"Taihang Mountain...Guguan..."
Zhu Cixiang held a candle and looked at the newly hung map in the study room on the second floor of Yongchun Pavilion. This is a picture of the situation of Shanxi plus Beizhili. Two huge arrows, extending from Beijing and Taiyuan, are about to collide at a dangerous pass in the middle of the Taihang Mountains.
Wu Sanmei, who was several months pregnant, also held a candle and stood behind Zhu Cixi with a smile, as if she wanted to light it up for him.
On the second floor of Yongchun Pavilion is Zhu Cixiang's bedroom in Dakongfang. If you are busy with official duties that day and go to bed late, you will not go to the inner courtyard, but call Wu Sanmei, the chosen attendant, to attend your bed. That's right, Zhu Cixiang only sleeps with Wu Sanmei now, and Ning Xiangyu and Fei Zhen'e, the two chosen attendants, are still in name only.
The reason for this is that firstly, Zhu Cixiang really likes this silly and sweet girl; secondly, it is also a political necessity - it is best for Wu Sanmei to give birth to his eldest son!
After a long while, Zhu Cixiang put down the candle in his hand, clapped his hands and said: "Li Zicheng's situation looks good! Although it is not enough to defeat the Tatars, there is no problem in holding on to the garrison and fighting a protracted war... It is already winter now It’s probably not suitable for attacking the city. It seems that Li Zicheng can always delay it until next spring.”
"Master Qiansui, listen to your words, will Li Zicheng still be defeated?" Wu Sanmei was born in Jiangmen. She has heard and seen it since she was a child, so of course she knows something about military affairs. In her opinion, Li Zicheng occupies a dangerous position and has many troops, so he should be invincible no matter what.
Zhu Cixiang smiled faintly, with a helpless smile on his young face: Third sister, third sister, you don’t know that the Tatars are cheating now!
Li Zicheng's plate looks stable on the surface, but he will still suffer a big loss when encountering cheating Tatars.
Once he fails, it will be Ming Dynasty's turn... So Ming Dynasty must seize the time to cheat!
"Maybe there is still a year," Zhu Cixiang breathed out, "I should be able to accomplish a lot of things..."
After entering Nanjing, the Ming court under the leadership of Zhu Cihong was brewing a new round of reforms. The purpose of this reform was to improve the administrative efficiency of the Ming Dynasty and strengthen the power of the six ministers and ministers. Zhu Cixiang planned to formally cancel the six subjects and turn them into a ministerial responsibility system.
Through this reform, the responsibilities of the six departments will also be clearer.
The Ministry of Personnel is in charge of civil servant personnel, not only promotion, assessment, appointment and dismissal. Everything related to civil servants and personnel is a matter of the Ministry of Personnel. The personnel affairs of all civil servants serving in various ministries and departments of the imperial court were also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel.
Of course, the Ministry of Personnel's management of personnel affairs does not mean that it has full authority to appoint and remove personnel. Instead, it mainly acts according to Zhu Cixi's orders or the writings of chief officials at all levels.
The Ministry of Rites will become a department specifically in charge of education and enlightenment, and the Ministry of Rites will be in charge of all levels of official schools and imperial examinations. In addition, the Senglu Division and the Daolu Division were also included in the Ministry of Rites, and the affairs of minority religions such as Christianity and Tianfang Sect were also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites.
In addition to these, Zhu Cixi also ordered the Ministry of Rites to prepare for the establishment of the "Tongwen Museum" and the "Shuwen Museum". The former is a translation agency responsible for training generals and translating books and regulations from various countries.
And the latter is an yamen in charge of publishing - the management of book publishing in the late Ming Dynasty was too lax, with almost no one in charge, complete freedom of speech!
It’s not that Zhu Cixiang opposes freedom of speech, but that we are currently at war. Where could there be so much freedom in wartime? What should be strictly controlled must be strictly controlled! Of course you have to win over those who should be won over.
The Ministry of War is still an idle government office, and many of its functions and powers have been usurped by the Generalissimo's Office. However, Zhu Cixiang was also planning a major reform, preparing to turn the Ministry of War into a yamen in charge of military affairs and move the Military and Administrative Department of the Generalissimo's Mansion into the Ministry of War.
Reform of the Ministry of Household Affairs is in the pipeline. The reform will mainly involve three aspects. First, the management of the household warehouse - the most important treasury bank (including money making) management will be changed to the responsibility of Yantang Bank and Maritime Bank! The Accounts Department is only responsible for accounts and revenue and expenditure, and does not directly manage cash.
The second is the issuance of coins - in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, "baochao", that is, paper money, was issued, but it was not successful. Later, coins and small coins were issued, but they also did not work well. Therefore, the current currency of the Ming Dynasty is very chaotic, with silver, made money, and small coins mixed. When you go shopping on the street, you have to carry scissors for cutting silver, a small scale for weighing, and tools for melting silver! The whole alchemist...
Of course, Zhu Cixi, a "financial expert", cannot allow the currency to be so chaotic and must be sorted out. Issue coins for easy circulation!
