Chapter 512: The North Pole Profound Spirit Demon-Quelling South Pole Red Flame Profit-Spreading Great Holy Heavenly Venerable

Wang Qian had previously thought, what high-minded theories could this liberal Lin Fu have?

The He clan of Gaoyang, because they refused to reduce rent during a year of famine, brought upon themselves the disaster of total annihilation, revealing the complex and disordered balance of contradictions between the countryside; later, it exposed how local authorities fabricated names to levy taxes, leading to armed tax resistance during the process of apportionment. In the most recent issue of *Carefree Anecdotes*, it even directly exposed the matter of impersonating and occupying official fields, triggering a massive earthquake.

On this trip to Baoding, Lin Fu's revelations were already very bold. At the very least, for the imperial court, it would take some time to adjust, and Wang Qian believed it was better not to write the content for the next issue.

If Lin Fu wanted to write about "officials forcing the people to rebel," he might as well write "I want to revolt" directly, bypassing the intermediate links and just going to prison. Wang Qian would accompany Lin Fu to prison together.

"Young Master Huang has eyes and ears everywhere; he said it could be written." Lin Fu looked slightly unwilling to accept this.

Wang Qian pondered for a moment and said, "Lin Dashi, have I ever said such a thing? Young Master Huang has never given such a promise."

"So, even big figures can go back on their word." Hearing Wang Qian retract what he had previously said, Lin Fu also somewhat understood that this topic was indeed not convenient to touch, and it was better to stop at a superficial level.

"After all, I have a deep attachment to this beautiful world, and I believe Lin Dashi is also just as attached to the beauty of the human world." Wang Qian said in a slightly exaggerated tone.

Lin Fu nodded and said, "Yes, I am also very attached."

One does not have to express everything one thinks in their heart. Li Chunfang, who had served as Senior Grand Secretary, still had to use *Journey to the West* to obscurely express his understanding of the world, let alone others. For the sake of the continued existence of the Guangde Bookstore, it was not convenient for Lin Fu's volume on "officials forcing the people to rebel" to appear at this time.

"Is the imperial court being too harsh on the powerful, wealthy, local gentry, and scholar-officials?" Wang Dexin of the Wang clan of Zhangqiu was meeting with Lin Fu for the second time. Last time, he had suffered a humiliating defeat and fled in a sorry state. Seeing Lin Fu again this time, Wang Dexin began to expound his own viewpoint.

"Extremely harsh." Lin Fu acknowledged Wang Dexin's viewpoint. The Great Ming had launched major inquisitions many times. This time, with the official field occupation case, another batch of local gentry and scholar-officials were about to be thrown into prison. Time and time again, when would the Great Ming's butcher knife stop falling?

"Oh? Lin Dashi agrees with my thoughts?" Wang Dexin immediately became vigilant. This acknowledgment from Lin Fu was not so easy to accept. Lin Fu was best at using your own arguments as the basis for opposition; this was not the first time Lin Fu had done so.

Lin Fu looked at Wang Dexin and said, "What the imperial court is doing is merely to make the 'meat-eaters' of the Great Ming give up their habit of muddling along. How to describe this muddling along concisely? Two words: collecting rent."

"If you cannot change the idea of collecting rent and only think about collecting rent, you will naturally be eliminated by the rolling tide of the times. The tide has already changed, and people must also change, just like the white moths around the Xishan Coal Bureau, devoured by their natural enemies."

"This is natural selection and human selection; the survival of the fittest."

Wang Dexin earnestly pondered these words and said sincerely, "I humbly accept your instruction; so that is how it is."

Discussions in the Great Ming regarding the transformation of production relations during historical turning points were always discussed from the perspective of the poor and the toiling masses, yet no one had ever guided the powerful, wealthy, local gentry, and scholar-officials on how to turn around. They had become the villains of the Great Ming's Wanli New Policies, seemingly becoming objects that must be eliminated.

