Bury the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 290 What the hell does the Ming Dynasty do?

The egg pain has been entangled for a long time, but Zhu Jinsong has not found a way to completely break the situation. The reason is that these messy problems are all strongly related. .

To put it bluntly, if it was only a matter of the Fifth Army Commander's Mansion, then it would only be necessary to attack the Fifth Army Commander's Mansion, and if it was only a matter of the court, you could also attack the court alone.

However, when the issue of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies is involved with the court and local issues, and the Yushitai and the Metropolitan Procuratorate will also be entangled with these issues for various reasons... …

For example, most of the soldiers who retired from the army due to various reasons will enter the local government, and some will enter the Metropolitan Procuratorate and Yushitai. As the Ming army has higher and higher requirements for soldiers In the future, more and more scholars will enter the army, and the interpersonal relationship will become much more complicated.

After pondering for a long time, Zhu Jinsong said: "Separate the Yushitai and the Metropolitan Procuratorate first, and then split the current six parts after the Yushitai and the Metropolitan Procuratorate are separated."

Having said that, Zhu Jinsong turned his attention to Zeng Cheng again: "Your cabinet should also be prepared. The first cabinet will be based on Zeng Qing and the existing six ministers. It's a whole bunch of things in charge."

Zeng Cheng and a group of bigwigs immediately bowed down and bowed down, "Your servant, please obey the order."

This is almost a no-brainer—separate the Metropolitan Procuratorate and Yushitai first, and then let the Metropolitan Procuratorate and Yushitai take on the responsibility of supervision and inspection. Any problem can be left to Yushitai and the Metropolitan Procuratorate to solve.

Dali Temple is relatively simple, because Dali Temple was originally a relatively independent institution, and the real trouble is the unobtrusive Ministry of Punishment.

Because the Ministry of Punishment holds the right to make legislation, and at the same time holds the power to interpret the Great Ming Law, the division of the Ministry of Punishment is also based on these two points.

However, Zhu Jinsong went on to say: "After all the divisions are completed and the cabinet starts to get on the right track, it's time to revise the "Law of the Ming Dynasty."

Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs immediately felt an urge to hang up their seals and leave——do you want to toss?Isn't it over for you!
Zhu Jinsong knocked on the table with his fingers, and said in a deep voice, "Do you think I'm too pushy?"

Zeng Cheng silently said yes in his heart, then bowed his hands and said: "I dare not wait."

Zhu Jinsong let out a chuckle, and said slowly while knocking on the table: "Don't dare? I don't dare, in fact, I still have such thoughts in my heart, don't I?"

The expression on Zeng Cheng's face froze, and he hurriedly said: "Return to Your Majesty, I really don't have this idea."

Zhu Jinsong ignored Zeng Cheng, but said slowly: "Actually, I don't want to make a fuss, but I can't do it if I don't—I ask you, did we have a railway before Daming? Now that we have a railway, the relevant regulations are Isn't it also released?"

"There is also the telegram. Did we have this thing before the Ming Dynasty? No. But we have it now. How should the telegram be used? Is there also a provisional regulation?"

"Not to mention strengthening private power - strengthening private power is not only relative to public power and imperial power, but also relative to suzerain power."

Speaking of this, Zhu Jinsong simply turned his attention to Ke Zhiming again: "Ke Qing, can you tell me, how many cases in Ming Dynasty have there been cases in which the patriarchal authority handled disputes among the people privately?"

Ke Zhiming immediately bowed and said: "Return to Your Majesty, in the first year of the Holy Emperor, there were countless cases of privately handling common people's disputes in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, and there were several cases in each village on average. The peasant association has indeed done this. Tried hard, but with little success.”

"Since the second year of the Holy Emperor, the number of similar cases has indeed been on a downward trend year by year. However, the reason for this situation is not because the peasant associations and local governments have solved the problem of patriarchal clan, but because the workshops in various places have become more and more serious. There are more and more people, and the imperial court has been implementing the policy of equalizing the land and relocating the people, so the income of the people is getting higher and higher, and the disputes between them are relatively less."

