Confucius said: "Let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister, the father a father, and the son a son."
Mencius said: "Between father and son, there is affection; between ruler and minister, there is righteousness; between husband and wife, there is separate function; between old and young, there is a proper order; and between friends, there is fidelity."
Dong Zhongshu inherited the views of Confucius and Mencius, and based on the theory that "the yang is noble and the yin is base" with its exaltation of yang and degradation of yin, he put forward the Three Bonds and Five Constants.
The vitality of this set of theories was immense, continuing down from generation to generation to gradually become a core component of Han Culture and the spiritual abode of literati and scholars.
Whether it was Li He's "Requiting the ruler's grace upon the golden terrace, holding the jade dragon to die for him", Yue Fei's "The humiliation of Jingkang is still unavenged; when will the subjects' hatred be extinguished?", or Xin Qiji's "Fulfilling the sovereign's great affairs under heaven, winning a name both in life and after death", and Lu You's "Though of humble station, I dare not forget to worry for my country; when the matter is settled, I must still await the closing of the coffin", all of them embodied these ideas.
Loyalty to the sovereign, reverence for the sovereign, and serving the sovereign were the ideological core of traditional scholars.
As the emperor of the Ming Empire, Zhu Yunwen accepted this ideology, but he never expected that a side effect lurked behind it: when these officials thought, analyzed, and judged problems, their primary thinking was not whether the matter was right or good, but what the emperor thought of it.
If the emperor thought something was bad and they opposed it, that was loyalty.
If the emperor thought something was good and they opposed it, that was also loyalty.
Nothing mattered except "loyalty".
Some people clutched the Four Books and Five Classics, studied them for decades until they strained their eyes into near-sightedness, and spoke endlessly of loyalty and serving the sovereign, yet when it came to concrete methods, they were utterly useless.
Officials whose thinking had ossified and who did not understand how to be flexible might not cause any harm, but they certainly did no good either.
Give them a prefecture or a county, and look at them again ten years later-ah, they were still the same, standing still in a heart-rending circle.
This was also one of the reasons Zhu Yunwen desperately wanted to keep Dao Yan, because although this fellow was quite wicked, he possessed profound vision and understood flexibility; his pioneering thinking was very active, and he was a talent skilled at breaking through desperate situations. Leaving him for Zhu Di was truly a waste.
"What is this?"
Watching Ma Enhui pick up needle and thread to sew winter garments, Zhu Yunwen could not help asking.
Ma Enhui smiled and said, "The winter days are growing cold, and this concubine intends to make a long lined robe for Your Majesty."
Zhu Yunwen walked over, looked at the white fluffy cotton inside the long robe, and froze abruptly, asking involuntarily, "Isn't this cotton?"
Ma Enhui smiled brightly and said, "Your Majesty rules the realm, and yet you have never seen cotton?"
Zhu Yunwen plucked out a bit of cotton, inspected it closely, and a look of joy surfaced on his face as he said to Ma Enhui, "Weren't you fretting over how the Arts Troupe would feed themselves? Now, I have an idea."
Ma Enhui snatched the cotton back from Zhu Yunwen's hand, shot him a sideways glance, and said, "Once taken away, it won't be warm anymore. What idea? Making winter clothes? If the soldiers on the northern frontier lack winter clothes, this concubine can mobilize the Inner Palace to sew them through the night."
"The winter clothes for the soldiers are already properly arranged. What I speak of is a major trade, but this matter requires finding an agent."
Zhu Yunwen grew excited.
"An agent?" Ma Enhui looked at Zhu Yunwen in puzzlement and asked, "What is an agent?"
Zhu Yunwen laughed heartily and said, "It means finding someone to handle affairs. Although the Prince of Liao has been enfeoffed in Songjiang Prefecture, he has yet to take up his domain. I see, let this matter be handed to him to manage."
Ma Enhui watched the jubilant Zhu Yunwen, put aside her ongoing work, and pursued, "Your Majesty hasn't even said what this good matter is yet. If it's profitable, will you also look after our household?"
