The monarchs of the five northwest vassal states discussed and thought about it for a few days, and then met Zhu Jingyuan together again.
This time we mainly discuss the communication methods and details in the subsequent reform.
According to Zhu Jingyuan's request, each of the five vassal states organized several bureaucrats and family relatives to set up an office in Xi'an.
Responsible for exchanging information with Zhu Jingyuan at any time, uploading local conditions, and issuing the latest orders.
Then the monarchs of the five countries set off back to their homeland one after another.
Zhu Jingyuan generally arranged the reform direction of the five foreign vassals in the northwest, and took the initiative to convene the chief envoys of the provinces under his supervision to come to Xi'an for a meeting.
The administrative officials from several provinces did not dare to neglect, and immediately put down their work and flew to Xi'an.
After the chief envoys from all provinces arrived, Zhu Jingyuan summoned them in the main hall of the palace.
Zhu Jingyuan's meeting with the five vassal states was semi-formal, and the relationship focused on the relationship between the emperor and the vassal monarchs.
When facing the chief envoys of each province, it is a completely formal government meeting.
Zhu Jingyuan no longer needed to consult and discuss, and directly assigned the work to each chief envoy one by one with the manuscript.
After all, the northwest provinces belong to the mainland, and of course their importance exceeds that of foreign vassals.
Of course, the management system must be as localized as possible.
However, after all, they are northwest border provinces with very complex local cultural traditions, so the specific implementation plan of the reform cannot completely copy the plan in the core areas.
First of all, the general education examination certificate system must be fully implemented, but it cannot be issued directly like in core areas.
Although after Emperor Shizu's reforms in his later years, the intricate native and mixed-race ethnic groups in the northwest were considered "Ming people" in name and law.
They all have the identity and household registration of the Ming Dynasty.
But in fact, some people in remote areas may not even speak Daming Yayan.
Therefore, you must pass the exam before the local exam certificate is issued.
Secondly, government-run factories at all levels of government must also be fully constructed, focusing on housing, schools, and hospitals.
But compared with the focus on housing in the core area, more emphasis should be placed on schools and urbanization here.
Similar to the Five Northwest Territories, large cities should be built intensively in the northwest provinces.
Concentrate the dispersed population as much as possible and cooperate with a public education system that is infinitely close to compulsory education.
Implement unified and fully understood basic education for local youth.
After receiving basic education, teenagers will be sent directly to work in government-run factories after being disrupted.
Then, the ticket and purchase restriction system must also be put on the agenda.
At the same time, we proactively build relatively low-standard but sufficient urban affordable housing to quickly complete comprehensive urbanization.
Finally, the local population will be relocated appropriately based on the conditions of each province.
In addition to important strategic strongholds and important transportation arteries, other residential areas in places with harsh natural environments have moved as much as possible to places with more suitable environments.
Large cities that are reserved and built intensively in each province should also be planned in a centralized and unified manner, and should be located near key transportation lines as much as possible.
For example, the line starts from Xi'an through the Hexi Corridor to Yili.
The key railways and highways connecting the core areas of the Ming Dynasty to the Northwest Inner Road are basically on this line.
The large cities in the northwest are mainly concentrated on this line.
After Zhu Jingyuan finished stating the main requirements, he asked the officials below for their opinions and thoughts.
After several minutes of deliberation, several officials came out to speak.
Mainly focusing on immigration and urban construction planning, it expresses political, economic and strategic concerns after this reform.
Among them, the most comprehensive statement was made by the Chief Envoy of the Western Regions:
“Most areas in the northwest are relatively poor to begin with, and local financial resources are insufficient to focus on building large cities.
“While concentrating on the construction of large cities, it is likely that a large number of middle- and lower-level administrative districts will be merged, which will not only be a lot of huge expenses, but also cause a lot of administrative pressure.
“Ordinary local residents are originally nomadic people and may not be willing to leave the place where they have lived for generations and change their original way of life that has lasted for hundreds of years.
“Centralizing dispersed residents is certainly easier to manage, but it also means a reduction in local resistance.
"In the future, if another war involving the mainland breaks out, key residential areas on key transportation lines will be lost, and large areas of open land will be lost at the same time..."
After Zhu Jingyuan listened patiently, he tried to explain and appease several chief envoys:
“It is because the northwest region is relatively poor that it is necessary to focus on building large cities.
“Only by centralizing the dispersed population can we provide better social services and management at a lower average unit price.
“Let’s just talk about the most basic transportation network, power supply, and material supply.
“On one side is an area of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, scattered with thousands of large and small residential areas.