"Since the eighth year of the Holy Emperor, most of the problems between patriarchal clans in various places are about men and women, especially those who soaked in pig cages. Although the local government and farmers' associations have repeatedly emphasized that patriarchal clans and lynching are not allowed, they are not allowed at all. Can't stop this question."

"In addition, according to the statistics jointly compiled by Jinyiwei, Dongchang and Tiandihui, among those female workers who went home to give birth because of pregnancy, 99 out of [-] did not return to the workshop to work."

Hearing what Ke Zhiming said, Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs knew something bad was going to happen.

Strictly speaking, patriarchal authority has existed for thousands of years, and all dynasties have also faced the problem that patriarchal authority is to some extent greater than national law, and it is by no means unique to Ming Dynasty.

For example, soaking pig cages.

Generally, when this kind of thing happens, the local clan elders and people of the same clan get together, and the big guys discuss the matter and deal with it, and they won't make trouble at the government level at all. Going up, they don't even care what the law stipulates, and even the parties sentenced to be immersed in a pig cage by the patriarchal system will not resist.

However, regardless of whether those parties resist or not, and regardless of what the clan elders think, in short, the existence of clan power is not just as simple as depriving many people of their private rights, but even forms a confrontation with official power to a certain extent .

A large part of the sayings in the past dynasties that the imperial power should not go to the countryside were aimed at this situation.

However, as the ancestors once said, time changes and things change, which means that things will change with the advancement of time. As the saying goes, what songs to sing on the top of the mountain, I don’t know how many years the tradition of soaking pig cages has been passed down. , In fact, it is no longer applicable to the current situation of Daming.

Because the biggest difference between the Ming Dynasty and the previous dynasties is that women have already started to own part of the means of production.

Before the Ming Dynasty, most of the women in the past dynasties were engaged in such jobs as planting mulberry and silkworms, household weaving, and washing female reds, and a small number of them voluntarily or forced to live in brothels or even half-closed their doors. Few workshops employ female workers.

With the advent of steam engines and new textile machines, a large number of female workers also began to enter the workshops. They had to work for several hours a day, and even some educated women began to enter the ranks of writing and calculating.

I have to admit that women do have advantages over men in certain jobs.

However, what is even more frustrating is that a large part of the protection of women's private rights in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" only stays on paper, and there are even many contents that do not appear on paper at all.

For example, such things as maternity leave do not exist in Daming. If those female workers are pregnant, a large part of them will choose to go home and wait for the child to be born when they are about to give birth. Will they be able to work in the workshop again in the future? It has become an unknown.

It should be noted that these female workers are all skilled workers. Without them, the workshop will have to spend time training novices to take over the jobs they left behind, and the production efficiency and benefits will inevitably be reduced. Combined with clan lynching, etc. The existence of the problem will eventually affect the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty Hall, and at the same time, it will also bring various other messy problems.

Therefore, even if it is only considered from the tax issues and stability of the Great Ming Dynasty Hall, this situation must be changed to a certain extent.

There is also the issue of railways and telegraphs that Emperor Zhu Jinsong just mentioned.

In the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" in the first year of the Holy Emperor, are there any provisions related to railways?Are there any provisions on strengthening private rights after the split of the clan?
Obviously, no, because the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" at that time did not need to take these issues into consideration, especially things that appeared later like railways, it was even less likely to exist in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" at that time.

Therefore, it is already obvious that certain clauses in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" in the first year of the Holy Emperor may not apply to the situation in the tenth year of the Holy Emperor.

Seeing that Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs had come to their senses, Zhu Jinsong laughed and asked, "Have you figured it all out?"

Zeng Cheng nodded, bowed and replied: "Yes, I have already figured it out."

But Zhu Jinsong's ability to toss is indeed beyond the expectations of Zeng Qing and others.

Zhu Jinsong said: "The "Law of the Ming Dynasty" is now inapplicable. I think that with the further development of the Ming Dynasty, this situation may appear more and more in the future. What should we do when the time comes? The problem is to rebuild the Great Ming Law again?"

