Xia Yan's trip to the West was not paid attention to by many people at this time.

Even the Imperial Navy defeated the Flanger fleet in Manlacca and obtained the Haicheng as a military base in Manlacca did not attract the attention of many officials in the empire.

In the Ming Empire, most officials of the empire were more concerned about the inheritance of the emperor's position.

According to the Confucian inheritance system of establishing legitimate and eldest son, Zhu Zailei, the son of the queen, should be the best candidate for the crown prince. After all, Zhu Zailei is the eldest son of Emperor Zhu Houzhao.

Because of this, the officials of the empire were more concerned about the issue of the prince's entry into the cabinet and studying.

Since Zhu En, the left minister of the Ministry of Rites, submitted a memorial to ask the eldest son of the emperor to study in the palace and choose a good teacher from the Confucian school to teach him to learn the right path, many officials have successively submitted memorials to ask the prince to be appointed and the prince to study in the palace.

Zhu Houzhao had to admit that in this centralized country, most of the officials of the empire were still mainly concerned about who would take the position of the emperor in the future, and whether he could use this emperor's successor to expand his political rights.

"The country cannot be without a king for a day. If the crown prince is not clear, the country will be unstable."

This is the most consistent reason why civil servants gave Zhu Houzhao.

But Zhu Houzhao wanted to tell these people that even the emperor could not be without the country.

But Zhu Houzhao knew that even if he said this, many people would not believe it, and even most people would not believe it, because the current Ming Dynasty political system determined that the emperor was not only the head of state but also the real head of the imperial government, and controlled all the power of the empire.

From a person's life and death to an official's appointment, it is the emperor's own power, and it can only be owned by the emperor.

The power of court officials and clan leader was just given to him by the emperor.

In other words, that is, everything in the world belongs to the emperor, and this is the world of the family!

Once a different emperor or emperor is gone, the world will fall into chaos, the ruling system will collapse, and half of the population will be massacred through war until a new emperor appears.

And controlling this emperor or becoming an emperor by himself is equivalent to having everything.

Therefore, officials of any dynasty care about the position of the emperor, whether they are malicious officials or officials who are really doing peace in the world.

Therefore, King Anhua, King Ning and others all wanted to rebel and become emperors.

If Zhu Houzhao was not a time traveler, if he was a wise emperor, he would have made the eldest son the crown prince as the crown prince as the requested by the civil servants, and issued an edict to the crown prince to study in the hope of relying on this to cultivate a qualified crown prince and lay the foundation for the long-term stability of the Ming Empire.

If Zhu Houzhao is an unreasonable emperor, he can drag it first and choose a son he likes to be the emperor in the future. He can even learn from Wanli and drag it down by civil servants through various conspiracies and open conspiracies and still make the prince he likes to be the crown prince.

But Zhu Houzhao happened to be a time traveler!

Although, under political pressure, Zhu Houzhao admitted that he was not a kind emperor and never ruthless in dealing with political enemies, in fact, only he knew that he did not regard himself as a real emperor in his heart. His cruelty towards Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian and others was more like a proletarian's resistance to the ruler.

Zhu Houzhao is now very confused about how he should continue the changes in the Ming Empire, especially after he is a hundred years later.

Although Zhu Houzhao didn't know why he had traveled to this world, he also possessed Zhu Houzhao.

But he has to admit the fact that people cannot live forever, even if they are time travelers, their body functions and cells have changed with the changes in their bodies over the past ten years, which means that they will age and die.

Death is not scary.

What's more, Zhu Houzhao has experienced it once.

Even though he was in love with the living world during his lifetime, Zhu Houzhao felt that he did not need to fear death and dare not face it. Now he had to seriously think about his imperial inheritance a hundred years later.

Zhu Houzhao was wondering if he should arrange a dictator for the huge China who overwhelmed countless Han people and did not respect other people's lives, so that hundreds of millions of Han people in China would continue to be slaves to this person.

Zhu Houzhao was unwilling to continue this phenomenon. He hoped that the Ming Dynasty would be a society where everyone was equal. He hoped that the people in power in the Ming Dynasty could respect the lives and legal property of others. He hoped that the Ming government was not a tool for the elites to enslave the common people, but an institution that the people themselves selected and provided public services to the people and organized public utilities by collecting taxes from the people.

