I am Emperor Wanli

Chapter 772 Come and hit me if you dare!
Zhu Yijun glanced at everyone, waited for them to digest his words, and then spoke again.

"At today's meeting, I repeatedly stressed the importance of rule of law. Some people have heard it so many times that their ears are callused, while others do not agree with it.

No matter what you think, rule of law is now the national policy of our Ming Dynasty. It is the new production relationship that matches the Ming Dynasty when it develops new productive forces.

It concerns whether the Ming Dynasty can adjust and repair itself and solve new problems that keep emerging while its economy is booming.

I can tell you frankly that the key to the Ming Dynasty's peace and prosperity is to govern the country according to law.

Everyone present here is a councilor, a senior official of the Ming Dynasty, and a member of the highest decision-making body. If you don't understand, how can you expect the officials and people below to understand, support, and comply with your instructions?
I have decided that after the plenary meeting of the Imperial Court in the fifth year of Wanli on the tenth day of the fifth month, all members of the new Advisory Bureau will list rule of law and economic development as the two most important learning contents. The Yang Kaitai case is an example of the learning content of rule of law.

Everyone should study hard and carefully, and learn two things in their heads: economic development and rule of law. In the future, when you encounter anything or want to make any policy decisions, these two strings in your mind must be plucked all the time.

Sanxing, Mr. Fengpan. "

"Chen is here!"

The Advisor and Minister of Public Administration Zeng Xingwu and the Director of the Committee for the Construction of Spiritual Civilization Zhang Siwei responded quickly.

"The study of the new Advisory Bureau will also be organized and arranged by the Tongzhengsi. After the study, the Tongzhengsi and the Spiritual Civilization Construction Committee should cooperate with each other to thoroughly convey the relevant policies."

Everyone listened to Zhu Yijun's words quietly, trying to hear clearly what he was saying and understand the deeper meaning behind his words.

Zeng Shengwu and Zhang Siwei were secretly delighted.

why?
The emperor said that the new Advisory Bureau should be responsible for the two tasks of learning and conveying the learning spirit, which means that the new Advisory Bureau has its own place.

The Grand Secretary did not dare to ask for it for the time being.

Although Zhang Siwei and Zeng Shengwu both wanted to become Advisory Councillors, they knew that it was impossible at the moment. There were only four positions, but there were too many talented people with experience, ability and the emperor's favor, and it would never be their turn.

It is better to secure the position of Advisory Bachelor first and then seek further development.

Others had mixed feelings.

Some people know that there is definitely no place for them in the new Advisory Bureau.

Some are unsure whether there is a place for them in the new Advisory Bureau.

Everyone is speculating.

"Okay, I have finished my opening remarks. Three provinces, let's start today's formal meeting agenda."

Zeng Xingwu quickly responded, "Yes, Your Majesty."

He turned to look at everyone and said, "Now the first item will be the cabinet prime minister Zhang Xiang's report on state affairs; the second item will be the military government chief military official Tan Gong's report on national defense.

The third item was a report on national discipline by Zhao Gong, the Chief Censor, on rectifying official discipline, combating corruption and professional crime; the fourth item was a report on economic work by Jianchuan Gong (Wang Chonggu), the Left Prime Minister of the Cabinet.

The fifth item was the financial report by Mr. Ru Guan (Wang Guoguang), the right chancellor of the cabinet; the sixth item was the report on the construction of the army and navy by Qi Yuanjing, the left military envoy of the military government and the commander-in-chief of the central army; the seventh item was the report on the construction of water and land transportation and railways by Mr. Fan Xi (Zheng Luo), the minister of the Ministry of War.
Your Majesty, gentlemen, there are ten items on the agenda, and time is a bit tight."

Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said, "Since time is pressing, let's stop talking nonsense. Mr. Zhang, you go first."

Zhang Juzheng replied, "As you wish."

He put on a pair of tortoise-shell reading glasses, picked up a stack of documents, and spoke in Mandarin with a Jingzhou accent.

“Your Majesty, everyone, I will represent the Cabinet in making a summary report on state affairs at the Imperial Court Meeting in a few days, describing the achievements, mistakes and faults made by the Cabinet in national economy and people’s livelihood from the first year of the Wanli reign to the fourth year of the Wanli reign under the leadership of Your Majesty.

According to the "Regulations on the Decision-making of the Advisory Bureau and the Imperial Court in the First Year of Wanli" promulgated by the Emperor, this report needs to be presented first at the Advisory Bureau meeting, discussed by the advisory scholars, and revised. After unanimous approval, it will be presented at the plenary meeting of the Imperial Court and discussed by the court officials."

