When Zhu Cixi became emperor, he was forced to do nothing. He must have forced Liang to become emperor, which is really pitiful. Although he was forced to assume the position of leader of a feudal country, he still had his own insistence - his ministers must agree to his conditions, otherwise Prince Zhu will no longer be the emperor!
It was impossible for him not to be the emperor, so the ministers all shouted in unison: "I am willing to listen to your majesty's orders!"
"Okay!" Zhu Cixiang nodded heavily, "Everyone, get up... Everyone go to the courtyard, I will make a four-part agreement with all the ministers outside the Wenhua Palace!"
Three chapters of the treaty are not enough; one more chapter is necessary!
Today is the big day for Zhu Cixi to become the emperor, so of course the ministers have to follow him! Anyone who wants to be unhappy today will be in darkness for this "official student".
So everyone, including Emperor Chongzhen, who had tears of excitement in his eyes, followed him to the courtyard outside the Wenhua Palace, listening to the cold wind blowing while listening to Zhu Cixiang, who had become the seventeenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, talk about his agreement.
The Superintendent of Ceremonies, Bingbi Huang Xiaobao, and the Governor of the East Factory, Chen Shifang, took matters into their own hands and moved a chair for Zhu Cixiang from the Wenhua Hall.
Zhu Cixiang stood up and looked down at the ministers in the courtyard from above. A feeling of being superior and looking down on all living beings suddenly welled up from the bottom of his heart.
Is this what it feels like to be an emperor?
Zhu Cixiang took a breath and calmed down his excitement. A pair of thick eyebrows gradually knitted again: "Everyone has heard that the world is in chaos. The Central Plains, Southwest, Northwest, and Northeast are all occupied by bandits. Only the The southeast is still stable. This world is no longer a time of peace and prosperity, but a time of chaos during the Warring States Period!
Therefore, I should govern my family and country according to the method of the warring states in troubled times, rather than the method of governing the world by a benevolent king. You and others are all the pillars of the Ming Dynasty. They should shoulder the responsibility of calming down the troubled times. They must not slack off in the slightest, nor should they follow the method of governing the world in peace. Therefore, from today on, all the laws and regulations established during the great rule of the world can be changed! Do you know, sir? "
This is the first agreement between Zhu Cihong and his ministers - to use the laws of troubled times to rule troubled times!
Zhu Cixiang also studied history books. He found that the thinking of the two southern crossing dynasties in history, the Southern Song Dynasty and the Southern Ming Dynasty, had not completely changed, and they had not changed from the mode of governing the world to the mode of troubled times. Its symbol is to adhere to the ancestral family law of using civility and military force to the greatest extent!
If you get the wrong script in troubled times, it will be quite fatal!
"Everyone knows it!"
The ministers shouted in unison, maybe they meant what they said. And a certain Supreme Emperor gained knowledge again - it turns out that the world is already in trouble! If I had known earlier, I should have learned the methods used by Emperor Taizu Gao in troubled times...
Zhu Cixiang continued to say in a dignified and solemn tone: "In this dynasty, officials have always occupied half, and vassals have occupied half. Officials and vassals jointly assist the king. However, officials have a system, but feudalism cannot. Therefore, the system of semi-feudalism is The guards of the Ming Dynasty were corrupted and corrupted, and our millions of heavenly soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were destroyed in name only. Therefore, it was difficult to govern the world and the world was in chaos.
Therefore, when I govern the country, I should first clearly establish the laws, then authorize the superiors and hold the subordinates accountable. There must be no violation! "
The ministers shouted: "I have received the decree!"
There were three internal vassal systems in the history of the Ming Dynasty, one was the king of Sai, the other was the guard, and the third was the chieftain.
But by the time Zhu Cixi came to power, the only thing that could still function normally was the chieftain system. King Sai was deposed by Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di.
The health system has serious institutional flaws. The health system implements the system of officials and soldiers. This is a typical feudal system. However, the feudal system of the health system has the problem of insufficient authorization and no one can take responsibility. The authority of the head of the guard station is not large enough to strictly regulate the station. At the same time, they do not have to be responsible for the corruption of the guards. They only serve as their hereditary officials and make money for generations.
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang has decided to completely abolish the guard posts and cancel all the guard posts in the territory that the imperial court can effectively control, including Denglai Seven Guards, Fengyang Eight Guards and One Guards, and Runing Five Guards. The land that has been granted to the guard station will be registered as professional land by the serving officers and soldiers until the officer completes his service or is killed or injured in battle, and then it is changed to private land. The land that has not yet been granted will be held by the Military Land Department of the Ministry of War, which will be used to collect rent and pay, or to reward meritorious officers and soldiers of the new army.