Although the Great Ming did not rule together with the scholar-officials, the local gentry and scholar-officials had helped the Great Ming maintain its rule for over two hundred years. The Emperor's gaze had never looked upon the powerful, wealthy, local gentry, and scholar-officials.

Wang Dexin's family was a centuries-old noble family, a prestigious clan. He said with deep feeling, "We are all subjects of the Great Ming, all subjects of His Majesty. His Majesty's gaze is always directed at the poor and the toiling masses. Shouldn't he also look at the powerful and local gentry, and tell us what we should do? Raising the butcher knife again and again, killing wave after wave—the Wanli Reform has a price. Must only the powerful and the gentry bear it?"

"Sigh."

Wang Dexin was extremely anxious and uneasy about the change in the Great Ming's direction. It was as if a knife hung over his head, ready to fall at any moment.

"Then can you abide by the law?" Lin Fu asked with a smile.

"I dare not speak for others, but our family can." Wang Dexin still had confidence in this point. Their family was timid and extremely worried about breaking the law.

Lin Fu asked with a smile, "Then why do you worry?"

"One lives a lifetime, like the spring and autumn of grass and trees; it is always like this, like rowing a boat against the current—if you do not advance, you retreat." Wang Dexin answered this question. Even if one abides by the law, one still has to worry about their status and position sliding downward.

Lin Fu nodded and said, "Then you possess the prerequisite for change."

"Do not think about collecting rent anymore. Production relations are changing, and ideas must also change. The 'collecting rent' I speak of is not merely the land rent of fields; do not interpret it narrowly. I am saying that you should not think about collecting rent; it is a new production relation, and you must also abandon the idea of collecting rent."

If you don't change your thinking, you change the person. This is true in officialdom, and it is also true for the powerful and local gentry.

"I wish to hear the details." Wang Dexin was overjoyed to hear this.

Wang Qian also looked at Lin Fu with a curious face. Lin Dashi was still outputting! And he had high-minded theories again! This liberal master really had substance in his belly!

Lin Fu thought for a moment and said, "Your family has land deeds for three thousand *mu*, holding the ownership of the means of production. You cannot farm it yourself, so you recruit long-term laborers, short-term laborers, and tenant farmers to collect rent by leasing out the usage rights. This is collecting rent. This idea must change. Do not turn every business into collecting rent. Every time it snows, you think about raising prices on coal and rice—this mentality must absolutely not be held."

"All wealth originates from land. Land is the mother of wealth, and labor is the father of wealth. Go strive, go grab, go occupy, go pioneer."

Lin Fu elaborated on his meaning in detail. Collecting rent is a very simple, efficient, low-risk, and high-reward asset appreciation. What kind of skill is it to stare at this one-third of an acre of land in the Great Ming? There are so many lands, fields, and mineral deposits overseas; can the imperial court occupy them all? Go out, go occupy, instead of drawing a circle on the ground to act as a prison, enclosing land to collect rent.

Under the rolling torrent of the era, being able to win a pioneering title of nobility is a first-class virtuous deed.

Do not turn every business into collecting rent—this is Lin Fu's proposition. Or, to put it more simply and easily understood, it is to make the cake bigger, instead of constantly peeling and stripping the already limited cake, thinking about cutting more of the cake. There isn't much to begin with, yet you fight over it, making the internal friction even more severe.

After listening, Wang Qian had a sudden realization. Although this Lin Fu didn't have much money, the viewpoints he proposed really had some substance!

How did Wang Chonggu transform from a minister who overstepped his bounds into a Junior Grand Secretary of the Great Ming?

The magnificent transformation was that Wang Chonggu advocated for more material goods. All his new policies started from this basic proposition. Therefore, Wang Chonggu had always been making the cake bigger. Wang Chonggu, who abandoned the idea of collecting rent, gained imperial favor.

There are many beautiful things in the human world worth being attached to.