When Zhang Juzheng said this, he raised his head slightly and scanned the crowd from above the tortoise-shell frame.

"The truth comes first."

Under the influence of Zhu Yijun, Zhang Juzheng now likes to speak with data.

"According to the emperor's request and the regulations formulated by the cabinet, the land tax of the Ming Dynasty is counted once a year. The land and population are counted once a year.

Conduct an actual audit every three to five years to write off and correct errors in book statistical data.

As of midnight on December 30 of the fourth year of the Wanli reign, there were 231.36 million men, women, old and young, an increase of 47 million people over the first year of the Wanli reign. Among them, 2.41 million were the Mongolian front and right wing tribes added in the Jinshan area, the northern route of the Tianshan Mountains, and the Kipchak steppe (Kazakh steppe).

970,000 is the new population of the newly established Tiannan Xuanzhengshisi, which includes the southern Tianshan Road, the northern Kunlun Mountains, and the Hami Turpan area.

The northern Tianshan route, Jinshan area and the Kipchak steppe were assigned to the Mongolian front wing, and the Tiannan Xuanzhengshisi was established in the southern Tianshan route.

Everyone knows that the Jinshan area is easy to deal with, including the Junggar area, where the Wala and Mongolian tribes are basically shamans or Buddhists, and basically all of them were incorporated into the Mongolian front wing and right wing.

Everyone here knows the exact number, which is approximately 1.4 million.

The Ili River area and the Chu River area in the northern Tianshan Mountains are much denser than the Kipchak Steppe and Jinshan areas.

Two million, four hundred thousand minus one million, that is, in the Ili River and Chu River regions where the population should have been larger, there were only seven hundred thousand people left to be included in the population list of the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of Households.

Even more outrageous and densely populated are the seven cities of Yarkand in the southern Tianshan Mountains, the Fergana Basin, and the areas north of the Kunlun Mountains, Turpan and Hami, but the population is only counted as less than one million!

Where did the rest of them go?
This large area is 3,000 to 4,000 miles from east to west and 2,000 to 3,000 miles from north to south. Although there is a large desert in the middle, the north and west are rich in water and grass, and it is located at a transportation hub, so it is very prosperous. During the Han, Sui and Tang dynasties, this vast Western Region had a population of 2 to 3 million, but now it has less than 2 million people.

In fact, all the ministers present here know the reason very well.

In order to avoid religious conflicts and human tragedies, those people who insisted on believing in Islam were "politely escorted out of the country."

Those who stayed behind were the people who originally believed in or converted to Buddhism, Shamanism or even Taoism.

It doesn't matter. The people there were not originally local indigenous people. They migrated from other places hundreds of years ago. It's normal for them to migrate again now.

Your Majesty is right. Wealth is valuable, but land is more valuable. If it is for the sake of faith, both can be abandoned.

However, the ministers slightly modified this sentence in their hearts. Wealth is valuable, but land is more valuable. If it is for the sake of life, both can be abandoned.

Zhang Juzheng continued, "The population of 1.3 million is the population counted by the Qinghai and U-Tsang Xuanzheng Envoys."

Qinghai had long been conquered by the Huo brothers, who swept across the Dogandusi region (western Sichuan Province, northwestern Yunnan Province, eastern Tibet Autonomous Region and southwestern Qinghai Province).

All the forces under the jurisdiction of U-Tsang Guard were shocked. They dug out the official seals granted by the imperial court during the Hongwu and Yongle periods, and submitted petitions to pay tribute to the court to express their loyalty.

There are the King of Expounding the Teaching, the King of Auxiliary Teaching, the King of Expounding the Transformation, the Three Kings and the Three Dharma Kings, the two line dusi of Niuer Zongzhai and Anbuluo, the Olishi Military and Civilian Marshal's Office, and the Palace of 50,000 Households of Bamuzhuba, Biligongwa, Yangsiduo, Sharu and Zhuhe.

What they meant was to continue the "ancestral system", submit to the Ming Dynasty, pay tribute to the emperor regularly, but also to maintain their nearly independent autonomy.

Zhu Yijun would never tolerate them and made his attitude clear directly: the U-Tsang region must be brought under the formal jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty, and even the chieftains could forget about it!

The imperial court was trying its best to reform the chieftains in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, so how could it possibly set up new chieftains of all sizes in the U-Tsang area? It would be better to do it all at once.

However, considering the actual situation, Zhu Yijun also made some concessions.

