The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 405: Future-oriented reforms begin
Zhu Jianxuan read through his sons' reports one by one and assessed the children's ideological tendencies.

What consequences will arise if their ideological tendencies are widely spread and even directly applied to central and local governance?

Then he gave them some simple comments in turn, pointing out the unreasonable and inappropriate aspects of their analysis and suggestions, but he did not directly criticize any of his sons.

I didn't directly say that their analysis and suggestions were wrong, nor did I tell them not to do that. I just analyzed the consequences that would result.

This reply process can be regarded as continuing to teach my sons, and it is individual and targeted teaching.

The questions Zhu Jianxuan asked his sons and the tasks he assigned to them can all be considered part of the assessment of succession.

This kind of assessment is based on cumulative elimination, and the apparent results are only pass and elimination.

However, for any individual question or discussion, there is no mandatory elimination ratio, and it is not necessary to eliminate a specific number of people.

Unless a prince obviously has major problems with his thinking and shows similar problems and defects many times in a row, they will not be eliminated easily.

Just like Zhu Jingjian, who is born with a strong murderous instinct and is unaware of it, he will have many opportunities to confirm the situation.

Through various forms of inspections, he continued to accumulate impression points in Zhu Jianxuan's mind.

According to Zhu Jianxuan's considerations when he was young, he would continuously accumulate points for his sons based on their performance, and finally select the one who was most suitable as the heir.

However, as he grew older and as the situation and mentality in the world changed, Zhu Jianxuan's plans for his successor also slowly changed.

Now Zhu Jianxuan is not planning to select a single heir, but to select most of his capable sons and let them play different roles in the system he will build in the future.

This time, all members passed the assessment, but different answers accumulated different impression points.

There were a lot of reports from Zhu Jianxuan’s sons, and they were sent one after another, not at the same time.

Zhu Jianxuan usually has to deal with other things. When he receives a report, he approves it and sends it out. After he finishes reading the replies intermittently, it is already the end of the year.

All government offices were on holiday, and except for those who stayed on duty, most officials and generals from other places returned to their hometowns.

In recent years, as transportation has become more and more convenient, Zhu Jianxuan has also specially granted appropriate vacations, so officials who were unable to return home for the New Year can now go home.

In addition, Zhu Jianxuan took the initiative to control the residents of Shuntian Prefecture, and now the only people who could actually settle in the city were members of the royal family, nobles, and a small number of retired bureaucrats.

Even for those who have already settled down, if their hometown is in other places, they may return to their hometown to reunite with their relatives during the Chinese New Year.

Most of the residents in Shuntian City leave during the Chinese New Year, so Shuntian City is particularly deserted during the Chinese New Year.

So much so that in recent years, the royal family and nobles who have settled in Shuntian Prefecture would drive to lively places for fun during the New Year holidays.

For example, the nearest Tongzhou and Fangshan, and the slightly farther Yongping and Tianjin, some people even go directly to the south to spend the winter.

This made the city of Shuntian Prefecture even more deserted, and the sound of firecrackers during the New Year was sparse.

Today, Shuntian Prefecture is even more "seasonal" than the big cities in Zhu Jianxuan's previous life.

However, during the Chinese New Year, Zhu Jianxuan gathered senior royal family members, nobles, and bureaucrats who remained in Shuntian Prefecture to have a meal and set off fireworks in the New Palace in Beiyuan.

They also invited artists from the palace and the public to perform, which were recorded with video equipment and broadcast.

Let those who can't come to the scene have the opportunity to watch it.

The Ming Dynasty now has a radio and television system, but its scope of application is not particularly wide.

Zhu Jianxuan's evening party can also play a publicity role.

With a TV, you can watch the same programs as the emperor. This is a big gimmick.

After New Year's Eve, the 26th year of Tiangong officially begins, and officials and civilians from all over the world begin to visit relatives and friends in their own ways.

The Ming Dynasty court and vassal states ruled areas including Ming mainland, Southeast Asia, Australia, the Western Regions, India, Arabia, Africa, Linzhou, and the Americas celebrated the New Year normally.

Other European countries that had become vassal states of the Ming Dynasty also began to hold celebrations around the Ming Spring Festival, both officially and privately.

Among the various activities after the New Year, the last and most important one is Zhu Jianxuan’s birthday.

After Zhu Jianxuan celebrated his 49th birthday, the long New Year holiday ended and the bureaucrats and generals returned to their posts.

After the court meeting on January 21st of the 26th year of Tiangong began, Zhu Jianxuan asked Li Rui to come out and read several imperial edicts.

The first step was to order the Ministry of Households to be responsible for controlling and reducing child labor, encouraging widows to remarry, expanding orphanages and nursing homes, and expanding pension insurance and other new reforms.

These are basically the arrangements that Zhu Jianxuan considered last year and derived from his sons' suggestions.

When the bureaucrats below heard these arrangements, some were suddenly enlightened, some felt confused, some vaguely guessed something, and many were completely unable to understand.

