Chapter 1700: A Study of the Great Han

The mightiest empire alone may claim the honor of a single-character name: Western Han, Eastern Han, Former Han, Later Han, Northern Han, Southern Han — yet the Zhao imperial dynasty is called simply "Han." As a rule, in documents and records, unless specifically noted or context dictates otherwise, "the Han Empire" and "the Great Han Empire" both refer to this dynasty that supplanted the Ming; all other Han dynasties require prefixes — Former, Later, Left, Right, East, West, South, North.

The legitimacy of the Ming Empire was built upon "expelling the barbarians and restoring Huaxia," and thus it possessed incomparable righteousness and justification.

Tracing back through the long ages from Xia, Shang, and Zhou to the Song, there was the darkness of the Five Barbarians ravaging China, the bloodshed of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and the feebleness of the Northern and Southern Song. Yet after every dark age, Huaxia civilization always achieved a great revival, surpassing what came before — so it was with the Qin-Han, the Sui-Tang, and even the two Song dynasties.

Naturally, everywhere under Heaven, whether Huaxia or barbarian, all held boundless expectations. One must understand that the flourishing and revival of Huaxia civilization did not benefit the Huaxia people alone — even the wild foreign tribes shared in its grace, advancing from drinking blood and eating raw flesh to proper robes, rites, and poetry, from barbarians into Huaxia.

Some sour, pedantic scholars sneered that such benefit was nothing but the extermination of foreign peoples. Yet compared to what the Franks did to the natives in the far western lands, this benefit was an immense mercy. To live, to survive, to live better — that is what the common people fundamentally seek.

The Ming Empire betrayed the expectations of both Huaxia and the foreign tribes. No one imagined that the Great Ming's ascent would be so brief. After Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di, the Ming Empire's militarily aggressive offensive posture shifted to a defensive one. Mongol tribes of no great strength fought their way to the walls of Beijing, and in open battle they even captured the emperor. Over the next nearly two hundred years, the enemy reaching the capital would happen many more times.

Culture, economy, and every other aspect fared much the same as the military. The early Ming Empire was severely barbarized. Toward many of the Mongol Yuan's policies, the Ming Empire did not adopt the strengths and discard the weaknesses; instead, it absorbed those dark and repressive elements. It is somewhat ironic to say that the periods of economic and cultural flourishing in the Ming dynasty coincided precisely with the periods when the central authority's control was weakening.

Commerce and trade were an even greater joke. The world needed the Ming Empire's products, and the Ming Empire needed the world's gold and silver, yet the official government derived no benefit whatsoever from this — it even sparked brutal wars.

For many, refuting all the shortcomings above is simple: the Ming Empire endured for over two hundred years. Throughout this long span, the legitimacy of the Zhu imperial line never shifted or changed hands, and the empire's core territory never shrank. For an empire, that is good enough.

But this "good enough" was built upon the overall decline of Eastern civilization. The Mongol Yuan Empire that once awed both Europe and Asia had fragmented into scattered tribes. The warlike barbarians of the deserts, forests, and islands still dwelt in ignorance. Under such conditions, the Ming Empire, which retained sufficient size and had not degenerated quite so far, instead enjoyed a rare longevity in Huaxia history — it simply rotted for a very long time.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was a hero; he accomplished magnificent deeds. Zhu Yuanzhang was a genius; he established an all-encompassing system, and this system persisted throughout the entire Ming Empire.

It was just that only Zhu Yuanzhang himself could barely make this system function. His descendants could only patch and amend it, and the more they did, the worse it became. This system even lowered history's assessment of Zhu Yuanzhang himself, with many arguing that his designs were shaped by his origins in a destitute peasant household and thus carried limitations and narrowness.

For example, Zhu Yuanzhang had an instinctive loathing for all forms of taxes and levies, even severely punishing officials skilled at tax collection. Yet throughout the Ming dynasty, the myriad taxes, corvée, and forced labor made the common people's lives unbearably bitter, sparking constant uprisings and revolts. But the vast majority of these taxes and labor obligations were skimmed and shared among the local gentry and officials, while the Ming central government's finances remained strained and fragile. It could not afford to maintain elite troops of sufficient fighting strength, and whenever a major natural disaster or war broke out, it immediately faced collapse.

Not to mention the universally reviled imperial clan system. From the time of Chengzu Zhu Di onward, the imperial descendants of the Great Ming contributed nothing whatsoever to the empire; instead, they bled the localities dry. They occupied vast tracts of land and countless shops, yet paid not a single coin in taxes. To cover this shortfall, the Ming Empire could only exploit the common people ever more ruthlessly — a vicious cycle repeating without end.

Ming Taizu was such a hero and genius, yet he designed a system so widely denounced and disparaged. Some might say that these denounced and disparaged systems contain profound wisdom — otherwise, how could the Ming Empire have achieved its lifespan of over two hundred years?

Because of this, everyone harbors the same doubts about the Great Han's Founding Emperor, Zhao Jin...

The Great Han's Founding Emperor, Zhao Jin, is unlike any other sovereign in Huaxia history. From Xia, Shang, and Zhou to the present, those who proclaimed themselves emperor or sovereign were either men who fought and triumphed in chaotic times, or men of high station who gambled for power. Never before had anyone seized the realm in a relatively "peaceful" age relying on an armed force akin to a local militia.

Across Huaxia's thousands of years of history, those who became emperor included beggars, nobles, and soldiers — those who inherited the throne are of course excluded — yet never had there been one of Zhao Jin's background.

According to the official records of the Great Han Empire, Zhao Jin was of the rank of Hundred-Household Officer in the Xuzhou Guard, a mid-level member of the Great Ming's hereditary military officer system. But a more authoritative account states that Zhao Jin's father was an executioner and his mother the daughter of a butcher. A person from such a family was destined for menial status. Although they might enjoy a decent livelihood, their political standing was low and they could not enjoy full civil rights. If readers find this difficult to grasp, please think of it in terms of a low caste or untouchable in a caste system — though, of course, the details differ in many, many ways.

In the era when Zhao Jin was born and grew up, the Ming Empire was as unsatisfactory as ever, yet it had not deteriorated to the point of collapse. And the grey income of Zhao Jin's father was more than enough to guarantee them a very respectable life. The people around them also maintained sufficient respect for the Zhao family. In the Huaxia world, nominal political status and actual social standing are two entirely different things — take the hierarchy of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants: a farmer was far nobler than a merchant...

Moreover, during his formative years, Zhao Jin rarely ever left the Xuzhou region. Given such a life experience, how the idea of seizing the realm ever arose in him has endlessly fascinated later researchers.

Although the Great Han Empire esteems plainness and vigor, the official texts describing Zhao Jin are always filled with all manner of myths and legends: a great tree in the Zhao family courtyard whose shape resembled an official's canopy; a red glow like a conflagration seen upon the Zhao family roof; someone mistaking Zhao Jin for a dragon in a moment of blurred vision while he slept; the shadow of a dragon entering the Zhao household during a Yellow River flood — a whole assortment, the nearly ubiquitous omens of an emperor's origin found throughout all manner of historical materials and literary works in Huaxia history.

These past few days, the change of seasons has caused me some health problems, and today friends came to visit, so the writing has been slow.

I intend to use this approach to provide a summation of Great Ming Wufu. This is also part of the main text, and the updates will be intermittent. Thank you, everyone.