Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 106: Separation of Five Powers and Strengthening Centralization

When I entered the study, the candles in the room were already lit.

No one sat at the desk that Lao Zhu often used. Everyone moved a chair and sat at the coffee table opposite the desk.

It is still very important today. Although the process of system design is rather boring, the same thing still applies.

Productivity determines production relations, and production relations react on productivity.

If the production relations are not properly managed, no matter how much supplies Zhu Yunfeng sends to Ming Dynasty, everything will be in vain.

So even if it's a bit boring, there's nothing we can do about it.

"Once the production relations are properly established, the Ming Dynasty will be worry-free. I dare not say it will take a thousand years, but five or six hundred years should be enough."

Zhu Yunfeng thought to himself.

Although there is no eternal design, during the Ming Dynasty, the whole world was uncultivated virgin land. With a strong national strength and a reliable system, the country could perhaps prolong its life for a long time by cultivating more land overseas.

of course.

These formal examples definitely cannot be told to Zhu Di, as he would not understand even if you told him.

Zhu Yunfeng sat down and got straight to the point: "Many of the policies formulated by His Majesty Taizu in the early days of the founding of the country were actually to deal with the difficulties at that time. But times have changed, and I believe you can feel the regulations he left behind."

"Yes."

Zhu Di sighed, "I fought all the way from Peking, but the garrisons were in ruins and had no fighting power. If not for this, I'm afraid I wouldn't even be able to cross the river."

This is true.

The military structure of the early Ming Dynasty mainly consisted of three points. The first was the border army, which was commanded by border princes or nobles trusted by Zhu Yuanzhang, such as Mu Ying.

The second is the elite Beijing army that Zhu Yuanzhang left for Zhu Yunwen, with a total number of about 300,000 and extremely strong combat effectiveness.

The third is the local garrison.

It was stipulated in the early Ming Dynasty that each provincial government had a dusi who was in charge of the military power of the provincial government, and each state under it had a garrison.

Overall, it is a bit like the provincial military regions and municipal military sub-districts in later generations.

There were about 5,000 people in each garrison, and there were more than 400 garrisons across the country. The number of officers and soldiers in the garrisons alone reached more than one million at that time.

These soldiers in the garrisons had no salary and had to rely on farming to support themselves, so Zhu Yuanzhang boasted that he could support a million soldiers without spending a single grain of rice from the people.

But during the Jingnan Campaign, this so-called million-strong army did not even see a hair, and all of them watched Zhu Di rebel.

Did all these garrison soldiers surrender to Zhu Di?
of course not.

The garrisons had already become corrupt during the Jianwen period.

The soldiers below have essentially been transformed from soldiers into slaves of the thousand households in each garrison. Their combat effectiveness has also plummeted from the elite troops who had experienced many battles in the early Ming Dynasty. They are simply unable to compete with the regular army.

Therefore, it is obvious with one's toes that it would be better to release them and pay taxes than to maintain the structure of these garrisons and let them inexplicably only support the thousand-household commanders above them.

However, due to the "Imperial Ming Ancestor's Instructions", this useless institution that purely exploited and oppressed the soldiers in the garrisons had to be maintained until the end of the Ming Dynasty before it completely disappeared.

Even the great Zhu Di found this unreasonable.

Zhu Yunfeng shook his head and said, "Except for the Wei, what do you think of the feudal monarchy system?"

"Forehead"

Zhu Di looked embarrassed, thought for a moment and said, "Of course it's inappropriate."

"The butt determines the head."

Zhu Yunfeng laughed: "When I was a vassal king, I must have thought that the more power a vassal king had, the better. Now that I am the emperor, the less power a vassal king had, the better, right?"

Zhu Di smiled embarrassedly. With a different standpoint, the way of looking at the problem was naturally different.

This is the same as if I really had a cow.

"Emperor Taizu enfeoffed the princes for the sake of peace on the border and to protect the Ming Dynasty. However, just because he could subdue the princes, it doesn't mean that the emperors after him could do the same."

Zhu Yunfeng thought for a moment and said, "Throughout the dynasties, there have been countless examples of the Seven Kings' Rebellion and the Eight Kings' Rebellion. Now he has also realized the seriousness of the problem, so we must put things right and solve this problem."