But this is not easy.

Not to mention the current Ming Dynasty, even in the 21st century, it has not been truly realized. Although the natural law of the strong as the prey on the weak seems to be a truth that all living things follow.

But Zhu Houzhao still wants to work hard again to make the lower class have a relatively equal and free society.

Whether rich or poor, whether high or low, or humble or small, in the future, at least in the explicitly stipulated laws, we will not kneel down to the higher ones when we meet each other. Diligent people will receive the material rewards they deserve, while lazy people will bear the due price.

Zhu Houzhao felt that at least he had to work hard to get the Ming Dynasty closer to the level of civilization in later generations.

Zhu Houzhao had to admit that the current Ming Dynasty is still much worse than the level of civilization to overcome future generations, and the phenomenon of implicating and privately executing human lives still exists. Even the emperor himself did this and turned his back on history;

In addition, women are forced to bind their feet, and even widows are forced to hang themselves by their clans to maintain their integrity. They are repeatedly regarded as loyalty and written into the memorials of the government office and presented to their emperors.

Whenever Zhu Houzhao saw such a loyal and loyal woman, Zhu Houzhao didn't know what to do.

In his heart, Zhu Houzhao knew that this was the ethical society that cannibalizes people, but he could not stop it because the widow hanged herself was doing this by the widow himself, and it would even seem unreasonable if the emperor did not give her a chastity arch.

Turning back, Zhu Houzhao's series of implicated things led by himself now seemed to be doing very naturally at that time. In this empire, no one could say that he did something wrong in legal terms. But he was always asking himself in his heart, is he still a modern person who respects other people's lives and never regards himself as superior or not consciously inferior?

Zhu Houzhao was very bored. Although this society gave him everything he could not have in future generations, such as the palace gardens that he could not imagine in later generations, many beautiful beauties, and the delicacies that he could not eat every day, he found that he was still a little out of place with this world.

Zhu Houzhao hated civil servants to restrain themselves with Confucian etiquette, so he chose to resist, but he also hated civil servants who only knew how to shake their tails and beg for mercy without any human beings when facing their masters.

Zhu Houzhao doesn't want to become the people she hates in later generations, those who like to be flattered, domineering, bullying the weak and disrespect others.

Zhu Houzhao knew that his arrogant people would not end up being good in the end, and those who treat others as unkind would eventually perish. He might end up relying on the strong national strength he built and the large number of people he won. And if his descendants of the Zhu family never regard others as tools of slavery, they would only be overthrown in the future. Even if they were hanged with backbone, they would only be more beautiful than the Zhao family who surrendered to the Jin Kingdom, and they would not be able to change their fate of being abandoned by the people.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao hopes that his children and grandchildren can understand this truth, not just his children and grandchildren. All rulers of the empire must understand that as a ruler, he does not want to exploit the weak as a strong person, but also has the obligation to safeguard the interests of the country and complete public utilities when he has the power of ruling.

Whether the people passively accept the rule of this government or actively pass elections, as those in charge of public power, they should understand that their power is granted by the people. Once the government does not seek welfare for the people, it will only be abandoned by the people.

In fact, these principles are not without them in the words of the saints. Otherwise, there would be no ancient saying that if the people are the most important, the king is the least, and the country is the second.

But many people just recite the scriptures incorrectly, only focusing on safeguarding their own privileges but forgetting their obligations.

Later Confucian scholars emphasized the power of the father and the husband, the monarch, and emphasized that the son should follow the father, the wife should follow the husband, and the minister should follow the king, but forgot the obligation to stipulate that those who are fathers should be husbands and kings may be deliberately downplayed and ignored.

However, sometimes in the court, sometimes civil officials do not know how to limit the power of the monarch, and even ask the emperor to fulfill his obligations. However, many times civil officials do not limit their power to be a father and a husband, so that they set up a one-man hall in the family and ask the emperor to follow advice in the court. Isn’t that a contradiction?

