The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 207 "Return to the Old Capital"

Zhu Jianxuan met his father and brother, then went to the harem to pay a visit to his mother, and slept for a night in his childhood room.

The next morning, he got up, had dinner with his parents, and then went to the Fengtian Hall to hold a New Year's court meeting, marking the beginning of the 43rd year of Xianning.

The Ming Emperor Zhu Zhonglin took the throne. The brothers Zhu Jiancan and Zhu Jianxuan stood on the left and right sides of the emperor's desk, accepting the worship of the officials below.

All the officials who had been dismissed by the old emperor were still under house arrest in the Wuying Palace.

Only a small number of court officials who accepted the reality at that time retained their status and were able to pay homage to the emperor together with the Wu officials brought by the King of Wu.

The emperor asked Fei Chun to stand up and read the New Year's edict.

Zhu Jiancan was officially canonized as the King of Liang, Zhu Jianxuan as the Crown Prince, and it was announced that the capital would be moved back to Shuntian Prefecture after the new year, and the Yingtian Prefecture government would be changed to the temporary capital.

This time, no one at the scene objected, and they all bowed their heads and obeyed the order obediently.

Although the court officials present at the scene had accepted the reality, they still could not leave the palace and go home immediately after the meeting.

The generals of the Wu State had temporarily taken over the garrisons inside and outside Yingtian Prefecture, but the government offices at all levels of the central court were still not completely controlled by the Wu State.

In the next few days, the 50,000 main forces and auxiliary troops of the Wu State prepared by Zhu Jianxuan arrived in Yingtian Prefecture one after another, and more officials from the Wu State also arrived.

Zhu Jianxuan transferred senior brigade-level officers from the main division of the Wu State to take over as the division commander of the Yingtianfu garrison and the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and other senior officers.

The middle and lower-level military officers arranged by the old emperor to control various government offices were promoted four levels during this takeover process.

Company commanders and centurions were directly promoted to regiment commanders and captains, and squad leaders and flag officers were directly promoted to company commanders and centurions.

In the five days after the New Year, the Wu officials and soldiers brought by Zhu Jianxuan were active at a high frequency, and fully took over the military and political institutions of the Ming court and Yingtian Prefecture.

At the same time, the imperial edict to appoint the King of Wu as the crown prince, to return the capital to Shuntian Prefecture and to change Yingtian to the capital, was issued to all provinces, prefectures, states, counties, garrisons, and military governorates throughout the world.

Let the world know that the crown prince has been changed, and that from now on all provinces have to go to Shuntian Prefecture for business, and Yingtian Prefecture will no longer be responsible for world affairs.

At the same time, I immediately started packing up and preparing to move to Shuntian Prefecture.

Zhu Jianxuan appointed Fei Chun as the Governor of Southern Zhili, responsible for handling the government affairs of Yingtian Prefecture and Southern Zhili.

Cao Zhendong was appointed as the Governor-General of Southern Zhili, responsible for handling military affairs of Yingtian Prefecture and Southern Zhili.

He ordered the two men to prepare for the Nanjing garrison and wait for the court to arrange special personnel to take over.

All the information and seals of other core institutions of the central government were moved away.

All the close royal family members around Yingtian Prefecture also received notice and immediately prepared to accompany him to Shuntian Prefecture.

All personnel must be ready to leave as soon as possible. There is no need to move all the things in the house away immediately. You can arrange for the servants to pack them up and send them over.

For Zhu Jianxuan, the Jiangnan region, including Yingtian Prefecture, is not his current base at all.

The key is that I am ready to completely subvert the social order here immediately.

Before the new order is fully established, rebellions will surely occur one after another, and it will be impossible to live in peace.

The current national framework of the Wu State is powered by an industrial planned economy consisting of the king's factories and guaranteed by a farming and warfare mobilization system constructed by military settlements and garrisons.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan, as the foundation of the King of Wu's rule, was the craftsmen and workers in the king's factories, the officers, soldiers, farmers, and students in the military garrisons, and the professional bureaucrats in the Wu court.