Zhu Yunwen laughed heartily and said, "Look after it, of course I will look after it. My beloved consort does not know, the use of this cotton is far more than just a thing to ward off the cold; if it is processed and formed into gauze, it is a supreme material for healing wounds. In battlefield campaigns, aside from the soldiers who sacrifice on the field, the greatest reduction in troop strength occurs in the wounded camps."
"When soldiers are injured, there is no way to promptly heal their wounds. Once infected, it leads to suppuration and even death. But if this gauze is used, supplemented with alcohol, the infection rate of the soldiers' wounds can be reduced. They only need to recuperate for a period of time to fully recover. If I hold a hundred thousand veteran soldiers in my hands, who under heaven would dare not submit to the Great Ming?"
Ma Enhui looked at the high-spirited Zhu Yunwen, her gaze filled with adoration. Her husband was not a cowardly, timid scholar, but an emperor possessing heroic mettle.
"If it is truly like this, it will be a great undertaking that benefits both the state and the people. Your Majesty, why not hand this matter over to the Inner Palace?" Ma Enhui rose, curtsied, looked solemnly at Zhu Yunwen, and said, "This concubine also wishes to contribute a portion of her heart's blood for the soldiers of the Great Ming."
Zhu Yunwen helped Ma Enhui up, nodded slightly, and said, "The Inner Palace will be responsible for production, the Prince of Liao for sales, the Ministry of War for procurement, and we shall be responsible for collecting the money. How does that sound?"
Ma Enhui widened her eyes, unable to turn her thoughts around for a moment.
What did this mean?
Was the emperor about to rob his own National Treasury?
Zhu Yunwen smiled and said, "I am prepared to establish a Central Bank outside the Imperial Treasury."
"A Central Bank?"
Ma Enhui grew even more bewildered.
Zhu Yunwen pulled Ma Enhui down to sit beside him and patiently explained, "The current Imperial Treasury is in reality the National Treasury. What the Inner Palace uses and what the state uses all come from the Imperial Treasury. I possess self-control and will not arbitrarily move the funds of the Imperial Treasury. But what about descendants and future generations? They might not necessarily be able to manage this. Once they arbitrarily use the Imperial Treasury, causing it to be depleted, and the imperial court encounters a crisis with no funds available, would that not lead to massive trouble?"
"For the Imperial Treasury to be classified as the National Treasury is a matter of time. It's just that the current timing is not yet mature. Therefore, we will take a step first and establish a Central Bank specifically responsible for managing the operating proceeds of the rear palace. Firstly, to see if the rear palace can be self-sufficient without relying on the National Treasury, thereby reducing state expenditures; secondly, if the state has need, the Central Bank can also circulate funds, borrow from the Imperial Treasury, and collect interest, suffering no great loss."
Ma Enhui finally understood. The emperor intended to treat the Imperial Treasury as the National Treasury, and the Central Bank as the imperial household's private treasury, setting up two separate ponds.
The reason they weren't explicitly made independent right now was because their own pond had not yet been dug deep enough and the water was not yet sufficient.
"Your Majesty, what you said is clear to this concubine, but can that gauze really make money?"
Ma Enhui was still somewhat unsure.
Zhu Yunwen smiled confidently and said, "As long as the Inner Palace can produce it, the Ministry of War will inevitably purchase it. As for the price, the Prince of Liao and the Ministry of War can negotiate it when the time comes, and we can simply sit back and reap the profits."
Ma Enhui gave a gentle smile and slowly said, "Your Majesty has another layer of meaning you haven't spoken of yet, right?"
"Oh?"
Zhu Yunwen looked at Ma Enhui.
Ma Enhui said softly, "The Prince of Liao, the Prince of Qin, the Prince of Jin, and the Prince of Min have none of them taken up their fiefs, and now Your Majesty has recalled this way of generating wealth. This concubine thinks, does Your Majesty perhaps not wish to let them take up their fiefs?"
Zhu Yunwen's eyes lit up, and he burst into laughter, sighing, "Beloved consort, you are far too clever."
The problem of the vassal princes was a major issue facing Zhu Yunwen. Although the four men-the Prince of Liao, the Prince of Qin, the Prince of Jin, and the Prince of Min-had "voluntarily" exchanged their fiefs, Zhu Yunwen still did not want them to go and ravage the local commoners. Coupled with the Empress Dowager truly adoring these few youths, he had not sent them off to their domains.
