Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

After the farce, the reform of the crown and clothing system was still carried out according to Zhu Youjian's plan.

It seems that nothing has changed, but in fact the impact is far-reaching.

First, even if those in the court disliked the emperor's reforms, after this incident, they all knew that the original system could no longer be implemented.

It is imperative to re-establish rituals and music and establish a new system.

The voices supporting the reformation of rituals and music became louder and became the mainstream in the court.

Second, merchants and citizens in the capital suddenly realized that the ease and stability they had enjoyed over the past two years would not always last.

If there were no clear-cut laws and regulations to protect them, any official could punish them with old regulations.

Under the leadership of the Clothing Association, Food Association and other guilds led by the inner court, merchants in the capital began to speak out and request the establishment of a parliament.

By passing legislation in Parliament, the current situation can be fixed.

Rather than just any official, they can deal a devastating blow to them.

It can be said that after this incident, the re-creation of rituals and music began to penetrate into the people and gained widespread support.

The people hope to use parliament to restrict the power of officials.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhu Youjian asked Shuntian Prefecture to announce the establishment of a council in Nancheng District and the urban reconstruction.

The merchants and residents of South City welcomed this very much. The merchants and residents of East City, who had felt the pain most deeply, actively requested that a parliament be established in East City as well.

The merchants and residents of the Lantern Festival also donated money to support the urban reconstruction, widening the streets and alleys of the East City to facilitate the flow of goods.

Faced with such a favorable situation, Zhu Youjian decisively decided to move the pilot project of the Beijing Parliament to Dongcheng District.

In the fifth year of the Tianqi reign, Yu Huang, the top scholar in the imperial examination, lecturer in the Hanlin Academy, and attendant of the emperor, was appointed as the mayor of Dongcheng District, replacing the original commander of the Bingmasi and in charge of the three offices of Dongcheng District.

This champion who had participated in the compilation of the Three Dynasties Essentials was very grateful to the emperor for keeping him in office. He took the plan of the capital city compiled from the daily notes and began to take office.

Obviously, he is a complete imperialist and supports the current emperor's reform of rituals and music.

The policy implementation plan in Dongcheng District was also implemented completely according to the emperor's plan.
-
At Dengshikou, Yu Huang came here as soon as he took office and said loudly to the merchants and citizens who had gathered:

"My fellow villagers, I came to Dongcheng District to be the district mayor to establish a parliament!"

“From now on, if you have any demands, you can elect a councillor and let the councillor tell me.”

“I hope fellow villagers will give more support and build the parliament as soon as possible!”

Upon hearing this, the merchants and residents of the Lantern Market burst into cheers.

Because they had snatched the qualification for the trial meeting from South City, of course they had to give their full support and not let the people of South City laugh at them.

Especially the fact that the emperor sent a number one scholar here fully demonstrated his importance to them. If they still couldn't do well under the leadership of the number one scholar, the people of Nancheng would probably laugh at them for decades.

The merchants and civilians who took the initiative to donate money also brought up more than 10,000 taels of silver and said to Yu Huang:
"Mr. Zhuangyuan, this is what we raised to establish a parliament."

"If it's not enough, there will be more. We must build our East City Parliament!"

Yu Huang was excited when he saw so much silver. He bowed to everyone and promised:
"I promise that this money will be used to establish the parliament."

"Every ounce and every penny spent will be clearly disclosed."

"In the future, a government affairs hall will be set up in the parliament to make government affairs that can be made public public and allow every citizen to watch."

"Each government office will also send officials to work in the government hall as a one-stop office. Whether you are starting a business or filing a tax return, you can get it done on the same day at the government hall."

This was the concept the emperor had proposed to him: the government should not only manage the people, but also serve the people. Like the various government offices in the imperial court, it should promote open government affairs.

Although Yu Huang did not quite understand this and felt that it undermined the dignity of the government, he still planned to carry out the emperor's request in full.

This statement was undoubtedly welcomed by the people.

After the establishment of the Administrative Affairs Office, the Supreme Court and the Imperial Guard Office in Dongcheng District, although the merchants and citizens of the capital felt that they were better managed, they were not accustomed to the situation of separate government offices.

In the past, they could have done it in one county government office, but now they have to go to several offices. Especially since they need to register to open a store and also need a health and fire permit, they find it very troublesome.

The establishment of the government affairs hall will undoubtedly facilitate them. They no longer have to run to several offices and go back and forth several times.

Yu Huang listened to these people's discussions and finally understood why the emperor set up the government affairs hall.

It turned out that this was caused by the separation of the three departments, and a new agency was needed to integrate them.

This is to prevent the people who are used to having all their affairs resolved at the county government from not knowing which government office to go to.

