The real enfeoffment.
The First Emperor was suddenly shocked and even put aside the issue of the Huns' border invasion for the time being.
His brother’s thoughts were so terrible that the First Emperor could neither understand nor accept them.
The First Emperor has been fighting till now to unify the world, but now he has only completed half of his goal.
If we restart the feudal system now, wouldn't it be another chaotic Warring States period thousands of years later?
"Your words are more harmful than those of the Xiongnu."
"Brother, you might as well listen to my words before making a final decision."
The First Emperor's understanding of the four words "listen to both sides and you will be enlightened" was absolutely top-notch.
No matter how ridiculous or bizarre the words were, the First Emperor didn't mind listening to them.
What if it really makes sense?
"Wait here."
Throwing aside several ministers who had been urgently summoned, the First Emperor took his younger brother Ying Chengjiao into the side hall of the Council Hall.
Several people in the main hall looked at the First Emperor and Ying Chengjiao's background, and their thoughts were different.
Li Mu, Fu Zikang and Li Si were not surprised by this scene at all and their faces remained calm.
Wang Wan was somewhat worried in his heart - Has Your Majesty forgotten the former power of Chang'an Jun?
Ren Xiong, Tu Sui and Zhao Tuo were full of doubts and confusion was written on their faces.
Although Ying Chengjiao's position was consistent with that of the three, the three still looked down on Ying Chengjiao.
Your Majesty, why don't you discuss this with us now, but insist on chatting alone with that brat?
From the conversation between that young man and Li Mu, we can tell that he knows nothing about current affairs and is just brave and strong.
What does this guy know about military and national affairs?
In the side hall.
The First Emperor waited patiently for Ying Chengjiao to speak.
Ying Chengjiao concentrated and thought carefully, combining historical events with modern knowledge, trying to come up with a set of practical plans.
The initial idea of ​​destroying the Huns was due to stimulation, but when it comes to putting it into practice, you can no longer just do whatever you want.
Because a simple decision made by those in power may have a significant impact on the entire world.
"My brother is worried that the division of fiefdoms will cause unrest and make our Qin unstable. Now our Qin has occupied the world, and has established the current territory with the system of counties and kingdoms. In a few decades, the world will be in the hands of my brother or my nephew. If we change the system at this time, it will do more harm than good."
This guy understands it very well.
The First Emperor nodded. This was exactly what he was worried about.
"Then why did the Zhou Dynasty enfeoff 800 princes instead of letting the emperor rule the world himself? Have you ever thought about this question, my royal brother?"
This question was an old one for the First Emperor.
Even before he became king, Ying Zheng had given extremely in-depth thought to this issue.
Some time ago, when the national system was reformed, feudal fiefdoms were abolished, and counties were established, Ying Zheng devoted a lot of time and energy to this issue. After some deductions, he finally concluded that the Zhou system was not in line with the Qin system.
The First Emperor said: "The lands granted by the Zhou Dynasty were not originally part of Zhou's territory. The power of the Zhou emperor was limited and he could not pacify all the 800 princes. This was the situation at the time, so he had no choice but to do it."
King Wu of Zhou, Ji Fa, divided the world among eight hundred princes. This was not because King Wu wanted to do so, but because he had to do so.
When Zhou destroyed Shang, it only destroyed the areas directly under Shang, not including the princes who were enfeoffed under the Shang Dynasty.
In other words, it was not King Wu, Taigong, and Duke Zhou who conquered most of the territory of the Zhou Dynasty, but only a small part of it.
The First Emperor divided the world among his meritorious officials and generals. It was as if he was holding the entire world in his hands. Then he let everyone sit in a row and eat fruit.
However, it was different in the Zhou Dynasty. Most of the fiefs granted to the 800 princes were not granted by the Zhou Dynasty, but were held in their own hands.
Zhou united many states and tribes to destroy Shang. In the battle to destroy Shang and in the process of consolidating the newly established Western Zhou regime, a large number of allies existed and participated.
At the same time, we must also acknowledge the fact that there were already a large number of states at that time - a large part of the feudal system was a re-recognition of the existing vassal states.
If Shang is compared to the chairman of the board, Zhou is the second largest shareholder who challenges the chairman, and the other princes are shareholders who hold shares.
Zhou joined forces with many princes to drive Shang, the chairman, out of the company and became the new chairman himself, but Zhou still did not have the final say in the company.
