Chapter 656 Chen Han's attachment to the old man
Zhu Yuanzhang just looked at Chen Han quietly, as if he wanted to see flowers on his face.
Chen Han touched his face and asked with a smile: "Your Majesty, what are you looking at?"
The old man sighed and said, "When I see you are so young, I think that I will die soon."
Chen Han has said this more than once, because it is already the 29th year of Hongwu and according to historical records, the old man will pass away in the 31st year of Hongwu. Knowing when you will die is not a very pleasant thing, especially for an emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang.
So every time he was with Chen Han, the old man would inevitably complain, saying, "Why do you have to tell us when we will die? If we didn't know when we would die, we would feel better, but now that we know when we will die, we can't do anything to make us feel worse."
It feels like being told in advance that you will be shot at 3 ., and you will probably be anxious all day long.
If the person is completely defenseless, you can just drag him out and shoot him. It won't be that painful, but from morning to afternoon, that person will feel worse than death.
This is how Zhu Yuanzhang feels now. He is feeling miserable because of the prophecy of his imminent death.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Chen Han and said, "If you hadn't told me that my life span would end at 31 years, I could still live well. After you told me, I have no idea at all.
"Every day feels like a year to me, especially now that we have handed over all state affairs to the Crown Prince, I feel even more like I am sitting on a chair with my enemies floating around in front of me."
Chen Han looked at Zhu Yuanzhang and saw that he looked so lonely now. He couldn't help but feel a little sympathetic towards him. Is this still the powerful emperor?
It turns out that even when an emperor reached his twilight years, he still had many feelings, especially an emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang, whose achievements in his life were so great.
He made so many enemies in his life and personally ordered the execution of so many people. He lived a very wonderful life. The more wonderful it was, the more reluctant one was to let go.
If his life had ended with him starving to death along with his parents, he would not have had so many regrets, but he created the world we have today.
The Ming Dynasty was thriving at this time, especially after Chen Han arrived and carried out reforms. The Ming Dynasty was thriving and was about to surpass the Han and Tang Dynasties, but he was unable to see it.
This kind of regret is too cruel for an emperor, so when Zhu Yuanzhang saw that Chen Han was so young, so energetic, and able to talk freely in front of him, the emperor, and that Chen Han was fearless, he was very envious.
Before Chen Han could say anything, Zhu Yuanzhang continued, "If I were still your age, I would be so happy. Now the Ming Dynasty is on the right track. Under the joint governance of you and the prince, it has taken a different path from ours."
Chen Han agreed with this, because the Ming Dynasty had suffered many scars under the rule of Zhu Yuanzhang.
This trauma has been passed down from generation to generation. Although it has weakened in the middle, it still clings to the entire veins of the Ming Dynasty like a virus.
It even continued to the successor Qing Dynasty, and the factor of fear was like a cell that had become cancerous.
It infects one healthy cell after another.
Let this cancerous process continue to spread.
However, there were some strong people among those who came later, probably because they saw the trauma, so they suppressed it, but it was too late.
So much so that every time it broke out, there would be turmoil in the Ming Dynasty, and even the final demise of the Ming Dynasty was due to this factor.
After the Qing Dynasty, it was even a little bit terminally ill. This body was already full of cancer cells. These cancer cells not only make people sick, but also change their personality.
Ah, after Chen Han came here, he actually wanted to patch up these systems and abolish the Jinyiwei and turn it into the Tax Inspection Bureau.
The first change Chen Han made was to make sure that this department would no longer be so all-pervasive just to investigate officials’ privacy, creating an atmosphere of fear, as before.
Now Chen Han is just patching up the situation and trying to reduce these factors. However, Chen Han also finds that it is actually very difficult. So what should he do?
The most important method is the classic method in history of shifting contradictions. Since the institutional defects of the Ming Dynasty have already formed, there is no way to reverse them through reforms.
Then we have to see if there are any other breakthroughs.
For example, land conflicts can be transferred to the south, especially the land in Indochina Peninsula can be transferred.
In fact, his purpose in establishing the navy was also for this purpose, which was to let the navy directly control the entire Indochina Peninsula and then make land conflicts such as desertification in the north more serious.
We need to deal with the reduction in grain production and population migration caused by the cold weather in the entire northern coast after the arrival of the Little Ice Age, and we also need to deal with various problems in the northern grasslands.
There is a possibility of more violent invasion of grassland tribes to the south, because the north of the Central Plains is already so cold, and the coldness of the more perfect Mobei is even more severe, so under this situation, we still have to take good care of these possible things.
After curbing these situations, we will be able to take targeted actions and make the future of the Ming Dynasty better and better. So now I can see the old man's concerns about me.
As for the fact that the old man seemed to be getting more and more uneasy after hearing the news that he was about to die, Chen Han could actually understand it. You have to know that after he came to the Ming Dynasty, he had already predicted it from the beginning. Zhu Yuanzhang would definitely die, and it was foreseeable that he would die in the next few years.
Therefore, it is impossible to make Zhu Yuanzhang particularly calm under such circumstances.
Because of this, Zhu Yuanzhang always feels regretful when he sees himself now. This is not difficult to understand. If I were in this situation, I would probably make the same decision as him, and I would probably be as scared as he is.
It may even be worse than now. Seeing the old man like this, Chen Han still feels that he is quite pitiful.
But Chen Han understood that now was not the time to talk about these things. Seeing the expression on Zhu Yuanzhang's face, Chen Han laughed, "Old man, you are really worrying too much. You think you will die in two years. Do you think it is possible? To be honest, with your current level of cultivation and physical strength, it is not a problem to live another ten years."
