Chapter 103 Universal Empire?

Question 1: Which of the following countries do you think the empire's official system is closest to?

A. Britain B. France C. Prussia D. Spain

Question 2: Please choose the tax type that is suitable for the empire from the following.

Question 21: Please comment on the empire's official promotion system in detail and write a short essay of about 800 words on this topic. The theme should be prominent, clear and logical.

Question 22: Please comment on Poland's parliamentary system and analyze the reasons for Poland's decline.

Question 23: Please analyze the current situation in Poland and point out a way out for it.

Question 24: Please analyze the "Imperial Edict" in January, point out the benefits of this reform to the empire, and explain where its superiority lies.

Looking at the paper in hand, Selim showed a satisfied smile. Do you think that Emperor Sai the Great has mixed private goods in this thing? Of course there is.

After all, why did Emperor Sai the Great recruit people who would not sing praises to Emperor Sai the Great on paper? He was so idle that he wanted to increase the strength of his revival of the empire, right?

Of course, except for the 24th question, which is the final question common to all the examination papers, the rest of the questions change with different examinations.

The paper in the hands of Saidi is the compulsory paper for all candidates who want to work in the central government, and it is also the paper that Leo, who is writing furiously in the examination room, is doing.

In the examination room, Leo has finished the previous multiple-choice questions and started to look at the big questions at the back. Although the secret paper did not predict the questions for the first three questions, the core of thinking is similar.

As for the last question, Leo is almost sure that he can do it, because he has done similar questions countless times on the secret paper.

The same question also appeared on Michael's test paper. Michael, who couldn't even understand what the whole test paper was asking, chose to sleep decisively.

After all, he thought he was a descendant of Rome and looked down on the Ottoman language, so he couldn't understand the test paper.

After going through the first round of compulsory papers, what awaited Leo was the second volume - the Quran.

This was also set by Selim. He had figured out that there was no possibility of success for the universal empire.

The Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Mughal Empire, and a dynasty that is currently ruling the East.

They have all tried to build a new national identity to replace the original ethnic groups, but they have all failed.

The deep-seated reason for their failure is that the success of nation building means the extinction of the ethnic groups that constitute the nation.

Take the Ottoman Empire as an example. The establishment of Ottomanism means that the Turkish Turks and Arabs, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs must abandon their own cultural history and national identity.

It is better to replace the historical memory of all ethnic groups with the establishment of the Ottoman Empire in 1299, rather than the Aegean civilization in 2,000 BC.

After all, in the so-called national narrative, the history of the ethnic groups before the establishment of the country is not important.

If possible, Ottomanism will do its best to discredit the ancient Greek, Roman, and Armenian civilizations, and describe them as the licentious and immoral city of Sodom.

Or it could be said that although Greece, ancient Rome, and Armenia had brilliant civilizations, they had internal insurmountable flaws, which were eventually filled by the Turks.

In a word, the conquest of the Turks was inevitable and progressive.

But there is an inevitable flaw in this narrative, mainly because if there were conquerors more advanced than Turkey, wouldn't the Greeks and Armenians abandon the Ottoman Empire and embrace new conquerors?

Anyway, they were all foreign conquerors, so couldn't the Greeks choose a better one for themselves?

More importantly, Ottomanism is just a lip service. In reality, the sultans wanted the Greeks to fulfill their obligations as Ottomans, but refused to give them power, and even did not abolish religious taxes and discriminatory policies.

It's not as good as the medieval era, when the Greeks only had to pay money and didn't have to conscript soldiers.

And this is also a characteristic of many universal empires, which always harm the interests of some nations to fatten up other nations.

Yugoslavia initially relied on damaging the interests of the Serbs to win over other ethnic groups, and the Soviet Union treated the Russians as milk cows, constantly sucking blood to supply the Central Asian Gestan and the Caucasus.

In addition, multi-ethnic countries often mean more diverse national narratives. Their heroes are our enemies. Many Greek national heroes are famous for resisting the Ottomans, and so are Armenia and Bulgaria.

In this case, Selim forcibly used the Ottoman national heroes to call on the Greeks to defend the Ottomans. What would the Greeks think?

It's like belittling Yue Fei while elevating Jin Wushu of the Jin Dynasty, calling on the Han people to defend the Great Jin like Jin Wushu. Are you sure you won't be schizophrenic?

The Qing Dynasty's Qing Dynasty patriots used to brag about Hai Ling, a Manchu general during the Qing-British War, calling him a national hero, but when this guy arrived in Zhenjiang, the British slaughtered all the Han people in Zhenjiang before they even saw him.

In the war, they also tried their best to let the Han Green Camp die as cannon fodder, and even forced the Han people to commit suicide.

In this comparison, the British are simply the king's teacher.

The longer the history and the more stable the inheritance of a nation, the harder it is to change its historical memory. Forcibly promoting so-called nationalism with administrative power and political correctness will only backfire.

For example, how many years of history do the Greeks have? Four thousand years or seven hundred years? How many years of history do the Han people have? Five thousand years or three hundred years?

Just a historical memory has become like this, not to mention the different treatments of various ethnic groups in daily life.

In Selim's view, the identity of a nation is like a tree. There must be a main trunk, and the others can be branches.

But many so-called universal countries are often more like multiple trunks, just tied together by ropes.

The government may be able to bluff people with administrative means and the big stick of political correctness, but the government cannot change the reality.

No matter what kind of universal empire it is, the final outcome is collapse, which is a matter of sooner or later.

Compared with countries such as the Byzantine Empire and the Mughal Empire.

The situation faced by Selim is more difficult. After all, the Ottoman Empire is a country with diverse ethnicities and religions, which can be called a double blossoming country.

Rather than forcibly shaping a universal empire that is neither fish nor fowl, Selim is more in favor of the methods of the Indian old immortal.

When the Greeks later gained independence, they could use religion to forcefully form a national restoration army. Why couldn't Selim combine Arabs, Egyptians, and Turks?

Since he had already combined these Muslims, why couldn't he make more efforts to increase the coverage of Islam?

This is why he set the Koran as a compulsory test for civil service examinations. The empire used to rely on blood taxes to preach in the Balkans, but because the Sultan thought everyone was a cow and a horse when he looked at the bottom, the efficiency was very low.

This time, Selim's choice was to brainwash everyone from top to bottom, and constantly use factories to drain the blood of Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, while migrating Muslims to fill the positions.

This was the solution designed by Sayyid the Great for the Ottoman Empire after he abandoned the fantasy of a universal empire.

At this time, the Ottoman Empire had nearly 60% Muslims. Sayyid the Great's task in terms of religion and ethnicity was to increase the proportion of Muslims to more than 70%, while strengthening religious identity and weakening national identity.

If this was done, the Balkans would not be able to make any waves.

Thanks to Yi Nian Huan Yue Wei Lin Tian Gai, Wu He Xian Xi, An Lang Gu Wang, Xiao Yuehan Ke Gan and several book friends and readers for their monthly tickets, and the name of the first reader, I may have typed it wrong, but I really can’t figure out the last few words.