After Wang Qian called the *bizheng* (editors) together for a meal, he brought everyone to the woolen official factory. Here, there was a sixteen-horsepower steam engine that had just landed, with a daily equivalent workload of forty-eight pack horses. In Wang Qian's eyes, this was the beauty of the human world.

Compared to livestock with tempers, the steam engine only needed regular maintenance and could be used for a very, very long time.

Wang Qian said to everyone, "In the room behind us, there is a sixteen-horsepower iron horse. This is beauty. It has a terrifying and unsettling price: 2,515 taels of silver, meaning 157 taels of silver per horsepower! I know some people will ask: a pack horse costs no more than six taels of silver, and even if it is equivalent to three pack horses, it is no more than eighteen taels of silver. Isn't the Imperial Academy of Sciences fooling around by doing this?"

"Censor Wang, this price is really unacceptable." Wang Dexin had always been curious about what a steam engine looked like. Upon hearing the price and calculating it slightly, he felt it was not cost-effective and immediately backed away.

As for the iron horse and real horses, one eats coal and the other eats grass; there is almost no difference. One needs a craftsman and the other needs a groom; there is also no difference. The iron horse not resting day and night can barely be considered an advantage, but one only needs to get three pack horses, and they can also not rest day and night.

With the price per horsepower reaching as high as 157 taels of silver, can this even be considered a good thing?

"Yes, that's right! Ten!" Wang Qian said with a smile, "This is the *Princess Shengping* No. 2. Do you know what the cost of the previous *Princess Shengping* No. 1, which only had 7.5 horsepower, was? It reached as high as 400 taels of silver per horsepower! I am talking about the cost, not the selling price."

"Have you discovered anything?"

Lin Fu was stunned for a moment and said, "After one iteration, the cost per horsepower is falling rapidly. What if it is the next generation, or the generation after that? It is incredible."

Wang Qian nodded and said, "That's right. The goal of the Academy of Sciences is: for low-horsepower iron horses, it is best if the price per horsepower can be reduced to 40 taels of silver; for high-horsepower iron horses, the price per horsepower should be reduced to 120 taels of silver. Once the price per horsepower reaches this range, it will be widely accepted."

It is inevitable that the higher the horsepower of the iron horse, the more expensive the price per horsepower will be. The price of 40 taels of silver per horsepower for low-horsepower iron horses and 120 taels of silver per horsepower for high-horsepower iron horses is the price range that can be widely accepted, because the maintenance of horses is more difficult than that of iron horses, and cattle and horses also have tempers, need to eat grain, and have costs for production sites, etc.

"It is a pity that even if the cost is reduced to this point, the iron horse still has no connection with you all, but it is closely related to you all." Wang Qian's words were somewhat provocative. After depicting a grand blueprint, he told everyone that this grand blueprint had nothing to do with anyone.

Wang Qian explained, "Because when the cost is reduced to forty taels of silver per horsepower, ten-horsepower and thirty-horsepower iron horses will also be used in mines, *chidao* (imperial roads), and official factories, rather than being sold to the public. This is cruel, but it is indeed a fact. Yet it is closely related to everyone, because the increase in transport capacity makes the Great Ming's trade more frequent and material goods more abundant, and everyone's life will change."

Just like the five-masted ocean-crossing ships and fast sailing ships, they have nothing to do with most people, and they won't even be opened for private trade. These things seem to have nothing to do with ordinary people of the Great Ming, but the universal connection of society exists. Fast sailing ships are beneficial to every person in the Great Ming. This is a question that has already been discussed in the public-private debate and needs no further discussion.

Wang Qian led the people toward the boiler room. The roar of the steam engine came rushing toward them. High-pressure steam sprayed out from the pressure relief valve, emitting a high-pitched whistle. Two craftsmen were maintaining this massive machine. They did not excessively pursue miniaturization. The flywheel whistled, driving the connecting rod to move rapidly, emitting a clanking sound, along with the sound of mechanical whistling wind.

Everything appeared so orderly. The violent beauty of machinery appeared directly before all the *bizheng*.

