This is the law of historical cycles and a question of the longevity of a dynasty.
Even counting from Emperor Shizu's reconstruction of the Ming Dynasty, the New Ming Dynasty has existed for two hundred years now.
It has reached the middle and late stages of the dynasty.
This kind of question is relatively sensitive. If it is an ordinary prince, even if he dares to answer it, he will probably have concerns.
Worried about being considered immature at best, and worrying about upsetting his father at worst.
Compared with them, Judy Lan's biggest advantage is that she has fewer worries.
Judy Lan is also more optimistic:
"The world of the Ming Dynasty has entered a stable state, and it will remain stable for a long time in the future. It is an unprecedented prosperous era in the true sense.
"For more than 40 years since the end of the World War, the total population of Ming Dynasty has maintained a rapid growth rate.
“In the next few decades, it will continue to grow at a rapid rate.
"The total population of the world is now less than three billion.
“This amount is still far from the upper limit of land carrying capacity in the world.
"Even if we evaluate it based on the current level of science and technology and the current living standards of the people, the entire world's land can still support a population of 10 billion.
“If each woman gives birth to five children in the future, it will take 60 years to reach 10 billion.
"And in the next sixty years, our technological development will not stop.
"Our ability to obtain food and daily necessities will continue to increase.
"Sixty years later, when the population really reaches 10 billion, the carrying capacity of the land may have exceeded 20 billion.
"So I think there is no need to worry about population issues now.
"As for the dynastic periodic law of the classical era, I think there is no need to pay too much attention to it now.
"Because, Father, you are the actual founding king.
"The Ming Dynasty, which truly unified the world, has just been established in your hands. It is now in a prosperous state..."
After hearing this, Zhu Jingyuan glanced at Judy Lan.
From the perspective of unifying the world on a larger scale, it is indeed not wrong to say that he is the de facto pioneer.
But the foundation of the new Ming Dynasty was laid by Emperor Shizu two hundred years ago.
Counting from Emperor Shizu, there are exactly six generations of emperors to his father's generation.
Like Qin Shihuang, he is a "remnant of the Sixth Generation of Fen".
Although this sentence sounds more powerful, it is not a good word for the "King of Creation".
Curse the emperor's son to be the second emperor of Qin, and curse the second son of the new dynasty to his death?
Most of the courtiers and literati of the Ming Dynasty can relate to this sentence, but no one has ever said it publicly.
Zhu Jingyuan waved his hand gently and said:
"But counting from Emperor Taizu Gao, the Ming Dynasty is already nearly five hundred years old.
"Even counting from the time Emperor Guangwu re-established the country, it is still more than two hundred years old.
"After all, the basic framework of this imperial court was built back then, and it is still different from the real new dynasty."
Judy Lan savored the meaning of her father's words and felt that her father didn't mind being regarded as a pioneer.
This is also a matter of course. He has indeed unified the world on a larger scale.
From the perspective of the current world, the inheritance of my old Zhu family as monarchs was founded by Emperor Taizu Gao.
But after that, all monarchs still ruled only the local area and surrounding areas.
It wasn't until his father that he truly unified the world.
Therefore, his father can be regarded as the "first appointed king" at a new level.
so--
His old man's temple name a hundred years later will not only be called his ancestor but not his clan.
It could even be Gaozu!
Taizu was the first to establish the foundation, and Gaozu was the first to receive the destiny.
However, my father gave a negative evaluation to the new court's statement.
I don’t know if my father is being modest, or if he really feels that the current Ming Dynasty is not a new dynasty.
Other princes may continue to speculate on Zhu Jingyuan's mentality.
Judy Lan directly continued to insist on her own opinion:
"Father, under your governance, the Ming Dynasty has achieved another comprehensive renovation and reconstruction.
"The scale and scope are even greater than those of Emperor Guangwu's re-creation of the world.
"In the classical era, when a new dynasty was established, from the perspective of the central court, of course there was a new dynasty and a new atmosphere.
“But from the perspective of social assets and middle-level governance groups, this new atmosphere is only partially new.
“A large part of the things will be directly inherited from within the old dynasty.
"For example, in the process of deciding the mission of the world, the original group of scholar-bureaucrats were directly integrated into the process.
"Most of the middle-level and lower-level managers in the new dynasty are likely to be the same people as before.
"It's just that the monarch has powerful armed forces and can force the scholar-bureaucrats to cooperate with the court, transfer benefits and improve efficiency.
"So the traditional scholar-bureaucrats naturally hate generals and even soldiers.
"Once they gradually gain the right to participate in decision-making in the new court, they will instinctively suppress the status of generals and soldiers and improve the status of traditional literati.