“On one side are a few concentrated cities with a population of hundreds of thousands.
“The road construction and maintenance costs required to connect all residential areas in the former are definitely much higher than connecting several cities and building complete ring roads at the same time.
“The standard and utilization rate of roads connecting thousands of residential areas are definitely significantly lower than urban connections and ring roads.
“Schools, hospitals, businesses, restaurants and other living facilities are actually the same.
“Building one primary school in each of thousands of residential areas is definitely cheaper and more effective than building several large primary schools in the city.
“In other words, urban and social management also has scale effects.
“Cities are of course difficult to manage if they are very large, but they can certainly provide better services at the same cost.
“So looking at it conversely, only relatively wealthy places are suitable for large-scale construction of small and medium-sized towns, and only large-scale small and medium-sized towns will appear in the industrial era.
"This principle is of course very simple, and I think you all should be able to understand it.
“But the more critical issue is to avoid an unreasonable surge in the cost of living due to the rapid concentration of population while conducting large-scale urbanization.
“For example, hundreds of thousands of people are concentrated in a city within a few years.
“The existing housing stock in this city is definitely not enough, and it is impossible to provide housing to all residents at the same time.
“So, among these new immigrants, if they want to get their own housing, they have to pay much higher than the market price.
“This money is not about buying a home, it’s about out-competing other people.
“Similar situations will also occur in schools and hospitals, and those who want to obtain the right to use them have to spend more money.
“So while carrying out large-scale urbanization in relatively poor areas, government offices at all levels must strictly implement the ticket and purchase restriction systems.
“At the same time, the speed of urbanization must be reasonably controlled and infrastructure of an appropriate scale must be provided simultaneously as much as possible.
“As for the cost of urban construction, it is actually not too high.
“Because the local area is relatively poor, workers for urban construction can be hired at relatively low prices.
“This part of the investment can be provided by yamen at all levels, the central court, the royal family consortium, the Ming Dynasty consortium, etc. through various methods such as investment, loans, and appropriations.
“Relatively low labor costs mean relatively low wages, which is also a driving force for local residents to spontaneously emigrate.
"I will contact and communicate with my father and the central court. In the future, the performance of officials in the northwest provinces will not be evaluated based on population growth rate and fiscal revenue.
“At the same time, the urbanization ratio within the jurisdiction will be used as an important reference data.
“Of course the issue of annexing administrative districts is a problem, but it is the responsibility of you local bureaucrats to solve the problem!
“This part of the difficulty must be overcome, and this is also the key goal of this reform.
“I would like to remind you that you can introduce a tribe and a village into the city at the same time, but you cannot directly use the original tribe and village as a city block.
“The key goal of urbanization is to destroy the original traditional order and interpersonal relationships, so it must not be copied.
“The last thing is about the strategic level, which is actually not a big problem.
“After the dispersed population is concentrated, although there is no possibility of mobilizing local people to fight guerrilla warfare, it actually has the effect of strengthening the wall and clearing the country.
"With the rapid replacement of military equipment, it has become difficult for stragglers to fight effectively. Our Ming Dynasty has never used the strategy of all-out war.
"Cities with concentrated populations will certainly be the focus of the enemy's attack, but they are also our natural defense base, a natural base for recruiting soldiers and supplies.
"As far as the current international situation is concerned, no country has surpassed Ming in terms of overall military strength and military technology. Focusing on decisive battles is obviously a more beneficial direction for Ming.
“On the contrary, when we attack the homeland of other countries, other countries are likely to consider organizing a nationwide guerrilla war.
“So the policy of large-scale urbanization and abandoning remote and harsh areas is not a big problem at the strategic level.
"Do you have any other questions?"
Some of the group of senior bureaucrats looked at each other, some lowered their heads in deep thought, and most of them did not speak immediately.
Zhu Jingyuan's explanation illustrates Zhu Jingyuan's attitude, the attitude of the court and the emperor.
There should be no room for shirk from these new reform policies.
After understanding these situations, even if they still have problems, they can only consider working hard to solve them themselves.
Only when you find problems that you may not be able to solve on your own will you ask for help.
So there was a low-pitched discussion for a while, and then the Chief Envoy of the Snowy Plateau spoke:
"Your Highness... Most of the areas within our snowy region can probably be considered areas with harsh environments as you call them.
“Only a few valleys on the edge can have an altitude of less than three thousand meters.
“The key is that there are no roads into the interior of the plateau that can be regarded as key transportation lines.
“The nearest important transportation lines are all surrounding the entire plateau, and it is difficult to actually climb into the interior of the plateau.