Zhou's enfeoffment was more of a recognition than a enfeoffment, because the shares enfeoffed were originally held by the shareholders themselves, and Zhou as the chairman of the board merely gave them a legal title.
The Zhou Dynasty chose the feudal system when it had two options: the county system or the feudal system.
The two options for Zhou are:
1. He defeated many enemies alone and pacified all eight hundred princes.
Second, enfeoffment, recognizing the legal status of eight hundred princes.
Zhou was indeed the most powerful country in the world, but it was not strong enough to defeat eight hundred enemies alone.
The reason why Zhou implemented the feudal system was determined by the social and historical development conditions at that time.
The feudal system is inevitable.
Ying Chengjiao clapped his hands vigorously, his eyes shining.
"That's right! The territories Jifa distributed were all territories that were not originally in Jifa's hands. We will not make any adjustments to the territories that have already been conquered.
"What about the territories that we haven't conquered, such as the Xiongnu, Donghu, and Qiang. These territories were not in our hands in the first place, so why not give them away?
"My brother gave the Xiongnu land to my second brother, and asked him to expand the territory. All the land he conquered belonged to him. My second brother worked very hard to conquer the land for himself, which left the Xiongnu no time to invade.
"At the beginning, our ancestor Qin Fuzi only obtained 50 li of Qin territory, but in my brother's hands it became 500,000 li, a ten thousand times increase. And the more land you conquer, the more you will give back to Qin. What do you think, brother?"
Qin Fuzi, the ancestor of the Ying clan of the Qin State, originally raised horses for King Xiao of Zhou.
Because he was good at raising horses, King Xiao of Zhou granted Qin Fuzi the land of Qin in recognition of his achievements.
Initially, Qin was just a small fiefdom of less than 50 miles, surrounded by barbarians such as the Hudi and Xirong.
The later Qin monarchs relied on their own efforts to continuously encroach on and annex the lands of the barbarians, and step by step expanded the Qin State to become the overlord of the west. This is a living example.
The First Emperor did not hesitate.
"Stupid as hell."
"What's stupid about that?"
"Now that we only see Qin and not Zhou, we know that the plan of enfeoffment is actually a plan for self-destruction. If King Xiao of Zhou had not given our ancestors fifty miles, the emperor today would still be of the Ji surname."
The First Emperor once said: I am the First Emperor, and future generations will count me from the second generation to the third generation, and so on to the tenth generation, and the name will be passed down endlessly.
Divide out the territories that are not under their rule.
In Ying Chengjiao's view, this kind of behavior of spending money on others and making big promises is beneficial and has no disadvantages, and it is a way of getting something for nothing.
In the eyes of the First Emperor, temporary gains may lead to lifelong harms.
As long as there are autonomous fiefdoms in local areas, they will sooner or later pose a threat to the central government, even if the fiefdom is only fifty miles in size at first.
The First Emperor wanted the Qin Dynasty to be passed down for thousands of years, not just last for 800 years like the Zhou Dynasty.
"What's Fusu's last name? Ying. What's the second brother's last name? Still Ying. My brother is afraid that the second brother's descendants will seize the country, which is indeed possible. But since those who gain the world are all surnamed Ying, then whether they are Fusu's descendants or the second brother's descendants, they are all your descendants, so what difference does it make?"
Ying Chengjiao said with a smile.
The First Emperor's expression moved slightly.
What this guy said seems to make some sense and is not nonsense, but it is still inappropriate.
"As for the Xiongnu threat, I can wait for the world to be peaceful in three to five years, and then I can seize their land and occupy their people. I can pacify the world, why should I rely on others, why should I leave the trouble to Fusu?
"Fusu is strong, benevolent and brave, and is suitable for governing the country. The more land you give him, the more he can display his abilities. Granting land to the Xiongnu will only bring convenience for three to five years, but it will ruin your and my decades of planning."
The crown prince Ying Fusu was Ying Chengjiao, who was already chosen by Ying Zheng. He was trained to rule the country and maintain the status quo, and the training of Qin II had basically been completed by now.
The plan the two had discussed was to fight all the possible wars before Ying Fusu ascended the throne and leave a vast territory for Ying Fusu.
If the Xiongnu land is given to Ying Gao now, with Ying Gao standing between the Xiongnu and the Qin State, the Qin State's borders can be kept peaceful for three to five years.
But three to five years later, the meritorious officials who had been granted fiefs had managed their respective fiefdoms well, and the Qin State had recovered. The First Emperor then wanted to expand his territory.