Zhu Di was shocked and asked, "Will Taizu allow me to reduce the power of the vassal states?"

"It's a beautiful thought."

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes at him and said, "They are all Taizu's biological sons. If his own grandson touches his son, he will beat him up. Do you want to be beaten up too?"

"Forehead"

The great Zhu Di stopped talking.

After all, if Taizu really passed away, he wouldn't care about the floods after his death, and naturally he wouldn't care about the affairs of his descendants.

But now he is still alive. For Old Zhu, who values ​​family affection very much, his sons are his Achilles' heel and he certainly cannot sit idly by.

But for Zhu Di, since he had sat in this position, he naturally had to consider the issues involved.

Without mentioning the evil deeds committed by the princes, just saying that he was a successful prince in rebellion, he also had to worry about the consequences of the meeting of the princes.

So naturally I feel a little sad.

"Since father already knows about the disaster of the vassal king, how should we deal with it?"

Zhu Di asked hurriedly.

"Of course there is a way."

Zhu Yunfeng raised his right index finger and said, "The intention of our ancestors was to hope that the royal family could help the emperor, but in every dynasty, there have been serious problems in the management of the royal family. Either they are strictly supervised, or they are indulged. In the long run, there will only be two results. One is like the Tang and Song dynasties, where the royal family is powerless. In the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian appeared, and the royal family was almost wiped out. In the Song Dynasty, there was no such person in the royal family, and there was almost no ripple. The other is like the Han and Jin dynasties, even if they have the ability to rebel, they threaten the emperor."

"Yes, by the way, what's your name?"

Zhu Di nodded in agreement repeatedly, feeling that the other party's words were concise and to the point, and really touched people's hearts.

"Zhu Yunfeng."

"Then I will call you Yunfeng. What is the method?"

"It's very simple. We will retain the power and status of the vassal kings and let them continue to stay in their fiefdoms."

Zhu Yunfeng said with a smile.

Da Zhu Di frowned: "What kind of idea is this?"

"Don't worry, listen to me first."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "The people's strength in the north has not yet fully recovered, and there are still a lot of wasteland that no one is cultivating, right?"

"good."

Zhu Di nodded. He had been in the north for a long time and naturally knew the situation in the north.

Since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the north has been affected by wars for a long time. Although it recovered to a certain extent during the Tang Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty, it was back to its original state in the Southern Song Dynasty.

The small Southern Song Dynasty court was based in the south of the Yangtze River. It was ravaged by the Jin people and the Mongols in the north, resulting in the massacre of a large number of northern Han people. Coupled with various natural disasters and plagues, by the end of the Yuan Dynasty, only one in ten people remained.

According to the census during the Hongwu period, the national population was around 6000 million, while the entire north, namely traditional Han areas such as Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Shaanxi, and Shanxi, had a population of just over 1000 million.

It was not until the late Hongwu period that Zhu Yuanzhang continued to migrate the population, and the number rose to 1500 million. It can be seen how serious the decline in the north was at that time, and it is not an exaggeration to say that there was no crowing of cocks for a thousand miles.

"In fact, it is in accordance with the wishes of the great grandfather. The princes were sent to the north and asked to bring a large number of people and food from the south. They were also awarded a large amount of land and asked to reclaim the wasteland."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "A prince is granted 30,000 to 40,000 mu of land and has thousands or even tens of thousands of people under his command, but the land does not belong to him, but to the palace. The prince does not have the power to deal with his own land, which is managed by the palace. Most of the income from the land goes to the people who cultivate it, one-tenth of which is used as palace expenses, and another tenth is taken as tax, but this tax does not go into the national treasury, but into the royal treasury, which is then invested and the profits earned are distributed among the princes in proportion to their investment."

Zhu Di frowned, thinking this plan was unreliable.

He said, "You want to use the princes to quickly restore the people's livelihood in the north. It's a good idea, but have you ever thought about it? Not to mention that the north needs to build a large number of water conservancy facilities to reclaim wasteland. Even if it succeeds, the prince's palace will be the main person in charge. How to solve the corruption? And what kind of investment should the treasury make? The so-called officials should not compete with the people for profit, especially the royal family's participation in private management. This power can easily force the people. What should we do then?"