This was not a handicraft workshop; this was the first mechanical workshop of the Yongding Woolen Factory. Sixteen horsepower could drive two looms, and each loom only needed three weavers. Every day, it could produce over three hundred bolts of coarse-spun woolen cloth. Stable and continuous power was a huge change for manufacturing.

Wang Qian closed his eyes and listened to all the sounds. In his view, these sounds were the sounds of silver colliding. He had staked his entire family fortune on the Suiyuan *chidao*.

"This is the pressure relief valve. When needed, you only need to pull it gently to open the safety valve on the boiler and reduce the air pressure inside the boiler to a safe standard. In fact, this is a safety redundancy design made by the Imperial Academy of Sciences. It has never been used, but it needs regular maintenance." Wang Qian began to introduce many new designs of the *Princess Shengping* No. 2 steam engine.

Safety design was a concept completely detached from the era. Unlike merchants who crazily pursued profits, the designs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences were always somewhat redundant. In the eyes of the Five Classics Doctors, the *Princess Shengping* No. 2 had these fourteen safety redundancies, which indeed increased the cost, but compared to the harm caused by an explosion, as long as these fourteen points took effect once, it was a huge profit.

Removing these fourteen safety redundancy designs could indeed reduce some costs, but what would be paid for was unsafe production.

Pressure relief, maintenance, and pressurization took about half an hour, but building an all-mechanical workshop took several months.

Wang Qian introduced the changes of the *Princess Shengping* No. 2 in detail. The inner wall of the cylinder was smoother, making the piston's work smoother, improving thermal efficiency, and increasing service life. The *Princess Shengping* No. 1 was usable, while the *Princess Shengping* No. 2 was easy to use. How to increase horsepower while reducing costs was the goal of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Wang Qian stood before the massive machine and said loudly, "The *Princess Shengping* No. 3, a thirty-horsepower iron horse, has already begun test runs. From test runs to small-scale mass production, it will take about a year. And the price of the thirty-horsepower one has reached 120 taels of silver per horsepower. If made into ten-horsepower and sixteen-horsepower low-horsepower iron horses, the price per horsepower is 80 taels of silver."

"Wear your rattan hats well!" A very loud voice suddenly sounded. It was clearly the people from the Legal Affairs Office, who were the most annoying in the factory. The Legal Affairs Office did not understand the behavior of the craftsmen. Rattan hats protected safety, but everyone didn't really like wearing them. Checking the wearing of rattan hats every day became the daily routine of the Legal Affairs Office.

And today, a group of people came to the steam workshop. The rattan hats of these people were worn crookedly, making the patrol officers of the Legal Affairs Office quite dissatisfied!

"I am Wang Qian!" Wang Qian said loudly.

The patrol officer of the Legal Affairs Office replied without any courtesy, "Even if Junior Grand Secretary Wang comes, he must wear his rattan hat well!"

"Alright." Wang Qian chose to respect the work of the Legal Affairs Office, because when Wang Chonggu came to the official factory, he also had to wear a rattan hat. This thing was very useful at the Xishan Coal Bureau, but it wasn't actually that important at the Yongding Woolen Factory, but this was also the rigidity and stereotype of the official factory; there was no flexible implementation standard.

After the rattan hats were worn well, the patrol officer of the Legal Affairs Office immediately changed his expression and said with a smile, "Censor Wang, this is also what the Junior Grand Secretary has repeatedly instructed. Please bear with it, and take it off after leaving the workshop."

"Easy to say, easy to say. You go ahead and get busy; I will take the *bizheng* to see the iron horses in our factory." Wang Qian's attitude toward the craftsmen of the official factory was much better than his attitude toward the *bizheng*. He appeared quite polite. The *bizheng* did not engage in production and spent all day chewing on words, while the craftsmen produced countless fine-spun and coarse-spun woolen cloth every day.

