Established a millennium family since King Wu defeated Zhou

Chapter 992 Counterattack
Does the emperor really have a destiny?

Luo should be the one with the most say, as this is a question with a standard answer.

The kings in the past really had the Mandate of Heaven, but the kings today do not have the Mandate of Heaven.

But the person who asked this question didn't want this answer.

Because this isn’t really a problem!
But declare.

Just like the classic saying, "Are kings, princes, generals, and ministers of different species?"

Are kings, princes, generals and ministers born noble?

Rhetorical questions are used to emphasize the tone of a statement rather than actually asking a question.

Kings, princes, generals and ministers are not born noble!
The emperor doesn’t have destiny either!
This is what the people who ask these questions are thinking. To almost everyone in the world, this is a very outrageous idea. Even the poorest people would think it is simply nonsense.

How can the emperor not have the Mandate of Heaven?

As to whether the current Emperor of the Tang Dynasty really has the Mandate of Heaven, the Luo family is the one who knows best.

No.

In fact, King Su has never paid attention to human affairs. The only thing he has ever cared about is protecting his family and supporting what his family does.

King Su had never bestowed the Mandate of Heaven on any monarch.

The Mandate of Heaven by the Son of Heaven is a system constructed by the Luo family over thousands of years of development in order to establish a powerful empire and maintain the sacredness of the monarch.

But Luo was not a god, and he did not expect at that time that thousands of years later, the current situation would appear. The development of humanism has reached the point where the king can hinder the world.

With the advent of the steam age, some of the most outspoken people have put forward the theory that the king is the greatest harm to the world.

Of course, among these people there are members of the Luo family, not just direct descendants, but also a large number of collateral descendants.

After firearms became more and more popular, the brave warrior came to the end of his historical mission.

Now it basically exists as a part of the honor guard and its role in the war is not very big.

The Luo family has a good education, and many people who have left the Luo family include naturally many outstanding people.

After receiving Luo's education and then struggling in reality, these people will naturally become aware of social problems.

Naturally, many theories were proposed to address these issues. After the Luo family, which had always been united, entered a new stage of contention, many branches emerged.

These things have now become powerful weapons for conservatives to attack.

……

The current situation in the empire makes Luo Changqing feel uneasy all the time. Although the world is generally calm now, he knows that this is just the calm before the storm.

Beneath the apparent calm, there are countless undercurrents. He has offended too many people with this reform, and there is no telling how many people are planning to plot against him.

Those who opposed him were so quiet, they must not be harboring any good intentions. Luo Changqing was actually a little curious as to what he could do against those who opposed him.

It is impossible to bring him down by small-scale actions.

Unless the emperor felt an extremely great threat, that would be a possibility, but Luo Changqing couldn't even think of what could make the emperor feel a great threat.

There have been many important events in the court recently. What concerns Luo Changqing the most is the emergence of an emerging class. He hopes that some exclusive laws can be introduced, such as allowing Luo’s Money House to increase loan amounts and reduce loan interest rates.

In other words, these emerging classes that started out in business hoped to receive support policies from the imperial court so that they could gain an advantage in the competition with other countries and border provinces.

These emerging classes in the Central Plains used their territory to lobby the imperial court, saying that only the merchants in the Central Plains were in the same mind as the imperial court, and the others were outsiders who might become independent at any time, and that there were treacherous people everywhere with evil intentions.

Another bigger thing was the plan proposed by the Lifanyuan to transform the vassal states into provinces.

This plan to transform the vassal states into provinces is a long-term plan.

In the late Tang Dynasty, due to the long-term division, the imperial localism at that time showed signs of rising towards nationalism. Once nationalism was truly formed and then a nation-state was formed, if one wanted to unify the world, one would really have to kill one by one.

The mobilization and combat capabilities of a nation-state, coupled with the productivity of the steam age, are simply not comparable to those of a traditional feudal state.

Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty reunified the whole of Asia before that, including Eastern Europe within the scope of the empire. Within the territory of the empire, there were provinces, internal vassal states, and external vassal states.

