Zhu Jingyuan, who was far away in Nanyang, was a little surprised after receiving the meeting minutes from the General Affairs Department.
The main thing is to set up a few senior responsible persons to take charge of all central government office affairs. This kind of plan is a bit familiar.
Zhu Jingyuan thought along this line of thinking and discovered another set of management logic.
Although the territory currently ruled by the Ming Dynasty is unprecedented, the population it currently manages is less than 800 million.
Compared with the populous country of later generations, there is still a certain distance.
If considered from this perspective, the experience of later generations can still be used for reference intuitively.
For example, the idea put forward by officials of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be a plan that leads to the same goal through different paths.
As for whether to let bachelors be in charge or to set up full-time officials, Zhu Jingyuan's preference is to set up full-time officials.
As for the prime minister, if there are twelve prime ministers, then this prime minister is not a prime minister in the traditional sense.
In fact, it is closer to the meaning of the six departments and nine ministers before the Renwu restructuring.
The six ministers, the imperial censor of the capital, the minister of Dali temple, and the envoy of general affairs are the nine ministers of the Ming Dynasty by convention.
In fact, they cannot be completely regarded as a certain position in a modern department.
The positions of the six ministries and nine ministers may be exchanged with each other. When they participate in discussions and decisions on major issues, they are not completely limited to their own positions.
In fact, they are all members of the empire's highest decision-making group under the emperor.
Now the system of setting up chief officials to take charge of various ministries and large regions can re-establish this group at the same time.
At the same time, the twelve major domains were just examples given by me, and the specific number may not necessarily be twelve.
The total population of Tiannan is less than 10 million. There is no need to set up a large region. A provincial establishment is enough.
You can let Nanyang Territory take charge of Tiannan, or simply let the central court directly administer it.
The same situation applies to the Western Region of Mozhou, which can be handed over to the jurisdiction of the Great Food Region or even the Great Region of Yinzhou, or directly under the central government.
The northeastern Yinzhou and central Yinzhou regions can also be merged, the Great Food Region can be changed to the Great Qin Region, and Persia, Anxi and other places can be handed over to the Tianzhu Region.
In this way, nine major domains were formed, and the position names of the nine officials in charge could be the most traditional official names of the Nine Ministers of the Zhou Dynasty.
Zongbo, Zhongzai, Sima, Situ, Sikong, Sikou, Shaoshi, Shaofu, Shaobao.
Officials of the Ming Dynasty used to address the Minister of Rites as Dazongbo and the Minister of Personnel as Otsukazai. This was a traditional habit left before the Renwu restructuring.
However, the number of central government offices has already increased to more than 30. It is inappropriate for six of the more than 30 ministers to occupy these traditional honorific titles.
It's better to take it out now and give it to the members of the decision-making group.
As for the grade, Zhu Jingyuan thinks that it can be either the first grade or the first grade.
In terms of the first rank, he would be called Jiuqing directly, and the first rank would be reserved as an honorary title.
The key is that, being just one level away from the existing minister, the existing minister can be promoted directly, and it does not count as a leapfrog promotion.
At the same time, after serving one term, one can be "promoted" to a higher rank, serve one more term and then retire.
Seamless transition and upgrade with existing bureaucracy.
If you don't consider this convenience, you can also directly use Zhengyipin to separate their status from the ministers.
At the same time, the titles of Shaoshi, Shaofu and Shaobao were replaced by the titles of Taishi, Taifu and Taibao.
After the Renwu restructuring, the Ming Dynasty officials already had a retirement system, and the court would not let these officials work until they were in their seventies or eighties.
Even if the emperor likes an official, he will not promote him beyond the next level. He will just let him be directly promoted to a more important position after his term expires.
In such an environment, civil servants need to enter the officialdom immediately after graduation, make basically no mistakes during their tenure, and have a basically non-stop promotion cycle, so that they can reach the rank of minister around the age of fifty.
It still takes three or six years to be promoted from the second-level minister to the first-level decision-making group Jiuqing.
If these officials still retire at the age of sixty, they can only serve for six to eight years at most. Under normal circumstances, it is estimated that they will not exceed five years, unless the emperor specifically asks them to stay in office again after the age of sixty.
Therefore, the current system of the Ming Dynasty has limited the special situation that there will be no chance of being sealed or promoted.
Even if an official has made great contributions and needs a special reward, he can still use his title.
So Zhu Jingyuan felt that he could release Zhengyipin directly.
Now that there are Ninth Elders at the top, it is no problem to set the level of the supervisor of the big domain below to the second level, which is the same as the Minister.
They are supposed to be equal officials.
Their chief officers are all the top decision-makers, Jiuqing.
Zhu Jingyuan had basically no idea about the bureaucratic setup of the large areas below. The arrangements of the senior gentlemen in the imperial court were such that he could not find any faults.