After thinking this through, Yu Huang immediately said to everyone:

"The parliament's auditorium will be built together with the Dongcheng District Yamen."

"From now on, I will go to the government hall frequently and supervise the officials together with the council members as the chairman."

"If you have any issues that cannot be resolved in the government hall, you can report them directly to me."

This promise made the merchants and residents of Lantern Festival cheer even more enthusiastically.

They all said that the top scholar was worthy of being the top scholar and was different from ordinary officials.

The Huang Hanlin from a few days ago was far inferior to the No. 1 scholar. He only knew how to whip people and talk about inappropriate rules.

Huang Daozhou, who came here incognito, felt sad when he heard this evaluation.

He consciously believed that he was implementing the court system and also wanted to teach people to be frugal and upright.

Unexpectedly, people don’t need it and are unwilling to educate them themselves.

On the contrary, Yu Huang’s government service hall system can be said to be unprecedented, but it is very popular among the people.

This made him vaguely realize that his knowledge and the old system of the Ming Dynasty were somewhat out of date.

The emperor's reformulation of rituals and music was an attempt to explore new systems to better govern the Ming Dynasty.

Huang Daozhou calmed down and began to seriously think about the emperor's reform of rituals and music, and how to integrate his own knowledge into the new ritual and music system.
-
After Yu Huang’s speech at the Lantern Festival, he, surrounded by merchants and citizens, went to find a location for the Dongcheng District government office and parliament.

The three offices of Dongcheng District were originally located in the Dongcheng Bingmasi. Now that they have been separated, they naturally cannot be located here.

Yu Huang's original idea was to choose a location near the East City Bingmasi to build the government office.

But after knowing that the East City Army was in Sichengfang, he immediately felt a little disgusted:
"Your Majesty has mentioned the number of dead-end roads in Sichengfang."

"Isn't it unlucky to put the government office here?"

Yu Huang, who was quite sensitive about this, was unwilling to set up his government office here.

I prefer the piece of land south of Chaoyangmen West Street, which is assigned to Huanghuafang.

Although this place used to belong to Sichengfang, it has now been demarcated and there are few dead-end roads, so the feng shui is far better than that of the north.

Moreover, it is very close to the Lantern Market, which makes it easier to gain support from merchants and residents in the Lantern Market and encourage them to actively donate.

Another hidden purpose was that he wanted to find Huang Daozhou, who was in charge of Huanghuafang. He wanted to communicate with him and work together to do this. However, although Huang Daozhou heard his speech, he never showed up. This made Yu Huang a little sad, knowing his current situation in the officialdom:

"It seems that the Donglin Party still doesn't like me!"

"Without your majesty's protection, how can I have the opportunity to be promoted?"

Being selected as the top scholar by the eunuch party and participating in the compilation of "Three Dynasties Essentials", Yu Huang knew that his reputation among scholars was actually very bad. Therefore, the people who were unaware of this still regarded him as the top scholar with unlimited glory.

In fact, after his master was punished, he had no support in the officialdom.

There is actually only one way ahead of us, and that is to implement the emperor's plan and do a good job in the transformation of Dongcheng District.

Yu Huang, who was determined to make a desperate move, quickly selected a location on Chaoyangmen Street and, with the support of merchants and residents, negotiated with the original residents on how to replace the property.

The construction of Dongcheng District government office and auditorium began.

Along with this, matters such as the reconstruction of streets and lanes in each neighborhood and the digging of sewers also began.

He and the East City Military Command discussed sending the hereditary officials of the guards who had been relocated to various districts to count the population in the area and be responsible for conscription.

It was only then that the people of the capital city realized that they had to take on an additional military service.

Although the military service for civilian households was only a few days and was counted as part of the corvée service, some people were still very panicked and unwilling to serve in the army.

Especially those residents who once belonged to the garrison, after learning that they were classified as military and civilian households and were obliged to serve in the army after adulthood, they felt like they had lost their parents and wanted to escape from the capital.

Yu Huang was extremely worried about this and he spent the whole day explaining to the public, guaranteeing that conscription would be carried out according to the bill of parliament and that the residents of Dongcheng District would not suffer any injustice.

He also proposed allowing more people to pay exemption money instead of serving in the army, and he would send people with the money to hire people from other places to serve.

This finally dissuaded some people from fleeing and prevented the loss of too many registered residents in Dongcheng.

However, he was still annoyed by the fact that some people concealed their place of origin and background and evaded military service.
-
At the same time, Huang Daozhou encountered trouble again in Huanghuafang.

Because the new crown and clothing system was extremely relaxed, he did not encounter much resistance when implementing it.

The most troublesome thing was that the rich and powerful families wore the bestowed clothes at will, and because he had previously stripped the Qilin robe of the son of Marquis Dingxi, people did not dare to violate the rules in front of him.