After more than a hundred years, the development of steamships, steam locomotives, etc. allowed the Tang Dynasty's sphere of influence to penetrate deeply into Europe, all the way to Great Britain. All countries are now vassal states of the Tang Dynasty, but the degree of vassalage and the degree of control of the empire are different.

But the sovereignty is undoubtedly in the hands of the Tang Dynasty.

The former State of Song became the Annan Province, the State of Yan became the Lingbei Province, the plateau became the Snowland Province, and the States of Qi and Wei had long since become the Penglai Province.

The areas of these provinces are indeed large, but there is no way around it. After all, the area of ​​the Tang Dynasty is too large. To rule the entire world, a first-level administrative agency can only expand in size.

The provinces within the Central Plains are also very large. The Western Regions Province covers the area west of Jiayuguan, east of the Pamir Mountains, north of the plateau, and south of Altai.

The Hexi Province occupied a piece of land in the Western Regions in the west, a piece of land in Guanzhong in the east, a piece of land in the Snow Region in the south, and a piece of land south of the desert in the north. It was established due to political and military factors.

There is no need to say much about Guanzhong Province.

The three provinces of Hedong, Hebei and Henan almost divided the area north of the Huai River and from Yinshan Mountain to Gugua. There was a Liaodong province in the northeast.

There are only four provinces in the south: Bashu Province, Jingchu Province, Jiangnan Province, and Lingnan Province.

If we look at the territory of the Han Dynasty before the Western Regions, there were thirteen provincial governorates in the Han Dynasty, but now the Tang Dynasty only has nine provinces.

If the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty had not lived in the Central Plains and worried about danger, the Central Plains would probably have only had four or five provinces.

The plan of converting vassal states into provinces proposed by the Lifanyuan now believes that after years of development, the land of the former Chu State has met the requirements of provincial planning, and the Tianzhu Province can be established on the former Chu State territory, or a name that suits the wishes of the local people.

Changing a vassal state into a province is not an easy matter, as huge interests are involved. After all, once it is changed into a province, even if the local rulers still retain many privileges, their freedom will certainly not be as good as in the previous vassal state period.

It is now called reform, but in ancient times, this thing was called reducing the power of the feudal lords, but now it is more mild. The imperial court gives glory and wealth to the local rulers, and they hand over power obediently and don't make things too ugly. After all, they will meet each other sooner or later, and they will have to survive in the empire in the future.

These people in the empire carried out these things in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and most of the vassal states were very sensible. In those regions, the court established provinces and autonomous provinces depending on the situation. There was no essential difference. Autonomous provinces had greater authority and could decide some matters on their own as long as they did not violate the fundamental edicts of the emperor. They had greater flexibility than ordinary provinces.

Within the empire, autonomous provinces were called "inner vassal states" and were usually reserved for areas that were relatively remote from the mainland, so that they didn't have to come to Luoyang to report again and again.

In the report submitted by the Lifanyuan to the imperial court this time, the arrangement for India was to hope to give India the qualification of an autonomous province. After all, India was still quite remote for the imperial court, even with the railway.

After all, that snowy plateau runs across the Central Plains and India. Not to mention that there is no technology to build a tunnel now, even if there is, it is impossible to blow a hole in the plateau.

If you want to get there, you have to take a detour through the Western Regions, and changing it into an autonomous province is the most appropriate option.

As the prime minister of the court, this matter was naturally reported to Luo Changqing. After seeing the report on the autonomous province, he frowned slightly. He had no objection to changing Tianzhu into a province. Although Tianzhu was far away, changing it into a province was a better approach.

But he was somewhat dissatisfied with the change to an autonomous province. Since India was such an important place and it was going to be changed, there would inevitably be pressure. It would be better to do it in one step. If it was not done in one step this time, and the autonomy was withdrawn and it was completely changed into a province in the future, it would take another round of bargaining, which would simply be asking for trouble.

So this report reached Luo Changqing, and was sent back to the Lifanyuan in just half a day. Luo Changqing naturally would not write his own opinions on it. He believed that the Lifanyuan could understand what he meant without saying it.

The transformation of the vassal states into provinces soon became a top priority for the court. The attention of the entire court was drawn to it, and even the previous release of slaves was not paid much attention.

