The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 322: Adjustment of European and American Political Regions and the Future of the Guards

The Ming Dynasty in this world will not blindly learn from other civilizations, but the Ming Dynasty’s current administrative management system also needs to be reorganized as a whole.

The comprehensive industrial construction of the Ming Dynasty lasted for nearly twenty years, and the conditions in local cities and villages have undergone tremendous changes.

The proportion of urban population increased rapidly, especially in prefectures and counties where large-scale state-owned industries were located, where the size of built-up areas rapidly expanded by two or three times.

Zhu Jianxuan had made predictive regulations in advance, prohibiting the construction of factories within the original prefecture, state and county walls. There were only administrative, cultural, commercial and residential areas within the walls.

Even so, the vacant land in the major industrial prefectures and counties has been basically filled up, and the built-up areas outside the city walls have exceeded the size of the original city.

Only the situation in Shuntian Prefecture was special. Zhu Jianxuan imposed more stringent restrictions at the time, prohibiting the construction of factories in the urban area of ​​Shuntian Prefecture, outside the city and even in the surrounding counties.

At the beginning, the outer city wall, an unfinished project left by Jiajing, was completed in accordance with the special requirements of the old emperor, and the current built-up areas are still within the city walls.

The American War and the European War that lasted for more than ten years are both over, and there should be no large-scale wars in the next few years.

America is basically under the control of the Ming Dynasty, and the situation in Europe should gradually stabilize.

Except for the former Crown Prince Liang Wang and the Duke of Min who made the greatest contribution to the Northern Expedition, the support of most African vassal states will end in two years.

Now the Ming Dynasty's domestic and overseas administrative systems need an overall reorganization and repair.

Based on the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, refer to your own experience in past lives.

Now the territory of the Ming Dynasty is extremely vast, exceeding that of any dynasty in history, even by an order of magnitude.

The ruling groups of the ancient dynasties of Shenzhou often used small plains in the corners of the Central Plains as their core and foundation, and ruled the entire Central Plains after completing their political construction.

It is a bit similar to the "gold horn, silver edge and grass belly" in Go.

The two cities of Chang'an and Luoyang in the Han and Tang Dynasties correspond to the Guanzhong Plain and Luoyang Basin.

Yingtian Prefecture corresponds to the Jiangnan region at the southernmost tip of the Central Plains, and Shuntian Prefecture corresponds to the foot of the Yanshan Mountains at the northernmost tip of North China.

These ancient capitals and regions can be regarded as intuitive manifestations of this strategy.

If the current Ming Dynasty wants to continue to refer to this strategy, it must expand the scale of internal concepts as a whole.

The Ming Dynasty wanted to control the entire world with Shenzhou as its core.

Shenzhou is now the richest, most industrially and economically developed place in the world, and should maintain this status and advantage for a long time in the future.

The administrative divisions and management methods of this core area should be more efficient than those of peripheral and overseas areas.

These wealthy places can also afford more management costs.

In the Southern Zhili established by Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, all prefectures were directly under the jurisdiction of the Six Ministries and were essentially a group of municipalities.

However, there were too many of them, and many prefectures and states were too small, which increased unnecessary management difficulties and eventually they were gradually transformed into provinces.

For the wealthy and prosperous core area, in theory the most suitable option should be the Chongqing model, that is, the model of a small province directly under the jurisdiction of a county.

The existing jurisdiction of the Jiangnan Provincial Administration Commissioner is already in this form, and it can actually be tried around Shuntian Prefecture.

However, this model is only applicable locally and cannot be widely applied in Shenzhou.

Under the system of provincial direct-administered counties, it is best for a province to have no more than thirty counties. If there are more, it will be difficult to manage them.

Many of the major provinces in the core area of ​​the Ming Dynasty have hundreds of counties, and such a major province may have to be divided into at least three small provinces.

Even if it is limited to the real core area from Liaodong to Guangdong, and from Donghai to Gansu, if the model of small provinces directly under the jurisdiction of counties is to be fully promoted, it is estimated that fifty to sixty provinces will have to be set up.

If the central government had fifty or sixty subordinate agencies, it would certainly be impossible to manage them all.

We can only divide these small provinces into several groups, and assign a dispatched agency to be in charge of each province. This will restore the administrative level to three levels.

It is simply unrealistic to have a universal two-level administrative division in Shenzhou.

We can only make use of the new transportation and communication technologies to ensure that there are only three levels of administrative divisions in the mainland at most, and to abolish all the counties, scattered states, direct-controlled states, and divided prefectures.

The scattered states under the jurisdiction of the prefecture are further divided into counties, which actually becomes a four-level division of province-prefecture-state-county.

If we add the districts in charge of several prefectures, the administrative hierarchy will become the most extreme five levels: province-prefecture-state-county.

