The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 321: "Fu" is not "City"

If we follow Shen Fu's advice, the hamburger issue will be easy to handle.

Zhu Jingjian's Han King Guard Corps had actually completed a coup, and did it very thoroughly.

All the original members of the administrative body were wiped out, and most of the heads of various agencies were killed. Only three who surrendered the fastest survived.

All streets and squares in the city have also been controlled by the militia.

It is no surprise that 20,000 soldiers can control a city with a population of 80,000.

Faced with such a huge disadvantage, the captured members of various organizations had no choice but to give in and swear allegiance to their new king.

Zhu Jingjian's initial claim was also directly implemented to the greatest extent.

Hamburg became part of the Hanoverian territory, all previous vertical and horizontal consultative bodies were abolished, and all power belonged to the king himself.

The military coup in Hamburg did become a typical example.

The Hamburg Speaker and Commune President who were killed at that time were all photographed after being shot to death.

Photographs were also taken of other MPs and members of other institutions being tied together by soldiers and then swearing allegiance to the king.

Shen Fu wrote a statement claiming that the Speaker of the Hamburg Parliament, the President of the Commune and others, who had coerced the citizens of Hamburg to openly confront the king and refused to obey the king's orders, were executed by the King's Guard Corps.

Members of parliament, communard members, guild members, etc. gathered together to resist and were collectively captured by the guard corps. They were released after swearing allegiance to the king.

The photos and Shen Fu's explanation were copied in many copies and sent to various places in Germany in batches.

The garrisons of all other cities and the new vassal monarchs took these instructions to retake the cities assigned to them and forced all the original local institutions to obey.

These commercial cities were well-informed places, and what happened in Hamburg quickly spread throughout Germany.

The Speaker of the Parliament and the Mayor of Hamburg are well-known figures in the German region, equivalent to the monarch of a state.

Of course, the parliamentarians and merchants from other cities could not imagine that the King of Hanover was originally planning to massacre the city, but it turned into a coup in the end.

They all came to the unanimous conclusion that it was the monarch from the Ming Dynasty who demanded absolute power, which led to the breakdown of negotiations with the Hamburg Parliament and the Commune.

Finally, he ordered the Ming army to directly control the city and all the parliamentarians and merchants and force them to obey.

They referred to the situation in Hamburg and knew that if they did not obey, Hamburg would become an example.

So after the Hamburg incident spread, the takeover of other cities became much easier, and almost no businessmen dared to clamor for negotiations.

Zhu Jingjian himself had the best demonstration effect. When he personally led his troops to take over Bremen, he directly led 10,000 troops into the city.

After taking control of the parliament and other institutions, he demanded on the spot that members of the parliament and the commune pledge allegiance to him, and the other party agreed directly.

Zhu Jingjian's original intention was extremely bad, but the final result could be considered not bad, except that a group of people including Hamburg's speaker and commune leader died in vain.

Hamburg and Bremen and other large and small European cities, the Kingdom of Hanover and other new vassal states of the Ming Dynasty in Europe, the Rhine region and other areas belonging to the Ming Dynasty's European province.

The general situation of the local people and industries, and the more special new problems encountered in the actual takeover and governance process.

All this information was transmitted through the local monarchs of the Ming vassal states, officials of the Ming court and the vassal states, the Ming court's garrison system, and the Western Factory's intelligence system.

They are continuously gathered into different categories and sent to the corresponding receiving institutions in Shuntian Prefecture.

As in the past, the Western Factory regularly prepared general summary reports and sent them directly to Zhu Jianxuan, allowing Zhu Jianxuan to check the general situation around the world.

As Zhu Jingjian said, Emperor Zhu Jianxuan was indeed able to grasp the main situation of the world at any time through the ever-expanding telegraph system.

Of course, this information cannot be completely true, and Zhu Jianxuan does not have the energy to read the original reports one by one, but this is truly unprecedented.

Many ordinary officials below speculated that the emperor might not be very interested in these things and would just take a look at them and put them aside.

However, Zhu Jianxuan, a time traveler, felt a special feeling of his own when he saw how the Ming people transformed the urban and rural management systems in Europe.

Zhu Jianxuan discovered that what had happened in Shenzhou in his previous life was happening on the European continent in a completely reversed form.

In the original history, China has taken many detours in the process of modernization and in the process of saving the nation from extinction.

Because of China's own weakness in modern times, compared with the strength of European countries at the time, those who were determined to save the nation from extinction instinctively wanted to learn all aspects of the West.

At that time, they did not fully understand the real reason why Europeans were so powerful, so they were naturally blind when they studied.

They often overlook the inherent differences between the East and the West, and fail to realize that what is applicable in European society may not be suitable in the Chinese environment, and are unable to adapt to local conditions.

Such mistakes have been made in the management systems of cities and villages and in administrative divisions.