Countless people are thinking about how much benefit they can get from this incident. This is not just a casual remark. As I said before, this is essentially a reduction of power. Of course, some people will fall and some will be well fed.

When almost everyone was paying attention to this matter.

Something happened in Jiangnan.

……

A prefecture under the Jiangnan Province arrested several businessmen and students, saying that these people were plotting rebellion, were dissatisfied with the court's policies, wanted to overthrow the Tang Dynasty, and were disrespectful to the emperor.

After a brief investigation, it turned out that the wrong person was arrested. He was arrested in the morning and released at noon, and was even able to go home for lunch.

This matter did not attract much attention at first. After all, what could the government do if they arrested the wrong person? They did not use severe torture. Who would dare to say anything when they arrested and questioned you?

Originally, this matter would have ended without any follow-up, but the subsequent developments were beyond everyone's expectations.

The people who had been arrested before actually rebelled. They even had guns and cannons in their hands, and there were also private soldiers who had been hiding for some unknown period of time, and they were heading for the provincial government office.

The first step in a rebellion is to seize the government office and control the city. This has been the case for thousands of years, and it is no different now.

But the rebellion had just begun, and the government seemed to have known about it for a long time. After a brief battle, the rebellion was put down like a farce.

Now everyone was a little confused.

I have no idea what happened, why there was a sudden rebellion, or why it was suddenly put down. It's like a play on the stage, and now the play is over.

Ordinary people don’t understand, but those who are involved know what is happening.

The reasons behind this were basically resolved after his death. All that was needed next was for the government to report the matter to the court.

In fact, since the advent of the steam age, with the great improvement of communication and transportation, there have been fewer rebellions within the Tang Dynasty, especially within the Central Plains. Even if there are still some, they all occurred in the border areas and vassal states far away from the mainland.

The Chu State was changed into provinces because of several rebellions that occurred in the state.

Compared with the scale of those rebellions, this one is really shabby.

But this was still very different because it was a very rare rebellion led by businessmen.

When this incident was widely reported in the newspapers, Luo Changqing sensed a conspiracy.

It was not so easy to get access to the official newspapers of the Tang Dynasty. As for private newspapers, there were none in the Central Plains, and the imperial court did not allow private individuals to have newspapers.

He immediately knew that someone must have deliberately published this incident in the newspaper.

Why do you do that?

Then some books were searched out from among the rebels and presented before the emperor's throne. These things were the reason why they had to rebel.

The government arrested them not for the sake of mistake, but to make them become frightened birds. As it turned out, the approach was very successful. After a brief thought, they chose to rebel.

After all, no one knows better than themselves what they have in their hands.

How unorthodox and shocking these things are to the current Tang Dynasty.

Once these things are leaked, there will be no good outcome. Since the government has already started to send this thing and has set its sights on them, they will come to them again sooner or later. Instead of waiting for death, it is better to take the initiative.

There are a large number of like-minded people in Jiangnan. If we can take the lead in raising the banner of rebellion, we might be able to unite the three major provinces of Jiangnan, Lingnan and Annan and accomplish something great.

Even if you fail, just consider it as sacrificing yourself for a great cause.

So a group of people fell into the trap, which was an inevitable trap.

As expected by the person who designed the trap, when these books appeared before the emperor, he showed unprecedented fear.

He looked at those words as if he was seeing a flood or a monster.

It was under such circumstances that Luo Changqing entered the palace.

Fortunately, he already knew what happened.

……

When standing in front of the emperor, Luo Changqing had never seen the emperor in this state before. He was breathing heavily, his eyes were red, and he looked like he was about to fight with something.

"His Majesty."

Luo Changqing saluted.

The emperor did not say anything extra, but just said to Luo Changqing: "Lord Luo, please take a look. These are the books that were searched from the homes of those rebels in Jiangnan. I have nothing extra to say. Please tell me what we should do."

Luo Changqing picked up the book and started reading. In fact, he already knew what was in the book.

Faced with the current situation, Luo Changqing has been thinking about what to do. The reason why he is at a disadvantage this time is that he is no longer as good as other nobles and officials in maintaining imperial power.