"You're right, but I didn't say this was going to be a long-term policy."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "To put it bluntly, the royal family is currently trying to earn fiefdoms and benefits for their descendants, and at the same time help the north quickly resume production, while also stationing troops in the north to guard against Mongolia. The economic situation in the Ming Dynasty was much worse than that in the Song Dynasty, but now is a good opportunity to lift the sea ban. Moreover, the royal family's investment is not in ordinary business, but in the steel industry, so the problem of corruption will be easier to solve. The scope of responsibilities of the thirteen imperial censors will be expanded to conduct joint audits and supervision with local officials."

"I've been confused by what you said."

Zhu Di was completely confused.

Zhu Yunfeng then explained.

Simply put, Zhu Yunfeng's royal family policy is actually a temporary policy for a few decades.

First, all the vassal kings were enfeoffed to the north to quickly restore the people's livelihood and productivity in the north, and then they went to war and confront Mongolia.

Then they used the output as start-up capital to invest in the steel industry and launch the first industrial revolution.

After people's livelihood in the north recovered and the first industrial revolution started, the value of the vassal kings in the country was exhausted, and they began to be granted fiefdoms abroad.

After completing the First Industrial Revolution, the Ming Dynasty was probably already in the era of firearms and ironclad ships. Not to mention dominating the world, it basically had no rivals in Asia.

There are many places to go, including Nanyang, Australia, Southeast Asia, and even Korea and Japan.

From then on, all members of the royal family were sent overseas. Every time a vassal was appointed overseas, he would bring a group of Han people with him to settle down. It is estimated that within a hundred years, the whole of Asia would be the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

If it is said that Zhu Yunfeng's soul traveled to ancient times, it would be a bit of a dream.

Unless you are from a science or engineering field and have the power and resources to quickly build a perfect steam engine, forget it for at least a few decades.

But Zhu Yunfeng has a portal.

There is no need for steam engines. All we need to do is send in generators. Electric power is much simpler and more affordable than steam engines. We can learn directly from the early days of my country's industrial construction, skipping the era of steam engine steelmaking and entering the era of electrified steelmaking. Various technologies and operating methods can also be sent here.

It can be said that in addition to practical talents, all equipment and technology are available. As long as a group of skilled workers are trained, the speed of the Ming Dynasty's first industrial revolution will be very fast and will definitely not exceed five years.

By then, the royal family will have a place to go and will not stay in the country. They can do whatever they want abroad, which will basically solve the problem of royal family and vassal kings completely.

of course.

This rhetoric must be changed to that they will send a magical weapon that can manipulate lightning to drive power.

When Zhu Di heard that Zhu Yunfeng and his men would send a magical weapon to increase the Ming Dynasty's steel production by a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand times, he was shocked again.

have to say.

At least in terms of cognition, whether it is increasing grain production three or four times, or manipulating lightning, and increasing the Ming Dynasty's steel production by thousands or tens of thousands of times, it can be said to be a divine method.

No matter how skeptical Zhu Di was, he would be dispelled of any doubts in the face of such terrifying productivity.

After all, in the eyes of the ancients, this was already a miracle.

Seeing Zhu Di's surprised expression, Zhu Yunfeng suddenly thought that if he could buy that kind of jet pack aircraft, he would be able to become an immortal.

Unfortunately, that kind of thing not only flies at a very low altitude, only a few meters off the ground, but is also simply not available for purchase.

The only aircraft you can buy is called a paramotor, which is a type of parachute with a fan engine hanging behind it, allowing it to stay in the sky for a long time and fly continuously.

In Zhu Yunfeng's county town, people can often be seen flying around in the sky, doing advertising promotion for businesses.

"If it's really as you said, maybe it can solve the problem of vassal kings."

Zhu Di thought about it.

"Driving the vassal kings overseas is a good thing that will kill many birds with one stone. In addition, the civil officials must also share power to prevent them from becoming too powerful and jointly opposing the emperor."

"Oh? Tell me."

