was a good idea to directly transfer the political center like the fourth brother did.

The generals and princes were more concerned about another sentence.

“Go to war in person? Go to war in person!” Zhou Wang Zhu Su almost shouted, “Fourth brother, you actually go to war in person!” Do you know how dangerous this is? Although he did not shout out the last sentence, everyone understood what he meant.

"Yes, fourth brother," King Zhu Zhen of Chu also spoke. He also thought that Zhu Di's behavior was inappropriate. "Look at our father. He fought so many wars before the founding of the country, and he didn't say that he would lead an expedition after he ascended the throne." I know you can fight, but you have ascended the throne and become the emperor. Isn't it a bit inappropriate to go out to fight again?
The military commanders also nodded. What do they do? Isn't it to fight? The sons of wealthy families should not sit in the hall. Things like fighting should be left to them. Besides, when you were in the Jingnan Campaign, it didn't seem like you, Zhu Di, didn't have any military commanders.

However, Xu Da, Tang He, Fu Youde and others exchanged glances quietly. The King of Yan moved the capital to Beiping, so at least there would be no shortage of battles in the northern border in the future. Those were all military achievements of the generals! Moreover, as Beiping was the capital, the importance of the army in the north increased a lot. At least in the future, there was no need to worry about the court not paying the military salary or despising and ignoring them. That was great!

[So why did Zhu Di choose Beiping as the capital?
There are many reasons. One of them is that Peking was his base camp. He was enfeoffed in the 13th year of Hongwu and went to Nanjing in the 4th year of Jianwen, a total of more than 20 years. He was completely accustomed to this place and had complete control over it, which was not the case with Nanjing.

We don't need to talk much about this point, but we need to mention a few other points.

Beijing, formerly known as Youzhou, is also an important part of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. Since Shi Jingtang ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to the Khitan, which exposed the southern Han people directly to the iron hoofs of the northern nomadic peoples, the Beijing area has not been under the control of the Han regime for about 430 years; and after the Jingkang Shame of the Song Dynasty, the entire North China region has been ruled by foreign races for nearly 250 years.

The power of time is terrible. Hundreds of years of separation have created not only the division of the political powers between the North and the South, but also the division of culture and people's hearts.

Kievan Rus' was split during the Mongol invasion, and in just 200 years it was divided into three nations: Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine; Yugoslavia's Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro spoke the same language, but were divided into three nations simply because they were ruled by different countries in history; in Europe, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany originally belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, but became independent nations in just a few decades; Austria believed that the Germans could not be unified with Germany.

Before the Yuan Dynasty, both Song and Liao considered themselves to be the orthodox Chinese. The Song considered themselves to be Han, and the Liao also considered themselves to be Han people, and the Song in the south were southerners. After the unification of the Yuan Dynasty, the only situation in Chinese history where "History of Song", "History of Liao" and "History of Jin" were listed side by side appeared.

After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, the conflicts between the Han people in the north and south and the regions still persisted. In particular, the scholars in the south regarded the north, or more precisely, the areas other than Jianghuai, as having been in disarray for hundreds of years and a place of barbarians and no place to be associated with.

For example. In the imperial examination in the 51th year of Hongwu, people were admitted, all of them were from the south. No one from the north was admitted, which was unprecedented in the imperial examinations. The northern candidates jointly submitted a petition to sue the examiner Liu Sanwu and others. Zhu Yuanzhang then ordered people to re-examine the papers, but the northern papers submitted afterwards were of extremely poor quality and contained taboo words. Zhu Yuanzhang was furious, and after punishing the examiner, he personally interviewed and admitted people, all of whom were from the north. 】

Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Years.

When the curtain began to talk about the separation between the North and the South and the people's hearts and minds, Zhu Yuanzhang and everyone else's faces began to become solemn.

They are aware of the current situation in the North and the South, and are clearly aware of the conflicts and differences between the North and the South, as well as the thoughts of some people in the government and the opposition.

Some people in the north still disagreed with the Ming government, believing it to be a southern government. The situation in the south was even worse, perhaps because the capital was in the south, many people felt that the northerners were superior and barbarians. In addition, for the sake of their own interests, some people even wanted to drive the northerners out of the court...

Besides, aren't those unknown foreign countries in the sky an example? Although we don't know where those countries are, they are divided into many countries, many ethnic groups, and cannot be unified...

Zhu Yuanzhang, who was still thinking about how to strengthen the integration of the north and the south, did not expect to see such angry news.

"You bastards! You are all such scoundrels!" Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and kicked over the chair with his foot. His face was full of anger. Zhu Biao and other people who knew something about the government also looked unhappy. This case of the North-South list seemed to be a dispute over the imperial examination, but in fact it was a dispute between the north and the south, and it was another tear between the north and the south. At the same time, it could also be a tentative attempt by southern scholars to seize power. Not only did they want to squeeze the north out of the court for reasons of discrimination, but they were also testing Zhu Yuanzhang.

And what will happen if these succeed?
——The division between the north and the south further intensified. The southern scholars formed cliques in the court and gradually transformed the court into their own court and made the emperor the way they wanted, so that they could get all the benefits... Then, would the Ming Dynasty still be the Ming Dynasty of the Zhu family? Would the Ming Dynasty follow the footsteps of the Southern Song Dynasty?

——The northerners will think that the imperial court in the south of the capital is indeed the southerners’ court, not theirs. Instead, it will only exploit and discriminate against them. They cannot survive here. They must have their own strength so as not to be bullied by these southern barbarians... Then all the efforts made by the Ming Dynasty since its founding to integrate the ethnic groups and bridge the gaps will be in vain, and will eventually turn into a separatist force!

This is not only about the imperial examination, but also about politics and the destiny of the Ming Dynasty.

"Southern scholars, Southern scholars!" Zhu Yuanzhang's expression was grim, his eyes showing the anger and coldness before he started a killing spree. "Well! I am too kind to these people. It has been the 30th year of Hongwu, and they dare to do this to me. Did they think I was dying and couldn't lift a knife or kill anyone?" He paced back and forth in the hall, venting his anger. "The fall of the Song Dynasty was closely related to these people. Now in our Ming Dynasty, they still want to do the same to me?!"

Under the emperor's wrath, everyone kept silent, just thinking they were dumb. Zhu Biao didn't say anything either, because in his mind, these southern scholars did have problems in this regard.

"It seems that because we didn't kill enough people, these people didn't understand our meaning and lost their sense of awe." Zhu Yuanzhang finally came to the conclusion, and this conclusion also determined the fate of some people in the future and the direction of some policies of the Ming Dynasty.

There were also some people who were sensitive to politics and the current situation of the Ming Dynasty. In the Jiangnan area, some Confucian scholars were terrified and extremely frightened. They knew how much terror Tianmu's words would bring to the southern part, especially to the literati and aristocrats in the Jiangnan area, and some of their plans were likely to fail.

(End of this chapter)