For other dignitaries, they want to maintain the imperial power from the bottom of their hearts, but for Luo Changqing, it is not just the imperial power. To the emperor, Luo Changqing is naturally at a disadvantage.

But Luo Changqing is certainly not completely helpless, because the choice made by those powerful people is essentially a path of self-destruction. If they continue to follow the path of those conservatives, the end of the Tang Dynasty will be ashes.

The fate of the Tang Dynasty royal family will also be completely annihilated along with the Tang Dynasty.

But how can I tell these things to the emperor?
After Luo Changqing finished reading the book, he paused and said, "Your Majesty, I have finished reading this book. It is unorthodox, too big, too empty, and unrealistic. It is just some people's fantasy."

The emperor heaved a sigh of relief after hearing this. Luo Changqing's statement made him feel a little more relaxed. "Lord Luo, what do you think we should do? Someone told me that these remarks are very popular among the emerging classes in places with many factories?"

The emperor's voice was already somewhat cold, but Luo Changqing heard some flaws in it.

He asked with a little doubt: "Your Majesty, do you want to close those factories and disband those people gathered in the factories?

Without those things, the empire would collapse immediately.

Moreover, if we don’t develop these things, the outside world will not stop developing. Technology is advancing with each passing day. If we not only don’t move forward, but also move backward, the power held by the court will soon be inferior to that of the border provinces and vassal states. At that time, Your Majesty, you can guess what will happen. "

The emperor felt a little powerless after hearing this. This is the truth that the advanced will inevitably defeat the backward.

Even if it is to maintain rule and not let the country remain stagnant, this world is no longer the stand-alone game world when Ji Zhao first came here.

At that time, the Chinese people did not move, and the outside world was indeed not moving.

But now, if the Tang Dynasty does not move, the outside world will just laugh at it. Then it will develop rapidly and even become the master in the future. It is a vassal state now, so why can't it become the suzerain state in the future?

The imperial court will also lose the power to suppress the provinces, especially the border provinces, which may very likely be out of the control of the imperial court.

The emperor said angrily, "Are we just going to let them grow bigger and bigger? What if I manage all these factories? From now on, private individuals will not be allowed to open factories and hire workers."

The emperor originally spoke out of anger, but after saying it he suddenly felt that this was a good idea. As long as the royal family was in charge of everything, naturally no one would be able to bypass the royal family and gain some power that would threaten the royal family.

Luo Changqing was keenly aware that there must be something bad in this, but he couldn't say it at the moment. After a moment of hesitation, Luo Changqing said in a deep voice: "If your majesty has made up his mind, then you only need to be careful not to let these things fall into the hands of the nobles. If you take them back to the royal family, you will take them back to the royal family."

Luo Changqing came here originally to take this opportunity to tell the emperor about the changes in the grassroots power in the empire and to ease the relationship between the royal family and the emerging class.

Give some power to the more conservative members of the emerging class and expand the ruling class of the empire.

But I didn't expect it to turn out like this in the end.

He now completely understood that this was a counterattack by the old aristocracy against the emerging class.

Although according to the emperor's approach, the nobles did not gain any benefit from this incident, their counterattack against the emerging class was very successful.

After Luo Changqing freed the people from slavery, he prepared various policies to move the people off the land and into the factories. His goal was to double the output value of the empire's steel and other products within ten years, and to increase all commodities significantly.

The court must gain decisive power in the areas that it can directly control.

Now it seems that the plan has to be changed. Next, it will depend on whether the commercial forces under the control of the royal family can shoulder the responsibility of enriching the empire.

As for persuading the emperor at this time, even Luo Changqing would not do it.

In fact, he is also in confusion now. The world is changing too fast.

He is like the man in the old world, guarding the Tang Dynasty and the Luo family, but the new world seems to no longer need him, and it may even be better without him.

He is a reformist, but now among the young people of the Luo family, there are pure reformists.

Luo Changqing knew about these things, but he never interfered. Although he was the head of the family, the Luo family members were free, and he could not interfere with their future.

He would occasionally wonder what he would do if one day he and other members of the Luo family were on opposite sides.

But if you think about it carefully, it's impossible. No Luo family member would stand in front of you. At most, they would just look at you and stare at you.