First, during the Republic of China period, the concept of "city" was actively borrowed from the West, and attempts were made to build "cities" in China, believing that this would promote the development of industry and commerce.

Cities and rural areas in Europe are two separate systems, and at first glance it seems that urban built-up areas are managed separately.

Therefore, the core areas of China's original "provincial cities", densely populated built-up areas and industrial areas were separated and established as independent "cities".

Other counties under the jurisdiction of the prefecture, and even villages under the jurisdiction of the county seat, were separated from the urban built-up areas and handed over to the province for management.

However, the concept of the capital city in the Shenzhou region is very different from the concept of the city in Europe.

The most important identity of ancient cities in Shenzhou has always been the local administrative center of the central imperial court.

The cities of Shenzhou were originally within the empire's administrative system and were the core of the surrounding rural areas.

Simply copying European experience completely subverted the local traditions of Shenzhou.

This caused very troublesome administrative problems, which were not truly resolved in the following hundreds of years, and in the end, the situation actually went in the opposite direction.

During the long feudal era, European countries formed a complex and cumbersome tradition of local autonomy.

When a feudal lord obtained a piece of land, he would usually promise not to change local traditions and laws, but only require the locals to pay taxes to him.

Most of the lands of the great lords were in a state of some kind of self-government.

The lord is equivalent to a landlord who owns houses in many communities. His job is to collect rent from each house regularly.

You don’t even have to go to the customer’s home to collect it, you can just let the customer deliver it to you.

Because there is no need to control and handle specific local affairs, this kind of lord can manage a large number of subordinate institutions.

It is no problem for subordinate agencies directly under the lord or king to have dozens or even hundreds of them. Just keep records and collect taxes from the corresponding places regularly.

But the Shenzhou Empire is a centralized state, and power is transferred from top to bottom.

Every provincial capital, state and county is an extension of the central court. Every extended agency needs authorization from its superiors, and cooperation between multiple extended agencies requires coordination from their superiors.

According to actual management experience of later generations, there is a rough limit to the number of subordinate organizations that a superior organization can directly manage.

The most efficient number is five to six, the number that can maintain relatively high efficiency is ten, it is difficult to manage after more than thirty, and chaos may occur after more than fifty. The built-up area of ​​the prefecture capital in the Shenzhou region will be established as a separate city, and all other ordinary agricultural counties and districts will be handed over to the province.

The number of counties that a province has to directly manage will reach dozens or even hundreds. Add to that the independent cities, and the province will basically have more than a hundred subordinate agencies.

The province has no control over this situation, and officials from various departments don’t even know who their subordinates are.

When it was too difficult to manage all the affairs, they had to set up dispatched agencies such as the Inspection District, Commissioner District, and Regional Office to specifically manage the affairs of certain counties and districts.

These dispatched agencies need to have an office location, and the place with the most convenient transportation and the most suitable location happens to be an independent "city".

After all, cities are the core of the current region, many of them are strategic locations, and they are responsible for managing the area.

Therefore, later on, the resident offices of many administrative commissioners were placed in the cities that had become independent.

This is equivalent to placing the institutions that manage county and rural areas and the institutions that manage urban areas in the same city.

In order to improve administrative efficiency, wouldn't it be better to simply omit the redundant institutions and let these cities be responsible for managing the counties outside?

It seemed feasible, and so the prefecture-level city was born.

The functions and scale of a prefecture-level city are very similar to those of a prefecture, but it is not directly inherited from the original prefecture.

The direct origins of prefecture-level cities are the special districts and regions after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

The term "special district" originated from the administrative inspection district of the Republic of China. The administrative inspection special district was the result of abolishing the government and retaining the prefectures during the Republic of China.

The origin of Dao is the Fenshou Dao of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Fenshou Dao was between the province and the prefecture. It was originally a branch agency of the province, but it was gradually materialized in the later period.

A prefecture was usually composed of several prefectures, and its size was similar to the later Chongqing City.

The original intention of the Republic of China was to change the four-level administrative divisions into two levels, abolishing provinces and prefectures and retaining only roads and counties.

It was found to be unrealistic in actual operation, so the province was retained.

The reason for choosing Dao instead of Fu may be that the name of Fu carries a certain feudal traditional connotation, which was given priority in the revolutionary era to be abolished as a whole.

Therefore, the prefecture-level city is the resurrected corpse of the prefecture-level city.

Since it is a resurrection of the dead, it is different from the original version, or there is some problem.

For example, the "urban district" looks very similar to the county under the jurisdiction of the prefecture, but the concept was formed under the urban state and is a place directly governed by the city.

The concept of a county has also changed. It is a rural area that is not directly managed by the city and is not legally affiliated with the subordinate institutions of a prefecture-level city, so the county is "managed" by the prefecture-level city.

