Ancient emperors had absolute power, and for them, the most worrying thing was that someone would usurp power, for example, they were surrounded by many powerful ministers and blood relatives, who would be the emperor's most feared existence. In ancient times, in order to consolidate his power, the emperor constantly strengthened the centralization of power and weakened the sub-feudalism. Some of the feudal lords gradually lost power in their hands. Different dynasties had different approaches to the division of the feudal kings. Some monarchs of some dynasties chose to consolidate their power by dividing the feudal lords, but some monarchs of some dynasties chose to abolish the feudal lords to control these royal nobles.
During the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang took the approach of dividing the princes out to become the kings of the domain. The Ming dynasty's vassals had great power in their hands, such as Zhu Di the King of Yan and Zhu Quan the King of Ning. The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang chose to divide the seal is mainly for two reasons. First of all, in order to resist the Mongol invasion, although Zhu Yuanzhang successfully repelled the Mongols to sit on the throne, the political situation was unstable at the beginning of the founding of the country, and the Mongols would still harass the Ming borders from time to time. At the same time, at home, some reactionary forces still exist, and if one day the two forces are caught between the inside and outside, then the Ming Dynasty will be in a state of turmoil. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang would choose to divide the king of the domain and let them lead the troops to quell the rebellion on the frontier. The second is for the stability of the country. Zhu Yuanzhang had many heirs, and these princes had followed him to fight the world, so they all had a lot of military power in their hands. If all these princes were trapped in the capital, it would encourage their covetousness for the emperor, and it was inevitable that there would be infighting in the future. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang chose to separate them and ordered them not to return to Beijing at will without incident, so as to avoid collusion with korean and Chinese officials. Even before Zhu Yuanzhang was about to die, he had ordered that these clan kings should not be allowed to return to Beijing to visit, fearing that they would take advantage of the opportunity to seize the throne.
But in the Qing Dynasty, the situation changed. After the Qing army entered the customs, the strategy of the Ming Dynasty was basically followed in the governance of the country, but in the point of dividing the kings of the domain, it was exactly the opposite of the Ming Dynasty. The emperors of the Qing Dynasty no longer divided the titles of kings, and although the emperor's heirs left the imperial palace when they reached adulthood, most of them built royal palaces in the capital. Moreover, in the Qing Dynasty, these princes were not allowed to leave the capital at will, unless there was a special permission from the emperor. In the last year of the Qing Dynasty, when the Anglo-French army invaded and the Xianfeng Emperor died, Empress Dowager Cixi seized the opportunity to seize power, so she wanted to unite with Prince Gong Yi. Take action. However, at that time, the Qing Dynasty had a rule that Wang Ye could not leave the capital casually. Finally Prince Gong Yi? Or did he dress up as a shaman and hide it from everyone's eyes. It can be seen that the Qing Dynasty was very strict in controlling these princes, confining them to the capital so that they had no chance to cause trouble.
In the ming and qing dynasties, who is wiser? In fact, these two methods seem to be opposite on the surface, but the ultimate goal is the same, that is, to consolidate imperial power, so these two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages.
First of all, the advantage of the Ming Dynasty's practice of dividing the feudal kings was that they could be kept away from the center of the dynasty, so as not to collude with the ministers of the dynasty, and after the feudal kings were divided, they could avoid civil unrest. However, such an approach also has drawbacks, those clan kings have too much power in their hands, it is likely that they will support the army and stand on their own, and when the time comes, they will rebel, and Zhu Di, the king of Yan, is a living example.
The Qing Dynasty's method of prohibiting all princes from leaving Beijing also had advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the advantage is that restricting these princes to the capital can facilitate the emperor's control and will not happen to the fiefdom, which will greatly stabilize the situation in the dynasty. However, such a practice also has certain drawbacks, trapping these princes in the capital, which will aggravate the friction between them. In order to compete for power, they would secretly engage in contests and privately form parties with powerful people, as evidenced by the Kowloon conquests that took place during the Kangxi period.
The author believes that in ancient times, the emperor took pains to strengthen the imperial power, in fact, whether or not he was divided into feudal kings, in order to maintain the stability of the country, it was necessary to achieve a delicate balance between the two, so as to stabilize the government.