Hearing Zhu Jinsong's question, Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs couldn't help but feel pain in their hearts.

All these messy questions just now were raised by your Majesty, your old man, right?The idea of ​​rebuilding the Great Ming Law was also first proposed by you, right?
Co-authoring your old man raised a lot of questions before, and then you have to follow along and involve a lot of questions later?
Didn’t he steal a rope, pick up a cow behind the rope, and pull a cart behind the cow, with a pile of gold, silver and jewels on the cart, and two people behind it!

Of course, Zeng Cheng also understood in his heart that since Zhu Jinsong raised these questions now, it meant that Zhu Jinsong, the emperor of Ming Dynasty, must have had an idea in his heart, so he cupped his hands and asked, "What does your majesty mean?"

Zhu Jinsong tapped the table with his fingers again, and said: "What I mean is that the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" must be reworked, but it is unrealistic to go through a rework every time something new happens, so the time for the rework is too long. In the end, there has to be a definite number.”

"I think it's better to use a ten-year period? Every ten years, we will check and make up for the gaps in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty". Except for certain ancestral systems that cannot be changed, other clauses are all ten-year period, to see if it is suitable for the current situation. Condition?"

Hearing this, Zeng Cheng couldn't help but pay homage first—the so-called unchangeable ancestral system in Emperor Zhu's mouth, in fact, he didn't even need to think about it. The ancestral system in which heinous crimes such as harvesting, cutting off children, and treason are punished with heavy punishment.

Zhu Jinsong went on to say: "As for the new things that are constantly appearing, such as railways and telegraphs, the cabinet and the ministers of various ministries can discuss a temporary solution first."

"Of course, before discussing these measures, we still need to listen to the opinions of the people—what I mean is that every time the Great Ming Law is revised or new interim measures are introduced, the people of the world must be invited to listen and allow them to express their opinions. .”

The complexions of Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs turned dark at that moment.

Let the people come and listen?Do you want to allow people to express their opinions?

Well, our Daming now has a population of close to [-] million. It may take several years until all the people have counted their opinions, and then we will come up with these interim measures...

The day lilies are cold!

After thinking about it, Zeng Cheng tried to persuade him: "Your Majesty, it's not that the ministers are unwilling to let the people listen, nor are the ministers unwilling to listen to the opinions of the people, but that there are forty million people in my Ming Dynasty. Listen to the opinions of the people, I'm afraid..."

Zhu Jinsong shook his head with a smile, and said: "I don't mean to let all the [-] million people express their opinions, but to have some representatives of the people in every state capital, such as representatives of small traders and old farmers. , the representatives of the students, the representatives of the workshop owners, the representatives of the women, and the representatives of those workers who are unwilling to farm the land and only want to work in the workshop, all these must be taken into consideration.”

Zeng Chengxin said that this is enough to kill - the current territory of the Ming Dynasty is not just a bit of a broken place in the Qing Dynasty, there are already about fifty chief envoys, large and small. If the state capitals are further subdivided, each state capital has to send several representatives, I am afraid that tens of thousands of people will be needed this time.

Tens of thousands of people discuss one thing...

Thinking of this scene, Zeng Cheng couldn't help but despair.

But Zhu Jinsong went on to say: "Speaking of which, I've actually been wanting to ask you all the time—what does our Ming court do for the common people?"

Asked by Zhu Jinsong, Zeng Cheng and other bigwigs were stunned.

What did the Ming court do for the common people?

Of course it is to manage hundreds of things for the emperor...

Not right.

The emperor had already said just now that while restricting imperial power, public and private power should be strengthened. Therefore, it is not appropriate to say that the Ming court managed the people on behalf of the emperor.

So here comes the question - if the court is not in charge of the people, then what is the court doing?

After thinking for a while, Zeng Cheng tentatively asked, "What does Your Majesty mean?"

Zhu Jinsong laughed and said, "Actually, this involves the definition of the imperial court and the government."

(End of this chapter)