The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 392 Judicial Independence and Checks and Balances

After Zhu Jianxuan hung up the phone, he called the Grand Secretary and Privy Councilor on duty and asked them to draft several imperial edicts according to his own wishes to implement the promise he had just made to his eldest son.

Then I thought again about my son’s last suggestion.

The provincial government split up the Judicial Supervisory Office and set up officials in charge of criminal justice in the prefecture, county and city governments. According to modern terms in the past, this seemed to be "judicial independence."

The current judicial system of the Ming Dynasty is not independent, but it was so before.

Around the middle and late Chongzhen period, there was an attempt to establish judicial independence in the areas directly under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty court.

According to Zhu Jianxuan's judgment, Chongzhen's attempt to achieve judicial independence was probably a natural choice made under the influence of modern Western culture.

The reforms were not made based on the actual conditions of Shenzhou, so they ultimately failed completely.

Judicial independence in Europe was born out of a power struggle.

It was the result of the three-headed rule of religion, kings and lords in Europe, plus the involvement of industrial and commercial groups.

The Inquisition seized power from secular lords, the king sent courts to seize power from local lords, and the city's guilds seized power from feudal lords.

In medieval Europe, local feudal lords had enormous power and were essentially local emperors.

They naturally possess all powers, including the power to sentence and approve the death penalty.

The church, the king, and the autonomous cities all tried to seize power from the lords, and they all had a strong and lasting motivation to do so.

These people would not particularly care about the cost of judicial independence.

At the same time, local grassroots management in Europe was originally the power and responsibility of the feudal lords themselves. Not only did the church and the king not pay them salaries, but they also collected taxes.

Municipal unions would also only pay compensation and taxes for the power they gained.

The independence of legislative power in Europe, that is, the formation of modern parliaments, is also the result of industrial and commercial groups seizing power from the king.

Therefore, Europe's legislative and judicial bodies are naturally opposed to the executive bodies.

Because the executive was an extension of what was left of the king's and the lords' power, the legislature and the judiciary were the parts that the rebels had taken away.

European kings achieved centralization by seizing power.

In the classical era of China, there was no special environment like that in Europe, and all power belonged to the emperor and the court by default.

The emperor and his court also have to pay salaries to all officials.

Even if some people realize the benefits of judicial independence, the cost issue will be the main consideration when deciding whether to implement it.

Once there are other more important things, it is easy to abandon reforms that are not strongly needed.

Compared with the four-way struggle among the church, king, lords and trade unions in Europe, the power struggle in China's classical era was more reflected in centralization and decentralization.

In the early classical period of Shenzhou, local officials had enormous power and were able to manage most affairs except military affairs.

In many cases, they can even take charge of military affairs, and local officials are truly powerful governors.

Administrative regions of this size, such as states, counties, prefectures, and counties, have limited resources and energy. Even if the officials in charge hold absolute power, it is difficult for them to have much influence on the central court.

However, the scale of Shenzhou's provincial administrative regions is too large, already the size of large or medium-sized countries in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period or in Europe.

If a person completely controls the resources and manpower of a province, he will also have a huge say in the central court, and naturally he will be most likely to be feared by the emperor and central court officials.

The Han Dynasty found that the territory was too large to be managed by the two-level county and prefecture levels, so it set up inspectors as local supervisors, who eventually evolved into provincial governors with enormous power.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the country was unified again. In order to avoid the emergence of powerful local officials such as provincial governors, the emperor intended to restore the two-level division of counties and prefectures.

However, it was later discovered that the two-level division was not realistic, so they had to set up another "Dao" as a monitoring, investigation, and inspection agency, which eventually gradually became an administrative agency again.

By the time of the Song Dynasty, the central government determined that a two-level administrative division was not feasible, and a three-level division would easily lead to local separatist regimes in provincial administrative regions. So it began to implement checks and balances within provincial-level institutions.

In the Song Dynasty, around the "road" mechanism, four independent institutions were set up successively, namely the Transportation Department, the Criminal Justice Department, the Grain and Oil Department, and the Pacification Department.

The Transportation Department was responsible for finance, the Criminal Justice Department was responsible for judicial trials, the Grain and Grain Department was in charge of the affairs of the market, and the Pacification Department was responsible for military affairs.

The four agencies are collectively referred to as the Four Supervisory Commissioners. They all have a "supervision" and "temporary" background, and there is no separate agency responsible for one line of administrative power.

Therefore, the "lu" in the Song Dynasty cannot be regarded as a formal first-level administrative region.

