Chapter 194 Jurchens and Farming
Guo Shi, the son of Wuding Marquis Guo Xun, was sentenced to death by Shuntian Prefecture for raping a civilian girl to death.
Therefore, Wuding Marquis Guo Xun went to Shu Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao, hoping to re-sentence him on the grounds that he should not be punished so severely after meritorious service.
Zhu Houzhao directly asked the cabinet to draft the memorial of Wuding Marquis Guo Xun to Zhang Zilin, the Minister of Dali Temple, who made the decision.
The reason is that the constitution stipulates that Dali Temple has the highest judicial power of the Ming Empire.
Because Zhu Houzhao did not support Guo Xun in intervening in the judiciary, Guo Xun had to find Zhang Zilin, the minister of Dali Temple.
"The law of the Ming Dynasty stipulates that rapists shall be hanged! There is nothing wrong with the case judged by Marquis Wu Ding and Shuntian Prefecture!"
Zhang Zilin, the minister of Dali Temple, has always been upright and did not show any mercy to Guo Xun, the Marquis of Wuding.
"That can't be the case! My son is a noble queen, but he just humiliated a common woman to death. Why should he be executed! This is an arbitrary sentence in Dali Temple!"
Guo Xun slammed the table on the spot and reprimanded angrily.
Zhang Zilin responded unceremoniously: "Dali Temple has the power of final adjudication, which is stipulated in the outline of the Constitution! If Wu Dinghou feels that the trial in Dali Temple is unfair, he can directly report it to His Majesty and ask His Majesty to remove him! But as long as I He is still the Minister of Dali Temple, so this case must be decided like this!”
constitution?
Guo Xun did not expect that Zhang Zilin, the Minister of Dali Temple, would use the "Constitution" to refute him. He thought that by virtue of his status as a distinguished noble, he would force Dali Temple to make concessions and punish his son lightly, but now he suddenly brought out a constitution. He was temporarily Don't know how to fight back.
This was also a change in imperial politics after Zhu Houzhao promulgated the outline of the imperial constitution. Imperial officials began to inadvertently use the constitution as the basis for exercising their power, instead of breaking the rules at will based entirely on the environment at the time.
For example, now, if there is no constitution, Zhang Zilin, the Minister of Dali Temple, cannot prevent Wuding Hou Guo Xun from interfering in criminal cases, because although the authority of the Minister of Dali Temple is to have the final adjudication of all cases, in fact, only the emperor has the final jurisdiction.
The emperor's laziness allowed Dali Temple to have the highest judicial power, while the emperor's diligence allowed Dali Temple to have no power. To put it bluntly, Dali Temple was just an agent of the emperor in criminal trials in the past.
However, now, the constitution clearly stipulates the power of Dali Temple. Therefore, Zhang Zilin, the Minister of Dali Temple, can legitimately prevent Guo Xun from interfering with the judiciary. He is not even afraid of offending the emperor because the emperor can remove him if he is not satisfied, but he cannot deny that he is in office. responsibilities during the period.
Wu Dinghou Guo Xun was disappointed and could only watch his son being executed for breaking the law.
Many court officials, like Zhang Zilin, the Minister of Dali Temple, began to clarify their powers and responsibilities due to the emergence of the Constitution, and used this as a weapon to prevent some powerful people from interfering in government affairs.
Of course, while the civil servants discovered the beauty of the Constitution, they also felt the constraints brought by the Constitution, because the Constitution also involves some rights of ordinary people, so that they cannot overly oppress the people and ignore their demands, such as today There is no way to ban people's right to discuss political affairs.
But they can't let Zhu Houzhao abolish the constitution now.
Because the Constitution was formulated from the very beginning by the imperial court of the fourth-rank and above imperial officials and the third-rank and above foreign officials.
Even nobles, relatives, and royal relatives participated, as well as several squires, elders, and rural people specially invited from the northern and southern Zhili to participate.
It was worked out after more than a year of wrangling.
This constitution is a product that is relatively acceptable to all strata of the empire. Although it is generally beneficial to the court and not beneficial to the people, no one dares to deny him except the emperor Zhu Houzhao who has the ability to deny him.
After all, most of the original signers were bigwigs from the DPRK and China. If you want to abolish the constitution, it is equivalent to going against the entire civil servants, nobles, military generals and even the emperor.
Even if it is to be revised, two-thirds of the representatives who were drafted when the first outline of the constitution was formulated must be persuaded to agree to jointly submit a petition to the emperor, and the emperor must agree to the revision.
After the amendment, the emperor still has a veto power.
Therefore, it is very difficult for civil servants and other powerful people to abolish the constitution or even amend the outline of the constitution.
What's more, Zhu Houzhao still abides by the outline of the constitution.
Others, whether they are civil servants or other dignitaries, can only obey the rules laid down in the outline of the constitution.
Confucian Neo-Confucianism made the Ming Dynasty an empire with strict hierarchical and ethical order. From the emperor to the officials to the common people, from the country to the family, there were all regular hierarchies.
All people obey the rules of sons obeying fathers and ministers obeying kings.
Because of this, in the Confucian Neo-Confucian society, whether it is a dynasty or a family, they can only hope that the monarch will be wise and the head of the family will be wise to make the family and country prosperous. This kind of society has high requirements for the monarch and the head of the family.
Moreover, the monarch or the head of the family therefore has the power to establish rules, but they must abide by the rules themselves. Once they do not abide by the rules themselves, the rules will no longer exist. Now, Zhu Houzhao taught the rulers of the Ming Dynasty to learn to set their own social rules, and no one dared to obey these social rules, including the emperor himself.
