Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Regardless of what the Ministry of Works thought, Zhu Youjian continued to push forward his plan for the South City District:
"East-West Chang'an Avenue will be extended, and some houses will be demolished."

"For these people, I plan to build communities in Wanggongchang and the Armour Factory as compensation and resettle them there."

"The Wanggong Factory and the Armour Factory will be moved to the southern part of the city and built in an open area. Fireworks and other objects are strictly prohibited."

With a wave of his hand, Wanggongchang and the Armoury Factory, two factories that manufactured weapons and gunpowder, were moved to the wilderness in the south of the city.

The new site should be near a planned street and close to a water source to facilitate the use of water power. A buffer zone should be left around it to avoid accidents and disasters like the Wanggongchang explosion during the Tianqi period.

Where the two factories remained, communities were built to resettle the residents who were relocated to open up Chang'an Avenue.

This action showed the emperor's attitude. Chen Qiyu, the Minister of the Imperial Household, hurriedly said:
"I will work with the Ministry of Works to build the two communities as soon as possible and complete Chang'an Avenue and the city gates."

"In the area outside the city, I will also carry out demolition, plan the streets and lanes, and build roads."

Like the current Nancheng District, there were also guardhouses at the east, west and north city gates.

There is no planning for these places either, the most that is done is to keep the roads leading to the city gates open.

In the past, officials in the capital did not care about this, but things changed after the emperor prepared to build an outer city around the Third Ring Road and set up an outer town between the existing city wall and the Third Ring Road.

Roads must be planned to allow these places to develop in an orderly manner, otherwise they will almost need to be rebuilt like the current South City District.

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly and told Chen Qiyu and Bi Ziyan:
“Although the value of land outside the city is not as high as that inside the city, we still need to come up with a plan for how to expropriate the land and how to compensate.”

“In particular, the Ministry of Household Affairs’ Land Administration Department should ask the household registration departments in each urban area to count the land owned by government officials and make corresponding plans.”

“In the future, we should imitate the Mingzhi Newspaper Industry Park and set up more industrial parks outside the city.”

"Taipu Temple must cooperate with the Ministry of Industry to ensure the three connections and one leveling: access to roads, water, and pipelines, and level the land for development."

Bi Ziyan and Chen Qiuyu obeyed the order in unison and wrote it all down.

Zhu Youjian then told Yuan Keli and Cheng Jiming:

"Although the soldiers of the garrison cannot be conscripted for labor service at will, their own homes need their efforts."

"In addition to reclaiming land, we also need to build communities for the soldiers."

"We build a community for every 1,000 households."

This is an urban unit established by Zhu Youjian based on the villages outside the city.

If the development is good in the future, communities will replace pawnshops as the grassroots units below the block.

This grassroots unit must have a core, and Zhu Youjian chose the community temple as the center of community activities:
"The community needs a community temple, and the community god of the guard post will be chosen from the heroes of the guard post. When the time comes, the list of candidates will be reported to the Taichang Temple for confirmation."

"The hall of the community temple should be able to hold meetings. Under the watchful eyes of the community god, the neighborhood committee will discuss various matters and announce them on the bulletin board of the community temple."

"At the same time, there should be a square where militias can be trained and residents can hold assemblies. Markets and various temple fairs can also be held."

"From now on, every fifth and tenth day will be designated as the community temple gathering day. People can go to the community temple to gather and worship the community god at the same time."

This is a social day modeled after religious Sundays. This frequent sacrificial activity reduces the space for other religions to spread.

However, this activity does not have a strong religious connotation, it is more about gathering together for shopping and entertainment.

Larger sacrifices are only held on the four community days of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The nobles and ministers were all talking about this matter.

As descendants of the City God, or even future City Gods, they were of course happy to see the emperor enthroning the community god.

Because in the emperor's plan, the city god system is the core of the earth god system, and the gods of mountains, land and other gods all belong to this system. They are even classified by the emperor as subordinates of the city god, just like the village community is ruled by the government.

Most people have no objection to the fact that the community gods of the garrisons are heroes, but they have opinions on other community gods.

Minister of Rites Cheng Ji ordered:

"I think local celebrities and famous officials can also be community gods."

"Today, the local gods in various places are mostly the wise men of the past."

Zhu Youjian frowned slightly, but finally nodded in approval:

"There are four shrines in the community temple: the Shrine of Heroes and Martyrs, the Shrine of Famous Officials, the Shrine of Local Worthies, and the Shrine of the Dead."

"The Heroic Martyrs' Shrine is dedicated to the heroes, the Eminent Officials' Shrine is dedicated to the Eminent Officials, the Local Worthy People's Shrine is dedicated to the local sages, and the Dead Life Shrine is dedicated to the believers, so that they can have a better afterlife."

"They are all subordinates or guests of the community gods, and they will have the opportunity to become community gods in the future."

Local temples such as the shrines of famous officials and local celebrities were included in the community temples.