Ying Gao would change from a barrier against the Xiongnu to an obstacle to the expansion of the Qin State.
With Ying Gao around, Qin's territory in the northwest was determined.
In the First Emperor's vision, he would definitely conquer the Xiongnu's territory and turn it into Qin territory, and then pass it into Fusu's hands.
Conferring the second son Ying Gao as an imperial prince did not reduce the current strength of the Qin State, but it reduced the future strength of the Qin State.
The larger the Qin State was when Ying Fusu succeeded to the throne, the more prosperous it became.
Ying Chengjiao thought.
Who told the Huns not to follow the script and to take the initiative to attack? It's because they made me work overtime. I have to destroy them first.
"It's alright, my brother. The second son is reckless and values ​​friendship. If it doesn't work out, you can take back his fiefdom in three to five years and pass it to Fusu."
The First Emperor: ...
Is this guy a human being?
How can you say such a thing?
I really should call the second brother over and let this kid see how vicious the heart of his beloved uncle is!
"Even a tiger won't eat its own cubs. I can't do such a shameless thing."
"Royal brother, you can do it. For the development of Daqin and for the greater love, what's wrong with sacrificing the smaller love?"
"If you have no other excuses, I will send more troops to recover Yanmen and Jiuyuan counties."
"Wait a minute."
Ying Chengjiao was frowning and racking his brains for ideas on how to continue his performance.
"My Great Qin is invincible in battle, but now we have been defeated by the Xiongnu in two counties. Our morale has dropped greatly. How can we not chase them down? My Royal Brother, you don't want the border troops to lose morale, do you?"
The guy was speechless.
The First Emperor stood up and said, "Li Xin attacked Chu and lost 200,000 soldiers. The morale of the Qin army has not been lost. Everyone is depressed and wants to take revenge on Chu. The Qin warriors are not as fragile as you think."
Ying Chengjiao stood up and grabbed the sleeve of the Emperor's robe, saying, "Wait a minute, my brother. Let me think about it."
The First Emperor shook off Ying Chengjiao and walked quickly towards the main hall of the Council of State.
"Speed ​​is of the essence in war. I don't have time to listen to your nonsense."
When the First Emperor was about to open the door and go out.
"Brother, have you ever thought about taking a break? You are a human, not a god. Can you fight for ten, twenty, or even a hundred years? There is a saying in the Tao Te Ching: It is better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish. Giving a man a fish can only save him temporarily, but teaching a man how to fish can save him for a lifetime.
"When the Zhou Dynasty first established China, it was only a million miles. By the time the Qin Dynasty replaced the Zhou Dynasty, China had already reached 3.4 million miles. These lands were all reserved for the original 800 princes, not reclaimed by the Zhou emperor. Ying Gao was granted the land of the Xiongnu, allowing them to expand their territory.
"Give the land of Donghu to General Ying and General Lu, and let them display their abilities. Fusu will be the center of the formation, and the brothers will be granted lands of foreign tribes. The emperor's elder brother is already thirty years old, and can expand the territory for thirty years at most. And by granting fiefs to the princes, the territory can be expanded for thousands of years.
"In terms of three to five years, enfeoffment has great benefits. In terms of thirty to fifty years, enfeoffment has great disadvantages. But in terms of a thousand or ten thousand years, enfeoffment has great benefits! As long as the enfeoffering person has the surname Ying, then no matter who will rule for a thousand or ten thousand years, the world will be in the hands of my brother's descendants."
The First Emperor put his hand on the door of the side hall.
"If I do more, future generations will have to do less. I cannot stop doing things just because I feel I haven't done much, and leave everything to future generations. The Qin Dynasty was not easy to establish, and I cannot let it fall apart."
Ying Zheng opened the door of the side hall, and through the crack, he could see the waiting faces of Li Si, Wang Wan and others.
Bang!
The side hall door was closed again, and everyone's faces disappeared, and they were all locked outside.
Ying Chengjiao came to Ying Zheng's side at some point and pressed hard on the side hall door to prevent Ying Zheng from opening it.
"Brother, you are confused! Qin is not your Qin alone, but the Qin of the whole world! Qin does not need you to carry it forward. Even without you, Qin is still Qin! The power of one person is limited, but the power of the world is infinite.
"Giving fiefs to the princes is a permanent solution. It can transform one person into several people, and eventually the whole world after thousands of years. What are you worried about, my brother? Are you worried that there will be people from other families who will be given fiefs in the future?