In addition, the gold and silver exchange rates in the Ming Dynasty were out of touch with the international market - this was because gold's monetary properties were insufficient in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, there is also a demand for minting gold coins for large payments to increase the price of gold.
Third, the tax revenue of the Ministry of Household Affairs must also be greatly improved. In particular, the privilege of the scholar-bureaucrats to be exempted from paying commercial taxes (tariffs) must be abolished-this is a deep water area for reform! But it won't work if it doesn't involve it, otherwise the court under the leadership of Prince Zhu will be unable to make ends meet, and sooner or later it will follow in the footsteps of his father, Emperor Chongzhen.
At the same time as the tax reform, the reform of spending money is also in progress - in Zhu Cixiang's view, the Ming Dynasty was not only inefficient in collecting money, but also inefficient in spending money!
The first step to improve the efficiency of spending money is to significantly reduce Zonglu's expenditure, while increasing the actual salary income of officials at all levels, and canceling "discounted salary" and physical salary, and replacing them with silver. At the same time, we will also study the establishment of job fields-that is, part of the land obtained from the clearing villages and land inspections will be used as job fields and distributed to civil and military officials, so that they can obtain a considerable amount of land rental income.
Although increasing salaries may not stop corruption, the previous practice of adding various perks to the already low salary level is a bit like a malicious boss deducting wages. It doesn't matter to officials whose hometown is in the southeast and who can profit from cheating and tax-free treatment, but it doesn't matter to the "bureaucratic proletariat" who followed Zhu Cixiang southward.
Prince Zhu will not let his own people suffer!
As for the reduction of Zonglu's expenditure, it was to some extent thanks to Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. Now most of the Ming Dynasty's sects and vassals were broken by these two. The descendants of the Zhu family either died or lost contact. The number of clan members who were lucky enough to escape to Nanjing was not large, but the death and disappearance rates of vassal kings and county kings were even higher! Even if he ran to Nanjing, he was still a prince who had "lost his feudal vassal" and was guilty according to the ancestral system.
They would be extremely grateful if Zhu Cihong could reward them with a palace in Nanjing, a prince who surrendered on his behalf, and some discounted salary.
While reducing Zonglu's expenditure, Zhu Cixiang also decided to suspend the "zongban" and "eternal royal family", two systems that had placed a huge burden on the Ming Dynasty's finances.
As an important spending department, the reform of the Ministry of Industry is also urgent. The Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty had jurisdiction over the four bureaus of the Qing Dynasty: Yingxi, Yuheng, Dushui, and Tuntian, as well as the Yingxiu Office, Wensi Yuan, Leather Work Bureau, Anji Bureau, Baoyuan Bureau, Pigment Bureau, Ordnance Bureau, and Jie Shenku , Weaving and Dyeing Institute, Miscellaneous Manufacturing Bureau, Bamboo and Wood Bureau, Firewood Bureau, etc.
This configuration was good in the early Ming Dynasty. After all, the industry and commerce in the early Ming Dynasty had not recovered their vitality after years of war and destruction by the Mongols. Therefore, it is appropriate to use the method of "craftsmen" serving for the first time and adding government-run handicrafts.
But now, the craftsman household system has long existed in name only. In places like Jiangnan, where industry and commerce are very prosperous, the situation is even more prominent. Without craftsmen, the government-run handicraft industry would have no cheap labor. In addition, civilian officials lacked the ability to manage the handicraft industry. Therefore, the efficiency of the government-run factories under the Ministry of Industry was extremely low - they were the ones who produced those explosive guns and cannons. !
This situation must change!
The idea of reforming the Ministry of Industry is, of course, no choice but marketization - Zhu Cixi now has neither officials who can manage the handicraft industry nor many skilled craftsmen, so it is simply impossible to fully revitalize the government-run handicraft industry. Although there are some "Yi Cong craftsmen" who followed from Tianjin, their craftsmanship is not very good. Aren't the explosive guns used by the Ming army their masterpieces? Moreover, they are "righteous" and have meritorious service, so the Ministry of Industry has to pay them a high salary!
Relying on them, the Ministry of Industry can only set up a gun factory, an armor factory, a sword and shield factory, a cannon casting factory and a bow and arrow factory at most. The raw materials used in these workshops still have to be purchased, and the output cannot meet the demand at all - in this era, it takes twenty days to a month to process a gun barrel with a simple drilling machine, and it takes several months or maybe a few months to produce a high-quality compound bow. longer! Here in Nanjing, there are only one to two hundred drilling machines that can be put into use in the short term. There are even fewer good gun-making craftsmen who can be hired. After all, Jiangnan can't make many useful fire guns, so there are no craftsmen. There is no way to cheat in manual work, so in the early days of the factory opening, the output is definitely not high, and the yield rate is definitely also very low.
Therefore, large-scale weapons supply must rely on the market, especially attracting blacksmiths from Foshan to go north to start their own businesses.
As for the Ministry of Punishment, there is no need to make major changes for the time being. Although there are many unreasonable places in the Ming Dynasty's criminal law and the Ministry of Punishment, it is not a top priority after all.
And all these reform projects are meant to offend people... Although Prince Zhu is not afraid of offending people, he can't always be a villain!