If they were not sent to their fiefs, they could not just be left idle all the time, could they?
Once people were idle, trouble and gossip easily arose.
Therefore, Zhu Yunwen had intended from the very beginning to break Zhu Yuanzhang's ban, allowing these vassal princes to engage in commerce and become God of Wealth Princes. To go to their fiefs and feast on the flesh of the commoners-how could that compare to the comfort of making money openly and honorably?
Though it was somewhat arduous, it excelled in providing a sense of accomplishment.
Furthermore, as vassal princes, engaging in commerce inherently occupied an advantage. Being state-owned enterprises, they did not fear losses, their procurement channels were abundant, labor costs were virtually negligible, and they did not have to worry about sales...
Monopolizing the market, there was no reason they could not make money.
The place of origin for cotton was India and Arabian Countries, and it was introduced into China during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, though it was mostly cultivated in frontier regions.
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, cotton cloth was called "White Cotton Cloth" or "Cotton Robe". Because domestic cultivation was limited, things of rarity were deemed precious, making it a luxury item of that era that only the wealthy could afford to wear.
For instance, what Du Fu wrote-"Fine, soft green silk shoes, bright and clean white cotton cloth. Deeply hidden to supply the aged elder, taken for use to reach my own person"-testified to this point.
Translated, these fine and soft green silk shoes and bright, clean white fine cotton cloth-these deeply hidden items were originally supplied for Gao Kuai to use, and now Zan Gong had bestowed them upon me...
It was not until the end of the Song and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty that cotton was cultivated in large quantities in the interior.
According to the History of Yuan: Annals of Emperor Shizu, in the twenty-sixth year of Yuanzhen (1289), the Yuan Dynasty "established the superintendencies in Eastern Zhejiang, Jiangdong,Jiangxi, Huguang, and Fujian, obliging the commoners to pay a yearly tribute of one hundred thousand bolts of cotton", which meant that during the Yuan Dynasty, the cotton industry already possessed considerable scale and was concentrated in the Yangtze River basin and the South China region.
In the second year of Yuanzhen under Emperor Chengzong of Yuan (1296), it was stipulated that "summer taxes shall be paid with cotton, cloth, pongee, silk, floss, and other items". Cotton was thus incorporated into government taxation. Huang Daopo, the textile technique transformation expert familiar to later generations, lived in the Yuan Dynasty.
By the time of Ming Taizu Zhu Yunwen's predecessor Zhu Yuanzhang, Old Zhu recognized the importance of cotton and forcefully promoted cotton cultivation using extremely "crude" methods, stipulating: all self-farming peasants with more than five mu of land were required to plant half a mu of cotton.
Those who planted well were exempted from rent and taxes.
Benefiting from Old Zhu's methods, by Zhu Yunwen's reign, the Ming Dynasty's cotton production had already become quite considerable, gradually shifting from a "luxury item" into a daily necessity relied upon by all people "regardless of poverty or wealth".
Hundreds of thousands of frontier troops could peacefully guard the north during winter, and one of the material foundations for this was cotton clothing-or strictly speaking, cotton armor.
Cotton armor was not only simple to manufacture, low in cost, and good in warmth retention, but it was also lightweight, possessing fine defensive power against fire lances, bows and arrows, and the like.
After all, traditional heavy armor consumed too much; the Ming Dynasty lacked an abundance of money but had plenty of cotton, so it replaced some heavy armor with cotton armor. Later, the Qing army suffered heavy losses regarding firearms and adopted cotton armor as mainstream equipment.
Zhu Yunwen intended to bring forth gauze, bandages, and alcohol to improve military medical care.
Whether he would fight Zhu Di in future years remained an unknown, but a major war with Mongolia was a known certainty.
No matter how one weighed it, these things had to be prepared early on.
"Summon the Prince of Liao, the Prince of Qin, the Prince of Jin, and the Prince of Min."
Zhu Yunwen stood at the doorway, looking out at the snow-filled heavens, and instructed Shuangxi.
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