Luo Yashan came specifically to see Zhu Jingyuan. In addition to discussing the oil business and caring about the future policy changes of the vassal state, the more urgent matter was Zhu Jingyuan's reform measures.
This matter is the same for all foreign vassal states, and it is reasonable to wait until the monarchs of several vassal states have arrived.
Even if it was unreasonable, Luo Yashan did not dare to be serious with Zhu Jingyuan. Zhu Jingyuan said that he would wait until several princes arrived before talking, so he could only wait patiently for two days.
So Luo Yashan and Zhu Jingyuan put aside their official duties for the time being and started chatting about daily life.
At noon, Zhu Jingyuan asked Luo Feiya to stay with all his family members. They both had a meal together, and then in the afternoon, Luo Yashan and his family went back to rest.
In the next two days, the kings of the other four vassal states also rushed to Xi'an by plane.
After several monarchs arrived, they all paid a private visit first, said hello and reported, and at the same time gave away the gifts they had brought.
It is very different from the gifts from Mount Luo Ya. The gifts they bring are very traditional.
There is no real money, just some antiques, calligraphy and paintings, jade, sculptures, and finally a few orchids...
If the target is an ordinary official, the value of the gifts they give is actually not low, and most ordinary officials will not dare to accept it.
But when it comes to Zhu Jingyuan, the richest prince, it really can only be regarded as a trivial matter.
It was impossible for Zhu Jingyuan to give them any direct care for this little thing.
Zhu Jingyuan had no interest in these things, but he accepted them without any psychological pressure.
In order to make them feel at ease, Zhu Jingyuan also had to accept it.
It's just that Zhu Jingyuan is currently in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty cannot directly raise slaves, so the Hu Ji sent to them have been assigned the status of the Great Food Kingdom.
After the informal meeting, they were allowed to rest for a day or two before Zhu Jingyuan formally received them in the side hall of the palace.
After the two parties saluted and said hello, Zhu Jingyuan directly asked:
"I can more or less guess the purpose of your coming to Xi'an, but in order to avoid misunderstanding, you should tell me first.
"As the saying goes, a guest from afar is the longest. The Duke of Egypt has the longest journey, so let's talk about it first."
During the armistice negotiations of the world war, the Duke of Egypt had dealt with Zhu Jingyuan and was more familiar with Zhu Jingyuan than anyone else.
Now when I heard Zhu Jingyuan point it out, he immediately smiled and said he was polite, but he just said the question directly:
"Returning to Your Highness, I just want to know how many policies currently implemented in other Ming vassals, including the general education examination certificate system, the government-owned consortium system, etc., should be implemented in foreign vassals like us."
Zhu Jingyuan nodded slightly after hearing this, and then looked at the other monarchs:
"You all have the same intention here, right?"
Several monarchs immediately nodded in agreement, and added a few details by the way, but these were all matters that Zhu Jingyuan had been busy with in the past few years.
This proved that Zhu Jingyuan's guess was correct, so Zhu Jingyuan stopped writing and explained his plan directly:
“Relatively speaking, the five countries of Xianbei, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Khiva, and Persia were in an intermediate position in the vassal system of the Ming Dynasty.
“They are somewhere in the middle between the Black Nobles of Mozhou and North Korea, closer to the Ming people than the Taixi people, and Khiva and Kazakhs are even closer.
"The latest reform policy implemented by the Ming Dynasty in the recent vassal states currently has no plans to be implemented within the black noble group, but it is necessary to implement it in the five countries including Xianbei.
"However, the five countries are foreign vassals after all, so the implementation of these policies within the five countries cannot be exactly the same as in the vassal states that are close to the Ming Dynasty.
"To be specific, the general education examination certificate system will only be open to people with more than half of the Ming Dynasty ancestry in the five countries.
"Well, for example, the Duke of Xianbei, his mother is from the Ming Dynasty, he himself has half of the Ming Dynasty blood, his wife is also from the Ming Dynasty, and his children have three-quarters of the Ming Dynasty blood.
"So the Duke of Xianbei and his children can take the exam.
“But it’s not possible for the Duke of Egypt at the moment because the Duke of Egypt is an Albanian.
"If the child of the Duke of Egypt marries a Ming Dynasty woman, then their two children will be able to take the exam."
The original purpose of Zhu Jingyuan's general education examination certificate was to integrate ethnic groups whose bloodline was close to that of the Ming Dynasty people.
But this strategy also works for biracial people.
Which ethnic group do the mixed descendants of the two ethnic groups belong to? There are different habits in different cultural traditions.
For example, the "one drop of blood" principle in the United States.
The one drop of blood principle was originally a law in the slavery era and was used to distinguish whether a person was a slave of the Mexican people.
As long as there is a drop of blood from an Indian slave, that person is no longer a pure white person and may become a slave.
The definition of a white person is someone who "cannot trace other blood sources".
Young Mexican slave women with white mixed-race appearance were a hot commodity in the slave market at that time.
The original "One Drop of Blood" was a discriminatory law imposed by white people against Mexicans, but it was used in reverse in later generations and became a means for other ethnic groups to win over mixed-race groups.