Because Zhu Jianxuan’s new policies will basically have the effect of increasing the population.

The most typical example is encouraging widows to remarry. Most widowed women will not give birth again, but after remarrying, they will most likely give birth again.

Usually, it was only when the population was very sparse that the imperial court would specifically encourage widows to remarry.

For example, the early Western Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.

Even when the need was most urgent, married women who were separated from their husbands would be forced by officials to remarry.

During the Cao Wei period, the wives of soldiers who went on expeditions were forced to remarry.

A woman's belly should not be left idle.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the population was too large, both the imperial court and the people encouraged widowhood.

However, the emperor and court officials are well aware of the current population situation in the Ming Dynasty. The population in the Ming Dynasty is too large.

The population base is huge and the growth rate is constantly soaring, now it is almost 30 million a year.

Therefore, the imperial court has been organizing overseas immigration in recent years.

The situation was already like this, but the emperor still encouraged widows to remarry? Wasn't this just making things tough for himself?
Even if some officials knew that the emperor had asked the eldest prince to investigate the inside story of the imperial examination for women in Jiangnan, they could not guess Zhu Jianxuan's true thinking logic.

They thought that the emperor made such arrangements because he felt that a widow with money but no stable husband would easily cause all kinds of trouble.

In fact, Zhu Jianxuan was targeting factories and businesses, and the first people to enter the factories and businesses to work were widows from the lower class.

However, this matter did not attract the attention of bureaucrats and nobles, who thought it was simply to quell the impact of the imperial examinations for widows.

After Li Rui finished reading the first imperial edict, officials from relevant departments bowed together to receive the order.

Li Rui went to read the second imperial edict.

According to the eldest prince Zhu Jingjian's inspection report on the Jiangnan region, clear regulations were first made on girls' schools and women's imperial examinations.

On this basis, Li Rui and Wang Lai were ordered to set up an independent college of education in addition to the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Education is responsible for managing all school and student affairs, including all former students and civilians with meritorious service above them.

The Institute of Education is also responsible for the final examinations at all levels within the school system, as well as the affairs of the newly established girls' schools.

He was also responsible for compiling Ming Dynasty engineering technical description documents and textbooks for schools at all levels in the Ming Dynasty.

Different departments under the School of Education will be responsible for the above matters, with assistance from relevant personnel from the School of Science and the School of Engineering.

There are Grand Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, Grand Secretary of the Academy of Engineering, and Grand Secretary of the Academy of Education. The heads of the three academies are defaulted to be given the corresponding Grand Secretary titles and incorporated into the Cabinet's Preparatory Office.

The chief officials of the three courts were all officials from the craftsman system. In the future, the memorials related to the affairs of the three courts would be handled by the Grand Secretaries of the three courts, who would assist the emperor in handling and conveying them.

From then on, the Ministry of Rites was only responsible for the traditional form of the imperial examinations.

After the imperial edict was read out, all the royal family members, nobles, officials, and craftsmen present were filled with astonishment.

The establishment of girls' schools and the holding of special imperial examinations for women are no longer important.

What is important is the power adjustment that Zhu Jianxuan made through this incident.

This first of all readjusted the powers and responsibilities of the Ministry of Rites, mainly removing matters related to schools and students, and also dividing matters related to the imperial examination into two.

At the same time, the status of the three academies of science, engineering and education was officially elevated.

The chief officials of other departments of the court, as well as the ministers in charge of several departments, could submit memorials directly to the emperor, but they could not bring memorials directly to the emperor on their own.

Their memorials must be publicly transmitted by the Ministry of Public Security, and the cabinet must actively participate in relevant discussions.

Or it is because there are too many departments in the court now, and the emperor is not very familiar with the heads of each department, and often has to ask the cabinet to introduce the situation to the emperor first.

The status of various court agencies is below that of the Cabinet.

The vice ministers of various ministries were even in charge of multiple departments, and their overall status was lower than that of the grand secretaries of the cabinet.

In the past, the chief craftsmen of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering, such as Li Rui and Wang Lai, as the emperor's direct disciples, could go directly to the emperor to discuss matters in private.

But that form is not official.

Now the emperor's edict officially gave the three academies such privileges at the official level.

The chief officials of the three academies are directly grand secretaries. Not only can they report directly to the emperor, but they must also exclude the participation of other grand secretaries.

Moreover, the three academies directly added three fixed grand secretaries. Although the number of grand secretaries in the Tiangong Dynasty increased compared with the past, it never exceeded ten.

Now the heads of the three academies directly account for one-third of the share.

From now on, the three courts will no longer be three regular court departments, but institutions between the cabinet and the departments.

The royal family, nobles, and officials present at the scene all felt that the emperor was too fond of these craftsmen. They could only say that he was truly worthy of being called the Emperor of Craftsmen.

But they were all convinced in their hearts that the craftsmen had made an indelible contribution to Emperor Tiangong's becoming the emperor and the Ming Dynasty's current achievements.