Since one is directly managed and the other is managed by proxy, there is a distinction and naturally a difference.

The county is the younger brother of the prefecture-level city. When the younger brother itself has no problems, the prefecture-level city cannot interfere and will not give any preferential treatment in resources.

The district is a direct subordinate of the prefecture-level city. He cannot do what he is not allowed to do, and he has to do what he is asked to do. It is under the unified planning and management of the prefecture-level city and can also receive additional resources.

Some counties are eager to become districts and receive more resources from prefecture-level cities.

But there are exceptions where counties firmly refuse to become districts because they have no sense of identity with prefecture-level cities.

In the original structure of "province, prefecture, and county", the prefecture was the common superior institution of all subordinate states and counties.

The key point is that the prefecture does not directly manage grassroots affairs. Even in the prefecture’s own city, a county will be set up to manage the city’s grassroots government affairs.

For example, Jiangning County and Shangyuan County of Yingtian Prefecture each managed half of Yingtian Prefecture city and part of the suburbs, and looked no different from the districts of current prefecture-level cities.

However, the political concept of attached counties is completely different from that of districts. They are essentially "counties without independent county seats."

All their political status, like other counties outside the city and in the suburbs under the jurisdiction of Yingtian Prefecture, were clearly subordinate agencies of the prefecture, and there was no distinction between custodial and direct management.

Officials in ancient times did not want to be the magistrate of a county attached to the capital, but preferred to be the magistrate of a suburban county.

During the process of setting up cities in the Republic of China, the built-up areas were usually separated out. The built-up areas were basically attached counties, so the cities adopted the names of the attached counties.

For example, the county attached to Luzhou Prefecture was Hefei County, so when the city was established, it naturally became "Hefei" City.

Finally, Hefei became a prefecture-level city, administering other suburban counties.

It became awkward when other suburban counties were incorporated into the prefecture-level city. We were all originally part of Luzhou Prefecture, so how come I have become your subordinate in Hefei now?
Hefei has become a prefecture-level city, so why can't I? If I can't be a prefecture-level city, can I be a county-level city?

There are many similar situations, such as Liaocheng County of Dongchang Prefecture became Liaocheng City, Heze County of Caozhou Prefecture became Heze City, and Huanggang County of Huangzhou Prefecture became Huanggang City.

Shanghai County of Songjiang Prefecture became Songjiang District of Shanghai. The level was completely reversed.

Also, in the process of setting up the city, the county government was moved to the suburbs, specifically responsible for the rural areas in the suburbs, leaving the urban area to the city management.

For example, Daxing County and Wanping County of Shuntian Prefecture were originally responsible for managing the affairs of Shuntian Prefecture City, but later they moved out and became suburban counties.

Finally, Dongcheng District and Xicheng District were set up in the urban areas originally managed by Daxing County and Wanping County.

So much so that some people think that people in Daxing County in ancient times were also from rural areas.

Finally, the counties were abolished and changed into districts. Daxing County and Wanping County became districts again. Although the names were still there, the core areas had completely shifted away, and it was like a revival.

Do the final Daxing and Wanping have any practical relationship with the original traditions of their names?

Some places once put forward the slogan of "preferring to be a city rather than a district", refusing to become a district under the jurisdiction of a prefecture-level city and seeking to become a county-level city.

At the same time, the emergence of new prefecture-level cities and county-level cities, coupled with the existing concepts of markets and towns, have confused the concept of the name "city".

Before the invasion of Western culture, "shi" originally meant market, which was similar to fang and streets in the city, and similar to towns outside the city, which was a subordinate agency of the county.

It’s just that the city is a commercial area in nature, the town is a residential area, and the factory is usually a handicraft area.

These naturally formed regional concepts can normally distinguish the functional areas of the town, and there is no need to create any street concepts.

The administrative divisions naturally formed by Shenzhou itself are the most suitable for itself. There is no need to learn from the Europeans on this issue.

The concept of city in Europe should not be translated into city at all. It is more appropriate to use autonomous city.

The Ming Dynasty is now strong and Europe is weak. No one in the Ming Dynasty would want to reform the administrative divisions of the Ming Dynasty based on the European model. Instead, they would use the administrative divisions of the Ming Dynasty to reform Europe.

Will this cause any problems? Will there be a mess similar to the situation when Shenzhou forced the European system to be used, resulting in a lot of bad debts?

Other people in the Ming Dynasty would not have such an idea. Zhu Jianxuan actually considered it seriously and finally felt that there should not be any big problem.

The administrative divisions of the Ming Dynasty were able to integrate the scattered European local institutions and organize them into a standardized system.

The local administrative divisions in Europe and the United States in later generations actually also had a tendency to become Chinese, but they have always been strong in modern history and have little motivation for self-reform.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has helped them accomplish this, it is also a de facto progress for them.

(End of this chapter)