Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 589: One Ring Within Another
In the historical dimension of Western Europe, in the first half of the 17th century, the bourgeoisie, which had just begun to gain strength, liked and supported the royal families of various countries: the royal government strengthened centralization and reduced the power of local nobles, which would reduce the operating costs of the bourgeoisie and increase product profits.
But in the 18th century, the bourgeoisie turned against us: No, the royal family has now become a demon that hinders our wealth, we must make three laws with the king to limit his power and prevent him from taking our profits. Well, let's just establish a constitution.
Therefore, from a historical perspective, most of the constitutionalism in Europe is aimed at limiting the power of the monarch.
But now the constitution of the Ming Dynasty is completely different: as Xiong Tingbi said, Zhu Youdong has actually grasped absolute power. The constitution of the Ming Dynasty is not to limit the power of the monarch, but to confirm Zhu Youdong's power in the form of legislation - this is further centralization.
Of course, as a time traveler, Zhu Youdong was still clear-headed at this time: he knew that in order to survive in this competition, it was necessary to master absolute power in his country. However, absolute power would lead to absolute corruption. In order to prevent himself from being corrupted in the future, he still left a small loophole: the ministers could restrict the emperor's power through constitutional amendment. If one day, he, the emperor, really did something that angered the heavens and the people, and the civil officials, the military, the eunuchs, and the secret agents were all dissatisfied with him, he would just amend the constitution.
In short, this "Imperial Ming Constitution" was proposed at the State Council meeting on May 10. After much discussion, it was finally passed on May 20.
The six major newspapers and the imperial court's official bulletin system quickly spread the news throughout the country. Along with the news of the successful constitutional monarchy, there was also a notice that the state would solicit proposals for the national flag, national emblem, and national anthem from all citizens, as well as rumors that the number of court officials would soon increase significantly.
After this news was released, all the scholars' attention shifted from the charter to promotion in official positions.
God has mercy on us. We are all Confucian disciples! Didn't Confucius want to be an official when he traveled around the countries? As his disciples, most of us regard being an official as the highest ideal in life.
But the court had so few official positions before, and recently they are carrying out some kind of imperial examination reform. It seems that the road is getting narrower and narrower. It is rare that the emperor is kind enough to give such a great opportunity. Who the hell is so bored as to oppose constitutionalism? On the contrary, who dares to oppose constitutionalism and make the emperor unhappy, we will be the first to disagree!
"Your Majesty, this is the information that my East Factory has collected from various places. Generally speaking, except for a few current officials who are dissatisfied, the rest are all praising."
Wei Zhongxian, who was standing in front of Zhu Youdong, was also beaming with joy. Not only him, but the entire eunuch system was extremely grateful to the emperor at this moment: the profession of eunuch was clearly written into the charter! Although the charter also made it clear that the eunuchs would be gradually reduced in the future, in any case, the charter regarded them as equal members of the Ming Dynasty!
For many years, eunuchs, as the emperor's slaves, had their moments of great power. But even at their most glorious moments, a great eunuch was still filled with inferiority complex deep down. After being bowed down to by shameless civil officials, when they turned around, you could occasionally see or hear the civil officials, who had just been fawning on you, spitting fiercely and muttering "eunuch" or something like that.
The eunuchs were helpless against these things.
But now? There is no doubt that we have long made up our minds to die for the emperor, and now our loyalty is even more unwavering!
"Well, Zhongxian, the scholars from all over the country, especially the gentry, and the emerging factory owners, are still very supportive of the Charter, right?"
"Your Majesty, rest assured. Now the scholars from all over the Ming Dynasty are full of praise for the Charter. With them spreading the trend, the gentry can't say anything. As for the factory owners? They wish there were more officials in the court now so that they can do things more conveniently."
Humph, the Chinese Empire is still based on officialdom. Just as the rumor of the increase in the number of official positions was spread, the issue of officials and gentry paying taxes together was actually passed so easily?
"However, Your Majesty, I and the other servants have discussed this privately and are somewhat worried."
"What are you worried about?"
"Your Majesty, the number of civil servants in our Ming Dynasty is only over 30,000 now, but after three consecutive salary increases, the salaries and office expenses of these 30,000 people will eat up 20% of the court's annual income. What if the number of officials really expands to 300,000 as Your Majesty said?"