The ruling base of the Wu Kingdom is completely different from the ruling class of the current Ming Dynasty in Jiangnan. From a class analysis perspective, they should even be considered enemies.

As for the monarch as the master of the entire country, he can be neutral or unshakable in his political stance.

They can lean towards any group, any side that helps maintain their rule.

But as the master of the country, once he finds that he is overly biased towards one side, causing instability in the country and his rule, he will spontaneously change his attitude.

A normal monarch will strive to find various means of checks and balances to prevent himself from being completely swept up by any group.

Once the so-called "many righteous people fill the court" appears, it means that the situation is about to get out of control.

The old emperor discovered that the officials of the court were collectively hostile to him, and realized that the bureaucratic system representing the interests of merchants might hold the prince hostage, so he immediately decided to turn around and look for the King of Wu.

Allowing the bureaucratic system to hold the crown prince hostage would significantly weaken the authority of subsequent emperors, who might even turn the emperor into a rubber stamp.

If the prince succeeded to the throne normally, he would definitely find other forces to check and balance the merchants.

But if he had ascended the throne as a businessman or bureaucrat, he would not have been able to suppress the already expanding merchant group.

The end result is that the spokespersons tend to be more and more inclined towards the industrial and commercial groups.

Letting King Wu take over the court now will not only truly unify the world, but will also be more conducive to the stability of the Zhu family's rule.

Merchants in the Jiangnan region of the Ming Dynasty felt that King Wu was a living saint like Lu Ban in the world because the large number of new industries created by King Wu allowed them to take advantage of the opportunity and become rich.

When the State of Wu was developing and constructing and launching the Northern Expedition, it also placed a large number of orders with local manufacturers.

Therefore, the former Wu State and the King of Wu not only had no overt conflicts of interest with the merchants from the south of the Yangtze River, but also had long-term trade exchanges and common interests.

The King of Wu can also be used as a banner to incite the Northern Expedition.

But now the King of Wu has become the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty and will become the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the future.

The conflict between the ruling base of Wu and the ruling group of Ming Jiangnan due to differences in social composition could not be avoided. Zhu Jianxuan could not allow Wu to integrate into the Ming Jiangnan system, as that would mean that the kingdom and the world would become less controllable, and would mean giving up the current absolute power on a large scale.

Zhu Jianxuan would definitely transform the industrial and commercial system of Jiangnan and incorporate the valuable parts into the current social system of the Wu State.

This means launching a massive social revolution.

The economic system was quickly transformed from one in which the majority of industry and commerce were privately owned to one in which the majority of industry and commerce were owned by the government.

The Ming imperial family has directly managed many industries since the Chongzhen period.

However, the scale of these royal private industries was just factories and businesses, rather than a national basic industry.

Chongzhen may have had the idea of ​​developing state capitalism, but subsequent emperors simply ran it as a normal family business and did not think of using these industries to control the entire country.

Although Zhu Jianxuan now has the support of the emperor, occupies a righteous position, and has absolute military force to directly suppress the enemy, but cutting off someone's financial resources is like killing his parents.

Groups whose interests are harmed in social transformation cannot calmly accept their fate of marginalization.

Various forms of unrest will certainly occur one after another.

There might be another rebellion in Yingtian Prefecture. If the old emperor and his relatives stayed in Yingtian Prefecture, Zhu Jianxuan would be constrained in his efforts to suppress the rebellion.

Regardless of whether the final result would hurt the old emperor or not, as long as there is a possibility of hurting him, it would be a shit pot on his head.

For the old emperor, a rebellion had just broken out in Yingtian Prefecture, so he definitely could not continue to live there.

Regardless of whether the parties involved are severely punished or not, these things will leave traces once they happen, and there will be a second time after the first time.

Unless the entire social structure is completely overturned and a completely different social order is re-established, which takes time.

Therefore, the old emperor and Zhu Jianxuan unanimously decided to "return to the old capital" as soon as possible.

