Who killed the Ming Dynasty?

Chapter 113 Discussion at Yellow Crane Tower

Zhu Cilang gazed at the young Confucian scholar and said in a deep voice:

"It is a high wall built by elites over the past two hundred years with rules and regulations!"

"This high wall wasn't built in a day; it was built layer by layer over two hundred years. Inch by inch, bit by bit, it encroached upon the living space of the people at the bottom, until it boiled them down to nothing!"

Chen Zisheng suddenly sprang up,

"Two hundred years? That's like cutting flesh with a dull knife!"

Huang Zongxi sighed deeply and praised the poem:

"Young Master's theory of 'Living Space' is like a morning bell breaking the dawn. A two-hundred-year-old incurable disease has been dissected and its core exposed by these four words!"

He suddenly stood up, the bamboo chair scraping against the wooden plank with a screeching sound.

"The tangible things are like farmland turning into desert—during the reign of Emperor Taizu, each adult was given fifty mu of land, but now half of the land deeds are held up in the princely mansions."

I grabbed the tax form from the desk; the paper rustled softly.

"The invisible are like silkworms wrapped in iron armor—the peddler's rattle drum has barely passed the street corner when the government-run brokerage firm displays its 'government-issued brokerage certificate,' requiring a hundred bushels of 'brokerage certificate money' to enter the market."

A few willow leaves swirled in through the window and drifted toward the tax bill on the desk.

The sky outside the window had darkened slightly, and the indoor lighting had become somewhat dim.

Just as everyone's emotions were caught between excitement and repression, a cry of pain suddenly came from the doorway—

"Ouch--"

The young page was clearly engrossed in listening, forgetting the threshold beneath his feet. He stumbled and fell to the ground, the letter flying far from his hand.

Everyone couldn't help but laugh.

The pageboy hurriedly got up, his face flushed red, picked up the letter, and timidly handed it to Huang Zongxi with both hands:

"Mr. Taichong, an urgent letter from home!"

He stole a glance at Huang Zongxi's expression, swallowed hard, and only then dared to speak.

"The lady said, if we remain detained and do not return..."

"Then...then I'll instruct you to go to West Lake and build a thatched hut there to write your 'Mingyi Daifanglu'!"

Huang Zongxi hurriedly took the letter, opened it, and said repeatedly:

"How could I possibly delay your letter?"

Zhu Cilang chuckled at the opportune moment and teased:

"In Mr. Taichong's *Mingyi Daifanglu*, don't forget to dedicate a separate volume to the 'Roaring Lioness of Hedong'!"

Amidst the laughter of the entire hall, Huang Zongxi laughed heartily.

He quickly wrote the four characters "On the Deconstruction of the Husband's Guiding Principles" on the back of the letter, then suddenly added a small note next to the character "deconstruction":

"The 'shrewish wife' tactic should be included in the 'On the Origin of Wives' section of *Mingyi Daifanglu*!"

Having said that, he tossed the ink-stained letter to the pageboy:

"Quickly deliver this 'Household Management Manual' to Madam as soon as possible!"

Laughter filled the room once again.

After the page left, the atmosphere in the room immediately became heavy again, and the smiles on everyone's faces completely disappeared.

Chen Zisheng frowned, looked at Zhu Cilang, and asked in a deep voice:

"But when did this pressure begin, and how did it evolve into today's predicament?"

Zhu Cilang's expression was solemn, and his voice was slightly hoarse:

"This cycle of compression begins with two centuries of regulatory evolution..."

He then elaborated on the theory of "Living Space," simultaneously analyzing how land consolidation, tax shifting, and resource monopoly exploit people's livelihoods at every level.

The gentry evaded taxes by taking advantage of their privileges, and officials colluded with merchants to share profits;

The Single Whip Law became a shackle for the people. In good years, they could barely make ends meet, but in times of famine, paying taxes in silver became a death sentence, forcing people to pawn their wives and sell their children.

Even worse, the benefits to people's livelihoods, such as water conservancy and forests, were all seized and plundered by powerful and wealthy people.

Even the imperial examination, which was originally a path for the poor to rise in society, gradually became a tool for the powerful and wealthy, with many intricacies involved, far beyond just money.

Biased transcription and unfair examination were common occurrences. The law favored the powerful and wealthy, and even folk beliefs were manipulated by the gentry as a tool for control.

"Are you all aware that last year's civil service examinations saw less than one in ten candidates from impoverished families?"

Zhu Cilang's voice suddenly rose.

"It's not that there are no talented people in poor families, but that the path to advancement through education has long been cut off by powerful and influential families."

"A Yunnan scholar, carrying the proceeds from the sale of land, traveled to take the imperial examinations, spending a staggering hundred taels of silver on the round trip."

