Chapter 107: There Is No Law of the World That Cannot Be Changed

The four words “Emperor for the Ages” were simply too tempting. Zhu Yuanzhang drew a deep breath and silently decided to add another watch to his working hours.

If the road was bitter, then he would hack his way through the thorns. Could he really leave the problems for later generations to solve?

Old Zhu was a hero, after all. The future Zhang Yi had described might be苦, but he was the founding emperor of the Zhu dynasty. What else could he do? Get to work!

More difficult? More arduous? Could anything truly be harder than rising from beggar to emperor?

When Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhang Yi again, his feelings were complicated.

The boy’s trust in him was an unreasonable kind of fanaticism. Perhaps it was precisely this pure trust that had stirred in Zhu Yuanzhang a faint affection between “uncle and nephew.”

Empress Ma gazed gently at her husband. Every trace of Zhu Yuanzhang’s hesitation and every complexity in his eyes fell within her notice.

Old Zhu was a complicated man, with a mercurial mind.

Apart from his family, it was difficult for him to place his wholehearted trust in anyone. Even when men like Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen showered him with praise, he still regarded them with a measure of scrutiny and would never lose himself in their flattery.

Yet Zhang Yi’s unintentional trust was, to Zhu Yuanzhang, the finest flattery of all!

In truth, Old Zhu rather liked the boy. He simply refused to admit it.

Without exposing that little conflict in her husband’s heart, Empress Ma continued pondering Zhang Yi’s earlier words, unwilling to let even the smallest detail slip by.

The boy might have seen many things, but it was impossible for him to tell outsiders every detail.

He trusted Old Zhu and the Crown Prince enough, however. If one could begin with a single detail, it might lead to a great many discoveries.

“To sacrifice the possibilities of the future in exchange for peace in the Great Ming!

“Could there be some hidden danger in His Majesty’s maritime prohibition policy?

“Or perhaps His Majesty should not have banned maritime trade at all?”

“He should have. Why wouldn’t he?”

Zhang Yi raised both hands in support of the maritime ban. Though he had come from the future, and thus possessed the chance to examine history from a higher vantage point, he did not believe that this alone gave him the right to dictate how the world should be governed.

“Every policy is a compromise with reality. Uncle has traveled across the land and should understand what kind of mess the previous dynasty left behind!

“If peace had reigned throughout the realm, how could that emperor’s temperament have allowed petty men to run amok upon the seas? He would have struck them down with an iron fist long ago. Wasn’t banning maritime trade simply the only option left to him?

“China has been a land-based power since ancient times and has had little instinct for venturing out to sea. Add to that the arrogance of considering itself the Celestial Empire, and no one even knew how many precious things existed beyond the ocean!

“For the sake of stabilizing the realm, the north, the west, the south… all of those were tangible territories. After weighing the benefits and risks, banning maritime trade was the optimal solution.

“As for the possibilities of the future, those are matters for descendants and later generations. The emperor in the palace has already done well enough for the present. You cannot expect an emperor to be a god, then demand that he foresee the consequences a hundred years from now.”

Zhang Yi disliked Old Zhu, but he was still capable of giving him an objective historical assessment.

“A god?”

The three members of the Zhu family stared at Zhang Yi with strange expressions.

If past emperors could not be treated as gods, then what about you?

With Zhang Yi’s ability to glimpse the future, an emperor could indeed consider the consequences a century ahead while formulating policy—provided Zhang Yi was there to advise him.

“If the emperor’s maritime ban is connected to him at all, it is because of his status as the founding emperor and that foul habit of his…”

After circling around the subject, Zhang Yi had finally returned to it.

Old Zhu’s expression collapsed once again. That foul mouth of Zhang Yi’s remained as reliable as ever. In accordance with his unwavering principle of never ceasing to disparage Old Zhu, Zhang Yi began piling more misery upon Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Biao had long since grown accustomed to this sort of thing, but Empress Ma found it both novel and amusing.