"Civil officials actually control administrative power, financial power, legislative power, judicial power, trial power, and supervisory power. It can be said that they control all power except military power. Putting them in the same system can easily make them powerful. Therefore, in ancient times, power was mostly divided, but at most the supervisory power was taken out and placed in the Censorate. Administrative power, trial power, and legislative power were all in their hands."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "To solve this problem, we must separate the administrative power and let the cabinet lead the six ministries. The cabinet is responsible to the emperor, and each department implements policies in its own direction and profession. Then the judicial power and trial power will be established in a separate department, and the supervisory power and financial power will be established in another department. And the responsibilities will be subdivided from the top to the county. This will greatly avoid corruption and abuse of power, and it will also prevent the civil service group from uniting, because everyone is not in the same system."

This is the separation of the five powers, which arranges administration, finance, judiciary, supervision and the military into an independent system. Each system is responsible only to the emperor and they are not subordinate to each other.

The emperor is the head of state and the chief minister is the prime minister.

The cabinet is responsible for national governance and development and reform, the finance department is responsible for the annual budgets of all parties, and there is no need to say much about the judiciary and supervision.

In this way, since the financial department is responsible to the emperor, if other departments want to approve the financial budget, they must obtain the emperor's approval. This greatly strengthens the emperor's control over other departments.

But this system also has its drawbacks, which is that the imperial power will be unprecedentedly great.

Because the civil service group previously controlled administrative, financial, judicial, supervisory and so on, and controlled everything except military power, it meant that the power of the prime minister represented by the civil service group was very strong.

After the subdivision, the power of the prime minister was decentralized, and ultimately the power of the financial budget was in the hands of the emperor, and all departments had to act according to the emperor's wishes.

What will happen if the imperial power becomes stronger?

Of course, if you have a strong monarch, the country will be strong, and if you have a weak monarch, the country will be weak.

After decentralization, superiors and subordinates have clear responsibilities and detailed guidelines for what they should and should not do, which will greatly increase administrative efficiency.

For example, this department is only responsible for its own affairs and concentrates on development.

But because of this, once the departments need to collaborate, the emperor is needed to allocate resources and power.

This will definitely be no problem if you meet a wise monarch.

If there is a stupid monarch who doesn't care about the affairs, and the two systems are independent and cannot cooperate with each other, chaos will soon arise, leading to factional strife.

Therefore, this system puts a great test on the monarch's ability.

However, Zhu Yunfeng indeed believes that this is the best design in the early Ming Dynasty.

After all, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were both wise rulers.

With this design, administrative efficiency can be improved and the country can be developed rapidly.

When they are about to die in the future, taking into account the possible mental retardation of the monarch in the future, they will gradually give up some of the imperial power and increase the autonomy of the civil service group to prevent stupid monarchs from messing around and accelerating the demise of the country.

I can only say that Professor Sun is right. There is indeed no perfect institutional design, only the best design at the time.

"Well, that sounds good."

Zhu Di naturally realized that if this system was used, the imperial power would be greatly enhanced.

But he shook his head and said, "I'm afraid it's difficult to achieve."

"I know the reason. It's because of the cost of governance. Putting all the power in the hands of one official will allow him to quickly resolve the issue when he governs the local area."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "But if a new system is established, it will result in seven or eight officials being required to handle the tasks that could have been handled by one official. This is why the Song Dynasty had so many redundant officials. Am I right?"

"good."

Big Zhu Di nodded.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, power among officials was very highly divided, with a system of two ministries and three departments. The emperor firmly controlled the financial and military power, and divided the power of the prime minister into many pieces. Therefore, no matter how powerful the civil servants were, they could not produce powerful ministers.

However, decentralization means increasing the number of officials, resulting in serious redundancy, with the number of officials several times that of the Tang and Ming dynasties.

"But have you ever thought that although the number of officials has increased, the administrative efficiency has also increased. As long as the imperial power is centralized and we use various methods to make the Ming Dynasty strong, the population of the Ming Dynasty will also increase."

Zhu Yunfeng said eloquently: "According to our method, these 30,000 mu of land can be expanded to millions of mu next year, and the year after that it can be spread throughout the Taihu Lake and Dongting Lake basins, allowing Daming's grain to increase by two or three times. By then, various policies will be used to encourage childbirth. Daming will usher in a baby boom in a few years, and it is normal for the population to exceed 100 million in ten years. By then, there will be more people, and more governance will be needed. Will the number of officials also have to increase? Doesn't this reflect the need to prepare for a rainy day?"