In the Ming Dynasty, with the addition of the Three Departments and the Supervisory Censor, the three-level administrative division was formally implemented, and the decentralization of provincial institutions was formally implemented, dividing local power into four parts.

The Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office was responsible for routine government affairs including finance. It was the simplest and most basic institution, and it did not exist in the Song Dynasty.

The Supreme Court was in charge of criminal justice and local supervision, supervising other local officials, and supervising work related to water conservancy, military farms, post stations, recruitment, and security.

The Duzhihuishisi was responsible for managing local garrisons and guarding the local areas.

The Censor-in-Chief was responsible for inspecting local areas.

The local decentralization in Shenzhou is to make a reasonable division of local power, which is a simple sharing and checks and balances at the level of responsibilities.

It was caused by the struggle between the central government and local governments, not by the struggle among officials of the same level.

There is no direct conflict of interest between officials of the same level and different types.

Therefore, local officials in the same institution will naturally tend to form internal cliques, cover up for each other, and deceive their superiors and subordinates.

Unless they are officials who already have great ambitions, most traditional local bureaucrats have the mentality of "less trouble is worse than more."

They would habitually ignore or even take the initiative to cover up various things done by other unfamiliar officials.

In order to suppress and circumvent this tendency, successive dynasties in Shenzhou have tried various methods.

In terms of the system alone, the first is the most basic system of mobile officials, which prevents officials from taking root and forming groups in one place.

Then there are various supervisory systems, which involve sending officials directly from the central government to inspect local areas, or sending central officials to temporarily garrison local areas.

Finally, there is the separation of powers and checks and balances. Different types of government offices are set up at the same level to be in charge of similar or even the same responsibilities, and to supervise and check and balance each other.

However, the complexity of the system usually means inefficiency and high cost, and a compromise must be made between important factors such as integrity, reliability, low cost and efficiency.

Therefore, comprehensive decentralization is only implemented in provincial administrative regions. The power of grassroots institutions such as prefectures, states, and counties is still held by the chief officials, and the ability of assistant officials to restrict the chief officials is relatively limited.

At that time, Chongzhen separated the responsibility of handling legal affairs from the local officials and established an official specifically in charge of judicial affairs.

At the level of the three offices, the Judicial Inspection Office was split into two yamen, and a separate Judicial Office was established to be in charge of criminal justice.

The prefectures, states, and counties under the Sansi also established judicial officials at their respective levels.

However, due to the limited financial resources of the court, limited social transportation and communication conditions, and slow administrative efficiency, the reform at that time was not thorough.

Some places initially set up the post of Chief Justice, but later merged it into the original prefectural magistrate, state magistrate, and county magistrate.

Tongpan, magistrate, and county magistrate were originally local assistant officials. They usually shared some routine government affairs with local officials and were also used to check the power of local officials. At that time, local officials were no longer allowed to judge, only assistant officials were allowed to judge, which resulted in the status of both parties becoming more powerful.

There are even many places where assistant officials have greater power.

The chaos caused by the reversal of Tiangang lasted for some time, and Chongzhen had to adjust the duties of the chief officials and assistant officials again.

Let the Tongpan, the judge, and the county magistrate only be in charge of trials, and all other government affairs are handed over to the prefect, the prefect, and the county magistrate.

As a result, the prefects, county magistrates, and district governors had too much power and too many affairs to deal with.

Finally, the responsibilities were split again so that both the prefect and the magistrate could judge cases, and the distribution of power returned to its original way.

Special judicial officials existed for a while and then disappeared.

Zhu Jingkun believes that Emperor Chongzhen's reforms were correct, but the court at that time did not have sufficient resources and manpower to maintain an independent trial system.

Now the Ming Dynasty has such conditions.

Now the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty is spreading rapidly, productivity has increased significantly, and the court has more resources.

The key is that transportation and communication conditions have been greatly improved.

Now the reforms of the Chongzhen period could be implemented again. While maintaining the original chief officials and assistant officials, additional local judicial officials at the prefecture, state and county levels were established.

The Judicial Supervisory Office can be split again.

Although Chongzhen's considerations were probably based on modern experience, he aimed at judicial independence itself.

Based on the situation he was facing, Zhu Jingkun suggested that the powers and responsibilities of local institutions should be split again.

The two people had different judgment logic and purposes, but made basically the same decision.

In Zhu Jianxuan's view, separating the judicial power now is also in line with Shenzhou's decentralization thinking.

Zhu Jianxuan considered it for a long time and finally decided to adopt his son's suggestion and let the cabinet and the Ministry of Personnel discuss and formulate a formal plan.

In the future, the three departments of the provincial government will become four departments.

