As we all know, in the ancient feudal society, the emperor was the biggest. The emperor is the ninth and fifth emperor, who holds the power of life and death of others, which is the so-called "king wants his subjects to die, and his subjects have to die." But we know that if we don't want to restrain the power of the emperor, sooner or later it will be chaotic and even bring harm to the country. So what in history has there been to restrain an emperor?
1. Ancestral family law
Although the emperor is high up in the sky, everyone must respect him, but he also has people who must be respected, one is the ancestor, and the other is the empress dowager.
First of all, the ancestors, every dynasty, there is their founding emperor, generally this person until the end of this dynasty, is the most respected person. No matter how many generations his descendants passed on the throne, his prestige was always there. Therefore, some of the rules and systems set by this person were not changed by successive emperors at will.
Just like Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, he said that "non-Liu surname is not crowned king, no battle merit is not crowned marquis", so future generations have always referred to this to implement. Another example is Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who established the "Ancestral Training of the Emperor Ming", which showed that the Ming Dynasty should strictly follow the "primogeniture inheritance system" and implement it according to the "clan system" he set. These can restrain the emperor.
Of course, sometimes the emperor will forget, and then someone needs to remind him, just like the empress dowager. Although in most dynasties, there are rules that the harem is not allowed to interfere in politics, but when the emperor does something wrong, the empress dowager can advise him. In ancient times, it was always important to "rule the world with filial piety", and as long as the words of the empress dowager were reasonable, the emperor could not fail to consider them.
2. The masses and the people
Although in a country, the people are the bottom people, but at the same time they are the key people. If there is no common people, a country cannot be established, if there is no support from the people, then the country cannot develop, even if you become the emperor, to whom do you give orders?
Therefore, the ancients believed that the common people were water, and the imperial court was a boat, and water could carry a boat and overturn a boat. Then some people may say that the common people have no power, where can they restrain the emperor? It is true that the common people have no power, but once the common people are united, they can put pressure on the emperor.
For example, there is an idiom called "the law does not blame the public", that is, when there are many people who do a certain behavior, even if this behavior contains some illegal or unreasonable factors, it is difficult for the law to punish it. After all, everyone is doing it, and it is difficult to punish everyone.
Just as the emperor wants to implement a certain policy, if the opposition of the people is fierce, so that the policy cannot be continued, the emperor cannot arrest everyone and punish them, so he can only stop implementing the policy. If an emperor insists on acting arbitrarily, the common people can choose not to support him, or even overthrow him and launch an uprising. The people of the world have come against you, will you not be afraid? Therefore, the people can actually bind the emperor.
Third, the Mandate of Heaven is difficult to violate
The ancients believed in the Mandate of Heaven very much, believing that the emperor was "the destiny of heaven" and was sent by heaven to save everyone. The emperor himself was convinced, so sometimes when making a decision, he often had to "ask" what God meant.
Everyone knows Liu Bowen, he is Zhu Yuanzhang's think tank. Once there was a major drought, Zhu Yuanzhang asked Liu Bowen what was going on. Liu Bowen replied to him that it was because there were too many unjust cases piled up, so the heavens refused to rain as a punishment. When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he immediately asked Liu Bowen to deal with the unjust case, and sure enough, it rained heavily later.
Another time, Zhu Yuanzhang had a dream and happened to be executed the next day to behead a prisoner. But before that, he still had to "ask" the meaning of heaven, so he found Liu Bowen and talked about the dream. After Liu Bowen listened, he said that this was an auspicious omen and that the execution should be stopped. Although I don't know whether the meaning of these "old heavens" is intentionally said by Liu Bowen, it can be seen that the emperor will be bound by the "Mandate of Heaven".
4. Records by historians
In ancient times, there were historical officials responsible for recording the emperor's words and deeds, and the basic historical officials would "write straight", so it was also a position that was most likely to offend the emperor. Then some people will say that if the emperor is not satisfied with what the historian has recorded, it is not a sentence that can be killed.
Of course, some emperors do do this, but can he kill one, can he kill all the historians? Just like in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there was a man named Cui Zhu, who was a descendant of the Duke of Qi Ding, and later ruled the State of Qi. During his reign, he was arrogant and brutal, and the historian recorded everything truthfully.
Cui Zhu was very angry, so he killed Shi Guan, but he did not expect to change a Shi Guan, or record it truthfully. Then he killed and changed, but the historian always "wrote straight". In the end, Cui Zhu had no choice but to let his own stain be left in the history books in this way.
Therefore, although the emperor is powerful and high, in fact, he will also be constrained, otherwise the whole world will be chaotic, and it is impossible to rule for a long time.