Zhu Yuanzhang had probably never in his life sat so solemnly while listening to someone enumerate his faults.

He did indeed have many shortcomings. As his wife, Ma knew that better than anyone. But unless it was necessary, Empress Ma would never criticize her husband without reason.

As for Li Shanchang, Liu Bowen, and the other shrewd men around him, they would certainly never provoke the emperor.

Old Zhu had probably become accustomed to sitting there while being scolded and swallowing his anger. He was even able to adjust his emotions and ask Zhang Yi directly:

“What do you mean?”

Zhang Yi said, “The emperor of today is a forceful man, and becoming emperor has only magnified his flaws.

“People like him usually have several unpleasant habits. First, he believes that he is capable, and that everyone else is capable too.

“Then he decides that everyone else is incapable and insists on worrying about matters that are none of his concern.

“Especially when it comes to his descendants—he wants to take responsibility for everything!”

“Pfft!”

How could that be more accurate?

A single sentence from Zhang Yi made Empress Ma, who had been married to Old Zhu for many years, burst out laughing.

Old Zhu glared angrily at her. Dear, why are you doing this too?

He looked toward Zhu Biao. The Crown Prince had already turned away, evidently trying to spare his father’s dignity. But the way his back trembled betrayed him completely.

Old Zhu was furious, yet helpless.

Though his temperament was extreme, he was not incapable of listening to others. Since both Empress Ma and Zhu Biao were reacting this way, it was obvious that Zhang Yi had spoken the truth.

He had never noticed these problems in himself. For one thing, people were poor judges of their own character. For another, no one had ever dared say such things to his face.

“What’s wrong with caring for one’s children and fearing they might make mistakes?”

Though he had begun to face his own problems, Zhu Yuanzhang still wanted to put up a fight.

“Children and grandchildren have blessings of their own. The trouble with being too authoritarian is that people like this decide their descendants are incapable and desperately try to arrange everything for them.

“But no matter how brilliant an emperor is, he cannot possibly see what will happen a hundred years later! So arrangements that are correct in the present may not necessarily remain correct in the future…

“The emperor’s mistake was that he feared his descendants would prove unfilial and ruin the realm he had struggled so hard to establish. So he set certain policies down as ancestral injunctions.

“Our civilization places great emphasis on filial piety. Once something becomes an ancestral injunction, any later emperor who wishes to make adjustments will face enormous pressure.

“No one wants to be branded an unfilial descendant. Thus, some things that could have been changed are not changed. They dare not change them; they cannot change them.

“But there is no law under Heaven that can never be changed. The only constant in this world is change itself!

“To fix certain policies permanently out of fear that one’s descendants might make mistakes—that is an extraordinarily foolish thing to do.

“The result is that matters which could have been resolved early on eventually become matters that must be changed by force!”

A thunderclap exploded in Zhu Yuanzhang’s mind. Zhang Yi’s words affected him far more deeply than he could have imagined.

“There is no law under Heaven that cannot be changed?

“The only constant in this world is change itself?”

When Zhang Yi spoke those words, a mysterious aura seemed to linger around him.

The philosophy contained within them was profound, their implications far-reaching.

Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his head and, for the first time, seriously considered whether he had committed precisely the mistake Zhang Yi described.

Self-knowledge was precious—and the difficulty of attaining it was now plain.

His conclusion was that he truly would make such a mistake. He had been terrified of poverty. Having lost his parents and been separated from his brothers, the thing Zhu Yuanzhang most wished to do after ascending the throne was to ensure that his descendants lived good lives.

But he also feared that his descendants would be unfilial, squander the empire he had fought so hard to build, and end up as beggars themselves—or in an even worse state.

Take the maritime ban, for example. If he truly believed that closing the seas was the right decision, then he would indeed worry that later emperors might refuse to obey him.

“Why is the maritime ban correct for the present, yet harmful in the future?”

“Because the realm is only so large, but the world is vast…”

“The realm? The world?”

