Changfeng Thousands of Miles End Han Song

Chapter 731 The Kong Family's Choice
Yanzhou, Lu County.

There are also two names here, one is Xianyuan and the other is Qufu.

The former is that Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty said that Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor was born in Shouqiu, and issued an edict to change Qufu to Xianyuan County, move the county government to Shouqiu, and build Jingling Palace to worship the Yellow Emperor, and designated Xianyuan county officials to be the descendants of Confucius.

Now that the world is undergoing reform, the word 'immortal source' is naturally no longer advisable.And the Kong family, which has been the hereditary magistrate of Xianyuan County for a hundred years, can no longer hold the power of the past.

The latter was the name that should have been changed during the Yang Sui Dynasty. It was renamed "Wenyang" in the fourth year of Kaihuang, and then renamed "Yuan" in the 16th year of Kaihuang.The reason is that He is no longer testable.Anyway, Emperor Lu didn't like this name.

Qufu, listen to the pronunciation, does it sound like "surrender"?
Therefore, this place has been renamed Lu County.And the current magistrate of Lu County is naturally not the Kong family.Don't say whether the latter has any clansman as an official, even if someone is an official, he will definitely not stay in Lu County.Only one official avoidance system determines that the county magistrate of Lu County cannot be the Kong family.

Today's Kong family has long since lost its prosperity.During the imperial revolution, although the Kong family was not completely overthrown, they were deprived of almost all their rights.Ninety-nine percent of the family's land and wealth were taken away by the new dynasty, and what made the Kong family even more embarrassing was that their dignity was trampled upon.

The Kong family, which had been glorious for more than 1000 years and had been glorious for too long, was kicked to the ground by Emperor Lu.Although in Emperor Lu's eyes, it was a good thing that he didn't step the Kong family into the mud.

But in the hearts of the Kong family who had been deprived of their rights and wealth, they had already been trampled into the mud by Emperor Lu.

Back then, they controlled Xianyuan County for generations. In the Han and Wei Dynasties, they were called Baocheng, Baozun, and Zongsheng. In the Jin and Song Dynasties, they were called Fengsheng. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, it was called Baosheng, and in the middle of Kaiyuan, Confucius was first pursued as King Wenxuan, and later as Duke Wenxuan.When it came to Song Renzong, it was designated as Yan Shenggong.This title is simply a compliment, and it has a very high gold content.

"Yan" means the continuous development of the saints and the endless reproduction of generations, which represents the highest state of feudal emperors respecting Confucius and worshiping saints.Even the Jurchen, Mongol Yuan, and Manchu Qing who entered the Central Plains in the official history all took this name as their name, and there was no change.

The Kong family holds the real power of Xianyuan in their hands, and the title of Lord Yansheng is hung on their heads, and they can grasp both the soft and the hard.The fault was not that he was afraid of being too embarrassing and attracting praise and criticism from outsiders. The entire Xianyuan County's fields had already gathered in the hands of the Kong family.Who told Zhao's family to not help annexing land?Here, their Kong family is the master of everything, the most authentic Tu Emperor.

Although such a result also cut off the career development of the Kong family in a sense.But every gain is bound to be a loss. The Confucian family should understand this truth when they are praised by those in power.And it's not up to them how to choose. Those in power have already set the line, and they must go on.

However, the time of a hundred years has already changed everything.The Kong family at this moment is no longer the Kong family back then.

Just like that Zhu Ming!
Among Zhu Yuanzhang's sons, there are nine kings who can fight against the barbarians, go out to patrol the borders, farm the fields to calm the people, and have martial arts and martial arts, all of them are above the standard.Among them is the Yongle Emperor whose name will last forever.But in later generations, many descendants of Zhu's family turned into pigs.Why is the Kong family not like this today?
Without the preferential treatment from the court, wealth and hereditary rights, the huge Kong family could still hold together for warmth at first. However, within two years, this huge family fell apart and scattered.

However, money is the most deadly factor.Secondly, Emperor Lu did not allow a family as large as the Kong family to exist as usual.

This is not a difficulty faced by the Kong family, but a common problem faced by all local clans across the country.

In the collision between local clan power and imperial power, the former must suffer.

Perhaps many later people thought that clan power was deeply rooted in China, and that even imperial power sometimes fell short.After all, for later generations of Chinese people, they have heard too much about the saying that the imperial power should not go to the countryside.

How do they know that the existence of the clan power stems from its own legitimacy.As the main body of control in ancient rural society, clan organization has always regarded its own legitimacy as an important issue to solve since its formation.

And its legitimacy comes from the recognition of the state power.

Once the clan power loses its basis of legitimacy, that is, it is separated from the state power, it will face a crisis of legitimacy and be severely hit by the state power.Just like the current Lu Qi Dynasty, and also like the Qin and Han Dynasties.During the Qin and Han dynasties, state power and clan power gradually separated, and clan power was restricted by many aspects.

Because Qin had legalists, while Han followed Qin's system, and there were also low-level officials such as pavilion chiefs and township elders.When state power entered the countryside, this in itself has greatly restricted clan power.

Emperor Lu made a detailed analysis of the power of local clans, and his own vision beyond the times, he had a thorough understanding of the power of local clans.

In traditional Chinese society, the basic economy of the countryside is the economy of individual small farmers. The imperial court used clan power to organize and control scattered individual farmers, which was more effective than relying solely on the control power of local governments.To put it bluntly, the power of the government directly affects each household, which is too laborious and time-consuming, and there is no guarantee that it will be thankless.However, the clans above the self-employed are large in size and easy to catch. This is a great convenience for the local government.