As long as there are ancestors with other skin colors in their ancestors, they can join the group with the corresponding skin color.
You can only be considered white if all the ancestors you can find are white.
The fertility rate of white people is already low, and those who have mixed blood are not considered white, so the white population is even more precarious.
Correspondingly, "Hispanics" in the United States are not considered white.
But "Hispanic" is not "Spanish", and Spaniards can be white.
Hispanics in the United States actually refer to Latin Americans, the mixed race of the former Spanish colonies in Latin America.
Most of the paternal lines can be traced back to the Spanish, but many of the maternal lines have Yin and Mo people.
Most Latin Americans are of mixed race, and are certainly not considered white under the One Blood Principle.
But can pure Spaniards from Spain, or descendants of Hispanics who lived in Latin America a few generations ago but have no mixed blood in their ancestors, be able to integrate into the white American community?
Of course it is possible, but it may not be very smooth.
In reality, the basis for ethnic classification is not only bloodline and unchangeable appearance, but also cultural identity.
The division of ethnic groups in the United States in later generations actually mainly depends on self-perception. People with no obvious differences in image may be classified as that ethnic group when they are questioned.
The living habits of most people of Spanish descent in Latin America, and even the native Spaniards, Italians and other Thais living along the Great Qin Sea, are quite different from the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon people in the north.
"White" in today's world can be regarded as a somewhat "discriminatory" term. It was originally used to refer to white people in the traditional sense such as northern Lucians and the British.
The images of many of them who come from areas with little sunshine are really pale to the people of Ming Dynasty.
The people of the Ming Dynasty felt that they were "as white as ghosts", and their appearance was obviously different from that of the people of the Ming Dynasty. The blond hair and blue eyes were the typical ghost images, so they were once called white ghosts.
Later, the people of the Ming Dynasty learned that they were the same kind as the Italians and Spaniards in the south, so they collectively referred to them as white people.
Based on this background, the Spaniards and Italians in this world do not like to be called white people. Most of the time, they would rather pretend to be cannibals, barbarians, and Tatars.
In Zhu Jingyuan's view, although the ethnic policies of Emperor Shizu of the Ming Dynasty were meaningful, they were obviously too strong.
The people of Ming Dynasty also followed the "one drop of blood" principle to a certain extent.
As long as you are mixed with blood from other ethnic groups, you cannot write Ming people in your household registration.
People whose household registration is from the Ming Dynasty have never mixed with other ethnic groups since the Renwu Dynasty.
However, unlike the United States, a drop of blood from the Ming Dynasty is not just for the people of the Ming Dynasty, but also for most ethnic groups.
The household registration of Ming Dynasty directly includes the classification of "mixed blood".
Mixtures of Ming people and foreigners are not considered Ming people, nor are they completely foreigners.
Especially for a mixed-race child whose father is from the Ming Dynasty and who has lived among the Ming Dynasty since childhood, it is impossible for his living habits and self-perception to deviate to other races for the time being.
However, household registration also prevents them from integrating into the Ming Dynasty people.
In Zhu Jingyuan's view, a drop of ink is enough, and a drop of blood is really unnecessary.
The function of a drop of ink is to avoid contamination, but the function of a drop of blood is to push the center out.
So Zhu Jingyuan is ready to slowly change this strategy.
For people who have more than half of the Ming Dynasty ancestry and who are completely Ming people in terms of cultural identity, they can be included in the Ming people group through the general education examination certificate system.
The General Education Examination Certificate assesses cultural background and self-awareness.
After Zhu Jingyuan said this, Luo Yashan and other five foreign monarchs all relaxed a little, and then they all felt that this was indeed the case.
Most of them can imagine the role of Zhu Jingyuan's general education examination certificate system.
If this system is implemented without restriction in their vassal country, it is estimated that in ten or twenty years, the entire middle and upper class of the vassal country will all become Ming people.
In fact, they themselves do not care whether others can become Ming people, and they even hope that they can become Ming people themselves.
But all the citizens of this country have become Ming people, so there is no need for the existence of this vassal state.
If the general education examination certificate system is fully implemented in their territory, it can even be regarded as a countdown to the withdrawal of the feudal vassal.
But they all also know that people from the Ming Dynasty obviously have a high level of mysophobia, and not everyone can be a person from the Ming Dynasty.
Even among Tatars from other countries, even those who can be confirmed to be Mongolians whose ancestors migrated from the territory of the Ming Dynasty find it extremely difficult to obtain the identity of a Ming Dynasty citizen.
The strictest Ming Dynasty identity is based on the triple determination of region, bloodline, and culture...
Now Zhu Jingyuan can be completely understood by mixed-race people, and can even be regarded as very "enlightened".
The key is that with this strategy of only having mixed blood, most people who may never have the chance to mix with Ming people will become guaranteed citizens of these vassals.
As long as these citizens are still there, their status as kings will most likely be retained.
However, within this category, the identities of some groups remain vague.
So after hesitating for a few seconds, the Kazakh prince asked the question he had to ask:
"I dare to ask Your Highness, the Mongols in our territory are definitely descendants of the Mongols who once lived in the Ming Dynasty, and are close relatives of the Mongols. How do we calculate the ratio of their Ming ancestry?"
