The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 436: Power and Money

The two important issues were discussed and completed quickly, and then swiftly passed with an absolute majority vote. It can be said that the meeting went very smoothly.

The eldest prince Zhu Jingkun felt a little uncomfortable with today's situation.

Normally, the princes would spend a lot of time arguing over any trivial matter, but now they can make a decision smoothly on such a big matter.

Zhu Jingkun couldn't help but sigh in his heart that such collective external issues are easy to discuss and it is easy to reach the most reasonable consensus.

Once there is no direct external conflict, it will be difficult for the princes to reach a consensus if they simply discuss policy plans.

The other princes also gradually realized this.

But no one commented on this issue, and instead took the time to continue discussing subsequent topics.

Of course, Zhu Jingkun couldn't delay any longer and quickly arranged the follow-up matters:

“Next are a few less sensitive issues, but ones we should still consider seriously.

"First, there is the issue of appeal. After the Free State trial, the parties can continue to appeal to the Royal Court, which is the Criminal Court.

"My personal opinion is that it is acceptable, but the Kingdom's Chief Justice cannot accept this unconditionally.

"Because that is not the job of the Prisons Department.

"In addition to their existing work, the Criminal Justice Department will have to handle these additional matters, which will inevitably incur corresponding costs.

“For example, data processing, hiring of personnel, and actual trial work.

"The costs of these things should be paid for out of Free State taxes."

As soon as the eldest prince finished speaking, the second prince, who was in charge of criminal law, couldn't help but interrupt and express his different opinion:
“That’s the truth. Kingdom officials cannot do things for them unconditionally. The Free State usually does not pay taxes corresponding to these matters.

"But while we are taking back power, we are also asking them to pay. Can the nobles and bureaucrats of the Free State accept this?"

The fifth prince laughed when he heard this:

"It is natural to ask for money for work. If they don't accept it, then we won't make this reform. We don't particularly want this power.

"After all, power and responsibility are relative, and when power is transferred, responsibility will also be transferred accordingly.

“Free State cases are not appealed to the Kingdom, but are only tried in the Free State courts, and whether these cases are handled fairly or not has nothing to do with the Kingdom’s court.

“The local people felt that the trial was unfair and that they were wronged, but they would not blame the royal court.

"Once the Royal Court intervenes in the trials of Free State cases, the people of the Free State will complain that the Royal Court is unfair when they feel that they have been wronged."

The Seventh Prince said with a straight face:

“Yes, according to our original plan, we did not recommend that they hand over this power.

“If they must hand it over, then they have to pay taxes accordingly.

“Let the royal court have ample funds so that it can handle things as safely and fairly as possible after receiving the corresponding power.

When the other princes heard this strange logic, many of them couldn't help but frown slightly.

However, after they thought about it carefully, they quickly sorted out this somewhat awkward logic, and then several of them smiled bitterly, shook their heads and nodded.

The second prince also sighed and said:
"I have no objection. Does anyone have any other opinions? Is this how we vote?"

The eldest prince also looked around. No one said anything, so he added a few simple analyses:

“I think that even if we make such a request, the Free State will most likely accept it.

"Because this is the will of the people of the Free State, it is to limit the power of the nobles of the Free State and not allow them to have absolute control over the local areas.

“Even if the Free State government agencies are asked to pay, they still have to pay the royal court to do it.

“After all, taxes are paid by the people.

"If you don't have anything else to add, we can start voting now."

The princes whispered for a while, and finally agreed with the eldest prince's analysis without adding any other opinions.

So the eldest prince announced the start of voting, and it was passed with a high vote.

The eldest prince watched the clerks record the results while he continued to flip through the meeting minutes:
"The next step is to supervise related matters, including the establishment of Free State Censors, Provincial Surveillance Commissioners, Royal Guards, and Criminal Magistrates.

“My basic opinion is that it is the same as the appeal, it can be done but they have to pay the tax.

“But more importantly, we can’t do what they ask.

“We are not opposing for the sake of opposing, but because their suggestions in this regard are unreasonable.

"Let the censors be responsible for collecting public opinion, the provincial procurators be responsible for the actual investigation, the judicial officials be responsible for the final judgment, and the royal guards be responsible for coordinating the execution at all stages.

“This division of labor seems reasonable, but it does not meet the actual needs of the people of the Free State, nor does it meet the needs of the US central government.

"These officials and civilian representatives of the Free State do not know how to realize their real demands.