The situation of scattered states governing counties actually existed for a long time. Usually, due to the inconvenient transportation in some areas, it was difficult for the provincial capital to directly govern the local counties.

However, the local population and land size is larger than that of a county, but does not meet the indicators of a prefecture, so a state is established locally to be in charge of a few counties.

The division of prefectures was a compromise created when the size of prefectures continued to expand, the population of each prefecture continued to increase, and affairs became increasingly complicated, making direct provincial administration difficult.

Now with railways, roads, motor vehicles, airplanes, telegraphs and telephones, transportation and communication are no longer a problem.

For larger counties under the jurisdiction of scattered states, several counties can be divided from the surrounding prefectures to become a prefecture of normal size, which can be directly placed under the jurisdiction of the province.

Smaller counties and prefectures could be placed under the jurisdiction of nearby prefectures together with the counties under their jurisdiction.

The prefectures directly under the jurisdiction of the province also governed the counties. Although they were in fact smaller prefectures, their existence did not increase the administrative level.

However, the existence of multiple "small prefectures" will increase the province's administrative expenses, and they can be consolidated into the size of normal prefectures.

Now all the states are changed into scattered states without county management, and their concept and positioning are transformed into "larger counties", with a status similar to that of modern county-level cities in the previous life.

With the telegraph and telephone, the separate defenses in the core areas of the mainland can be directly abolished.

On this basis, grassroots management institutions were fully implemented locally, with towns, cities and factories established in all prefecture and county urban areas, and townships and towns established in rural areas outside the cities.

All personnel in all yamen were gradually and completely incorporated into the official establishment of the court, and all positions were gradually and completely incorporated into the imperial examination system.

At the same time, the scale of basic imperial examinations will be gradually expanded and the form of imperial examinations will be further adjusted.

If one has at least the title of Shengyuan (Xiucai) or a diploma from a government-run university, one can take the examinations for specific positions and serve as a grassroots clerk in government offices at all levels.

The basic treatment for a scholar entering the yamen was not high enough, and the highest rank he could be promoted to was the eighth rank.

The highest position one can hold is the chief official of a market, factory, town or village, a clerk in a county-level government office, or an official of the same rank in other government offices.

At the same time, all personnel could continue to take the imperial examinations after officially taking office in the court.

After passing the imperial examination and becoming a juren, one could hold the highest position possible, such as the chief official of a prefectural government office, the councilor of the provincial administration, or the doctor of the Ministry of Personnel.

The basic salary for a Juren entering the government office was that of an eighth rank, but his specific position still had to start as a clerk, and he could be promoted to the fifth rank at the highest.

After passing the imperial examination, one can hold all official positions in the court.

The basic salary for a Jinshi entering the government office is the seventh rank, and he can directly serve as a clerk in the county government or the chief official in a market, factory, town or village, with no limit on his highest rank.

For overseas provinces, the division of garrisons can be retained selectively because they are generally huge in scale.

Most of the Americas were directly under the imperial court, with only the American dominions and free states in North America and the Guyana region in South America formally being vassal states.

The existing American provinces do not have clear boundaries and actually govern the area west of the Rocky Mountains.

Now we can expand the scope of the American Province to the whole of North America, and then set up a dozen districts under the American Province, and then set up prefectures, states and counties under the districts.

All former U.S. states and dominions east of the Appalachian Mountains are set as the American host.

The area west of the Rocky Mountains and north of California, including Seattle, Vancouver and Alaska, is set as the America West Route.

California and the surrounding mountain jungle, set as the Redwood Trail.

The plateaus, valleys, terraces and basins in the central Rocky Mountains and the Great Salt Lake area are set as mountain roads.

The Mexico region, southward to the north of the Panama region, is set as the South America Route.

The Great Lakes and Old River (St. Lawrence River) basins are set up as the Five Lakes Trail.

The Beauty River (Ohio River) basin is set as the Beauty River Channel.

The upper reaches of the Grand River (Mississippi River) and the upper reaches of the Missouri River (Missouri River) and the area to the north are set up as prairie roads.

The area south of the Prairie Road and west of the great rivers of North America, primarily Texas and surrounding areas, was designated the Plains Road.

The middle and lower reaches of the major rivers in North America, the areas south of the American River Channel and the areas east of the Plains Channel are designated as the Great River Channel.

The Florida area, Cuba, Haiti and other Caribbean islands are set up as the American Islands Road.

At the same time, in the Ming system, the word "America" ​​refers to North America alone, and South America is named Linzhou alone.

Because this is the place with the most rainfall and the warmest and humidest climate in the world, it is named after the word "Lin" which represents rain.

A Linzhou Province was established, and a number of sub-provinces were set up under it, also divided according to the terrain of mountains, rivers and streams.

There is a separate road in the Amazon River Basin, named Linzhou Dajiang Road.