The Mongols are nomadic people, and their bloodline is inherently mixed. There are already a large number of Mongolians in Kazakhstan, and even the entire ethnic group can be regarded as Mongolians in a broad sense.
At the same time, the Mongols are also part of the Ming Dynasty.
So can all Kazakhs be considered to have Ming ancestry?
Zhu Jingyuan also considered this issue carefully.
Zhu Jingyuan initially planned to regard these Mongolians as Ming people.
But after careful consideration, I found that I couldn't do this.
That would result in a child from a marriage between a Kazakh Mongolian and a Mexican Spaniard having a chance to be half Ming ancestry.
That is really outrageous. The key is that there is no way to control and verify it.
So Zhu Jingyuan’s final conclusion is:
“The identity and ancestry of Ming people are determined based on the household registration information currently available in the Ming court.
"The Mongols in Kazakhstan are Kazakhs, not Ming people."
At this time, the princes of Kazakhstan, Khiva, and Xianbei all breathed a sigh of relief. There were too many Mongols in their territory.
If these people are regarded as having the blood of Ming people, then the subsequent management will inevitably be chaotic.
Zhu Jingyuan paused for a moment. Seeing that the monarchs had no new questions, he continued to explain the follow-up plan:
“Then there is the system for government-owned manufacturers. Of course, we cannot directly copy the system of the local provinces of the Ming Dynasty.
"A vassal state is a vassal state after all, and the internal relationship between a vassal state and the Ming Dynasty is actually that the monarch of the vassal state is loyal to His Majesty the Ming Emperor and becomes his vassal and tribute.
“This may not even involve the court, but only the personal relationship between the royal family and the monarch.
“So it is unreasonable to set up government-owned manufacturers owned by the imperial court in each vassal state.
“My idea is to set it up with reference to the relationship between the vassal state and the Ming Dynasty.
“The government-run manufacturers in the vassal state are not owned by the yamen at all levels of the vassal state, nor are they managed by these yamen.
"It was jointly funded and established by the monarch of the vassal state and His Majesty the Ming Emperor. They jointly hold the shares of the manufacturer and enjoy profit dividends.
“The Emperor of Ming Dynasty was responsible for formulating strategic directions, and the monarch of the vassal state was responsible for actual daily operations and management.
“This form of vassal government-owned manufacturer is actually a local joint venture company of the Ming royal family consortium.
“Manufacturers in the domain need to cooperate with the royal consortium in strategic layout, but all daily internal affairs are decided by the domain itself.
"You monarchs are the bosses of this kind of joint venture company. What do you think?"
The five kings had different expressions after hearing this.
The kings of Kazakhstan, Khiva, and Persia all showed expressions of surprise from the bottom of their hearts.
They were actually very worried. The Ming Dynasty forced them to set up government-run manufacturers within the territory of the vassal state. The key was to set up manufacturers that were managed and operated by the court of their vassal state.
The authority of these vassal kings was not strong enough, and the ministers below were deeply influenced by Ming capital and bureaucracy.
If government-run manufacturers are established again, it will further strengthen the power of the ministers and continue to weaken the authority of their monarchs.
They certainly don't want that outcome, if they can help it.
At the same time, the Ming Dynasty's royal consortium was deeply yearned and envied by most monarchs around the world.
Now the Emperor of Ming Dynasty led them to engage in the same business, and these monarchs were surprised.
The key is that once you have a consortium under your control, your authority in your own country will also be enhanced.
But Luo Yashan was a little undecided and always felt that there was something wrong with it.
Mu Yi, the Duke of Egypt, frowned quickly, but he soon felt relieved after frowning.
As the monarch of the vassal state, he and His Majesty the Ming Emperor jointly established a large-scale manufacturer belonging to the vassal monarch. While strengthening his authority as the vassal monarch, it is likely to deepen the degree of separation from the local bureaucracy and private capital.
Instead of strengthening the relationship between the Ming court and the vassal court, but strengthening the relationship between the vassal monarch and His Majesty the Ming Emperor, the status and rights of the vassal monarch would be more dependent on the support and recognition of the Ming Emperor.
However, this kind of direct cooperation can also deepen one's bond with the Ming Dynasty royal family.
In the future, if the bureaucracy and capital in the vassal state confront itself, if it cannot be solved by itself, it will have more reasons to directly ask the Ming Emperor for help.
The Ming Emperor's skill and credibility in helping the vassal countries suppress rebellions and stabilize the situation are very convincing.
Whether it was before Chongzhen or after the Renwu Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty said it would not annex, it really would not be annexed, and counterinsurgency was really just counterinsurgency.
In the future, as long as the Ming Dynasty royal family does not fall, my identity will be as stable as Mount Tai. Even if the country completely collapses, my family will still be the monarch of the vassal state after re-establishing order.
Although there are advantages and disadvantages in general, it is completely unrealistic to betray the Ming Dynasty and become independent, so the disadvantages are meaningless. It can be considered that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The key is that there is no way to refuse.
