Looking back, the last time he had observed the luminous screen, it had taken the Empress's careful guidance to calm him. Only after a long while had the Ming Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, come to accept the harsh truth. The Ming Dynasty, his dynasty, would one day fall. A fact that burned hotter than any summer in Nanjing, a truth he could neither change nor avoid.
He had spent hours then pondering the reasons for the dynasty's eventual collapse. Were they northern barbarians? Plundering Japanese pirates? Or the sea bandits from the far western seas? Each possibility twisted and tangled his mind.
Following the visual record, he observed the cases documented by Song Ci in Collected Cases of Washing Away Injustice, and gradually, Zhu Yuanzhang began to comprehend a larger pattern. The western foreigners, those so-called barbarians, had crossed the seas, supplying rebellious states like Japan with firearms and gold, inciting conflict, and ultimately turning the Ming's attention outward while internal decay gnawed at the foundations.
Then, as if a voice had been sewn into the threads of time, a boy's clear words pierced the haze.
"The Ming starved, unique in its kind."
Starved, unique in its kind?
The emperor's youthful memories surged uncontrollably like fuel poured onto a blazing fire. Rage ignited within him, threatening to consume reason and patience alike. He had just celebrated his fifty-third birthday. Still a man in the prime of life, and yet now this voice, speaking from centuries ahead, declared that his mighty empire would perish from starvation.
The hall erupted in fury even before he could fully articulate it.
"Absurd!"
"Preposterous!"
"Blasphemous, demon-speak from a traitor dog!"
The words tore through the Huagai Hall like a scythe, slicing through the stunned silence that had momentarily gripped the courtiers. Ministers bowed low, pressing their foreheads to the marble floors, terrified. The Astronomical Bureau staff flopped onto the ground as if suddenly struck by some invisible hammer, and even the princes dared not breathe too loudly.
Zhu Biao, the crown prince, clenched his teeth, his jaw tight. He could quarrel with his father when reason prevailed, but now, standing before a man whose fury could sharpen steel, he dared not risk even a mild contradiction.
Yet, the one person capable of pacifying the emperor's storm happened to be present.
Zhu Yuanzhang rose, pointing an accusing finger at the luminous screen. His right hand was suddenly grabbed. A tug, a signal that perhaps he should sit.
The emperor yanked it free impatiently. Again, a tug. He shook it away. And again, a third tug, stronger this time. The fourth tug caught him unawares, halting his motion. Finally, he sank back onto the throne, though still scowling.
The fury ebbed, leaving the air in Huagai Hall more breathable, though still tense.
"We were just…" he began.
Empress Ma shook her head gently, cutting him off. "In life, a hundred years is already a long time. How much more can we control matters hundreds of years hence?"
Between husband and wife, no further explanation was needed. The words alone carried a subtle weight of logic and warmth. Zhu Yuanzhang exhaled, releasing the breath he had been holding, a concession not entirely voluntary but unavoidable.
Zhu Biao leaned closer. "Father, the southern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangnan are not short of people who understand finance."
Zhu Yuanzhang understood the point. He shook his head. "We cannot repeat the mistakes of previous dynasties, but it is wise to know a little, to guard against the unexpected."
This reply surprised the prince more than he admitted. Yet Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze did not linger on him. Instead, he turned back to the luminous screen, recalling the later reports of unifying north and south. The southern lands had long thrived on commerce and trade. If the north followed Song-like policies, how would it fare? That question remained unresolved. The emperor said only that the prince may learn, but he himself had other pressing matters.
"Regarding taxation," he murmured, recalling the boy's words from the screen. He glanced at his obedient sons, Zhu Di and Zhu Ru, both of whom looked like angels in miniature with their polite expressions. Finally, he addressed Zhu Biao, cautioning:
"Laws must suit the land. Taxation must be approached with extreme caution."
Zhu Biao bowed obediently, then tried to offer some comfort. "At least, looking at Li Zicheng's words, one can see he still remembers the grace of the Ming."
Zhu Yuanzhang, hearing this, could not care less about a man from centuries later. After all, even if Li Zicheng had been inclined, he could neither send troops nor grain across time. The emperor could only sigh.
"Two hundred thousand. For a nation, it is like a broken bowl."
The Huagai Hall fell silent. Only Empress Ma rested a hand lightly upon her husband's shoulder, a small gesture of comfort.
---
Meanwhile, the scene shifted to Jia Sidao of the Southern Song.
[Lightscreen]
[In the late Southern Song, the economic crisis he faced could only be described as rotten to the core.
