The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 213 Imperial Power and the Logic of Succession
The Ming Emperor Zhu Zhonglin and the Crown Prince Zhu Jianxuan chatted for a long time in the West Garden.

Finalized the plan for rebuilding the Forbidden City, designated the North American redwood forests as a royal preserve, and prepared to negotiate a deal with the Spanish for California.

The old emperor was quite satisfied with Zhu Jianxuan's attitude and decisions.

When talking to his father, the emperor, he still followed his own wishes and would only advise him when something was particularly outrageous.

Without power, he did not take his father seriously and did not show any particular urgency.

The old emperor nodded slowly in his heart, and then changed another important topic:
"We have decided on the plan for renovating our palace, so when are you planning on getting married?
"I'm over 70 now, and I want to see you get married and have children.

"If you don't have any ideas, your mother and I will take care of it for you, right?"

Zhu Jianxuan felt a little helpless when he heard this question:

"Well... Father, I do have some ideas. I don't plan to get married in the traditional way.

"If you want me to give birth to your grandchildren, I can take in a few concubines right now..."

The old emperor couldn't help but raise his eyebrows:

"Don't want to get married? Just want to take a concubine? What do you mean?
"Do you not want to get married now, or do you never want to get married in this life?"

Zhu Jianxuan hesitated for a few seconds:

"It's possible that he will never get married in this lifetime, or he will wait until the heir is determined and then canonize the heir's mother as the principal wife..."

The old emperor thought he understood Zhu Jianxuan's purpose, and immediately taught and muttered with some anguish:

"You want to establish a virtuous person? This has been the way to cause chaos since ancient times.

“Because the standard of virtue cannot be determined, it is inevitable that the court officials will form factions around the prince who has a chance, and attack and fight each other.

"Whoever wins the fight is the so-called virtuous one—

"The eldest son is chosen based on age rather than virtue, and the son is chosen based on status rather than age. This has been a proven experience over thousands of years in successive dynasties.

“You yourself are a rare exception in thousands of years, you must never use yourself as a reference!
"For ordinary emperors and princes, the strictest system of primogeniture is the safest.

“Unless a change has a high success rate and can certainly bring about huge and tangible advantages, the safety of inheritance is more important than anything else.

“Just like you, if you hadn’t succeeded in the Northern Expedition and actually occupied the Central Plains in the north.

"Otherwise, no matter how well you run your business in the United States and Australia, and no matter how many major inventions and creations you have, you will never have the chance to replace your big brother."

Zhu Jianxuan understood his father's concerns. For the Central Empire court, stability was indeed more important than anything else.

Stability means being able to mobilize the entire country's strength, which means being able to have a huge advantage over the rest of the world and being able to defeat the enemy even if the technology is mediocre or even backward.

This is also the reason why the Central Empire always hesitates in technological innovation and large-scale political reforms.

But now times have changed:

"Father, after the start of industrialization, no country can continue to live peacefully on its own like in the agricultural era.

“Continuous industrialization construction, wave after wave of factories and machines continue to upgrade, continuously impacting the entire society, and the entire society is in a state of change for a long time.

“A large number of workers gathered, and the city’s assets and population grew, all beyond the imagination of the ancients.

“Trying to maintain stability by force will only result in de facto conservatism and the backwardness of the entire country.

“The traditional concept of stability in the agricultural era is no longer possible in the foreseeable future. The best we can do is pursue dynamic stability.

“The same goes for the succession to the throne.

"In the agricultural era, a mediocre monarch, relying on the status inherited from his ancestors, could maintain the stability of the country as long as he did not mess around.

“But the future is not going to work.

“There may be more and more civil uprisings like the one in Yingtian Prefecture in the future.

“There will be more and more cases where businessmen incite workers to attack the imperial court, and it cannot be truly avoided.

“Conflicts between disaster victims, businessmen and workers will also continue.

“A mediocre monarch really can’t cope with it.

“In fact, if it weren’t for my father’s manipulation and the fact that I was sent out as a surprise force from outside, we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish our Northern Expedition and reduce the power of the feudal lords.

"If we leave it alone, the feudal lords and merchants will cause trouble sooner or later.

“There is a real possibility of a massive civil war and rebellion.

“We only have two choices in the future: find a way to select monarchs with a higher basic level, or gradually delegate power to officials and localities.

"Due to the countless rebellions and powerful officials in our history, we dare not try the second path.

“So we can only add burdens to our descendants.”

Zhu Jianxuan knew that the reason why modern China could not keep up with the pace was that the pace of the world at that time was changing too fast.

The three industrial revolutions have brought wave after wave of technological innovation. If a country fails to keep up once, it may become a second-rate country. If it fails to keep up three times, it will be like a primitive man.

Especially in the late 19th century, every country was slow to move forward.

The best warships that the Qing Dynasty had just ordered from Europe were already outdated when they were built in the shipyard, and they were no longer up to date when they were brought back to China. This was completely different from the previous cannons that could be used for hundreds of years.