A road was established north of the Amazon Basin and named Linzhou North Road.

A plateau road was established in the Brazilian plateau area east of the Amazon basin.

The Panama region is not large in area, but it is the most important in the New World, so a separate canal was established.

The narrow area south of Linzhou North Road and west of the Andes Mountains is mostly desert, so a separate Linzhou West Road was established.

The name of the La Plata River in the south of Linzhou originally means Milky Way, and the official name adopted by the Ming Dynasty is also Milky Way.

Before the confluence of the Banara River and the Paraguay River, two important tributaries of the upper reaches of the Yinhe River, the drainage areas of the two tributaries were set as one channel each, namely Yinhe East Channel and Yinhe West Channel. After the confluence of the two tributaries, the middle reaches of the Yinhe River were set as Yinhe Middle Channel, and the two banks of the lower reaches were set as Yinhe South Channel.

The area between Yinhe South Road and Plateau Road is set as Linzhou East Road.

The southernmost tip of Linzhou is set as Linzhou South Road.

Dividing administrative regions according to mountains and dividing administrative regions according to rivers seem to use "mountains, rivers" as natural boundaries, but in fact they are two directions with completely different meanings.

Mountains naturally have a barrier effect, and the customs and habits on both sides of the mountains are likely to be different, and they probably belong to different cultural areas.

Rivers have a natural connecting function. The flow of water can connect people from a wider area within the basin, and the two sides of the river are likely to belong to the same cultural area.

For example, the boundaries between dialect areas are mostly mountains rather than rivers.

For example, both sides of the Xiangjiang River and the Ganjiang River are the same dialect area, and the dividing line between the Wu dialect and the Jianghuai Mandarin area is not the Yangtze River.

Most of the provinces in Shenzhou do not use rivers as borders. The Xiangjiang River is in central Hunan, the Ganjiang River is also in central Jiangxi, and the Yangtze River runs through Sichuan and central Hubei.

Only Shanxi and Shaanxi have a long border along the Yellow River.

Using rivers to divide administrative boundaries can easily separate people from the same cultural area and is not conducive to the development and utilization of river water resources.

Because the management of border areas is more difficult, both sides will be more cautious in using rivers.

If boundaries are drawn along mountain ranges, people of the same culture will be put together, easily leading to separatist movements and xenophobia.

Therefore, in ancient times, there was a practice of placing mountains in the middle to allow two cultures to exist within one administrative area.

Most of America is still empty now. Zhu Jianxuan designated the area within a river basin as an administrative district to facilitate the use of river channels to further develop the inland area in the future.

A branch of America and Linzhou, with an area larger than most of the native provinces.

The size of each prefecture set up under the Fenshu Dao will probably not be smaller than the province itself.

Or it is because the population of America is too small, the vast interior areas are basically empty, and there is no point in establishing too many provinces.

At the same time, the concepts of prefecture, state, and county usually correspond to a specific point, place, or city, but this is not necessary for dividing the circuits.

In name, a fenshoudao is a branch of the province and can change its location at any time. It may not even have a fixed location, and it can even continue to stay in the provincial capital.

It doesn't matter how many people are in charge of the provincial government. There can be only one councilor or just a few clerks.

There may not be specific prefectures, states, and counties within the area under the jurisdiction of a divided prefecture.

It is said that the Fenshoudao organization is very flexible and can be used to handle complex and ever-changing overseas affairs.

Compared with the Americas, the situation in Africa and Europe is more complicated.

Although Africa and Europe have large populations, most of the areas in the two regions are vassal states, and only a small part is directly governed by the imperial court.

Therefore, there is still only one European province and one African province, and both provinces also have several branch districts under them.

Most of Europe's divisions correspond directly to countries and regions.

Such as the Netherlands Road, Rhineland Road, British Road, French Road, German Road, Italian Road, Austrian Road, Polish Road, etc.

The divisions of Africa are mainly based on directions, mountains, and rivers.

The area around Lake Victoria is listed as the Great Lakes Route, the Congo River basin is listed as the Congo Route, and the middle and lower reaches of the Nile River are listed as the Egypt Route.

Plus the East, West, South, North, Central Africa Road, and the Falkland Islands Road.

A small number of areas directly under the imperial court had complete government offices, facilities, and officials. Most of the responsibilities of the governors were to deal with the vassal states, record, supervise, coordinate, and assist.

Zhu Jianxuan planned and sorted out the administrative divisions of these overseas territories, and subconsciously thought about the continued governance and development of these places.

It is natural to think of another issue, military garrisons.

The implementation of his own strategy over the past twenty years was highly dependent on the rebuilt military garrison system.

However, the lessons learned from the predecessors made Zhu Jianxuan know very clearly that military garrisons were a mobilization system.