"Wealthy families in Jiangnan can hire famous teachers for a thousand taels of silver, and some even bribe forty thousand taels of gold to buy the title of top scholar—"

"These explicit legal regulations, while implicitly prohibiting those from humble backgrounds from rising in society, are the invisible hand that cuts off the path to upward mobility for the poor!"

He gently tapped the young man's desk.

"Originally a stepping stone for the poor to rise in rank, it gradually became a tool for the private use of aristocratic families after the Jiajing era."

"How many poor scholars have had their paths to success cut off by this kind of 'family tradition of scholarship'? The ladder to heaven, once a path to academic success, has long been forged into a lock by aristocratic families!"

The young scholar abruptly stood up, his face flushed, his voice trembling:

"Then wouldn't my ten years of hard study just be like fuel in a cauldron or charcoal in a furnace?"

Zhu Cilang's fingertips traced the pages of the "Records of Successful Candidates" on the scholar's desk, suddenly stopping at a certain name:

"Zhang Maoxiu, the top scholar in the imperial examination of the eighth year of the Wanli reign—his father was Zhang Juzheng."

He went on to analyze the disastrous consequences of this two-hundred-year-old pressure—

When the gentry class transformed from "grassroots rulers" into "resource plunderers," the original triangular balance between "officials, gentry, and the people" was broken.

During the Chongzhen era, seven or eight out of ten peasant uprisings in Jiangnan targeted the gentry's manors, confirming that the conflicts depicted in "The Living Space" had become a catalyst for the collapse of the dynasty.

Huang Zongxi listened intently, his eyes sometimes flashing with a sharp light, and sometimes sinking into deeper confusion.

When he heard that "the triangular balance has been broken," he was jolted as if struck by lightning.

He nodded heavily at that moment.

"I understand, I understand!"

He suddenly shouted, as if a bolt of lightning had cleaved through the fog, and his long-standing confusion had suddenly become clear.

"Isn't this the root cause of the rise and fall of dynasties, and the calamity that occurs every three hundred years?"

A murmur of private discussion immediately filled the room, and the eyes of the people present gleamed.

He slumped down, muttering to himself:

"So... the rise and fall of dynasties is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one."

"It was the elite class that spent three hundred years completely encroaching on the living space of the common people, ultimately forcing them to demolish this magnificent building with their own hands—"

He suddenly leaped up and grabbed Zhu Cilang's wrist:

"What you have dissected today, young master, is more than just a malignant tumor in the dynasty; you have clearly broken the deadlock that has plagued the dynasty for three hundred years."

Sunlight swept across his excited face, illuminating the glistening tears in the corners of his eyes:

"To break this deadlock, we must smash those cannibalistic rules and return to all living beings the tangible fields and houses, and the intangible hope for survival!"

Zhu Cilang's gaze swept over Chen Zisheng's pale face, noticing that his fingers were tightly gripping the hem of his clothes.

Chen Zisheng suddenly raised his head and looked at Zhu Cilang, his voice hoarse:

"Your words, sir, are like thunder in my ears, as if they were laid bare my heart and soul... But what will become of the world in the end?"

Zhu Cilang stared at the ink clot that had formed in the inkstone:

"These two hundred years of continuous pressure, culminating in the Chongzhen era, have brought the current situation to a nutshell—"

He looked up at the crowd, his voice suddenly becoming deep:

"When the rulers amass wealth, the people suffer; when officials are corrupt and the people are parasitic, the very life force of heaven and earth dies!"

Sunlight streamed through the carved window frames, casting interplay of light and shadow on everyone's robes.

A gust of wind suddenly blew in, making the pages on the table rustle.

Just as Zhu Cilang's voice faded, the mournful cry of a lone wild goose pierced the waves of the river.

The sunlight cast Zhu Cilang's long shadow onto the "Jiangxia Scenic Map" on the south wall, and his shadow perfectly covered the four large gilded characters "Peace Under Heaven" in the picture.

"The life force of heaven and earth has ceased!"

Chen Zisheng suddenly interrupted, his voice trembling.

"Have you all understood? This is the true incurable disease of the Ming Dynasty!"

The young scholar trembled as he picked up the shredded paper, then suddenly tore the "Record of Successful Candidates" in his hand in two:

"These man-eating chains... unless these shackles are broken, we poor people will forever be fuel for the cauldron!"

The old scholar in the corner staggered to his feet, grabbing the wall to steady himself.

"Your argument strikes right at the heart of the matter!"

"This lavish feast of fine clothes and sumptuous food is actually cooked in the cauldron of the law and fueled by the teachings of propriety—turning the common people into lamp oil!"