How should the aging Qing court respond to this?
If the Qing Dynasty court was a person, he would have been completely confused at the time. He simply could not understand this era, and as a result, it completely went to waste in the later period.

Although the old emperor's understanding was not as profound as Zhu Jianxuan's, his experiences over the years were very clear.

The world is indeed changing almost every day.

In the past twenty years, places like America, Australia, North Africa, and East Africa have all changed dramatically.

The old emperor was silent for a long time:

"What you said does make sense, but it doesn't solve the problem. How are you going to avoid the factional strife that will inevitably result from appointing a virtuous person?"

Zhu Jianxuan tried to explain his thoughts to his father:
"Father, the reason why the selection of virtuous people leads to factional disputes is indeed because the standard of virtuous people cannot be determined.

“In essence, it is people other than the emperor who can interfere with the inheritance of imperial power by discussing the standard of virtue.

"Ministers can help and cooperate with a certain prince, making him behave more 'wisely', and then participate in the competition for the crown prince position.

“To solve this problem, we don’t need to determine clear standards for what is considered virtuous, such as taking math tests.

“Because once the rules are made public and determined, there will be opportunities for discussion and questioning, and outsiders will have the opportunity to interfere.

“So the standards and rules for selecting talented people should be completely in the hands of the emperor and kept secret, and any interference from anyone else should be prohibited and avoided.

“You can refer to the secret succession system used by the Qing Dynasty, where the emperor selected his successor but did not disclose it to the court officials.

"The emperor himself wrote his will and sealed it. After the emperor passed away, the royal family and court officials jointly supervised the opening of the will, and the heir named in the will succeeded to the throne.

“The Queen and the Crown Prince are actually similar to the Prime Minister and naturally have certain decision-making powers. The key is to share power according to traditional etiquette.

“So it would be best to do the same as Emperor Taizu Gao abolished the prime minister and abolish the titles of Empress and Crown Prince at the same time, to avoid the trouble of the Crown Prince’s Party that would arise as long as there is a Crown Prince.

“In normal times, two or four imperial concubines can be appointed to assist the emperor in handling harem affairs, just as the Grand Secretary assists the emperor in handling government affairs.

"But the decision-making power must be in the hands of the emperor. Without the emperor's approval, no decisive matter can be implemented."

The old emperor couldn't help but remind him seriously again when he heard this:

“It is true that if there is a crown prince, there will be a crown prince party, but if there is no crown prince, there will be multiple crown prince parties, and there will still be party struggles.

“Even if the standards for virtue are not public, there is at least a basic rule that is taken for granted, which is the universally recognized standard of ‘good’.

“Being able to do things, having achievements, being polite, and so on.

"It's impossible that the emperor would deliberately choose a fool or a madman as his successor, right?

“There will definitely be ministers in the court who will use the resources at their disposal to help a certain prince who may succeed to the throne, so that this prince can perform more prominently.

"How do you avoid this?"

Zhu Jianxuan really thought about this, so he continued to explain his thoughts to his father:

“I think that the officials in the court are willing to follow a certain prince and form a party. This is essentially an investment.

“But investing is not a charity. Instead, you need to make a decision based on a comprehensive consideration of investment costs, investment success rate, investment returns, payback period, investment risks, and other factors.

“The cost of investing in the prince is not low. It can even be said that you have to put all your money on the line, but this cost is gradually increasing.

“It may be just a verbal claim at first, but it will slowly increase as time passes by in joining the Prince’s Party.

“As for the benefits of investing in the prince, they can be roughly divided into two aspects.

“One is to join the party formed around the prince, so that through mutual assistance among party members, you can strive for a more suitable official position and resist additional risks.

“When there are major events in the court, the prince and his cronies will be informed first. When there are mistakes in personal work, the prince and his cronies will also help solve them.

“The return is not very high, but the success rate is very high, the payback period is very short, and the risk is very low.

“In the early stages, you can even take a share of the profits first, and then put your own capital into it.

“Because the prince may take the initiative to recruit officials to important positions in the court.

“Second, after the prince successfully ascends the throne, the officials will be given higher status and rewards as meritorious officials who have served the emperor.

“The payback period is relatively long and the success rate is average, but the rate of return is very high and increases with the cost and time invested.

“Taken together, these factors make it an excellent investment project with both long-term and short-term benefits, and high and low yields.

“At the same time, as the investment time increases and the short-term returns continue to increase, investors will gradually become completely tied to the project.

“So even if there are great risks in the later stages, most ministers can’t help but participate in this kind of investment at the early stages of the project.

“We must avoid the formation of a faction around the prince and completely scrap this investment project from the outset.

“We have tried to make this project require huge initial investment, have a low success rate in the later stages, and at the same time, the investment risk is extremely high.

“The key is to make it basically free of short-term gains and to make the long-term return cycle exceptionally long.

"In this case, basically no one will invest in this project, at least there will be no large-scale collective investment."

(End of this chapter)