"At the same time, if the classical dynasty remains peaceful for a long time, the overall combat capability of the imperial army will continue to decline.
"Over time, the monarch became unable to control the scholar-bureaucrats, and thus became unable to control the local area.
"The Ming Dynasty's military system was basically not influenced by literati.
"Some of the military generals of the Ming Dynasty came from civilian students in the military academy, and some came from the traditional aristocratic families of the Ming Dynasty.
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"Needless to say, civilian generals who were born in military academies.
"In the Ming Dynasty, the title of a traditional aristocrat was subject to inheritance tests, so he received sufficient military training and education from an early age.
"Even if corruption cannot be completely avoided, military capabilities will not be lacking.
"In the past few decades, the Ming Dynasty has fought two consecutive wars involving tens of millions of people, and the army itself is still extremely powerful.
"Military concepts and military equipment have also completed two rounds of comprehensive innovation in the past few decades.
"The traditional army, in which each service branch fought in isolation, was transformed into a new army of mechanized air-ground coordinated operations, and it quickly entered the guidance era.
"Before the outbreak of the Atlantic-Spanish War, the Ming Dynasty doubled its army on a large scale, and after the war, it massively reduced its army by half.
"During this process, the Ming army just completed a comprehensive round of replacement and reshaping.
"So Ming's military system can be considered new.
"Father established the system of nine ministers and large regions, and also greatly adjusted the criminal law, trial, and cultural management systems.
"In the past forty years, the territory of the Ming Dynasty has tripled, and the number of officials has also more than tripled.
"Under the impact of a large number of new people, the old bureaucracy and interpersonal system were naturally broken down and rebuilt.
"So the Ming Dynasty's political and bureaucratic systems can be considered new.
"Under the direct guidance of my father, the technologies of Ming Dynasty's old industries such as steel, shipbuilding, military, and machinery were completely upgraded.
“There has been another increase in scale that exceeds an order of magnitude.
“New technologies and industries such as aviation, petrochemicals, semiconductors, and mobile communications have been developed and expanded rapidly.
"It has reached or even exceeded the scale and status of previous traditional industries.
"The entry of a large number of new members also naturally caused the entire economic system to be rebuilt twice.
"So the current economic system of the Ming Dynasty can also be considered new.
"Under my father's continuous rule over the past forty years, at least two rounds of comprehensive transformation and upgrades have been completed.
"Now the proportion of old elements in our new system of the Ming Dynasty will actually be lower than that of the new dynasty in the classical era.
"The Ming Dynasty is now a de facto new imperial court..."
Zhu Jingyuan had slightly different thoughts in mind regarding Zhu Dilan's analysis, but he did not say them out in the end.
He just glanced at Judy Lan again and brought the topic back to the direction he really wanted:
"Stop talking about him.
"I'd like to know what you think of the periodic collapse of classical dynasties.
"Is there any plan on how to prevent this kind of periodic collapse?"
Zhu Zhulan did not need to think about this issue on the spot, because this was a question that most princes had already thought about countless times:
"I think there are two main factors that lead to the periodic collapse of the dynasty.
“One is that the land carrying capacity is limited.
“The rate of productivity growth in the classical era was slow and could not keep up with the natural growth rate of the population in the prosperous age.
“But now the speed of technological development has increased significantly, so land carrying capacity is no longer the most important issue.
"At the very least, it will significantly delay the arrival of the limit of carrying capacity.
"Another factor is the declining ability of the imperial court to control resources and population.
"This question has two most important aspects.
“The first is the problem of system construction, there is no well-planned resource recycling system.
"Since the Zhou Dynasty, in most classical dynasties, since the founding of the country, the flow of production resources has been continuous from top to bottom.
“Without a sustainable production resource recycling mechanism, it is certainly impossible to maintain the normal operation of this system forever.
"This problem has been basically solved institutionally by His Majesty Emperor Shizu and you, the Emperor Father.
"The second is the corruption problem in the management system, which leads to the decline in overall management efficiency and a series of bad problems caused by it.
"No matter how perfect the imperial system is in theory, it must have the personnel and institutions to implement it.
“When the management efficiency of the organization itself declines, good systems may have the opposite effect.
“If disaster relief is not effective, victims may become refugees.
“If news spreads that relief supplies have been embezzled, it may even turn the refugees into rebellion.
"I feel that corruption cannot be completely avoided objectively.
“People who hold power will naturally tend to place people they are familiar with in important places where they can influence them.
"Maybe some people's original intention is not to be corrupt, but they feel that people they know well are more reliable.