Wang Qian, who was well-versed in the second volume of class theory, knew very well that people of his class were actually stripping the fruits of the craftsmen's labor. When you take someone's hand, you are short, and when you eat someone's food, you are short. Since others were enforcing the law, Wang Qian would not take the lead in breaking it.

"Alright, we won't get in the way here. Censor Wang, you go ahead and get busy; we are going elsewhere." The patrol officer of the Legal Affairs Office led his people and continued to patrol.

Wang Qian continued to introduce the steam engine. Its scientific name was steam engine, but it was commonly called iron horse. And the craftsmen specifically established a Machine God for the steam engine. When it was time to start work, they would offer sacrifices to ensure that production went smoothly. Its name was: North Pole Profound Spirit Demon-Quelling South Pole Red Flame Profit-Spreading Great Holy Heavenly Venerable, abbreviated as: Water-Fire God.

"The Master does not speak of strange forces, chaos, and gods." A *bizheng* said with a frown.

Wang Qian said very impolitely, "Craftsmen are not Confucian scholars."

"Reasonable." The *bizheng* was choked and unable to speak. It was indeed like this.

Wang Qian had finished speaking, and it was time for free visiting. He arranged for a few craftsmen to lead the tour and introduce it, while Wang Qian stood at the entrance of the workshop. There were two images of the Water-Fire God: one was Wang Chonggu and the other was Prince De, Zhu Zaiyu. After Zhu Zaiyu was enfeoffed as Prince De, the court painter specifically painted his portrait, and this portrait became the prototype of the Fire God, and later the two images were merging.

This behavior of the Great Ming craftsmen was actually very similar to the Mohists—honoring heaven and following the will of heaven, respecting heaven and serving ghosts (folk customs). A simple explanation was: three feet above one's head, there are gods.

Perhaps the Mohists had never disappeared from this land; they were just no longer a prominent school of thought, but their ideas were still influencing every aspect of the Great Ming.

Letting the *bizheng* understand the steam engine and explain the prospects of steam was part of the plan to tell the story of the iron horse well.

The Suiyuan *chidao* and mining industry were still debts. Before large-scale profitability, some stories were needed to enhance confidence.

Zhu Yijun was like a crow's mouth. In the eleventh month of the tenth year of Wanli, a blizzard began. The first one lasted for three days. Before the snow melted, the second blizzard arrived quietly. The East City and West City were safe and sound, but several houses in the Outer City and the suburbs collapsed. Shen Yiguan, the Vice Governor of Shuntian Prefecture, led the firemen to provide disaster relief, placing the people in the official houses of the *Yangji* Institute. Zhu Yijun dispatched eunuchs to the official houses to ensure normal supplies.

The Xishan Coal Bureau cleared the snow on the *chidao* from Xishan to Lugou Bridge, and coal could successfully reach the capital. After the snow was cleared, the price of coal fluctuated from twelve *wen* per *jin* to seven *wen* per *jin*. Some unscrupulous merchants who had hoarded goods lost money again.

At the two construction sites outside Deshengmen, the Ten-Prince City and the Royal Institute of Technology, Zhu Yijun had originally planned to stop work and wait for the snow to melt a bit before continuing, but judging from the report from the Ministry of Works, the snow had been cleared, and work could start the next day.

Since Wang Chonggu dared to guarantee it in front of His Majesty, he naturally had the confidence. He wasn't talking nonsense. The silver was in place; was a heavy snow even a matter?

On the twelfth day of the eleventh month of the tenth year of Wanli, Fan Yingqi was sent to the Dissection Institute. Unlike others who went to the Dissection Institute to become specimens, Fan Yingqi went to the Dissection Institute to quit drugs. If he could successfully quit drugs, Fan Yingqi could still live a peaceful life.

The Great Physician of the Dissection Institute pulled two wisdom teeth for Fan Yingqi. Fan Yingqi had a total of four wisdom teeth, and the two on the same side were both crooked. The pain was truly painful, to the point of having difficulty opening his mouth.