……

The emperor's will is everything. Of course, no one would report the banned book in the newspapers. The court just started to check the books on this subject, and all the provinces were checking. Of course, in fact, the Central Plains and places north of the Lingnan Mountains were too far away, and the emperor was far away and could not control them at all.

The most eye-catching thing is that the emperor issued an order that private factories would no longer be allowed to be opened in the future. All current factories must be transferred within a certain period of time, and the court will give certain compensation.

This decree was to be implemented not only in the Central Plains, but also in all provinces under the rule of the empire and in vassal states.

Of course, different provinces and vassal states may have different situations and collect different proportions, but they must be "reliable" people.

The royal family will send people to accept it, the local nobles and government officials will provide assistance, and the vassal states will hand it over directly to the king and the grand duke.

The key to this edict lies in the word "reliable" people. Everyone knows that something must have touched the emperor's nerves, which led to the birth of this edict.

The Emperor and the Prince of Luo could not have been unaware of how much turmoil this decree would stir up, especially in some vassal states and the Annan and Lingbei provinces. There would definitely be unrest in such provinces.

But the emperor did it anyway.

This must be an extreme dissatisfaction with something. No one would link this major event with a not-so-big rebellion in Jiangnan.

No one knows what happened.

With Luo Changqing in the Central Plains, this decree can be executed very quickly, and the power of the royal family is far beyond what these emerging classes can match.

Therefore, this decree was well implemented in the Central Plains, and was also well implemented in all vassal states where the royal power was already strong. Those kings and dukes, such as those of Persia and Rome, all took advantage of this incident to amass wealth.

However, this decree was not the case in other places where the government power was not strong, such as the Annan Province.

Even with the support of the Central Plains court behind them, the reality of Annan Province was that the government was weak. The officials here could not be a match for the powerful emerging class, and they even joined them directly and colluded with them.

Those who are unwilling to go along with the corrupt officials simply cannot stay in this position. In this era, there are ten thousand ways to get rid of those officials.

After the imperial edict came down, these things ostensibly belonged to the government, but in reality, they were still managed by themselves. The big businessmen even took this opportunity to merge the factories of the small businessmen to form larger factories.

In this industrialized era, Annan is indeed a good place, as it has almost all the raw materials needed for industry.

The dramatic changes in the Central Plains caught many people off guard, but as businessmen, since they could no longer survive in the Central Plains, they simply ran away.

And there were many people who helped them escape.

These people were the culprits who caused them to fall into this situation, and that was the old aristocracy.

People fled, but many of the factories and various materials and equipment could not be taken away, so they had to be sold, and the only ones who could afford to accept these were the old aristocrats.

Although the royal family ordered to collect these things, they could not receive them as long as the old nobles bought them in advance.

It was impossible for the royal family to buy at the original price, and many of them were even confiscated directly. In this case, the offer from the old nobles made it impossible for these merchants to refuse.

Although this is still a heavy loss, it is better than having nothing.

In ancient history, there were too many cases where a single imperial decree caused countless merchants to go bankrupt. This time was just another one.

The imperial court made one thing clear with a clear attitude, that is, the imperial court does not welcome emerging classes, at least not in today's world.

This is still the dynasty of the past.

Luo Changqing naturally saw all kinds of things during the execution process, but he pretended not to see them. To him, although the corrupt old aristocrats were not good people, these big businessmen were not good people either.

Anyone who can become big basically does so by stepping on numerous corpses.

These people will die if they die, and go bankrupt if they go bankrupt.

It's just dog bite dog.

All his energy was focused on how much the royal family could gain from this operation. After all, most of the things would eventually be managed by Luo's Money House.

That's right.

This is the most fundamental reason why Luo Changqing agreed to the emperor's edict.

He wanted to combine the royal industry with Luo's money bank, provide large amounts of financing to the royal industry, quickly invest in production, expand production, and then rapidly strengthen the power of the court.

He has realized the danger. The Tang Dynasty is once again in danger of splitting up.

Now is the stage of accumulating strength to prepare for future crises. During this stage, the stronger the Tang Dynasty court is, the better.

The Tang Dynasty must never fall apart!
(End of this chapter)