They even imitated the offering tablets of Buddhism, Taoism and other religions, allowing community temples to accept offerings and allow believers to worship their ancestors.

It can be said that after the city gods were gradually enthroned in various places and their descendants became temple priests, Zhu Youjian planned to further deepen the system of city gods and spread the belief in city gods among the people.

Give those who must worship gods a choice, let them worship heroes, meritorious officials and wise men, as well as the city gods and land gods who come from these people.

The power of this system was clear to all the officials. Even those who respected ghosts and gods and kept their distance from them would not refuse to be deified after death.

Most of the ministers' eyes were on the city god, and they looked down on the small community god of a village.

But for the soldiers and low-level officials of the garrisons, this was obviously a temptation, and those people would not refuse to be deified after their death.

However, after the emperor mentioned the offering tablet, Cheng Jiming frowned and said:
"The community temple should just allocate land for cultivation, and they shouldn't be allowed to collect offerings."

"I have heard that the priests of the City God Temple in some places have made a lot of money by taking advantage of their management of the cemeteries."

"This matter must be regulated. We cannot allow them to tarnish the reputation of our ancestors."

Zhu Youjian had heard about this matter. In particular, the Yu family on Dongning Island seemed to have done a very poor job. The Li family, who built the Jiulian Bodhisattva Temple on the island to compete with them for faith, had often slandered them through the Jinyiwei.

It was for this reason that Zhu Youjian did not ask Cheng Huang Temple to manage the Martyrs Cemetery when he established it. He said to Cheng Jiming:
"How should cemeteries collect fees and how should community temples be worshipped? Cheng Qing should lead the Ministry of Rites and the Imperial Household Department to formulate more detailed regulations."

"The martyrs' cemeteries and cemeteries in each garrison should be protected by the heroes who also serve as mountain gods or land gods."

"In the future, the City God Temple will only be responsible for the cemeteries directly under it, and other cemeteries will be managed by local mountain god temples, land temples, and community temples. As for religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, they can also be allowed to invest in buying land to build cemeteries for the burial of clergy and believers."

"The locations of these cemeteries should be chosen as much as possible in the mountains and forests, which are not easily destroyed by water and do not occupy arable land. More trees should be planted on the mountains to cultivate the earth's energy."

"Also, during the renovation of the capital this time, all cemeteries within the Third Ring Road and on the surrounding plains should be relocated as much as possible."

"Those who have descendants will be allowed to choose a certain area of ​​burial ground in the public cemetery for free, and those who do not have descendants will be relocated by the Taichang Temple."

As an ancient city, there are many cemeteries around Beijing. For example, in Babaoshan, there were tombs there in the Jin Dynasty. In order to prevent them from being unsightly in the city and to make more use of the land, Zhu Youjian decided to move all the tombs to the cemetery and set up a public cemetery in the mountains around the capital.

He didn't want too much peace to last too long, leaving too many cemeteries. It would be like Paris, with bones overflowing. He would have to dig underground tombs and bury millions of bodies together.

This was a very difficult matter, especially for those who had finally been buried in the capital, who were unwilling to move out. Upon hearing this, Xu Guangqi said:
"The tomb of Li Shi was granted by Emperor Shenzong during the Wanli reign. I think it should not be moved."

Zhu Youjian thought about it for a while, and did not dwell on such a trivial matter. He nodded and said:

"The tombs of the past emperors and the cemeteries of the ancient sages can be designated as cultural relics protection sites. The Taichang Temple will assign numbers to them and notify the local government offices to protect them. They do not need to be moved outside the city."

"Other people's graves will be relocated if possible."

"Even temples and shrines should be allowed to buy forests outside the city for cemeteries. People can no longer be buried in the city at will."

"Even the imperial mausoleum is in Tianshou Mountain, and no one is exempt from it."

Zhu Youjian said this with full confidence, and then pointed out something:

"The reason why the capital city is sometimes prosperous and sometimes weak is because too many people have died and been buried underground over the past thousands of years."

"Although most of these people have passed away, their corpses still retain negative energy."

"We can't keep their negative energy in the city and affect the living."

This view obviously means that the reason why eunuchs occasionally monopolized power in the Ming Dynasty was because there were too many tombs, which led to a strong negative energy.

When the positive energy and yang energy are insufficient, the yin energy will overflow, resulting in the excess of yin and the deficiency of yang.

When the ministers heard this, they all frowned.

After the emperor opened the Dongyang Gate of the imperial city on the grounds of increasing yang energy, they had become somewhat immune to it.

But I still take this reason very seriously, just in case.

So they all agreed to move the cemetery and planned to smooth over the relationship with the Taichang Temple to keep the cemeteries of their ancestors or their relatives' ancestors.

The graves of those civilians who have no connection with the family must be relocated.

Just as the emperor said, the dead cannot be allowed to affect the living.