Zhu Yuanzhang was very pleased to hear this, but he had also accepted his fate now. He felt that if he always thought that he could live a hundred years and always wanted to seize power, then he would never give Zhu Biao the opportunity to gain experience, and would always make decisions for Zhu Biao behind the scenes. Then Zhu Biao would never be able to become a qualified and great emperor.
Moreover, he later became familiar with history books and understood that after an emperor had established a large framework, the best way was to die early and never repeat the mistakes of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji.
In the early days of Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, he worked hard to govern the country and made it quite prosperous, which is known in history as the Kaiyuan Prosperity.
But later on, he became obsessed with the harem, which led to the Anshi Rebellion.
This is really a loss of integrity in his later years, which is why people say that if Emperor Li Longji had died twenty years earlier, he would definitely be ranked among the top emperors.
It's a pity that Li Longji not only survived, but also did things that were ridiculous. For example, he actually robbed his son's wife, Yang Yuhuan. Although he let Yang Yuhuan become a nun and then redeemed her from the nunnery, this unethical scene still made those moral gentlemen in later generations chase him relentlessly.
Although those morals and so on did not take into account the situations at that time at all, for example, the thoughts in the Tang Dynasty were relatively open, unlike the Song and Ming dynasties, when the thoughts of those scholars were very closed and they were immersed in the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues. Especially the rise of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism made the image of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji, even worse.
Zhu Yuanzhang did not want to be like Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji, and leave a bad reputation in the future. He was doing well now, having created the prosperous Hongwu Era. If he could really pass on his power smoothly, instead of as Chen Han said, it would eventually lead to Zhu Yunwen ascending the throne and the Jingnan Campaign.
So after hearing Chen Han's comfort, he didn't take it to heart at all, and his ability to bear it in his heart also improved a lot. Just as he thought, I shouldn't be immersed in such things at all, I should enjoy the happiness of family.
Now that you have your own prince as the head of the family, you shouldn't think too much, especially you shouldn't put your own shady ideas on your son. Your son is a pretty good successor with his physical and mental preparation.
Now, with the help of the future, he has escaped the misfortune of death in the 25th year of Hongwu, and is living well and in good physical and mental health.
This made him very pleased. If he was still thinking about other things after getting these things, it would only be wishful thinking and it would only be said that human greed is like a snake swallowing an elephant.
So after hearing what Chen Han said, he laughed out loud, "Alright! Don't comfort me, I have already accepted my fate. I can even say that even if I die now, I don't seem to have any regrets. What do you think?"
It can be seen that Zhu Yuanzhang is really not afraid of death and has already made up his mind to die.
Chen Han didn't know why his heart skipped a beat and he always felt a little reluctant.
To be honest, during the four years he had been in the Ming Dynasty, he had experienced many things that he would never be able to experience in his entire lifetime.
He was blinded at first, deceived after his eyesight healed, and finally accepted the truth. At the same time, he overthrew the Kong family with the reforms of the Ming Dynasty and even dug up the bones of some members of the Kong family.
He did not expect that he was just a small figure in modern times, but after coming to the Ming Dynasty, he would be treated with such courtesy. Everyone said that Zhou Yuanzhang was a very cruel emperor who would kill people like hemp, but after coming here, he found that Zhu Yuanzhang actually killed people in a directional way, and it was definitely not blind.
Even the warmth and love that Zhu Yuanzhang showed towards his children and relatives made him break his bad impression of Zhu Yuanzhang.
Especially after he became Zhu Yuanzhang's relative, Zhu Yuanzhang always respected him. Even though he sometimes spoke impolitely in front of the old man, the old man still did not do anything to him. This was completely different from the image of a tyrant he had known before.
It is precisely because of this that Chen Han has always been very grateful to him, grateful to Zhu Yuanzhang for the opportunity given to him, and grateful to this era for the opportunity given to him. Even though he is considered a top student in modern times, he still wants to go to the mountainous areas to teach.
In order to realize his life dream, after coming here, he not only achieved his life, but also gained a happy marriage. His wife is not only a member of the royal family, but also very warm to him, which changed his impression of the ancient princess.
It turns out that Her Royal Highness the Princess can sometimes become very gentle, and can even treat me like an ordinary wife.
Because even though she was a princess, she still did not put on airs and still gave birth to children for him. She was still as obedient as a cat in front of him.
This touched Chen Han very much, so after hearing Zhu Yuanzhang say this and seeing Zhu Yuanzhang's sad expression, Chen Han felt uncomfortable for no reason and actually stepped forward and shook the old man's hand.
Zhu Yuanzhang, whose hand was suddenly held by Chen Han, felt a pang in his heart. He didn't know what emotion it was. Perhaps he had not felt such warmth for so many years. After he became emperor, his majesty made it so that no one dared to approach him. Even his eldest son Zhu Biao sometimes showed fear of him.
However, the feeling of alienation after showing fear could not be concealed at all, so he had not sat down with his eldest son Zhu Biao to have a good talk with him for a long time.
So when Chen Han suddenly held his hand, the old man felt goose bumps all over his body in an instant. He looked at Chen Han with some shyness and wanted to pull his hand back.
But Chen Han held the old man's hand tightly.
Zhu Yuanzhang's hands were rough, strong and covered with calluses, which were left from fighting with swords in the battlefield when he was young.
His hands didn't look like those of a pampered emperor. Instead, they had the simplicity and wrinkles of a peasant, but also the lines of an emperor who controlled the world...
(End of this chapter)