It can be said that he completed the implementation of the new crown service system easily and encountered no problems at all.

However, he also had a headache when it came to street renovation.

The emperor's order was to restore the streets to their original width and restore smooth traffic.

Only where conditions permit will the new system be followed to expand streets of all sizes.

This sounds easy. All we have to do is take the map of the capital and order those who are occupying the road to give up.

However, in the capital city where land is scarce, who would be willing to tear down walls or even houses to make way for roads?
Huang Daozhou had no choice but to harden his heart and follow the regulations that "anyone who occupies the streets and roads to build houses or gardens will be beaten with 60 sticks and ordered to restore their original state." He asked the patrol police to beat them with a few sticks first and then ordered them to restore the streets and roads.

The same applies to archways that occupy roads, which need to be demolished or relocated.

Dead-end roads and blind alleys are also required to be opened up to avoid traffic congestion.

In this way, the progress of street reconstruction was finally accelerated, but he also gained a bad reputation among the people of the capital, and was called "the whipped Hanlin" -

It means that he likes to whip and beat people with a stick without any mercy.

On the contrary, Yu Huang had a good reputation because of his organizing the meeting and was called "the people-friendly champion" by the people.

The two men's reputations among the common people and the literati are completely opposite.

Some Donglin Party members who sympathized with Huang Daozhou often lamented the ignorance of the people.

Huang Daozhou did not complain about this, but after doing this, he felt more deeply the difficulty of being a people-friendly official. After completing the task, he submitted a petition to the emperor, requesting to be sent out.

Zhu Youjian was just about to transfer him out of the capital to show his attitude towards conservative officials.

This was approved immediately, and Huang Daozhou was sent to serve as the magistrate of Suzhou Prefecture to rectify the local atmosphere.
-
Along with him, Shi Kefa, who was the concurrent director of the Zhuolu District Tingwei Office, also went south. He also had a mission, which was to be responsible for the establishment of the Nanjing Zhanshi Mansion.

According to the original system, the Nanjing Zhanshi Mansion had one chief clerk, who was a seventh-rank official.

The current emperor has changed the position to a chief official, and his rank has been raised to the sixth grade.

As the third place in the imperial examination in the first year of Chongzhen, Shi Kefa was only awarded the rank of editor, a seventh-rank official. Logically, he was not eligible for this position.

However, he and others made continuous contributions in Zhuolu District and were awarded two years of merit.

This year, his four-year probation period was completed and he was promoted to the sixth rank.

With this level, he was qualified enough to act as the head of the Nanjing Zhanshi Mansion.

This time when I went south, I happened to be with Huang Daozhou.

Looking at the young man who was seventeen years younger than him and whose official position was half a grade higher than his, even Huang Daozhou could not help but feel a little envious. He said to him:

"Xian is young and promising. If Zuo Gong knew about this, he would be pleased."

"Don't be like me, an old man who has accomplished nothing at the age of nearly fifty and left Beijing in disgrace as soon as he arrived."

This time he was sent out of Beijing, any discerning person could see that he was demoted.

Otherwise, normally as an official of the Hanlin Academy, he would be able to hold a higher-level position.

Now the emperor strictly followed the Mokan method and allowed him to serve as an editor in the Hanlin Academy and concurrently as a seventh-rank prosecutor, an official position that could be held by a newly-minted Jinshi.

For an old Hanlin, this was undoubtedly a demotion.

After hearing his words, Shi Kefa comforted him:

"Mr. Huang, you are joking. You are just unlucky now. Maybe your luck will turn around next year."

"For the Jinshi of the first year of Chongzhen, the post of Tuiguan can only be held by those who have passed the Ming Law Examination or the judicial examination."

"Your Majesty made you the magistrate because he wants to make great use of you in the future!"

After a careful explanation of the current system, Huang Daozhou finally understood that the Tui Guan was designated as an official of the Three Judicial Departments by the Emperor.

Nowadays, only those who come from the three judicial departments can serve as officials in the Ministry of Personnel.

Obviously, the emperor had not completely given up on him. If he did a good job as the magistrate of Suzhou Prefecture, he would most likely become an official in the future and be promoted quickly.

Huang Daozhou, who knew nothing about this, finally understood the emperor's good intentions.

Then he felt a headache about the new system mentioned by Shi Kefa.

This was the thing he found most difficult to adapt to after returning to the court as an official.

After leaving the court for a few years, he felt that the court system seemed to be completely different from before. This made him feel very uncomfortable, so he opposed the emperor's further changes.

Now, after the setback in Huanghuafang, he knew that it was impossible to restore the old system. He had no choice but to be patient and ask Shi Kefa for advice on how to be a good official of the Three Law Departments. (End of this chapter)