With the stabilization of Zhu Cixi's regime, the threshold for granting land will naturally become higher and higher, and the number of land grants will become tighter and tighter - after all, Zhu Cixi now has no shortage of soldiers, and after granting the land, the Military Land Department's Income will be reduced accordingly.
Of course, it is impossible not to grant farmland - it is a painting that encourages soldiers to fight hard. Without this benefit, who will fight hard?
Moreover, after completing the land consolidation in Southeast (Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang) and Huguang (Hunan, Hubei), the land under the jurisdiction of the Military Land Division will probably reach hundreds of millions of acres.
As long as the situation in the southeast stabilizes, the value of these hundreds of millions of acres of land should soon reach two billion taels! The annual land rent that can be received, based on the 20% discount on five buckets of rice (the 20% discount is the cost of rent collection), can theoretically reach 80 million shibai rice!
The military expenditures and bonuses for the Northern Expedition had to be taken from these 100 million acres!
Zhu Cixi then said in a calmer tone: "The chaos in the world stems from the corruption of the guards and the collapse of the finances. The corruption of the guards is that they have titles but no responsibility, and the collapse of the finances is due to the excessive preferential treatment of scholar-bureaucrats and clans!
And after the world collapsed, the scholar-bureaucrats and clan suffered the most! Countless families of the scholar-bureaucrats in the North were destroyed and their families were killed, and countless members of the royal family and nobles died at the hands of the thieves Donglu.
This kind of preferential treatment is really a life-threatening strategy! Therefore, I shall make an agreement with all the ministers. Scholars, peasants, industry and merchants will pay taxes as one body. Nobles and nobles will be beheaded for their kindness in the fifth generation. Royal relatives and clan members can also serve as officials! "
This time, the officials and nobles present were a little unhappy. No one likes to pay taxes, but everyone hopes that their descendants can enjoy prosperity for all generations!
Zhu Cixiang's cold eyes swept over the ministers outside the Wenhua Hall, then raised his voice and said loudly: "Flowing water will not rot, door hinges will not be mole, it will move! And those who move will be forced by the current situation! If the ancestors have been kind and kind, If you go too far, how can your descendants be willing to move? You all have many wives and concubines, and you have many children and grandchildren. How much favor can you have to protect them?
The only feasible way is to let them be forced by the situation. If they cannot become playboys, they must go to school, join the army, or run a business. Only in this way can wealth last and the family prosper.
If you are still not at ease, then I can allow the hereditary succession of the title of Conqueror, but each title can only be passed down to one son, and the other sons will not be allowed to have official positions. In the future, they can enter the Imperial Academy and the Martial Arts Hall, but they cannot serve as officials! "
Of course, Zhu Cixiang's arrangement was not to block the way for the children of heroes and clan members - as a founding emperor, of course he believed in his own people. But our own people must have the ability to take over the cause of feudalism!
And the ability is mostly forced out!
You can be an official and be rich and powerful even if you don't know anything, who would work hard to learn the skills?
"All ministers respect His Majesty's holy instructions!"
After receiving the guarantee of "the hereditary succession of the Lord of Overcome", this "third agreement" was finally passed.
Zhu Cixiang nodded and said: "The fourth treaty is a major reform of the imperial examination! Taizu opened the imperial examination to select talents for the country. It can be passed down to modern times, the emperors of the Manchu Dynasty have many imperial examinations, all of which are Are there capable ministers and wise men? In my opinion, they are not as good as the so-called Eight Banners chiefs of Donglu! Otherwise, how could the Liaodong formation be invincible? The Eight Banners of Donglu only have tens of thousands of strong men. If the illiterate men under Emperor Taizu attack them, they will be defeated. I am afraid that the clan has been exterminated for many years, so how can it be so strong today? It can be seen that the people who took the imperial examination are not enough.
Since it is not enough, then the method of selecting scholars must be greatly changed! We must attach importance to practical learning and despise morality, use capable officials and stay away from corrupt Confucianism, and we must not let the people we recruit rise to the sky in one step. What do you think? "
"I am willing to obey orders..."
Of course there is room for improvement in taking the exam to become an official, but it is not right to take the exam to become a senior official! In the Ming Dynasty, the first official rank of Jinshi was generally the seventh rank, and those at the lower end of the rankings could all get county magistrates. It was a bit too disrespectful to take the Marquis of Baili seriously.
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang planned to drastically change the imperial examination, canceling the Jinshi who could rise to the top in one step, and only retaining the two levels of Juren and Xiucai. Among them, candidates can be elected through the "provincial examination" or the "ministerial examination". If you win, you will be qualified to be an official, but you have to start from the ninth rank Zhima official.
