We read all the lead to present a different history.
As we all know, anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are called Jiangnan, and since the establishment of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal, the development of Jiangnan and other places has become better and better, and in the late Tang Dynasty, it has become the richest place in China. With the development of history, the economic and cultural center of gravity of Chinese civilization continues to move to the southeast, and the prosperity of Jiangsu and Zhejiang is even more prosperous, with rich merchants gathering, culture and education flourishing, and talents emerging. Successive dynasties attached great importance to the land of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but during the Ming Dynasty, why did the imperial court always suppress the merchants and scholars in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions?
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▲Contemporary Zhejiang scenery
In 1368, after Ming Taizu cut off Chen Youyu, Zhang Shicheng and other southern separatist forces, he established the state and became emperor at Yingtianfu (present-day Nanjing). After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, a series of rules and regulations were established one after another, but among these laws, there was a very strange one - "it is forbidden for Jiangsu and Zhejiang scholars to enter the household department", and it is written into the "Ancestral Precepts of the Emperor and Ming", and future generations cannot change it. It is precisely because of this stipulation that the Ming Dynasty household department, from the Shangshu Waiter to the various divisions and small officials, did not have the presence of Jiangsu and Zhejiang people.
▲Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang stills
Not only that, in order to continue to suppress the land of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Ming Taizu also introduced other policies. First, the taxes paid in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were several times the national average; the second was to relocate the rich households in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to other regions, and the population migration during the Hongwu period was particularly frequent, and some of these rich households were moved to the north, and some were moved to the southwest and other places; the three branches limited the number of scholars in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and during the Ming Dynasty, they were divided into north and south, and even if the jiangsu and Zhejiang scholars were talented, their proportion would not account for too much.
▲Ming Dynasty literati stills
As for what Ming Taizu did, the Ming Dynasty speculated that the emperor did not like the People of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, because when Zhang Shicheng divided the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, he caused a lot of trouble for Ming Taizu, and the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang also desperately helped Zhang Shicheng, and after Ming Taizu seized Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the local rich households did not cooperate with his rule. For this reason, Ming Taizu will introduce so many policies to suppress jiangsu and Zhejiang lands after he ascends the throne. However, when we analyze it carefully, we will find that things are not so simple.
▲ Zhu Yuanzhang called the emperor scene restoration
Combined with the situation in the Ming Dynasty at that time, we will find that the area north of the Yangtze River in China has not developed well since the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty. When the Ming Dynasty was founded, the northern land was torn apart by war, the fields were barren, and the population was sparse. Because of this, Ming Taizu only migrated the population on a large scale during the Hongwu years, filling the sparsely populated provinces, and the amount of engineering was unimaginable in ancient times for decades. In addition to the economy and population, the culture and religion in the north were also destroyed by the nomadic people, and for the first time during the Hongwu period, no northern scholar was on the list, which instantly triggered a shock in the government and the opposition, and the Ming Dynasty began to divide the north and south into the list, in order to win the hearts of the people in the north.
▲Ming Dynasty folk architecture preserved to this day
The destruction of the northern land is obvious to all, but the land south of the Yangtze River, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, has developed very well, produced abundantly, and flourished in culture and education due to the fertile land, the large population, and the early recovery of the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, for a long time after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, it was to restore the vitality of the north with the wealth of Jiangnan. Coupled with the fact that the strength of the Northern Yuan still exists, the Ming Dynasty still needs to raise hundreds of thousands of troops in the northern region, in this case, the household department that manages the operation of money and grain in the country is extremely critical.
▲Ming Dynasty minister stills
Chinese's local concept is very heavy, if there is a person in Jiangsu and Zhejiang who holds a position in the ministry of households, he must immediately know the "unfairness" in the Ming Dynasty's finances, then he will speak for the land of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and ask for money and grain reduction. As a result, the Ming government's economic allocation and planning for the whole country could not be carried out, and it was difficult for the whole country's economy to recover. This kind of unfair treatment between regions, but also conducive to national development of the planning, naturally can not be discussed in the court. The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang therefore arbitrarily decided to forcibly implement it by decree and wrote it into his ancestral training, with the purpose of perpetuating this economic plan and maintaining the rule of the Ming Dynasty.
Resources:
History of the Ming Dynasty, Chinese Economic History