In U-Tsang and Qinghai, the Xuanzhengshisi was established, which had one character difference in its name from the Buzhengshisi. Its powers were similar, but it managed both monks and laymen.

The U-Tsang region was directly set up as a county, and the area of ​​a county might be larger than Zhejiang. The tribal leaders were given hereditary military titles, such as 100 households, 1,000 households, deputy commander, and commander, as a token of favor and to win over the people.

Then the tribal people followed the Mongolian example and reorganized into small flags, medium flags, and hundred households.

The tribal leaders served as small flag officers, middle flag officers and centurions, and had certain management powers, similar to village heads and township heads, but had to be managed by the county government composed of the magistrate, county magistrate, county lieutenant and chief clerk.

The county government is directly managed by the U-Tsang Xuan government.

Of course, border areas such as Zheyu (Sikkim), Zhuyu (Bhutan), Menyu and Luoyu (southern Tibet), Zabulan (Zada), Purang, Sida Zang (Gyirong) and other places established thousand-household units and implemented the military settlement system, which were under the jurisdiction of the Military Preparations Office.

Some are regular combat troops, responsible for daily patrols and combat readiness.

Most of them were auxiliary troops for reclamation, farming and grazing, and regular military training. In times of crisis, they transformed themselves into an army.

The monastic groups headed by the Three Kings and the Three Dharma Kings must separate religious and secular. The monks in each major religious academy have a quota and must register with the Ministry of Rites of the U-Tsang Xuanzhengshisi and undergo assessment. Those who pass the assessment will be issued with a certificate of ordination.

Monks were granted the titles of Shanshi, Chanjiao, Jiangjing and Jueyi, and enjoyed the official ranks of Zhengliu, Jungsi, Zhengba and Jungqi.

The temple was not allowed to have any land, pastures or tribes. All the land it had previously owned was stripped away and transferred to the Xuanzhengshisi. The repair of the temple and the living expenses of the monks were all paid by the Xuanzhengshisi.

After hearing the conditions delivered by the envoys from the imperial court, the monks and laymen in U-Tsang were furious.

We, the chiefs, used to be the commanders-in-chief, marshals, ten thousand households, commanders, and thousand households. Now we have been downgraded to small flags, medium flags, and hundred households. It's an outrageous reduction!

Are you sending away beggars?

We monks were previously given titles of king and Dharma King, but now we are given titles of the sixth or eighth grade, such as Shanshi and Chanjiao. Who are you insulting?

In addition, each monastery has a quota of monks, who must take exams and obtain certificates. If you hold all the status and money in your hands, won't you beg for food on your knees?
We are the spokespersons of Buddha. We will only kneel to Buddha, not to mortals like you!

No, I must not agree to such a humiliating condition.

Since logic doesn’t make sense, let’s talk about physics!
At Zhu Yijun's order, in the spring and summer of the third year of the Wanli reign, the Mongolian Wing Guard Army in Qinghai dispatched four cavalry regiments, divided into two routes and headed straight for Lhasa, Qushui and Sharu (Shigatse), Saga, and Sida Zang.

Seventeen fortresses were conquered, and two thousand one hundred men were beheaded.

Twenty-one leaders of monks and laymen, including the Auxiliary Teaching King, the Mahayana Dharma King, the Commander-in-Chief of the Niuer Zongzhai, the Biligongwa Wanhu, the Shalu Wanhu, and the Zhuoyu Wanhu, who refused to submit to the king's rule and resisted stubbornly, were destroyed.

The rest of the people immediately became obedient. They said, "We are loyal subjects of the Ming Dynasty. We obey the king's rule and are convinced wholeheartedly."

The remaining monk leaders, under the supervision of the muskets and sabers of the Wing Guard Cavalry Regiment, set off obediently and went to Beijing to pay homage to Zhu Yijun in the fourth year of Wanli. They then received their ordination certificates from the Ministry of Rites and Religious Affairs and their official rank documents from the Ministry of Personnel.

Then, accompanied by the newly appointed U-Tsang Xuanzheng Envoy Mei Guozhen and Military Preparation Envoy Niu Bingzhong, he happily rushed to his new post and vowed to contribute to the national unity and frontier construction of the Ming Dynasty.

The Oris Military and Civilian Marshal's Office far away in Leh was still secretly feeling lucky and complacent. Haha, we are far away and the emperor is at the horizon.

What’s so great about the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the capital? I’m just a local emperor here.

You can't see me and you can't hit me!

Let’s see what you can do to me?
I just won't submit to the king's rule. I'm just going to jump up and down and be a rebellious son of the Ming Dynasty!

Come hit me if you can!
(End of this chapter)