The Great Ming official field occupation case kicked off in the cold winter. Throughout the entire month, prison carts continuously entered the capital, arriving at the prison of the Ministry of Justice.

Wang Dexin's anxiety was not groundless. The Great Ming was indeed quite harsh on the powerful, wealthy, local gentry, and scholar-officials. The official field occupation case did not lead to beheadings, because in essence, this was an economic case, not involving criminal matters, nor involving rebellion or treason. However, there were still sixty-four officials sent to Suiyuan. This was exile. After being exiled to Suiyuan, if they didn't do well, they would never be able to return to the hinterland in their lifetime.

As for what to do when they arrived in Suiyuan, that depended on Pan Jixun's arrangements. Since he had been given the position of Viceroy, let Pan Jixun play freely.

Pan Jixun could govern water and could also govern people.

Some of the powerful and wealthy were exiled to Luzon. Calling it exile was more like migration, because only the illegal gains were confiscated, and there was no further confiscation of their homes.

Lin Fu's judgment was extremely accurate. The Great Ming imperial court and the Great Ming Emperor were not cruel and bloodthirsty, but intended to make the cake bigger. Migrating people to Ryukyu, Jilong, Luzon, and Jiugang was the concrete manifestation of this idea.

Wang Qian breathed a sigh of relief, because Lin Fu seemed to have abandoned the chapter on "officials forcing the people to rebel," temporarily no longer stimulating the Great Ming imperial court, but changed direction to discuss freedom. He wrote a new article. Although this article was borrowing from the past to satirize the present, compared to the topic of "officials forcing the people to rebel," it was just borrowing from the past to satirize the present, which was nothing.

This time, it discussed: the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras, the rise and fall of the Great Tang.

The Kaiyuan era, with all nations coming to pay tribute, was an indisputable golden age; the Tianbao era, with the An Lushan Rebellion, was an indisputable human purgatory. The An Lushan Rebellion was undoubtedly the turning point of the Great Tang. Lin Fu summarized the many reasons for the decline of the Great Tang, and standing from the perspective of free economy, described it as the "chaos of the three valves."

This is a very novel perspective, because the mainstream literati still criticize Li Longji himself, especially regarding his negligence in governance. It seems that after Yang Guozhong entered the court, everything began to take a sharp turn for the worse; the muddled emperor indulged in pleasure, and the sycophantic officials threw the imperial order into chaos, ultimately leading to the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion.

But Lin Fu started from another angle, starting from military valves, gate valves, and financial valves, defining the An Lushan Rebellion as the "chaos of the three valves."

"Lin Fu actually knows how to find a way out for himself." Zhu Yijun looked at the first two paragraphs of the article and said to Feng Bao with a smile.

Lin Fu first protected himself. His way of protecting himself was very interesting, citing the sacred teachings of Zhu Yuanzhang in the *Imperial Ming Ancestral Instructions*.

On the third day of the ninth month of the tenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang said to the Left Prime Minister Hu Weiyong: The dim-witted emperors of previous generations always used "ruling by doing nothing" as an excuse to indulge their own selfish desires and neglect government affairs. Little did they know that in the affairs of the world, one must be busy before there can be a time for leisure. One must cherish every inch of time, working from dawn until dusk.

Zhu Yuanzhang's diligence is recognized by everyone; even the donkey belonging to Squire Bai Yin's family would look at it, give a thumbs up, and say, "That's impressive."

In the Hongwu era, there were three court audiences daily, while in the Wanli era, it was just a daily regular court audience.

Lin Fu used the diligence of the Taizu Gao Emperor as an example to explain that the decline of the Great Tang was inseparable from the negligence of the Tang Xuanzong Li Longji.

After Lin Fu had protected himself, he began to expound his own thoughts, talking about the root cause of the corruption of the Great Tang's *fubing* (militia) system.

The Great Tang's *fubing* system was completely corrupted during the Tianbao era and changed to a recruitment system. And the biggest problem with the recruitment system was that it was extremely expensive, and the Great Tang imperial court had no money to support the army.