Zhu Houzhao knew that he still had a long way to go to turn the Ming Dynasty into his ideal country, but he would not give up because of the long and difficult times.

But he had to admit that to make the empire become his ideal country, the first thing he had to do was to limit his own power. First, he had to abide by the rules and respect the lives of others. Secondly, he had to try his best to establish a more reasonable political system, a system that could protect the most basic rights and interests of people and limit their greed.

Of course, the most important thing is to let social development and productivity develop, so that the people can have more knowledge and means of production.

Only in this way can the people have more strength to compete with the rulers, and the rulers can consider the feelings of the people, and balance each other's strength can achieve mutual respect and equality.

Zhu Houzhao was not worried that those who were still powerful were above others for a long time and were still enslaving the people. What he was worried about was that the people felt that they should be enslaved.

If this continues, the Han people will only remain numb, and will only stay in two states: complacent to enslave others and want to be slave owners but cannot get it. Therefore, they do not care who is riding on their heads, but only hope that they can also ride on others. In this case, how can they talk about national consciousness and national consciousness?

Zhu Hou followed the request of Zhu En, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of Rites, and decided to let the prince go out of the cabinet to study.

However, he did not only let the eldest son of the emperor go out of the cabinet according to the wishes of civil officials such as Zhu En, but instead let four four-year-old princes go out of the cabinet and study at the same time, and did not mean that these four princes only received Confucian education.

Zhu Houzhao decided to cultivate the literacy ability of the four princes first, and the way to cultivate it is no longer to teach the traditional Confucian enlightenment method of the Three Character Classic, but to use the newly compiled pinyin to assist various catchy poems, articles, and to use Zhu Houzhao's Hanlin Academy to compile the "Da Ming Dictionary" similar to the later Xinhua Dictionary, which was also used as the main reference book for the fourth prince during his primary compulsory education.

At the same time, Zhu Houzhao did not choose good teachers as military officials and teach them according to the civil servants' wishes. Instead, he issued an edict to establish the court society (hereinafter referred to as palace school) in accordance with the social school rules, which specializes in cultivating children of royal nobles for primary education. The social school teachers are not court officials who only know how to remove books and explain Confucian classics, but instead select experienced social school teachers from local social school to recruit palace school as teachers, and their subjects have also become three subjects of Chinese studies, arithmetics, and common sense.

Zhu Houzhao issued an edict to select children of appropriate age from royal families to study in the palace. In addition to the four princes, some sons of vassal kings, princesses and relatives were also recruited into the palace.

Among them, it is worth mentioning that Zhu Houcong, the son of King Xing Zhu Youze, also came to the palace to study and study.

Zhu Houzhao's purpose of doing this is very simple. He allowed these princes to learn how to get along with others, how to observe people's hearts, how to know how to make friends and resolve conflicts when getting along with others, rather than letting them grow up in the deep palace or just follow the teacher's teachings, or even take the teacher's words as the guide and lose the ability to think about themselves.

Zhu Houzhao's actions naturally made most civil officials very disgusted, because in this way, they could not achieve the goal of influencing the future court by educating the prince.

However, these civil officials did not dare to explicitly oppose Zhu Houzhao, after all, Zhu Houzhao was the emperor and had the highest decision-making power of the empire.

Therefore, these civil officials only advised Emperor Zhu Houzhao to establish the crown prince first, and said that he asked the emperor to establish the crown prince for the sake of the Ming Dynasty. After all, the uncertain position of the crown prince will cause the court officials to fall into party struggles and cause instability in the government.

Zhu Houzhao knew that if the prince was not established, it would indeed cause party struggles. In history, the Qing Dynasty's Nine Dragons' battle for the throne was an example, and the failure to establish the prince for a long time caused serious internal friction in the country and the court, which was also an example. However, it was not good to establish the prince early in the morning. Once the prince appeared, many officials would only know how to curry favor with the prince and follow the prince to corruption and abuse the law.

But Zhu Houzhao would rather not establish a crown prince now than to spend a lot of effort to abolish an unqualified crown prince in the future. Who will rule the empire in the future should not be determined by Confucian ethics, nor should it be decided by himself, but by billions of people.
Chapter completed!