In other words, military garrisons were essentially just an emergency measure.

It can mobilize as much human resources as possible in a shorter period of time with a smaller population base.

This system of centralized population management and tying families and land to military obligations could not remain viable for long.

Because the military officers of the garrisons were in charge of too many things and had too much actual power, and the ordinary members of the garrisons had too little autonomy, corruption would quickly breed if it continued to exist for a long time.

In the early days of the establishment of military settlements, the land and resources directly allocated by the imperial court made ordinary members of the garrisons willing to fight for them.

The officers who had just obtained their status were still relatively cautious. They did not dare to act too willfully, nor did they figure out too many ways to exploit ordinary members.

But as the organization has existed for a long time, ordinary members have become accustomed to the resources they have obtained and take it for granted that they are theirs.

The officers also figured out ways to profit for themselves, ways to exploit the rank-and-file members that were not easily detected.

Institutions will begin to become corrupt, and their mobilization and combat capabilities will gradually decline.

The military forces from the Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the garrisons from the Hongwu to the Chongzhen Dynasties, and the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty all had similar decline trajectories.

Therefore, these legionary guards cannot be maintained for long and must be disbanded within three generations at most.

It would be best to abolish it before the first generation of guards pass away.

At the same time, after the development area is basically stabilized, the system of floating officials and the system of avoidance of officials from the garrison should be implemented in the garrison, and people from the garrison cannot serve as officials in the garrison.

In order to maintain the population growth rate of the Ming Dynasty, the garrisons could not be directly converted into cities, but land should be distributed to each household.

Transform most of the ordinary members of the garrison into self-employed farmers with certain assets.

Small peasant families have the highest fertility rates.

Of course, there had long been not enough land to be distributed in the Ming dynasty, and the sons of the local garrisons were not allowed to get land locally.

At most one child can be left to inherit the parents' original land.

The other children either went to the city to become workers, or went to the frontiers of Northeast China and Southeast Asia to divide land after getting married, or went directly to open up wasteland overseas.

After leaving the native land, land resources become abundant.

Therefore, as long as there is a couple, they can be considered a family in the open sea, and each family can be allocated 100 acres of land.

If five brothers in a family all split up and got married, then each of them would have one hundred acres, for a total of five hundred acres.

Now that industrialization has not yet been fully completed and social cognition has not changed, land is still recognized as the most valuable wealth.

This system, where the more children you have, the more land you get, should be able to maximize the fertility rate and allow ordinary people to continue to have children without regard to the consequences.

The new generation of overseas immigrants still had to concentrate on reclaiming land in the form of garrisons to improve overall development efficiency and safety.

Similarly, families in the old guard posts in the New World could only arrange for one child to inherit the land they had already developed.

The other sons and daughters were going to set up a new garrison, choose wasteland around the old garrison to reclaim and then divide the land, so that each family still had 100 acres of land.

In other words, the military settlements were not completely abolished, but the old ones that had been established for a long time were gradually dismantled, and new ones were built using new immigrants.

This pattern of reclaiming wasteland, dividing the land, dividing the family, reclaiming wasteland again, and dividing the land again continues in a cycle.

Zhu Jianxuan planned to create a total of 100 million families in America and Linzhou, with each family receiving at least 100 acres of land, and then stop the official military farming and development activities.

One hundred million households require a total of 10 billion mu of land, or about 6.66 million square kilometers.

The two great plains in America and Africa, as well as two low plateau areas, actually have much more arable land areas than this.

In the past, the recorded arable land area in America was not so large because the population in America at that time was not too large.

There is a lot of undeveloped arable land in America, and there are also many lands that Europeans do not consider to be arable land, but for the Ming people, they can be transformed into rice fields.

According to the standards of the Ming Dynasty, even after the imperial court unified the development of more than 6 million square kilometers of arable land, there would still be enough land to be reclaimed in America and Linzhou, which could be left for future generations to continue to cultivate on their own.

By the time these more than six million square kilometers of land were reclaimed, the Ming Dynasty had almost entered the industrial age as a whole.

According to past experience, industrialization and urbanization seem to be natural contraceptives. Once industrialization and urbanization are completed, the fertility rate will be greatly reduced.

I wonder if this curse will take effect again in the Ming Dynasty of this world.

Zhu Jianxuan could only prepare for it to take effect and accumulate as many people as possible before full industrialization and urbanization were completed.

There must be at least 2 billion, and preferably more than 3 billion Ming people, covering the entire world in places suitable for human habitation.

At the same time, the living space of other humans should be restricted as much as possible.

The number of Europeans could not increase on a large scale, limiting the speed of their immigration to the Americas.

The number of Africans must be reduced as much as possible.

Therefore, we should take the initiative to accelerate urbanization in Europe and Africa and establish large-scale labor-intensive industries locally.

(End of this chapter)