The left and right guards actually separated routine administrative affairs from finance, taxation, transportation, warehousing and other affairs.
The Protectorate has no military power at all, and they are all purely political officials.
This kind of check and balance method is natural, but in Zhu Jingyuan's opinion, it is a bit too cautious.
In addition, Ming Dynasty is now an industrial country, and the world has entered the second industrial revolution.
It's long past time to find a group of blacksmiths, make a bunch of swords, guns and clubs, and then control a bunch of farmland to grow food, and then you can pull together a team to work alone.
The logistics demands of regular military operations have exceeded a critical point.
Local military and political officials no longer have the ability to separate their jurisdictions and troops from the empire's industrial logistics system, and have no way to fight independently, let alone fight against the entire empire with their local areas.
A fleet of the navy alone may be enough to fight against the fleet of a medium-sized European and Western country.
But without the Ming Dynasty's system, his fleet would be unable to run after burning oil, there would be no place to replenish the cannon shells after firing, and there would be no place to replace the cannon barrels when their life span was over. Without routine maintenance, they would be scrapped within a few years.
But it's always better to be cautious. If Jiu Qing is in charge, he can manage it just fine.
So Zhu Jingyuan's final reply to his father was very simple, and he wrote down the ideas of the Jiuqing decision-making team.
Others just say "I think it's feasible."
Zhu Jingyuan's reply was sent to the Ming Dynasty capital in the evening, and Zhu Jianyan received the report while having dinner with his father.
Zhu Jianyan immediately took the reply and read it, then handed the telegram to his curious father.
Zhu Zhongliang also put down his chopsticks, took a look at the telegraph newspaper, and said thoughtfully:
"This...Jiu Qing's arrangement, is this considered retro?"
Zhu Jianyan smiled and said:
"This is obviously new wine in old bottles. If we want to go back to the past, we should go back to the era of Liubu Jiuqing.
"Set up multiple government offices under the Sixth Ministry and turn all current departments into subordinates of the Sixth Ministry."
Zhu Zhongliang thought for a while and said:
"You mean, go back to the six departments, but add a first-level agency between the ministers, ministers and officials?
“It doesn’t seem impossible, but it’s easy to get promoted and difficult to get demoted, so it would be more convenient to add it above.
"Jingyuan, this kid just likes to be a good person.
“The addition of a first-level domain to the local chief envoy has resulted in dozens of real shortages of first- and second-level officials.
"The central court released the first-rank officials, the Three Gongs and the Nine Qings, for use, and changed the first-rank official positions from honorary titles to actual duties.
"Officials who can hold these official positions in the future, as well as officials who have the opportunity to serve, should remember him."
When Zhu Jianyan heard this, he immediately said:
"I must make this decision and announce it. How can I give all the benefits to him?"
The problem that had been worrying him now had a basically certain solution, and Zhu Jianyan felt relaxed.
Zhu Zhongliang sneered:
"You should also remember him well, so you don't have to worry about dozens of ministers in your mind all day long.
"Just take care of Jiu Qing, and you can basically control the situation. It's much easier than when I was there."
Zhu Jianyan smiled and said nothing, picked up his chopsticks and continued eating, then suddenly stopped:
"Now I have a vague feeling that there seems to be a problem somewhere, but I can't remember it or put it in words..."
When Zhu Zhongliang heard these words, his originally relatively relaxed expression suddenly became serious:
"This feeling is very dangerous, you'd better relax and think about it carefully.
"You, the Ming Emperor, who coordinates the overall situation, if you miss something, the impact will be fatal...
"If it doesn't work out, just send another telegram to Jingyuan and ask him to help you think about it..."
Zhu Jianyan also became serious:
"Yeah...I understand..."
Zhu Jianyan and his son finished dinner together, and Zhu Zhongliang continued to study his own film facilities.
Zhu Jianyan returned to his office in the palace and continued to deal with various documents while considering his own problems.
But until the end, Zhu Jianyan didn't figure out what the doubts in his heart were.
Then the next morning, Zhu Jianyan sent a telegram to Zhu Jingyuan and asked Zhu Jingyuan directly:
"What do you think is the biggest problem in Ming Dynasty now?
“Or it may be something that may not be obvious now, but may have a significant impact in the future.
"And what impact will this reform of local and central government agencies have on the court, local governments, and the people?
"Carefully write a comprehensive and detailed analysis report and send it to me...
“There’s no need to rush, you can write slowly.
“You don’t need to just write one, you can just write whatever comes to mind, and send one as soon as you write.
"I heard that in Mozhou and Xintianfu, you followed your grandfather's instructions and developed the habit of writing various imagination records.
“Now you can develop another habit of commenting on current affairs and government affairs analysis.”
Zhu Jingyuan was speechless after reading it.
Father, are you giving me a question and asking me to write a paper?