"My royal brother, you can gather all the princes and establish the ancestral precept that 'if anyone other than the Ying clan has a fief, the whole world will attack him together.' It doesn't matter if the name of the country is Qin, Gao, Jianglu, or Zhi in a thousand years. It is human nature to admire the strong and expand.
"You and I think Fusu is a wise ruler now, but who knows if Fusu's temperament will change drastically a hundred years from now? If Fusu is not fit to rule the world by then, you and I might come back from the grave and replace him?
"No. But you and I cannot predict which of my nephews will be a wise ruler. This is the system of feudal fiefdom. The fittest will survive, and the strong will eat the weak. The one who can destroy Fusu must be stronger than Fusu and more suitable to control the world than Fusu.
"My brother, don't worry about this. Once the world is divided, it will never be unified again. The county system is a curse, a curse that no one who has the ambition to rule can escape.
"Everyone will want to unify the world, take all the fiefdoms in the world for their own use, and monopolize power. From now on, the meat will only rot in the pot. The world may not belong to Qin, but it will definitely belong to Ying. Every time the world is divided or united, it will expand compared to the last time!
"When a country has no external threats for a long time and power is unprecedentedly concentrated, corruption will inevitably breed and lead to internal strife. Only when local forces keep forcing the central government can the Ying family survive for thousands of years."
The more Ying Chengjiao spoke, the brighter his eyes became, the more serious his expression became, and his heart beat faster in his chest.
He seemed to have found a way to save the Chinese nation from disaster and enable it to continue to move forward.
Ying Chengjiao, who was familiar with history, knew very well that the county system dynasty had a three-hundred-year curse.
The Han Dynasty lasted for four hundred years, except for the birth of a great magician, Liu Xiu.
Among all the dynasties in Chinese history, only the Song Dynasty, which suppressed military power and emphasized culture, lasted for three hundred years.
Cao Wei lasted 45 years.
Sima Jin 155 years.
The 37th year of Yang Sui.
The 289th year of Li Tang.
The 276th year of the Ming Dynasty.
The main reason why the county system lasted only three hundred years was the drawbacks brought about by centralization of power.
Centralization is equivalent to pinning the fate of the entire country on the leadership team with the emperor as the core.
Once this leadership team becomes incompetent and corrupt, the fate of the entire dynasty will be short-lived.
How many people can keep their own heart in the face of tremendous power, stunning beauty, glory and wealth?
In the absence of external pressure and no crisis.
A dynasty can produce one generation of heroic rulers, two generations of heroic rulers, or three generations of heroic rulers, but it is impossible to produce more than ten generations of heroic rulers.
Every change of dynasty is a reshuffle and a reform.
If it was an internal dispute within China, such as Cao Wei replacing Liu Han, Li Tang replacing Yang Sui, and Zhao Song replacing Li Tang, it would be easy to deal with.
It's just a new leadership team. The inheritance will not be broken, the development will not change, and it will not cause too much trauma to the Chinese nation.
But if foreign races invade, it will be a national disaster and China will sink.
The Eight Kings Rebellion in the Western Jin Dynasty and the Five Barbarians Invasion of China.
The Hu people regarded the Han people as slaves and food. They used the Han people as military rations no different from livestock and called the Han people "two-legged sheep."
How miserable was China at that time? Let me give you an example.
Shi Hu of the Jie tribe founded the Later Zhao Dynasty. He took pleasure in killing people and was extremely licentious.
Every time he captured a city, Shi Hu would massacre all the men and women in the city.
In order to build palaces, repair forests and gardens, and make armor and ships.
He brutally conscripted Han men and women on many occasions, and hundreds of thousands of them died of disease, starvation, and torture during the conscription.
She forcibly seized 50,000 Han women from the public and brought them into her harem, where she abused and killed them at will. This led to the women's husbands organizing volunteers to resist, but they were all suppressed and countless people died.
Shi Hu loved hunting and he designated tens of thousands of square kilometers of land in the southern Central Plains as his hunting grounds.
Han people were not allowed to throw a single stone, otherwise they would be punished with death for "offending wild beasts".
Wherever the Hu people went, they slaughtered everyone.
After his son Shi Sui succeeded to the throne, he inherited his father Shi Hu's brutal temperament.
Every night, he would go to the homes of palace officials and rape their wives and concubines at will.
Sometimes the heads of beautiful palace maids would be chopped off and placed on a jade plate to be made into handicrafts for people to take turns admiring.
Tired of all these, Shi Hu selected beautiful nuns from the palace, raped them and then killed them.