"Are we going to move all the people on the plateau to surrounding areas..."
Zhu Jingyuan thought for a while and then nodded directly and said:
“Not to mention the surrounding areas, we can move to all areas of the entire Ming Dynasty.
“You can go to Tianzhu, Nanyang, Tiannan, Mozhou, and Yinzhou.
"There are only over one million people in your snowy region. You can just move them all to the plains and build a city..."
"If you put it into a province in the Central Plains, it won't be able to make waves at all."
The snowy plateau of most eras was not a place suitable for human habitation.
In Zhu Jingyuan's memory, even in the 21st century, when industrialization was completed, the local population was only more than three million, and in the early days of liberation, there were only about one million people.
It was the 21st century when temperatures were still getting warmer. The snow-covered plateau in the early 19th century was even colder than in later generations.
If the Snowy Plateau is a border area of the Ming Dynasty, then people must remain on the plateau no matter what.
Rely on population to actually control this land while resisting erosion from outside forces.
But the current snow-covered plateau already belongs to the inland areas of the Ming Dynasty.
The Indochina Peninsula in the southeast has been included in the mainland, Persia and Khiva in the west are inland vassal states, and Tianzhu in the south has also completed the reform of withdrawing vassals and establishing provinces for several years.
Now this is no longer a frontier. The Ming Dynasty's defensive front line on land has moved to the Great Qin Sea, Anatolian Plateau, Caucasus Mountains, Caspian Sea, and Ural line.
The snowy plateau can completely become a wasteland in the inland area of Ming Dynasty.
On the other hand, if we have to build high-standard railways and highways on the plateau and supply electricity and industrial products for the more than one million people on the plateau, the unit cost will definitely be sky-high...
So Zhu Jingyuan's idea was to simply move to the plains and build a new city.
As soon as the chief envoy of Xueyu heard Zhu Jingyuan's words, he immediately asked bitterly:
“With a population of more than one million, in the inland areas, the maximum number is the establishment of one prefecture.
"Then the Xueyu Sansi and Yushi and other yamen... still need to be retained?"
Zhu Jingyuan thought for a while and said:
“The Snowy Plateau is so large that it doesn’t seem appropriate to place it directly under any of the surrounding provinces.
“This vast, empty and special area will cause the corresponding province to designate a group of special agencies to take charge of it, thus increasing the complexity of local management out of thin air.
“So the relevant yamen must still be retained, but they must be streamlined as much as possible.
"The hierarchy needs to be streamlined. Instead of setting up a government under the Chief Envoy, a few counties can be directly established, and the Chief Envoy can directly oversee the counties.
“Departments within government agencies at all levels must also be streamlined, and unnecessary agencies can be directly merged.
“After the inland population migrates out, the main tasks of the local government offices are to maintain their existence or cooperate with other agencies such as geological exploration, environmental observation, tourism development, and patrolling.
“In this way, the final size of this provincial-level government office may only be the size of an inland county.
"However, the officials of the relevant yamen do not need to worry. The migration of the population in the snowy area can be regarded as a key examination project for the existing local yamen officials."
The expression and mood of the chief envoy of Xueyu were quite complicated. After this plan was finalized, the province of Xueyu was completely empty.
But there is no need to worry about his future. His Royal Highness Prince Dashi has always been generous to his subordinates.
As long as you cooperate well and complete tasks as required, you shouldn't have to worry about subsequent promotions.
The Chief Envoy of the Snowy Region respectfully agreed and asked for more suggestions:
"My subordinates have taken note of it. In His Highness's opinion, where should we mainly move the population?
"Should we all move to one place? For example, Shaanxi or Sichuan..."
Zhu Jingyuan simply ordered without much thought:
“People are migrating nearby, with people in the east moving to Sichuan and Yunnan, and people in the northeast moving to Shaanxi.
"The ones in the west will go to Tianzhu and the East Mozhou region of the great food country, and the ones in the southeast will go to Tianzhu and Nanyang.
“Moved directly to the local big city and sent directly to the local government-run factory.
“Obviously, the difficulty of this work is how to gather scattered residents and make them leave willingly.
“Don’t just use coercion, you can use the welfare conditions that the factory can provide as a guide.
“If other regions cannot provide good conditions, Dashi Clothing Company and Daming Airlines can shoulder the responsibility.
"We should set up flying propaganda teams to go to various pastoral areas and villages to publicize."
The officials of the Xueyu Chief Envoy nodded seriously again and agreed:
"My subordinate understands."
(End of chapter)