Are you trying to teach me, or are you using me as your personal secretary?
But looking at it from another angle, isn’t this just asking me to control politics?
Zhu Jingyuan soon realized that sometimes he really had all kinds of thoughts.
It's just that most of the time I just think about it and forget about it. From now on I just write down these thoughts.
This doesn't seem to be a very troublesome thing.
Think of it as writing a diary.
But who serious person keeps a diary?
With several complaints, Zhu Jingyuan began to think about the issues raised by his father while resting, eating and drinking while dealing with daily work in Nanyang and Johor.
"What is the biggest problem in Ming Dynasty now..."
"I just can't find any big problems that may exist..."
Zhu Jingyuan found the title of his first paper in this somewhat awkward logic.
The dividends of the explosive growth in productivity of the Industrial Revolution, and the expansion and income dividends of victory in the World War, combined together, masked most of the problems.
Even if there was a large-scale abolition of vassals and the establishment of high-ranking officials, there was a serious shortage of qualified bureaucrats. Even if the number of provinces and the number of officials and officials increased sharply, the administrative efficiency of the central and local governments dropped significantly.
Before the reform of administrative divisions and central government agencies, it did not affect the whole Ming Dynasty.
What other bigger problems could be uncovered in this situation?
In other words, it is not a discovery, but an analysis and judgment that should exist and should occur.
The development of industry and commerce, the rapid expansion of urban scale, the subversion of social structures and interpersonal relationships, and traditional ethical habits.
The rapid expansion of the number and scale of private enterprises has led to the rapid growth of the power of private capital.
The royal consortium will also expand by orders of magnitude with the technological revolution.
As for the impact of administrative divisions and central government office reforms, they can certainly alleviate the current management dilemma.
This kind of reform and adjustment is also necessary, otherwise once the dividends of technology and war fade, the court may quickly collapse.
Increasing management levels will inevitably reduce actual management efficiency.
In the process of transmitting the will of the top decision-makers to the lower levels, it will inevitably attenuate as the administrative level increases.
However, most of the places where management levels were added were originally overseas vassal states, which were highly autonomous places. The court's control over the local areas could only be regarded as "soft".
After being converted into a province, the court's control over the local area became rigid and coercive.
Even if a large domain-level management organization is added, the imperial court's control over overseas provinces will definitely still exceed that of the original vassal state era.
At the same time, the local provinces of the Ming Dynasty will still remain under direct jurisdiction, and their control will not decline on a large scale.
The imperial court's control over the local area remains unchanged, but its control over overseas areas is increasing. Taken together, its power is also rising.
The power of the Ming Dynasty naturally increased on a large scale.
However, private capital is growing by leaps and bounds, and the royal consortium is also growing by leaps and bounds. The growth rate must far exceed the growth of the court's power.
Comprehensive comparison shows that the power of the imperial court will show an obvious decline trend compared to that of the private sector and the royal family.
If things go on like this, the more powerful royal family will try to completely suppress the court, and the bureaucracy will accelerate its shift towards private capital.
The stable posture among the court, the royal family, and private capital will gradually become unbalanced.
Zhu Jingyuan's report or paper was conceived intermittently, written intermittently, and sent to Zhu Jianyan intermittently.
This entire process lasted over a year.
When Zhu Jingyuan wrote his final judgment, it was already August of the sixth year of Kang'an.
Zhu Jingyuan also really discovered a huge enough problem.
The excessive expansion of royal power may not be a good thing for the emperor.
The power of the imperial court continued to weaken, which was not necessarily a good thing for the emperor.
The Ming Emperor's ruling power came from three aspects, not just one.
If the Ming Emperor was just the patriarch of the royal family, his control over the royal family would be far lower than it is now.
If there were no mammoth royal family and imperial estate, the emperor would also be overwhelmed by the bureaucracy.
The emperor relied on the bureaucracy to check and balance the royal family, and the emperor relied on the royal family to check and balance the bureaucracy.
As industry and commerce continue to develop by leaps and bounds, the connections between private capital and the bureaucracy will definitely become closer and closer, and the most direct result will be corruption and the decline of governance capabilities.
and, most importantly, the divergence of bureaucratic interests from those of the emperor.
When the bureaucracy is completely integrated with private capital, and when the bureaucracy fully represents the interests of private capital, it will no longer obey the emperor's will as a matter of course. At that time, they should demand the establishment of a parliament to limit the imperial power.
At that time, the emperor will have no choice but to fully support the royal family, which will inevitably lead to the emperor's control over the royal family being reduced, which will also aggravate the corruption of royal members and intensify conflicts within the royal family in advance...
Therefore, this process must be controlled, the power of the court and the bureaucracy must be strengthened.
Create a confrontation between the bureaucracy and private capital, and strictly control the degree of reconciliation between the two...
Maintain a balance among the royal family, the court, and private capital as much as possible.