The duties of the Ti Dian Yu Si were similar to those of the courts in later generations, and the duties of the An Cha Si were similar to those of the procuratorate in later generations.

The prefectural, state and county government offices will each set up a separate chief judicial officer. In the future, local chief officials and assistant officials will no longer be in charge of criminal justice, and their direct power will be significantly reduced.

This type of department splitting reform can create jobs and is the easiest reform to accomplish.

Apart from the independent Judicial and Criminal Affairs Commissioners of prefectures, states and counties, which were definitely under the jurisdiction of the Dali Temple, it had almost no impact on the power and income of officials in the central court.
Although the power of local officials has been slightly reduced, a number of new vacancies will be created, and a large number of officials will have an extra opportunity for promotion.

As a result, a large number of officials can be promoted early, which is in the interests of most officials, and the resistance they encounter will naturally not be very high.

It’s just that this year’s fiscal expenditure and every year thereafter will require special adjustments.

But spending money is easy, especially when the court has money.

If you don't have money, you can't do anything even if you want to. If you force it, you can only get money from other places, which may cause problems.

There is certainly no problem with the current Ming Dynasty.

After Zhu Jianxuan issued several orders, the cabinet and relevant departments got busy.

Zhu Jingkun in Jiangnan waited for his father's support to arrive, and at the same time began to investigate the intentions of local gentry according to the predetermined plan.

Starting from Suzhou City, meetings were held everywhere to receive local gentry, that is, people with official titles.

Some local officials, the most famous local citizens, and the most well-known young and middle-aged scholars in the local area.

The distribution characteristics of the attitudes of these local gentry on whether to allow women to take the imperial examinations were very close to Zhu Jingkun's own predictions.

At least 50% of the gentry found it difficult to accept female officials and explicitly refused to serve in the court with women.

They believed that men and women should not touch each other, that women should not show their faces in public, that it was not proper for women to be officials, and most importantly, it would cause all kinds of trouble.

Whether it was officials coordinating work with each other or ordinary people dealing with officials, female officials were always a nuisance.

Nearly 20% of the gentry were strongly opposed and could not accept women taking the imperial examinations at all. They believed that it was like a hen crowing at dawn and was against moral principles.

Some people believed that the women who had participated in the imperial examinations in recent years were all fooling around. Some people, like Liang Zhangju, believed that those women and the educational officials involved had committed cheating.

About 20% of the gentry said that they could accept women taking the imperial examinations, but women should not mix with men.

Women should take separate examinations and perform duties that are appropriate for women, such as receiving people who have no male relatives, handling cases involving women, etc.

Only about 10% of the gentry thought that women should be allowed to take the imperial examinations directly, and that they could accept serving as officials in the same court as them.

These people feel that women's intelligence is not significantly different from men's and can play a role.

However, Zhu Jingkun made some special inquiries and found out that among the gentry who were willing to accept women taking the imperial examination, those who did have wives and daughters who also wanted to take the examination had wives and daughters at home.

Some of them have even participated in and passed the county and prefectural examinations.

Zhu Jingkun himself knew that the most critical reason for the result of his survey was that the survey was targeted at men.

There was no woman speaking at all at this scene.

However, Zhu Jingkun felt that even if women were allowed to express their opinions, the proportion of women who supported women taking the imperial examinations and serving as officials in the court would not be particularly high.

It will definitely not exceed half, and most likely will not exceed one third, or even lower.

Because most women had no interest in the imperial examinations and felt that it was not something women should do.

The proportion of women who wanted to take the imperial examinations must have been very low.

However, Zhu Jingkun had the same attitude as himself in analyzing the man. After making the prediction, he arranged for people to conduct research and verification.

Zhu Jingkun also arranged for his two concubines to come forward and hold a banquet to invite the women from local gentry's families to attend and ask about their opinions.

After several days of meetings and research, Zhu Jingkun learned the general attitude of the female gentry in Suzhou through his concubine.

Women from gentry families who were very interested in the imperial examinations accounted for less than 20% of the total.

Some of them have already taken the exam, but now they have not had the opportunity to take the annual test because they were blocked by Liang Zhangju.

About 20% of the total number of people believe that the court should allow women to take the imperial examinations and that they can accept and are happy to see other women taking the examinations.

They think women are not dumber than men, it’s just that most of them don’t have the opportunity to learn.

Another 30% of gentry women did not care about this kind of thing and did not care whether the court allowed women to take the imperial examinations or not.

At the same time, 30% of gentry women strongly opposed the imperial examinations for women, believing that women should not show their faces in public, and that taking the imperial examinations and becoming officials were both unethical.

(End of this chapter)