Zhu Jianxuan has always been a loyal craftsman, which makes most people not think about other things.

In fact, Zhu Jianxuan's adjustment was the beginning of an attempt to build a new power structure, which was prepared for the Ming Dynasty after his death.

Europe and the United States have separation of powers. The logic of decentralization in China is different from that in Europe and the United States, and the idea of ​​checks and balances is also different.

Education and imperial examinations in Shenzhou are directly related to the renewal of the entire bureaucratic system, and the bureaucratic system is the foundation of the political structure of the Shenzhou Empire.

Matters related to educational examinations in Shenzhou are very important, at least comparable to the legislative systems of Europe and the United States.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan wanted to build a relatively independent education examination system.

Having the Academy of Education in charge of new-style school education and examinations, while allowing the Ministry of Rites to continue to retain the traditional imperial examination system, created a certain antagonism between the two.

In the future, officials coming from the school imperial examination system and officials coming from the traditional imperial examination system will most likely form a somewhat antagonistic camp.

At the same time, Zhu Jianxuan himself judged that the status of craftsmen would likely decline rapidly after his death.

You need to prepare for this stress-induced decline by hedging in advance.

Most craftsmen are not good at power struggles, so you have to give them time while you are alive to form a vested interest group similar to the academic cliques.

Therefore, the relevant powers, personnel and resources such as education, scientific research and engineering are tied together and refined.

The natural backbone of this system is his own disciples.

Combine the traditional master-apprentice inheritance of technical craftsmen with schools and expand it to the scale of the entire country and even the world.

Zhu Jianxuan's prestige and power are unprecedented and may never be surpassed in the future.

Now, the only way out is to forcibly and drastically cut the benefits gained by the royal family, nobles, and bureaucrats, and turn all the vested interests who follow them into the opposite side.

Otherwise, various reforms of a routine adjustment nature will not encounter any substantial obstacles.

Even if it will harm the interests of many people, as long as it does not shake their status, they will choose to bear it.

Because all along, no matter how outrageous and incredible Zhu Jianxuan’s plans were, the final result was basically a great victory for them.

Even if someone loses some benefits in the short term, they will eventually gain greater long-term benefits.

The bureaucrats, craftsmen, nobles, and royal family members of the Ming Dynasty have formed path dependence.

Their current mindset will not change until Zhu Jianxuan's plan suffers a huge failure and they themselves suffer huge losses as a result.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan can basically do whatever he wants with his current reforms.

Even though the officials on the scene had various thoughts in their minds, after listening to the emperor's edict read out by Li Rui, they all obeyed it respectfully.

After the court meeting, officials from various departments immediately started working, giving priority to the new tasks assigned by the emperor.

Zhu Jianxuan's two major disciples, Wang Lai and Li Rui, were responsible for setting up a new education institute and taking over the original school-related departments from the Ministry of Rites.

While his ministers were busy, Emperor Zhu Jianxuan continued to build and improve his own reform plan.

Now that Zhu Jianxuan is the emperor himself, no matter what the structure of the Ming Dynasty’s government is, his orders can be well implemented.

This is caused by his own enormous personal prestige and power, and cannot explain whether the existing power structure is reasonable.

Whether the administrative system can continue to operate relatively stably and efficiently after I leave will be determined by the rationality of the structure itself.

Although Zhu Jianxuan's current policies are unimpeded, he still needs to make comprehensive reforms with the goal of ensuring that the court can run stably even without his own prestige.

Starting from the 26th year of Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan began to issue various imperial edicts one after another to adjust and change the power and business processes in the court.

For example, in comparison with the Grand Secretaries of the Three Academys, the Chief Censor of the Dali Temple and the Chief Censor of the Censorate were given the title of Grand Secretaries. After taking office, they were tacitly allowed to participate in the cabinet's affairs and report directly to the emperor.

This is to completely separate the judicial system and the supervisory system from the traditional government system, and operate them as two independent systems.

This is equivalent to separating the courts and procuratorates and raising them to a status close to that of administrative agencies.

The Ministry of Honors and Conferments was changed to the Academy of Honors and Conferments, and at the same time a Grand Secretary of the Academy of Honors and Conferments was established. The Grand Secretary also directly entered the cabinet to participate in affairs and report honors and conferments matters directly to the emperor.

The impact of this incident is even smaller. The Ministry of Honors and Conferment is highly independent, and its main officials are all nobles. They are specifically responsible for managing the affairs of nobles and have nothing to do with routine government affairs.

At the same time, the establishment of the Chief Justice, the Chief Censor, and the Grand Secretary made the status of the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Engineering, and the Academy of Education no longer so special.

Ordinary bureaucrats began to feel that the emperor wanted to adjust the structure of court departments, not specifically improve the status of craftsmen.

While they felt a little relieved, they also began to worry that there would be more adjustments to come and they might be very busy in the next few years.

Various business processes that have basically become routine may have to be disrupted and reorganized.

But no one dared to stop Emperor Tiangong from doing what he wanted.

(End of this chapter)