"Okay, the concept of citizenship is also a core part of the Chinese order. I can say that! Citizens and nobles actually represent the elite group of the entire Chinese ethnic group!"

"Society is chaotic, people's hearts are confused. Not everyone can make clear and correct judgments under the influence of fame and fortune. Different levels of education and different living environments since childhood will cause various deviations to people's thoughts!"

"It is this deviation that makes the same social phenomenon appear differently in the hearts of different people... This is the root of internal friction!"

"Who does the country belong to? Of course it belongs to all peoples. Everything established by the Chinese nation should belong to the common ownership of all peoples. This is the essence of the equality order! But who belongs to the management rights of the country? Will all people share equally?"

"I'm sorry that's unrealistic, because people's hearts are confused and their views on the same thing are different. If the management rights are divided equally between everyone, then there will be serious internal friction! You say things, I say things, or I know you are right, but your interests are not the same community, and I will deliberately oppose you!"

"In the face of absolute self-interest, many people will choose to sacrifice the interests of the public! This is a very sad reality. I don't want to admit it, but I cannot refuse to admit it!"

"Under this reality, we can only hand over the management of the country to the elite team for governance, and try our best to reduce internal consumption!"

Xiao Letian sighed, "In fact, why did the ancient human society have emperors and kings? To be honest, the appearance of emperors and kings is actually a helpless measure for humans to be forced to adapt to this imperfect reality!"

"No one wants an emperor and king to take care of him above his head. Everyone wants his wealth to stay in his home. Everyone wants his power to be free from interference or infringement... Yes, I, Xiao Letian, don't want it either!"

"Didn't the ancients have such wisdom? Of course they have it, and of course they can understand this truth! But the reality is cruel. Those nations that pursue equality and freedom, countries that disperse power, were defeated by the sword of centralization, and all the people died and civilization was destroyed!"

"After all, centralization can suppress the differences within mankind, shock internal friction, and gather the power of all people to do some earth-shaking things... For example, war! For example, huge projects that are unprecedented and modern! This terrifying centralization ability is like a hammer smashing those loose civilizations to pieces!"

The hall was silent, and everyone seemed to have a big stone in their hearts, so heavy that they could not speak.

Xiao Letian sighed, "The Ming Dynasty was the last glory of Han civilization. The Zhu family royal family and Confucian intellectuals created a very advanced decentralization system at that time... The cabinet and the imperial power share power with each other, and there were competitions and balances and compromises between them. The power was divided in repeated conflicts!"

"At that time, the Ming Dynasty, the royal family, the civil officials, and the weaker generals in the later period shared the power of the empire together. They would not let a certain class grow abnormally, so as to ensure that power and wealth are always in a state of flow!"

Xiao Letian turned his head to look at Zai Chun, "The politics of the Ming Dynasty at that time was simply a beacon of the medieval era for Europe. Countless intellectuals used the almost perfect civil servant political model to motivate themselves and inspire themselves to fight against theocratic politics! The Renaissance really revived the civilization of ancient Greece and Rome? No, the Renaissance also absorbed the milk of Chinese civil servant politics..."

"Especially represented by France, the French royal family and bureaucrats in that era had no more admiration for the Chinese style!"

"But civilization can never stand against barbarism! When the internal friction between the Ming Dynasty, which was decentralized, became more and more serious, the Jurchens in the north were all over the world! The strong bodies and souls trained by bows, horses, archery, and the white mountains and black waters made them sweep across the Central Plains like a shattered destruction..."

"It's not like the barbarism that defeated civilization, I would rather believe that it was centralization that defeated decentralization! Iron blood and scimitar overwhelmed all the internal dissatisfaction voices, and the threat of death made their entire clan a huge war machine!"

"No war-weariness! No internal friction! No disagreement! Some people are united and robbed! Go robbed the whole world..."

Zai Chun's little face was said to be pale, his hands and feet were trembling, but he didn't dare to refute a word of what the master said, nor did he know how to refute it.

The bloody smell in the history books spreads in the hall, and many people feel suffocating. Xiao Letian smiled and relieved the atmosphere. "In fact, it is not just the change of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but the glorious dynasties in Chinese history are actually more or less troubled by this problem!"

"The civil servant politics of the Song Dynasty was even more relaxed than those of the Ming Dynasty! What was the result? Faced with the centralization of foreign races, the Song Dynasty, which had dispersed power, could only adopt a strategic defensive force, and continued to defend from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, and finally retreated to Yashan and jumped into the sea!"

"In fact, Europe is similar. In the late period of the powerful Roman Empire, the power struggle between the emperor and the nobles' parliament, the elders' house, and the local governors became increasingly fierce. The Roman Empire, with intensified internal friction, eventually collapsed in the highly centralized barbarian invasion, leaving only the once glorious arena and many temples for future generations to sigh!"

"Prime Minister!" Just as Xiao Letian sighed, a voice suddenly sounded in the crowd. Everyone turned their heads and saw that it was a foreigner, and many people present did not recognize him.

Only Xiao Letian and the oldest group of officials knew who the foreigner was. He was the military officer of Matthew's US Embassy and the military investigation commissioner sent by President Lincoln to East Asia.

When Xiao Letian had just obtained control of Ryukyu, he once took a boat to Asia with Mike Carnegie. Later, Matthew traveled in China, and his Chinese proficiency has increased significantly in recent years.

"Prime Minister, I don't quite agree with you! You have just been explaining the various advantages of centralization in the face of decentralization, but we cannot ignore it. Are there more people in the history of centralized national collapses?"

"Is Genghis Khan's kingdom huge? But the Yuan Dynasty's existence was short in all dynasties in China, and their descendants eventually retreated to the grassland!"

"Many centralized ethnic minorities in Chinese history, such as the Turks, Xiongnus, Qiang people, Dangxiang, Xianbei... how many years will their regime live?"

"There are also Goths, Huns, Vandals, Gauls, Franks, Germans who destroyed Rome... Except for the Franks and Germanic peoples who survived, what about the others? Aren't they all destroyed in the long river of history?"

"Even the barbarians Frank and Germanic, who were then, survived in the end, because they learned advanced civilizations, absorbed the essence of Roman civilization and Eastern civilization, so that they could stand firm!"
Chapter completed!