The old Qing forces in northern Zhili were completely cleared out by Zhu Jianxuan, and the civilians at the bottom of society were incorporated into the Wu military settlement system, becoming Zhu Jianxuan's absolute base.

Now the management system and ruling structure of Northern Zhili are highly unified and simple and controllable.

Compared with the complex network of civil forces in Southern Zhili, the level of security and stability in Northern Zhili was simply not on the same level.

The central court immediately left Yingtian Prefecture, which was also a punishment for everyone in Yingtian Prefecture.

Let everyone know that the emperor has become disgusted with this place, and the court will naturally not give it any care in the future.

Now that the main officials of the court have been cleared out and the new complete central court office has not yet been established, it is also the most suitable time to move the capital.

If you want speed, you can take the main seal of the yamen first, and the remaining information, data and files can be sent slowly.

If we recruit all the officials from the Wu State to Yingtian Prefecture and set up a new central government office of the Ming Dynasty there, it would be troublesome to relocate after it started working for a period of time.

So on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month in the forty-third year of Xianning, after celebrating the New Year and his birthday, Zhu Jianxuan boarded the ship and set sail with his parents, brother, and close relatives.

The main civil and military officials of the Wu Kingdom in Australia and important scientific research institutions were notified last year that they would move to Shuntian Prefecture.

The original plan was to set off at the beginning of the 43rd year of Xianning, leaving only a few officials to handle daily affairs.

The monarchs of various local vassal states of the Ming Dynasty will also be notified by the court one after another, asking them to go to Shuntian Prefecture this autumn to pay homage to the emperor and resolve the problems of the local vassal states.

Shuntian Prefecture will become the actual capital of the Ming Dynasty and the Wu Kingdom, and Yingtian Prefecture and the King of Wu will both become garrison offices.

Also leaving Shuntian Prefecture were the dismissed Ming Dynasty officials.

They will be escorted away from Beijing by the Wu naval fleet and sent directly to the designated exile island of Falkland Islands.

The other officials who had been under house arrest in Wuying Palace have finally regained their freedom, but the world outside the palace has completely changed.

Although their own positions were not demoted, most of them were even promoted.

The old emperor and Zhu Jianxuan evenly distributed the positions of ministers and vice ministers in various departments in Nanjing to these officials who accepted the reality.

But they no longer had any real power, and their status was lower than that of Nanjing officials before Chongzhen.

The officials of the six ministries in Nanjing before Chongzhen were directly responsible for the affairs of Southern Zhili and surrounding areas.

In particular, the Ministry of Revenue was responsible for collecting tax grain from the four provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Huguang, and the tax amount accounted for almost half of the entire Ming Dynasty.

The Ministry of Revenue was also responsible for the collection and management of grain transport, salt permits, and the Yellow Book, which were all extremely important tasks.

The Ministry of War was in charge of all 49 garrisons in Nanzhili, the Ministry of Personnel was responsible for the examination and evaluation of the performance of officials in Nanzhili, and the Ministry of Justice was responsible for the criminal justice of various departments, dukes' and marquises' residences, and garrisons in Nanjing.

The duties of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Rites were similar to those of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Rites in the central court in Beijing, except that their jurisdiction was limited to Nanjing and nearby provinces.

Seventeen years after Chongzhen, the Ming court moved south. All these southern affairs were under the charge of the central court rebuilt by Chongzhen, and the six ministries were naturally no longer divided into north and south.

Now Zhu Jianxuan re-established the official posts of various departments in Nanjing Capital, but did not restore the duties they were once responsible for.

Matters that should have been the responsibility of the central court continued to be managed by the central court moved to Shuntian Prefecture, while local affairs were divided between Fei Chun and Cao Zhendong.

The official position of Nanjing Liudu completely became a retirement title.

The garrisons inside and outside Yingtian Prefecture have all been taken over by Wu generals led by Cao Zhendong, and the Jinyiwei will also take direct orders from Fei Chun.

(End of this chapter)