Years of relentless warfare had utterly devastated Huainan, leaving the fundamental agriculture in ruins. The cost of war kept rising. Under Emperor Xiaozong, the paper money, jiaobi, amounted to twenty million. Under Emperor Ningzong, it had surged to 140 million. By Emperor Lizong, it reached a staggering 290 million.
Jiaobi, similar to the jiaozi currency used in the Song and Jin dynasties, was the state's tool for raising funds for military campaigns. Yet while agricultural output collapsed and military expenses skyrocketed, the Southern Song faced another problem: an overwhelming bureaucracy.
A memorial from Lizong's era summarized the issue with biting clarity:
"During the Jingde and Qingli periods, the finances of over three hundred prefectures supported more than ten thousand officials. Today, the affairs of barely one hundred prefectures support twenty-four thousand redundant officials."
From Emperor Renzong to Lizong, the number of officials had doubled while the territory had shrunk to only a third. The plague of surplus officials was severe, bordering on absurd.
When the Northern Song fell, the invading Jin forces had "physically straightened" the internal chaos. Three redundant offices were eliminated, and land was forcibly redistributed. Southern Song thus rose on this reorganized foundation.
Yet this state-owned land was soon sold off by Wanyan Gou's orders, either to fund the military or to satisfy personal gain. Southern Song quickly entered a peculiar era of large landholders, resulting in unprecedented consolidation.
Northern Song's notorious grand landlords, such as Cai Jing and Tong Guan, paled in comparison to their Southern successors. The top Southern landowners did not dare to occupy less than a hundred thousand mu of land without informing their peers. Zhang Jun alone held over six thousand mu publicly, and some could boast landholdings in the millions of mu, an achievement that could only be described as glorious.
As land consolidation worsened, peasant uprisings became increasingly frequent. The conflict between landlords and peasants was irreconcilable and directly influenced the survival of the state.
The Southern Song was not unaware of this crisis. Reform-minded officials repeatedly proposed limits on landholdings and demarcation laws to curb consolidation, yet the landlords' unity rendered these measures largely ineffective. Eventually, the public land law, gongtian fa, was issued by Jia Sidao, already at the pinnacle of power, in a last attempt at control.
Jia Sidao's view of the crisis extended further. The Northern Song had initially implemented lifa, a grain procurement method involving negotiated purchase from peasants to address shortages. By the Southern Song, lifa had escalated. Low-price forced purchases and payment with jiaozi became routine, with costs ultimately transferred to the populace.
Modern calculations of historical rice price indices indicate that while the Southern Song's overall rice price trend slowly declined, even its lowest point exceeded the Ming's average. Only in the Ming's final years did rice prices spike dramatically to match Southern Song levels.
For over a century, the Southern Song experienced economic prosperity, though only for large landowners, scholars, and the royal family. For the common people, life remained harsh, relentless, and unforgiving, a period of suffering hardly surpassed in a millennium.]
---
Back in Huagai Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang reflected silently. To him, the lessons of history, whether hundreds of years before or after, were not mere stories. They were warnings. A broken bowl, two hundred thousand coins, a treasury that could not feed its people. The idea stirred both fear and fascination.
He looked at his sons again, their faces hopeful yet innocent. In another century, they would inherit the lessons, the mistakes, and the consequences that spanned generations. He sighed, a sound heavy enough to rattle the silk banners.
Even emperors, he realized, were not immune to the harsh truth. Wealth, order, and peace could vanish as easily as they had come. Sometimes, the mightiest of empires fell not to invaders, not to traitors, nor to fire, but simply to the inexorable drain of mismanagement, greed, and human folly.
A small smirk crept upon the emperor's lips, half irony and half exasperation. "So, to survive," he muttered to himself, "I must not only wield the sword but also the coin purse?"
Empress Ma, noting the expression, whispered, "Better the coin purse than a broken throne."
Zhu Yuanzhang's laughter, a low gravelly rumble, filled the hall. It was a sound mingling despair, amusement, and the stubborn refusal to surrender. Perhaps that was the true weight of ruling, to endure the impossible, to learn from centuries unseen, and to laugh in the face of absurdity even when the empire itself teetered on the edge of starvation.
The Huagai Hall, once suffused with fear, now held a quieter, heavier energy. The emperor, the empress, the crown prince, were all alive to the lessons of history, aware of how easily power could slip, and yet bound by duty to act with foresight, courage, and even humor.
In the end, perhaps the Ming did not die solely because of barbarians, pirates, or rebellion. It died because rulers, no matter how mighty, could never fully escape the tides of time. If they were lucky, they might at least learn to laugh at it before the fire consumed everything.