"This"

Big Zhu Di looked at Little Zhu Di and Ji He and said, "It seems to make sense."

"That's for sure."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "I call this system the One Cabinet, Two Courts and Three Departments System. The One Cabinet is the Cabinet, the Two Courts are the Courts composed of the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple, and there is also the Supervisory Court which was changed from the Censorate, and the Three Departments are the Salt and Iron, Duzhi and Hubu three departments which were changed from the Ministry of Revenue. Add to this the Five Military Commandery, and the power is divided into five parts, all under the jurisdiction of the emperor, which greatly strengthens the imperial power."

"But I'm telling the truth."

Finally, he added: "Officials don't actually have a policy agenda. I think we need to come up with another ideology."

“Ideologicalism?”

"Yes."

Zhu Yunfeng said: "Confucianism actually provides this ideological program and advocates many things, including personal cultivation, social order, political concepts, educational concepts, cultural concepts, etc., but the emperors focused on loyalty to the emperor to strengthen and maintain their rule. But in fact, most local officials have never even seen the emperor, so how can they be loyal to the emperor? I think loyalty to the emperor means loving the people, incorporating people-oriented thinking into mainstream thinking, and giving priority to the interests of the people in the process of governance."

"People's livelihood, education and local development should be issues that officials consider. The duties of the Inspectorate should be divided into two types, forming a review and reconsideration form together with the courts to maintain the three-judiciary system."

"The second is to evaluate the performance of central and local officials and regulate their behavior. To see how they govern, whether development is going well, whether they pay attention to people's livelihood issues, etc."

"In this way, officials will prioritize people's livelihood, and through a strict system of refusal to leave their hometowns, officials of any rank will not be allowed to stay in their local posts. Then, the civil servant system will be improved, and officials will have guidelines in the future."

"If they want to be promoted, they must pay more attention to local development, which will be of great help in local governance."

Zhu Yunfeng had thought this through carefully.

The most encouraged idea among ancient officials was loyalty to the emperor. Of course, the idea of ​​loving the people existed, but it was mixed with other ideas.

Such a local official has no subjective initiative to consider the survival issues of local people.

Good officials will govern as they can, but if they encounter corrupt officials, they will be lucky if they don't cause harm to the local area. It is impossible for them to think about whether the local people are living well.

If the imperial court advocates the idea of ​​putting people first and uses this as a starting point and political achievement, then the subjective initiative of officials can be greatly enhanced.

In the long run, it will not be a bad thing for the people.

More importantly, it can also improve the level of local governance by officials. After the Industrial Revolution, when a new era comes, it will no longer be as simple as before, when it would not be possible to solve the people's survival problems by just focusing on agriculture and sericulture.

The county town also needs to develop, people need to be employed, economic income needs to be increased, and so on.

Strengthening ideology in this regard and increasing the subjective initiative of officials will encourage them to use their brains more and will not be like before, where they just muddle through and passively accept everything.

"Ah."

After hearing this, Zhu Di thought it was okay.

It is to provide guidelines for the direction of governance to local officials below, and there is really nothing wrong with that.

"The garrison system, the fixed household registration system, and the Zhiding system must also be abolished."

"But the Jinyiwei can be retained. In addition to the supervision of the Inspectorate, the Jinyiwei can be regarded as the supervision of the imperial power."

"When His Majesty Taizu formulated these laws, it was an extraordinary measure for extraordinary times. By your time, the country has gradually stabilized, and this cannot continue."

"The most urgent task now is to strengthen centralization and carry out major tasks according to the will of the court."

"There is still a lot to do for the Ming Dynasty in the future. His Majesty Taizu left behind many sequelae that must be dealt with immediately so that the Ming Dynasty can present a brand new look."

Zhu Yunfeng spoke fluently.

These systems refer to advanced systems in ancient times as well as improvements made in later generations.

Including the separation of five powers, it is similar to my country's current system of one government, two houses and one committee.

In this way, efficiency is increased and development can be achieved immediately.

(End of this chapter)