To this end, the Ministry of Rites also planned to hold a ceremony to get the endorsement of Buddhism, Taoism and other religions to cooperate with the relocation of the tomb.

I believe that if there is a policy to set up cemeteries, these religious temples will definitely be willing to contribute.

If they don’t cooperate, we won’t allocate a cemetery for them, or we will allocate a smaller one.

After making these arrangements, Zhu Youjian gave specific instructions regarding donations to the City God Temple and the Community Temple:
"Donations to the City God Temple and the Community Temple must pay religious taxes and be supervised by the court."

"It will not only be used for the maintenance of the temple, but also for the surrounding square for people to gather. Add facilities such as tables, chairs and benches to serve as a community activity center."

“If there is any money left, you can build a public library for people in your community to read.”

"In short, the destination of the donations must be clear. In addition to being subject to supervision by the court, it must also be subject to supervision by the neighborhood committee and the councillors."

“The accounts need to be public and available for people to see.”

With this series of measures, the status of the community temple as a community center has been further strengthened.

At the same time, the City God Temple was also supervised so that the descendants of the City God would no longer act recklessly by relying on the influence of their ancestors.

After all these were settled, Zhu Youjian continued to arrange the garrison in the south of the city.

In addition to the Zhongyi Vanguard and Zhennan Guard who were responsible for guarding Yongdingmen, he, at the suggestion of his ministers, arranged for the Zhongyi Left Guard to guard Zuoanmen and recruited soldiers in Zuoanfang and Chongnanfang.

The Zhongyi Youwei was responsible for guarding You'an Gate and recruiting soldiers in You'anfang and Xuannanfang.

Baizhifang, located to the west of Xuannanfang, and Guangningfang were handed over to the Yiyong Youwei, who were responsible for guarding the Guangning Gate.

The Guangqu Gate in the northeast was handed over to the Yiyong Guard. This guard was also responsible for the Dongbian Gate and recruited soldiers in Guangqufang and Chongbeifang.

It can be said that Zhu Youjian respected the opinions of his ministers in making these local arrangements.

Moreover, the destination of his personal guards had already been determined, and no extra guards were assigned to the South City.

Zhu Youjian even rejected the suggestion of his ministers to let the Jinyiwei and the Qishouwei recruit soldiers in Zhengdongfang and guard Chongwenmen together with the Jinwu Vanguard.

He assigned the Longxiang Guard of the Front Army Command to guard Chongwen Gate and also the Zhengdongfang, and did not allow the Jinyiwei to interfere.

The reason for this is to maintain the purity of the Mingtang guards and reduce the possibility of infiltration.

As one of the future centers of power, Zhu Youjian had already anticipated that the future emperor would likely come into conflict with Congress.

In order to ensure that members of Congress would not be allowed to go to Mingtang at will during martial law, he took control of the place from the perspective of guard arrangements.

From now on, all soldiers guarding Mingtang will be drawn from the six Jinyi Guards. Each of them must have a clean background and guarantee absolute loyalty.

This way, martial law can be implemented more effectively and avoid becoming a farce.

Zhu Youjian also made special arrangements for the design of Mingtang. In addition to the Biyong, which surrounded Mingtang and was equivalent to a moat, Zhu Youjian also planned to build a square wall inside Biyong, modeled after the Mingtang of the Western Han Dynasty, which, together with the four bridges and gatehouses on Biyong, would form another line of defense.

In the future, even if someone jumps into Biyong and sneaks into Mingtang, they will need to climb over the city wall to enter.

The soldiers of the Six Jinyi Guards will guard this place firmly.

It can be said that among the guards of the South City, Zhu Youjian paid the most attention to the guards of the Mingtang. He specially arranged Jinyiwei personnel to be in charge of this place.

As for the Heroes Temple opposite Mingtang, it was not so important. The conscription work of Zhengxifang was handed over to the Yiyong Vanguard who was responsible for guarding the Heroes Temple. It was also responsible for guarding Zhengyang Gate together with the Fujun Vanguard and Jinwu Vanguard.

The remaining Xuanwu Gate was given to the Baotao Guard. In addition to guarding the Xuanwu Gate with the Palace Army Vanguard, this guard was also responsible for guarding the Xibian Gate.

Xuanbeifang was also handed over to it, and soldiers could be recruited from here.

But the area was smaller, and the boundary with Zhengxifang was moved to the west of Liulichang.

This is because the Temple of Heroes and Martyrs occupies a large area, so Zhengxifang was expanded and its boundaries with Zhengnanfang and Xuanbeifang were re-demarcated according to streets.

In this way, the defense of the South City District was finally settled.

There were three Yiyong guards, three Zhongyi guards, and three Longxiang guards, Baotao guards and Zhennan guards, all of which were commanded by the Nancheng Bingmasi.

The Nine Guards of the South City, the Nine Guards of the Inner City, and the Nine Guards of the Imperial City together make up the Twenty-Seven Guards guarding the capital. (End of this chapter)