The Zhu father and son and Empress Ma all stared blankly at him. Weren’t those simply two ways of describing the same thing?

“What is the difference?”

“To the people of China, the realm means no more than the Central Plain, the Western Regions, the Mongolian steppes to the north, Jiangnan, and at most the lands around Qiongzhou in the far south. That is the boundary of the world our people can imagine, and the realm over which we believe we must contend.

“But Uncle should know that merchants from distant western lands have crossed the seas to reach us. Their homeland lies in Europe, where the hooves of the Mongol cavalry once thundered.

“South of Europe lies the uncivilized continent of Africa, whose people have skin as dark as ink.

“Across the ocean there is also a new continent that has not yet been reached by the civilizations known to us, where Native Americans—most notably the Maya—make their homes…”

Zhang Yi gave them a brief introduction to the world. These unprecedented revelations left Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao, and Empress Ma utterly dumbfounded.

The realm. The world.

In the most direct sense, the two might seem almost identical. But Zhang Yi’s distinction was simple.

The realm was the land within the gaze of China’s emperors, the Middle Kingdom. Yet according to Zhang Yi, the realm occupied by China was merely a tiny corner of the world.

“The other lands you describe are all barbarian territories, places untouched by the teachings of the sages. What use could such lands possibly be?”

“Because the realm is too small. Even the national fortune of China, sustained for thousands of years, will gradually decline.

“Uncle, have you ever wondered why every dynasty in China, despite lasting for centuries, ultimately perished?”

“The reason is actually very simple. The realm is only so large, and it can support only so many people.

“After a dynasty is founded and passes through a period of recovery—when the population grows and the economy revives—it soon encounters another problem.

“The aristocracy and landlords begin to annex the land. The court can no longer collect sufficient taxes, so it increases its exploitation of the common people. The people can no longer survive, take up arms, and tear the realm apart. Then everything begins again.

“This is the curse of the dynasties—a curse that is almost impossible to break.

“The solution differs in every era. In the future, I saw two terms.

“Employment and upward mobility. Every government must provide these guarantees. Without them, the realm will become unstable.

“Forget the maritime ban. Consider the policy of allowing the people to recover and rebuild. Was the emperor right to value agriculture over commerce? Of course he was. If merchants were not suppressed, who would be willing to farm?

“But if the people have spent twenty years recovering, each household possessing land to cultivate, what happens when their children are born with no new land to farm? How are those children to support themselves?”

“By reclaiming wasteland?”

“It comes back to the same point: the land within the realm is limited. And land annexation occurs under every dynasty. What are these people to do? How are they to make a living?

“Having a means of livelihood is what we call employment. Employment determines whether ordinary people can feed themselves.

“Uncle, when that time comes, how do you think the court should solve the problem of employment?”

Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his head and seriously considered Zhang Yi’s question.

He already had an answer in his heart: industry and commerce.

Among scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, agriculture was the foundation of the dynasty. But if the people had no land to cultivate, they would naturally have to find another way to survive. Industry and commerce were the path that could provide the “employment” Zhang Yi spoke of.

“That is what is meant by there being no law under Heaven that cannot be changed. When the realm changes, if the law does not, the laws of the past become pernicious laws and turn into a force that harms the foundations of the dynasty…”

Zhang Yi had not yet finished when Zhu Yuanzhang interrupted him.

“Then why would the maritime ban become the pernicious law you describe?”

“Because whether it is industry and commerce or any other occupation, everything eventually reaches its limits. That is the limit of our realm. If the dynasty is to be given a new lease on life, it will need more resources.

“If we do not go outside and seize them, how else can we manage it?”

Go outside and rob them?

The three members of the Zhu family fell silent.

Zhang Yi, however, became extremely excited at the thought.

Waving his arms and gesturing wildly, he looked nothing like a celestial being.

“Wait here. I’ll go find something for you!”

With that, Zhang Yi dashed toward his room.

(End of Chapter)