In ancient times.

What the landlords and gentry class like most is years of disaster.

Ordinary self-employed farmers have poor ability to resist natural disasters and need help from others to survive disaster years.

The first people who can help them are the local authorities.

but...

Many local officials would try to conceal the facts, or even celebrate funerals as weddings, and describe a disaster year as a bumper harvest year.

Because people at that time were more superstitious.

Believe that natural disasters are caused by man-made disasters.

Wherever a natural disaster occurs, it means that there is a problem with the governance of the local officials there, and the local officials will bear the primary responsibility.

In fact, not only officials but also the emperor were like this.

Take Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty as an example. In the fourth year of Zhengtong, natural disasters continued to occur in the capital area.

Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty issued an edict to repent for this.

Actually.

There were a total of twenty-seven edicts of repentance issued during the Ming Dynasty.

The one with the largest number was Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian, who had six edicts of repentance.

Next are Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Daizong Zhu Qiyu, who each have five copies.

Yingzong, Shizong and Shenzong each had two copies.

Emperor Hui, Emperor Xuan, Emperor Xian, Emperor Xiao and Emperor Wu each issued an edict of repentance.

Under the influence of this concept, many officials dare not report the disaster truthfully.

Even if the report is truthful, it still requires procedures and time to open the warehouse and release the grain.

The victims simply can't wait.

So the people could only turn to the landlords and gentry who had stored grain for help.

When faced with disaster victims who came to their doorsteps, the landlords and gentry did not beat or drive them away as shown in movies and TV dramas.

The opposite is true.

They would open soup kitchens overnight to provide relief to the victims.

They only provided the victims with a small amount of porridge every day. It was impossible for them to get full, but they would not starve to death either.

When the news gets out, nearby disaster victims will flock to the area.

Only at this time will the true colors of the landlords and gentry be revealed.

They would persuade the victims to exchange their land for food.

The victims disagree?

Good! The porridge shop will be closed from today.

The victims didn't have much food stored, and in order to come to this porridge farm, they ate up the little food they had left on the way.

Once the porridge hall was closed, they had neither food to fill their stomachs nor enough food to survive elsewhere.

Besides.

When a person is extremely hungry, he loses all reason and self-respect.

Not to mention land, even wife, children and one's own life can become bargaining chips.

As a result, the landlords and gentry easily and legally completed the land annexation.

Those self-cultivating farmers who lost their land could only become tenants for landlords and gentry, or depend on landlords and gentry and become slaves.

After working hard on the land for a year, the tenant had to give 50% of his income to the landlord.

Three to ten percent of the income had to be paid as land tax.

(In the Ming Dynasty, the land tax rates in different places were different. For example, in Hangzhou Prefecture, the highest land tax rate was 10%, and the lowest local tax rate was only 3%.)

This is not the end yet.

The remaining money was used to support the family and pay various types of corvee labor.

At that time, the grain yield per mu was not high, and the remaining grain could barely feed the family.

Once a disaster occurs and grain production decreases, tenants have no choice but to borrow grain from the landlords in order to survive.

Due to constant natural disasters, tenants became increasingly indebted.

The contradictions are becoming more and more serious.

So the peasant uprising broke out.

To quell the riots.

On the one hand, Chongzhen sent troops to encircle and suppress the rebellion, and on the other hand, he eased the conflict by exempting taxes and corvee labor.

Then, we vigorously promoted cold-resistant and drought-resistant crops and set up institutions to supervise officials at the local level.

These factors, coupled with the easing of drought, led to fewer and fewer peasants rebelling.

But Chongzhen knew.

The conflict was only temporarily eased but not resolved.

What is the root cause of the contradiction?

Land annexation?

No!

This is just appearance.

The real root is the monopoly of wealth, which can also be understood as the monopoly of means of production.

The carriers of wealth are different in different periods.

In ancient times, this carrier was land.

Why is it difficult for a feudal dynasty to last more than three hundred years?

Three hundred years is not the limit of a feudal dynasty, but the limit of land annexation.

In society at the end of a dynasty, most of the wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few people.

The people below had nothing except three shabby thatched houses and a few tattered clothes.

No......

They also have debts that they will never be able to pay off in their lifetime.

If we want to solve the root cause of the conflict, we need to help people get rid of their debts and redistribute wealth.

That is to redistribute land.

But the gentry and landlords would definitely not take the initiative to distribute the land to the people.

So...

It can only be solved through tough measures.

There are many tough measures, but only a few can be used.

You can't issue an order for the landlords to distribute the land to the people, can you?

This is neither reasonable nor legal, and it goes against common sense.

So Chongzhen’s solution was to start a war.

Redistribute wealth through civil war.

Since we are going to have a civil war, the first priority is to find a wealthy enemy.

In fact, there is no need to look for them; the landlords and gentry class are right there.

But class is not an entity and cannot be a nominal enemy.

Chongzhen could only target the representatives of class interests.

The landlord and gentry classes have two interest representatives.

In the court is the Donglin Party, and outside the court is Zheng Zhilong.

Once we have an enemy, we need to find an excuse to start a civil war.

This excuse must be both sufficient and just.

Otherwise he can't win this battle.

Chongzhen's method was to force the enemy to rebel, and then send troops to start a civil war in the name of suppressing the rebellion.

It was easy to force Zheng Zhilong to rebel, after all, we already had evidence of his crimes.

For Zheng Zhilong, rebellion was his only way out since he would die if he did not rebel.

Then what Chongzhen had to do next was to force the Donglin Party to rebel.

The Donglin Party is full of smart people.

It is not easy to force one person to rebel, and it is even more difficult to force a group of smart people to rebel.

Chongzhen's method created a situation for the Donglin Party where they would be doomed if they did not rebel.

He took advantage of the opportunity that the prince was in Nanjing to let the Donglin Party bet on the prince.

After pacifying Liao, he reused Xie Sanbin and began to feign illness, expanding the party struggle and causing internal strife within the Donglin Party.

Then.

Chongzhen sowed discord among the factions, causing the party struggle to escalate to the point where it was a life-or-death struggle.

at last.

Chongzhen wanted everyone to realize that he was going to change the crown prince.

The Donglin Party has already placed its bets on the crown prince, if Chongzhen really wants to change the crown prince.

Not only will everything they have done before be in vain, but party struggles will also lead to the destruction of their families.

In this way.

The Donglin Party will face the same situation as Zheng Zhilong, where they will be killed if they do not rebel.