“They should have referred to the supervision system of the Ming mainland and the provinces of the United States of America, and made some adjustments based on the current situation of their free states.

"They originally wanted to copy it directly, but they realized that they couldn't copy it completely, so they made some adjustments where they couldn't copy it.

“This level of adjustment is meaningless. Their approach of adapting the system of the Ming provinces to the Free State is fundamentally wrong.

"The Free State is not a province, and the relationship between the Royal Court and the Free State is not the same as the relationship between the Central Court and local institutions.

“The Ming Dynasty split the power of provincial-level local officials in order to allow them to check and balance each other.

“It is necessary to prevent local officials from uniting to resist the orders of the central court, so as to prevent one person from completely controlling the resources and power of a province and thus forming a separatist regime.

“The premise for doing this is that the kingdom has completely controlled the local areas in legal terms, and the provincial and local powers have been tacitly assumed to belong to the central court.

“The most critical condition is that the vast majority of local officials have already been appointed by the central court.

"We need to ensure that local officials appointed by the government are still under the control of the central government after they arrive at the local level, rather than using local resources to form a group to confront the central government.

“That’s why we need to split the power of local officials.

"The relationship between the American Kingdom and the American Free State is exactly the opposite.

“Power in the Free State belongs to the local authorities by default, and the vast majority of local officials are not appointed by the central government, so the independence of the local authorities is still extremely high.

“In this case, the small number of officials sent by the Royal Court to the Free State was to suppress local officials and nobles on behalf of the Royal Court and to seize power from them.

“Under such circumstances, we need to establish checks and balances among the officials sent down from the capital. How can they confront the local nobles and officials?

"The officials and agencies we are going to send to the local areas must be able to monopolize power." The best reference is not the local supervisory agencies in the Ming Dynasty, but the Jinyiwei and even the Dongchang before Chongzhen.

"At the local level, they are responsible for investigation, trial and punishment, and their only source of power is authorization from the central court."

When the eldest prince Zhu Jingkun said this, the ninth prince Zhu Jingtan on the other side couldn't help but object, or rather, remind him in an objecting manner:
"Before the Chongzhen period, the Jinyiwei and Dongchang had a very bad reputation among the people and officials.

“If officials sent by the government create a similar reputation in the local area in the future, it will have an impact on the reputation of the royal court and even the Ming Dynasty.

"Compared to the Jinyiwei and the Dongchang, the prefects and county magistrates of the Qin and Han dynasties and even the pre-Qin dynasty, as well as the governors and provincial governors of the Han dynasty are more appropriate, right?

“In fact, since the local officials of the Free State still exist and are mainly selected locally, this is similar to the local situation in the pre-Qin period.

“The central government appoints an official who nominally holds all the power, but in reality he exercises the power that he can control.

"How much power he can seize depends on his personal ability and the support provided by the court."

The eldest prince thought for a moment:

"The prefects of the pre-Qin dynasty, or the governors and provincial governors of the Han dynasty, could indeed be arranged in this way. This is indeed a good idea.

“However, the entire Americas is only a province in the Ming system. It is not appropriate to use a governor whose actual status is equal to or even higher than that of a governor.

"We can think of the Free State as a county, a local body similar in status to a prefecture but larger and with greater freedom.

“For the royal court, the title and responsibility of a governor may be more suitable.

“But for the people of the Free State, the title of governor is obviously easier to understand and can be translated into English as ‘protecting the people’.

"The Governor of the Free State is appointed and assigned by the Royal Court to supervise the local bureaucracy and the nobility."

After listening to his elder brother's further ideas, the Ninth Prince did not object:

“So what is the rationale for doing this? Explain to the public why we should set up one agency instead of setting up a variety of local agencies?
“In the provinces of the kingdom the supervision and the trial are separated; why not in the Free State?
"Because more institutions mean more costs? Because the Free State is a very different place than a province? Is that a good enough reason?"

The eldest prince also nodded directly:

"That's fine. We can ask for a high price. If they insist on setting up a complete organization, then we can offer a price that the Free State will definitely not accept."

As soon as the eldest prince finished speaking, the fifth prince couldn't help but interrupt:
"Then we should discuss the imperial examination later. Should the governor be responsible for the imperial examination alone? Is this really too big a task?"

The eldest prince did not respond, and the tenth prince made a suggestion:
"The imperial examination is not an everyday matter. The most basic imperial examination is only held once a year. When the imperial examination is needed, let the department in charge of the imperial examination in the kingdom send people to go, right?"