Although this social rule still has the shadow of Confucianism, it is still more in line with the interests of the emperor and officials.
But at least let the powerful people in the empire know that they can establish a social rule that everyone abides by through discussion, instead of blindly following the words of the saint.
Zhu Houzhao hoped that if there was no foreign invasion, the newly rising political forces could distribute benefits with the old forces by re-establishing rules and avoid war, or avoid the division of the country because war would make each other unforgivable and intolerable enemies.
Foreign invasion is the biggest external reason why Chinese civilization has been repeatedly pushed back to its starting point. As the Ming Emperor, Zhu Houzhao must prevent the empire from such external factors again.
The little prince was sentenced to death as a warning to those foreign enemies who had committed crimes against the Ming Dynasty.
The Hetao is now back in the hands of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty's military depth has been extended and its military defense capabilities have been enhanced. If it is handled properly, the Gengxu Revolution that occurred during the Jiajing period will not happen again.
What's more, Mongolia today is not unified by the little prince as it was in history. It is still divided. If Zhu Houzhao makes a little more transformation and assimilation, there is no need to worry about the Mongolian troubles being permanently eliminated.
In fact, Mongolia has begun to decline in this era, and Zhu Houzhao is not worried that Mongolian power will rise again. After all, this nation has been baptized by Confucian culture, coupled with changes in the way of fighting, so that they can no longer rely on riding and archery to conquer the world. .
But Zhu Houzhao still wanted to reform them to prevent them from becoming an accomplice to the rise of other alien races in history in the future.
What Zhu Houzhao is really worried about is the Jurchens, especially the Jianzhou Jurchens.
Of course, the current Jianzhou Jurchens are still in the stage of making a living by fishing and hunting. It will not be until Nurhachi's great-grandfather Fuman succeeded to the throne of Jianzhou Weidu ten years later that he will settle in Hetuala and begin to transform from a fishing and hunting civilization to a farming civilization.
Of course, from that time on, this inconspicuous Jurchen tribe would continue to grow in strength as it converted to a farming civilization. Finally, with the connivance of Li Chengliang, the Jurchens were unified during the Wanli period, and eventually became a military force that threatened the Ming Dynasty. .
It can be said that if Zhu Houzhao is willing now, he can easily destroy this Jurchen tribe by sending an army.
However, Zhu Houzhao had to admit that it would be easy to annihilate this Jurchen tribe, but he could not guarantee that under the influence of the Ming Empire, there would be other surrounding alien races that would grow stronger due to the progress of civilization and eventually become an alien force that the Ming Dynasty could not ignore. .
Nurhachi can be eliminated in advance, but there is no guarantee that someone like Nurhachi will appear.
The root cause of the Ming Dynasty's destruction by foreign races still lies within itself. If the Ming Dynasty itself had not declined, foreign races would not have easily replaced the country.
Therefore, Zhu Houzhao is still working hard to transform his Ming Empire. As for the Jurchens in Jianzhou, he does not intend to touch them yet. He will let the Jurchens in Jianzhou continue to develop according to their original history. At least the foreign races that Zhu Houzhao is familiar with will be more confident even if they rise. Destroy it.
But what Zhu Houzhao was certain in his heart was that if one day he was about to die, he would have to stipulate in his will that future generations of kings would first eliminate the Jianzhou Jurchens, or he would have to eliminate the Jianzhou Jurchens in the last few years.
The center of Ming Dynasty's foreign military strategy is still Mongolia beyond the Great Wall. This force left by the former Yuan Dynasty is still the alien race that Ming Dynasty needs to guard against most.
However, because they had occupied the Central Plains, even though they owed many sins during the process, they were also affected by sinicization to varying degrees. Therefore, Zhu Houzhao felt that it was not difficult to transform Mongolia. He was confident that they could continue to sinicize. If it goes on, it will eventually become just a historical term like the Xiongnu Turks.
But the real pressure came from within the Ming Empire.
After the Hetao was recovered, Ma Wensheng reported to the court that they needed to formulate a strategy to defend the Hetao, and also provided advice, saying that what was needed most now was not soldiers and horses, but food and grass.
After all, after the Ming Dynasty regained Hetao, it could not let the border troops go to other border towns to replenish supplies by robbing their own people like the Mongolian cavalry.
The question of whether there is enough food is not a big problem. The territory of the Han and Tang empires was so vast back then that the food output of the inland farming society could still support it and create a glorious and prosperous age.
Of course Daming can do it too.
But the big problem is that the cost of food transportation will drag down the central court's finances.
Previous dynasties mostly adopted the method of farming, and the Ming Dynasty also used this method.
However, one drawback of farming is that it is easy to turn professional soldiers into professional farmers. In this way, although the empire's financial pressure will be reduced, its national defense strength will be sharply reduced, and its ability to expand externally will also be reduced.
Ma Wensheng didn’t understand why His Majesty hadn’t issued an edict to allow him to farm in the Hetao, because if he didn’t continue to farm in the Hetao, he would have no choice but to retreat with his border troops and voluntarily give up the land in the Hetao. He no longer had any more silver to mobilize more food to the Hetao. .
He is worried that once the Ministry of War recruits more soldiers to strengthen the border army next year, the financial pressure on the empire will increase a lot. If the Hetao cannot be made self-supporting, he has been the Minister of the Ministry of Households. He knows that the entire Hetao area must be continuously supplied. How much money does it cost to feed the frontier army?
Many thanks to book friend Mo Youjiao for the reward of 1000 starting coins. Many thanks to book friend Desperate Lover for the reward of 2000 starting coins. Many thanks to book friend Ye Shiqiu for the reward of 100 starting coins
(End of chapter)