“But over time, a thicker and thicker network of human connections will be formed.
“Putting favors and relationships over practical matters is corruption.
"As the dynastic system continues to function for longer, the breadth and depth of corruption will continue to increase.
"Just like a complex machine, after running continuously for a long time, it will naturally accumulate various wear and dirt.
"So it should be like maintaining control over the population and resources through the production resource recycling system.
"Establish a system of daily monitoring, regular maintenance, and regular overhaul similar to machine management, and strive to curb and clean up the corruption that continues to grow."
Zhu Jingyuan heard this and asked directly:
"Don't just talk empty words, talk about detailed methods, how to monitor, how to inspect, how to overhaul."
Judy Lan continued:
"Starting from the entrance examination method, the extended official daily function examination system, coupled with the now fully rolled out Internet office system.
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"All daily affairs must be recorded in the system and can be queried.
"These systems can be regarded as daily monitoring.
"But daily monitoring cannot directly solve the exposed problems. It can only track down
The basis for tracing the time and cause of the problem.
“So there must be a regular maintenance system.
"Including the full implementation of the system of official transfer, which requires a test every three years, a maximum of two terms in one place, and a system that requires transfer to another place.
"In addition, there are regular inspections by supervisory agencies such as the censor, a restriction system on promotions of honorary ranks, and other systems...
"There is also practical training for princes, princes, princes, princes, and descendants of nobles. It is also an additional supervision system with staggered inspection periods.
“These systems can be regarded as regular maintenance systems.
"But this kind of routine, regular maintenance cannot solve the deep-seated problems that have accumulated over a long period of time.
“As the organization runs longer, the laziness of the personnel and the human relationship system will continue to grow slowly.
"Corruption in institutions and personnel will spread, the efficiency of the institution itself will decline, and supervision will gradually become a mere formality.
“So we need to have a system that truly conducts comprehensive overhauls on a regular basis.
"When descendants inherit the throne, it is the practice for central court officials to synchronize large-scale replacements.
"This led to a comprehensive replacement of the top ruling group in the imperial court, and by the way, a large-scale replacement of middle-level officials.
"My son feels that this tradition can be regarded as the beginning of a major overhaul.
“But it’s still just a beginning, far from a truly comprehensive and thorough overhaul.
“For machines, overhaul usually means large-scale dismantling, which means the machine itself must be completely shut down.
"But of course the imperial court cannot be completely shut down.
“Like many machines that cannot be shut down, we can only replace them with spare machines for overhaul.
“At least two sets of management systems can be established to keep the personnel in the two systems relatively isolated, and even create a certain degree of hostility.
"Let the two systems supervise each other, and regularly replace each other to take turns in power. After they step down, comprehensive verification will be completely disrupted.
“However, this is still only comprehensive and not thorough.
“Even if all the officials have been replaced, the specific executors of the policy at the lowest level are still there.
"According to what I learned during the training, the number of clerks far exceeds the number of officials.
"The vast majority of civil servants do not have the opportunity to become officials, and most of them will work in several positions until retirement.
"At the same time, most of the grassroots officials are locals working locally.
"Those who work at the grassroots level are often the ones who are corrupt in government affairs.
“So the staff system must also be comprehensively reformed.
"First, local non-grassroots staff, as well as all overseas staff, are required to serve in remote locations just like officials.
"Grassroots officials need to consider the accent of the people. Officials from other places may not be able to understand the local people's words.
“I’m also not familiar with various local customs and taboos, so simply adapting will take a long time.
"Non-level officials do not need to have direct contact with the people. People who immigrate overseas can generally speak Mandarin, so there is no need to consider language issues.
"Second, for local grassroots officials, first implement a regular and proportional compulsory elimination system.
"No matter what the evaluation is, they must be eliminated directly after a certain period of service, because their evaluation may not be true.
"Those with excellent evaluations can choose to be transferred to another government office, or they can resign at the same time as those with poor evaluations.
"Officials with excellent evaluations can apply for appointment again after retiring from office for a certain number of years.
“This will prevent the long-term stability of grassroots agency staff and make grassroots service staff constantly replaced.
"It will also make people who have no intention of working in other places not choose to become officials from the beginning.
"There are enough scholars in the Ming Dynasty. After weeding out those who are unwilling to go to other places, we should still be able to recruit enough office workers.
"The third is to gradually implement the off-site appointment system for local grassroots officials.
"Primary education in the Ming Dynasty is free, and those who cannot speak Mandarin are basically old people.
, the number will continue to decrease.
"More and more people who actually come to the government office to do business will be able to speak Mandarin. With this process, grassroots officials can gradually work in different places."