"Hahaha, Zhongxian, you are such an honest man." Zhu Youdong smiled and nodded at Lao Wei: "There are more than 30,000 officials in my Ming Dynasty, but what about clerks? What about runners? Add them together, I'm afraid it's more than 300,000, right? The court spends about 30 million yuan a year on official salaries and office expenses, and these include all the officials, clerks, and runners."
"Ah? Oh, I understand. It turns out that the emperor only wants to give the clerks and runners official status, and the number of people who actually eat at the court will not increase much. Oh, the emperor is wise. I have heard that because the barriers between officials and runners have not been broken down, clerks and runners can't see the channels and hope for promotion, so they have no bottom line when doing things, and petty officials are corrupt everywhere. The emperor has given them hope, which will help curb corruption to some extent."
Humph, well, that’s not entirely true.
In the 21st century, the Great Celestial Empire first disclosed the specific number of civil servants in 2015: 7.167 million. This number, compared with the population of 1.4 billion, accounts for about 0.5%. But if we add up the staff of fully funded institutions such as education, culture, and public health (this refers to departments such as disease control, maternal and child health, tuberculosis prevention and control institutes, and health supervision and law enforcement bureaus. Public hospitals only receive a symbolic amount of funding each year, which is not enough to pay for the hospital's water, electricity, and gas bills for the year), the number of people who eat government food will swell to 50 million! If we still use 1.4 billion people as the denominator, then this proportion reaches 3.5%.
The population of the Ming Dynasty at that time was 180 million. Even if we calculated it at 0.5%, there should be about 900,000 civil servants. Of course, the productivity of the Ming Dynasty at that time was far behind that of the 21st century China, so it was impossible to allocate civil servants according to this ratio. However, in any case, more than 30,000 officials were too few for a population of 180 million.
Facts have also proved that the Ming Dynasty had a huge problem of too few officials: with few officials, more clerks and runners had to be set up, but these guys were basically local tyrants with little education and no quality. And because they could not be promoted at all, they had an extraordinary desire for money and had no bottom line in doing things... If you let these guys manage the people, to put it bluntly, wouldn't it be like the underworld controlling the grassroots government?
In recent years, the Ming Dynasty's industry and commerce have flourished due to the advancement of productivity, and the emerging bourgeoisie has long been complaining about the ferocious officials and runners.
Yes, many officials in the Ming Dynasty were hypocrites, but hypocrites at least had dignity. Although dealing with hypocrites was tiring, at least you could reason with them. But these clerks and runners? They were really mean people. If they had no bottom line, there would be no reason to talk to them!
Therefore, Zhu Youdong's inner thoughts were not to change the clerks and servants directly into low-level officials as Wei Zhongxian imagined. His purpose was to change the imperial examination system into a civil service examination through a thorough reform! Use a large number of poor scholars who are currently at the bottom of society because of the small number of candidates in the imperial examination system to become middle and low-level civil servants, and replace and eliminate the existing clerks and servants! In this way, the entire civil service system of the Ming Dynasty will have a real transformation.
As for the employment of those eliminated officials and servants, hey, aren't there shortages of people in factories? Aren't there shortages of people on farms? After the reform of the state institutions, isn't there a shortage of reserve forces in the newly established military service bureau? There will always be a position suitable for you.
What? You said you are used to being a master and you can't accept being an ordinary citizen again? You should know the iron fist of state dictatorship.
You said you were scared and didn't want to make trouble with the country. But you really don't want to do manual labor, so you apply to go to an overseas vassal state? Well, this is possible. My twenty or so overseas vassals have been complaining to me over the years, saying that in order to ensure stability at the grassroots level, they had to recruit a large number of local people as low-level officials. After a long time, I don't know who has assimilated whom. Very good, when you go overseas, you can just help my princes to hold up the place: you people have no moral character, but your skills in managing the common people are still superb. When you go overseas, help my vassal kings to punish those unruly people, especially those who have any ideas of restoring the country, and make them live a life worse than death!
Thinking of this, Zhu Youdong couldn't help but laugh happily.
"emperor?"
"Hmm? Ah, it's okay. Zhongxian, since the Charter has received a good response from the people, let's tell the Cabinet to quickly promulgate the Civil Code, Commercial Code, and Criminal Code."