This time, the Ninth Prince took a clear stand and directly opposed it:
“No, the imperial examination is as important as supervision, and it is something that will hardly have any negative effects.

“Once the imperial examination and school systems are truly universally established, the central government will basically control the entry of local officials, so we can never make do with just that.

“The imperial examination is not just about taking exams, it is also about managing people with meritorious service in the society, who are all potential officials.

“Even if these people are not officials, they still have to play a role in conveying public opinion.

"They are local civilian watchdogs and are selected to participate in discussions on Free State legal matters.

“These people must be oriented to the imperial court, not the local free states.

“The imperial examination is not a daily affair, but the management of these people is a daily affair.

"My suggestion is to follow the normal practices of the Ming Dynasty in its overseas provinces and establish a school system and examination rules that are as complete and traditional as possible.

"We established traditional county and prefectural schools, provided living expenses to students and candidates, and organized them to participate in official activities during the period.

"Organize the county examination, prefectural examination and annual examination according to the standard. These primary annual examinations and the contact with local officials with honors can all be entrusted to the prefect.

“But we can assign an assistant official to the governor to be in charge of the academic affairs within the jurisdiction.

"Then, based on the situation in the Free State, several suitable provincial examination districts will be established, and the royal court will arrange chief examiners to preside over the provincial examinations."

The Tenth Prince did not have any special reaction to the direct and undisguised opposition from his brother who was not much older than him, because he had long been accustomed to it.

This brother would always oppose whenever he could, so it was a rare thing that there were not many people opposing him today.

After listening to him mutter a lot, the Tenth Prince immediately asked him or asked him back:

"You asked me to go on a business trip. How do you plan to arrange the county and prefectural examinations?

"Do the counties of the Free State directly correspond to the counties of the Ming Dynasty? Then aren't there too many counties in the Free State?
“Should the court assign a county magistrate and county school official to each county?
"Are there any free states that can correspond to the prefectures? How will the county examination areas be arranged specifically?"

The Ninth Prince has not yet reached a mature idea about this matter, otherwise he would not have been so vague in his previous plans:

"These details still need to be discussed in detail, but no matter how it is arranged, the principle should be certain, that is, we should pay attention to it rather than just deal with it."

The tenth prince sneered and said nothing.

The fifteenth prince took up the conversation at this time:

“I think…the areas for our county and prefectural examinations cannot directly correspond to the Free State and its subordinate counties.

“Not only because if the settings were completely matched, the court would have to arrange too many people.

“We also need to consider that adjusting administrative divisions, adjusting the jurisdiction of local officials, and splitting and reorganizing existing local institutions are all means of controlling local areas.

“So even if it’s the governor’s jurisdiction, it doesn’t necessarily have to correspond exactly to the Free State.

“The key point is that the division of the free states was unreasonable, and the sizes of the two free states of Rhode Island and Delaware were too small.

"This kind of place is definitely not worthy of having a governor to govern it.

"We could set up a governorate to govern Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southern Massachusetts.

"A prefecture shall be established in the northern part of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and Delaware and Maryland, which are south of New Jersey, shall be combined to form a prefecture.

"The provincial examination area can be directly divided into two or one, north and south, so that all students from the free states can come to New York to take the provincial examination."

The southern part of Massachusetts mentioned by the fifteenth prince is the state of Massachusetts in the United States in his previous life, and the northern part is the later state of Maine, which was originally part of Massachusetts.

Maine is rich in lobsters, but these lobsters were originally exported through Boston, Massachusetts, and eventually became Boston lobsters.

When the fifteenth prince proposed this angle, the other princes' eyes suddenly lit up.

It is indeed as he said, when many dynasties were first established, they would split and reorganize administrative regions, and most of the time it was not intentional.

Firstly, during the separatist chaos at the end of the dynasty, a large number of small administrative regions were easily formed due to changes in the battle lines, and they had to be reintegrated at the beginning of the establishment of the dynasty.

Secondly, at the end of the dynasty, the central government's control over the local governments was reduced to the extreme. After the local forces lost restrictions and supervision, they would take root in the local areas and form a deep group. The boundaries of these roots and groups were usually the original administrative boundaries.

The new dynasty would suppress and break up such local forces, and splitting and reorganizing the original administrative regions was a typical auxiliary means.

(End of this chapter)