Their meat was then cooked together with beef and mutton, and distributed to the ministers on the left and right to taste and let them identify the flavor.
The Jie tribe was like this, and many other Hu tribes such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Qiang, and Di were similar.
That is a bloody history of the Chinese nation that even history books are reluctant to mention too much.
It was not until Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, established the Sui Dynasty that this world, which was bleaker than hell, gradually began to regain its color.
But the suffering of the Chinese nation did not end.
At the end of the Song Dynasty, the Jin people invaded.
Wherever the enemy cavalry went, they only cared about killing people, looting property, abducting women, and burning warehouses and properties.
The two emperors, Jing and Kang, were abducted, and the empress and concubines were raped in the palace. Han women were made prostitutes and Han men were made slaves.
The Jin Dynasty was destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty, and the Mongolian cavalry trampled the Central Plains.
In the late Southern Song Dynasty, there were 140 million Han people.
When the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty, there were only 70 million Han people, and half of them were killed.
In the late Ming Dynasty, Qing troops entered the pass.
Ten days in Yangzhou.
The Qing troops entered Yangzhou and did not put down their weapons for ten days.
Yangzhou, which had been prosperous for generations, was now piled with corpses, with hands and feet lying together. The blood entered the water and turned it into green ochre and five colors, and the pond became flat.
There were fires everywhere, and the city was piled with corpses. The monks alone collected more than 800,000 bodies.
The Three Massacres of Jiading.
When the city of Jiading fell, some citizens hanged themselves, some jumped into wells, some jumped into rivers, some had bloody faces, some had broken limbs, some were chopped but not dead and their limbs were still moving, their bones and flesh were scattered, and corpses filled the rivers.
The women were brutally raped. If they resisted, the army would nail their hands to the door panels with long nails and then rape them.
Every time there is an invasion by a foreign race, the Chinese culture will regress and the Chinese population will decline drastically.
Many years ago, Ying Chengjiao had thought about how to break the 300-year curse of the county-based dynasty and how to protect the Chinese nation from being slaughtered by foreign races, but he did not expect it.
He is an ordinary person, not a god. Time travel has only given him more knowledge than people of his time.
All Ying Chengjiao could do was to make strategies that were beneficial to the present life based on what he had learned in his previous life and the current situation.
During my lifetime, I will do my best to prevent Qin from taking detours and put it on the path of rapid development.
He could only change the fate of the Qin Dynasty for one generation, but he could not change the fate of China for eternity.
But today, he discovered it by accident.
He seemed to have solved the eternal problem that had been puzzling people before. He could change the fate of China for eternity!
He could not break the three-hundred-year curse of the county-based dynasty, but he could ensure that the dynasty changes continued within the Chinese nation.
The greatest advantage of the Chinese nation is its strong ability to integrate, which allows it to spread its culture to other ethnic groups and thus assimilate them.
The Qin State was originally a place where barbarians lived and was ruled by successive Qin emperors.
By the time of Emperor Qin Shihuang, all the local barbarians had been assimilated, and they regarded themselves as Qin people and began to view the Huns as barbarians.
There is no external force.
Then create an external force.
Having vassal states established by the Qin people surround the Qin State can make the Qin rulers reflect on themselves.
It can also ensure that the people who destroy Qin are Qin people when the rulers of Qin are incompetent and unworthy of controlling the world.
Even though dynasties change within China, culture will not be interrupted, development will not stagnate, and civilization will not regress.
Previously, Ying Chengjiao had a nonchalant attitude towards enfeoffment of the princes.
Now he has made up his mind to persuade the First Emperor to grant fiefdoms of foreign lands to his princes.
He wanted to change the fate of Qin Shi Huang.
And it will change the fate of China for all eternity.
The First Emperor sensed Ying Chengjiao's determination to win and felt Ying Chengjiao's aura that no one else could do it but him.
With a sigh, the First Emperor said in a gentle voice: "You always speak of things that I have never thought of, and speak of truths that are not in the books of hundreds of schools. I admit that you are right, but I cannot allow you to do so."
“Why?!”
On the side hall door, Ying Chengjiao left five fingerprints.
Although my brother doesn't know what will happen in the future, with his great talent and vision, he will definitely see how much benefit this will bring to the Qin State! How much benefit will it bring to future generations? This is a matter of benefit for thousands of generations.
If that’s the case, why does my royal brother disagree with what I said? Is it just because of the word “Qin” in the country’s name?