The complete destruction of the *fubing* system led to the Great Tang Emperor completely losing control over military power. The An Lushan Rebellion was the result, and the eunuchs being able to depose nine emperors in succession was also the result.

And the corruption of the *fubing* system was the formation of financial valves, a counterattack by the aristocratic families against the Guanzhong gate valves.

The aristocratic families formed *de facto* financial valves, controlling the means of production and social wealth. At this time, the financial valves had no sense of security at all, because the Guanzhong group combined gate valves, military valves, and financial valves in one, and were supporters of the Li Tang.

Only by destroying the Guanzhong gate valves' monopoly on military affairs would the aristocratic families, these financial valves, have a sense of security.

During the Kaiyuan era, after experiencing the chaos of Wu Zhou in Tang, the Guanzhong gate valves became weak. The aristocratic families' financial valves began to systematically destroy the foundation of the *fubing* system, which was the fields. Through large-scale annexation, land became highly concentrated in the hands of the aristocratic families.

The *fubing* system was corrupted, and the recruitment system rose.

At this time, in order to survive, the Guanzhong gate valves could only compromise with the aristocratic families, and the *fanzhen* (regional military governors) in various places, after mastering the three powers of military, government, and finance, formed *de facto* military valves.

Gate valves, financial valves, military valves—the "chaos of the three valves" was Lin Fu's understanding of the An Lushan Rebellion.

Lin Fu was talking about the Great Tang, but his tone changed, and he began to talk about the Great Ming. After Lin Fu received Young Master Huang's promise, his expression was very direct!

In the early years of Wanli, the Great Ming experienced the terrifying scene of the "chaos of the four valves." Compared to the Great Tang's three valves, the Great Ming had an extra academic valve, which was the *zuoshi* (mentor) system.

Since the Tumu Crisis in the Zhengtong era, when the Great Ming army was defeated, the Great Ming began to decline. The death of military meritocrats and the lack of successors also gave financial valves a chance. The Great Ming's *fubing* system, which was the military colonies and guard stations, was wantonly destroyed under the wind of "promoting literature and suppressing martial arts" and "being gentle to distant people," and the imperial court's official fields were lost in large numbers.

Li Chengliang and the Xuan-Da region were *de facto* *fanzhen* military valves; the academic valves of the *zuoshi* significantly weakened the Great Ming's administrative power; the powerful, wealthy, local gentry, and scholar-officials who controlled the means of production were financial valves;

And there were gate valves. The Great Ming also had gate valves, which were prestigious clans, such as the Kong family of Yanzhou, the Yang family of Xindu, the Xu family of Songjiang, the Xia family of Renhe, etc. Their lawlessness accelerated the decline of the Great Ming, and the civil unrest they incited significantly consumed the Great Ming's national strength.

If there is no way to save the times, the Great Ming will surely perish in the "chaos of the four valves."

This was the shout Lin Fu made while talking about Tang Xuanzong.

"Isn't Lin Dashi a liberal? Is what he is saying freedom?" Zhu Yijun finished reading the whole article, but after looking at it for a long time, he still couldn't see the connection with freedom.

Feng Bao said with surprise, "Your Majesty, Lin Dashi's viewpoint is very clear. With my dullness, I can see the connection between Lin Dashi's magnificent article and freedom."

"What connection?" Zhu Yijun held the *Carefree Anecdotes* in his hand and said, "With this piece of his, does it have any connection with freedom?"

Feng Bao said with great certainty, "Every word and every sentence of Lin Dashi is saying that the Great Ming is too free."

"Is that so? It seems so, it really seems so." Zhu Yijun read it again before he was convinced that what Feng Bao said was correct. His main focus was on the predicament of the "chaos of the four valves." The Great Ming did indeed perish when Li Zicheng entered the capital, perished in civil unrest, and perished when the people rose up, but at the same time, it also perished in the "chaos of the four valves."

The Great Ming is too free.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 513 =====