In Lu Qian's view, the reason why the clan power expanded rapidly later was the weakening of the control of villages below the national county level.For example, in the current era, the Central Plains has experienced wars in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the separatist regimes in the middle and late Tang Dynasties, and the endless wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.The war checked and balanced the power of the government, and the natural retreat of the government's power left a large enough power gap for the development of clan power.

Because there are no official laws, and there are still traditional moral constraints, and the existence of clans maintains the foundation of the entire society.

For the government regime that is busy with wars, the individual family cannot be compared with the clan. The clan has more advantages in promoting the development of the traditional agricultural economy and adapting to the complex and changeable social and political environment.A very direct manifestation of the latter is the allocation of money, food and labor.

In the Zhao and Song dynasties, township officials like Baozheng were no longer in the official system of the court, and the government left a huge space in the countryside. The clan power developed rapidly, and the clan system was becoming more and more perfect.

Emperor Lu even suspected that Wang Anshi's potential intention of promoting the Baojia system was to suppress the development of clan power in the countryside.At the same time, he also doubts that the power of local clans in China skyrocketed during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Is there any potential connection with the promotion of Neo Confucianism in China?

After all, Neo Confucianism is morality first, and it has a natural blessing for clan power.

Now Lu Qi has a township official, and the township-level structure has government affairs, taxation, and police affairs, and controls the township soldiers as the basic force.

For such a huge clan as the Kong family, without the protection of rights, it is hard to imagine that they can always gather together.Because there are too many people in this clan.After all, they have been passed down for more than 1000 years, and it is hard for the entire Kong clan to imagine how many people there will be.Even though in the past time, some offshoots with bloodlines that were too far away were dispersed, but there were already hundreds of brothers Kong Duanyou and Kong Duanchao who had not released the fifth server.

Why do you say Kong Duanyou and Kong Duanchao?This is because one of the two brothers is Yan Shenggong of Zhao Song Dynasty. On the eve of Yanzhou being captured by the Liangshan army, he only took the regular wood statue of Confucius and his wife as the wooden masters enshrining the ancestors, and brought his eldest nephew Kong Jie hurriedly. Fleeing to Tokyo, he himself has no descendants.Now people are still in Chengdu.

And what about Kong Duanchao?That is Kong Jie's father, who is also the sacrificial officer of Dacheng Hall conferred by Emperor Lu.

——This is not because Emperor Lu treats Confucius particularly well. In Zou County next door to Lu County, one of the descendants of the Meng family became a sacrificial official.It's just that Mencius' Temple of Mencius is far less magnificent than the Temple of Confucius.

You must know that Confucius is very beautiful, but Mencius is very lonely.This is a saying that has been circulating in Yanzhou for a long time.

Although Kong Duanchao, the sacrificial officer, has the rank of the seventh rank, but he has a name but no authority, so what's the use of a bird?To put it bluntly, this official title is not even enough to protect the family.

The same is true.In just two years, the huge Kong family will disappear in smoke.Just because the world is big, eating is the biggest.

No matter how corrupt that person's integrity is, you can't deny that the average cultural level of this family is still above the average.But the same problem is that the level of hardship and hard work of this family is far lower than the national average.

What's more, Yanzhou was the first area to be brought under the control of the Liangshan Army. The Kong family's emotional aversion and rejection of the new dynasty made them choose 'non-violent non-cooperation' at the first time, so it was a little later Time to integrate into the new dynasty.But when the huge pressure of life and survival hit, the Kong family, who could not resist, could only choose to submit.

In fact, the collapse of the Kong family began at that moment.It was a model that gradually collapsed from far to near. The lower the family status and the farther the blood relationship, the earlier the time to choose to integrate into the new dynasty.Because Kong Duanchao couldn't care about them anymore.

In the case that some people are destined to be abandoned, the people whose natural blood connection is farther away will be cut off by the main line of the Kong family first.

Unless it is those people who used to eat and wait to die, have no skills, and have no intention of working hard.Just like in the Dream of the Red Chamber, the Jia family has a total of [-] houses, the eight houses headed by the Rongning Second House live in the capital, and the twelve houses live in Jinling, their original home.The members of the Bafang Jia clan in the capital are just eating and waiting to die.The same goes for the Kong family.When the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds.

And these members of the Kong clan who are 'loyal' to the lineage lineage are not just a burden on Kong Duanchao's back.The properties of the Kong family's descendant lineage had been raided long ago, and even if they were returned to Kong Duanchao, there were only three melons and two dates left.Kong Duanchao feels more and more burdened now.

Of course, more importantly, he is becoming less and less hopeful about "overthrowing Lu Qi and reorganizing the universe".That being the case, the Kong family can only choose to obey.They don't have the vigor to fight to the death with others.

Otherwise, the Kong clan would have been exterminated by aliens long ago, so why in the 21st century, there are still 400 million Kong clan members around the world.This is much larger than the entire population of some small countries.

"At this point, I can only obey." Kong Duanchao glanced at the people present and smiled sadly.

That's how Emperor Lu planned for the Kong family. Could they still resist?Look at how bad the Kong family has become today?The Kong family can only obey now, and can only pray that Emperor Lu's heart is not so dark and rotten.

Will not cross the river to demolish bridges, unload mills and kill donkeys.

(End of this chapter)