Chapter 456: The Ming Dynasty Political and Basic Education Reform Plan

In 1368 AD, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, restricting the people to one county with the Lijia system and Huangcai system. He also used the factory system and the abolition of the prime minister's power to divide the six ministries to completely gather the legal power of the world in the emperor's life.

Zhu Yuanzhang's purpose of doing this was to turn the Ming Dynasty into a society where the emperors maintained order, the military and civilians lived a good life with their own acres of land, and the people performed their own duties.

However, as time goes by and the development of productivity, the social blueprint that Zhu Yuanzhang planned was broken again and again.

Eunuchs became an important force to check and balance officials, and the cabinet came into being without the name of prime minister but with the reality of prime minister.

The growth of refugees and the expansion of the scale of merchants have caused the Lijia system to collapse.

Especially now, with a large number of people moving to the capital, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Baoding, Jinan and other places, a large number of people moving to outside the pass and Nanyang, the so-called yellow book and household registration are almost useless.

The local county government cannot move to Huangcai to find the corresponding household registration. Almost no villagers in the newly built villages outside the pass come from the same county.

"Many systems need to be changed. Today's Ming Dynasty is no longer the Ming Dynasty that ancestors imagined. Now the most urgent task is to reform the official system. The six ministries must be subdivided, and the administrative authority of the cabinet can be expanded a little;

At that time, more than a dozen departments cannot make me decide everything, so I will definitely die suddenly. However, the legislative power and judicial power must be separated. Isn’t there any major case that the three judicial departments must be tried? Since this is the case, the Censorate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dali Temple will be separated from the administrative system and will separately implement the three items of supervision, law enforcement and legislation.

The cabinet shall not interfere with these three institutions. The Censorate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dali Temple are directly responsible to me!"

At this time, outside the Forbidden City was a noisy city with constant whistle and hawking sounds, but inside the palace walls was as quiet as two hundred years ago.

Zhu Youxiao, the head of the empire, was idle and half-rolled his robe at his waist, sitting barefoot on the gold brick, holding a new high-end fountain pen from the Royal Industrial Company in his hand and writing various political words.

There were countless waste papers piled up on the ground, and the queen Zhang Yan patiently spread the waste papers flat and stacked them in a wooden box. It was not that the queen Zhang Yan was reluctant to throw them away and was frugal, but that years of support had made her understand the nature of her husband. She couldn't help but suddenly got up to find the contents of the waste paper he had thrown away before.

As a modern time traveler and the most powerful person in this empire, Zhu Youxiao had many new ideas, wanting to bring new things to the Ming Dynasty, but it is not a simple matter to put these new ideas into practice and let the entire Ming bureaucratic system and scholars accept it.

Generally speaking, Zhu Youxiao will not suddenly throw what he thought of to the cabinet or the six ministries for execution, because this will often be strongly opposed by the conservatives and even some reformists oppose it, and Zhu Youxiao will also be inconvincing because of insufficient preparation.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao would rather give his ideas to Zhang Yan first.

Zhang Yan did not pay attention to the court and abide by the iron law that the harem was not allowed to interfere in politics and would not raise any objections or support. She often acted as a listener of Zhu Youxiao, who described the future of the Ming Dynasty to her.

"The Ministry of Personnel should not be under the cabinet. It is in charge of the promotion and demotion of officials in the world. Controlling the Ministry of Personnel is equivalent to controlling the appointment power of officials in the world. This power must be controlled by me.

The Ministry of Rites should only be responsible for sacrifices and propaganda and education. It should set up a separate school to manage education affairs, merge the Honglu Temple and Huitong Pavilion into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to manage the exchanges and affairs of foreign countries. The part of the Ministry of Rites responsible for diplomacy is also transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Then, the Ministry of Industry has to separate the Ministry of Transport, which is responsible for the construction of the world's roads, and the Ministry of Water Resources to control the world's water control. The Ministry of Industry is only responsible for the construction of palaces and other public facilities. The Ordnance Department and the Royal Academy of Engineering and other scientific research units will be separated from the work part and belong to the newly established Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Revenue will also separate from the Ministry of Finance..."

When Zhu Youxiao said this, Queen Zhang Yan couldn't help but come over, grabbed Zhu Youxiao's arm, smiled and said, "Your Majesty, according to your division, will you have more than the Minister of the Shangshu in the future? Isn't Your Majesty worried that my Ming Dynasty's institutions will be complicated, and that you will repeat the shortcomings of the Song Dynasty?"

"What my beloved concubine reminds me is very important, but I don't have to worry about the complexity of institutions. I have always been in a hurry to follow the officials.

Especially the Central Committee, since Taizu abolished the power of the prime minister and divided the six ministries, the power of the six ministries has increased. A single minister and two ministers obviously cannot coordinate the major affairs of our Ming Dynasty. If I want to let the children of the entire Ming Dynasty learn within five years and have to learn for five years, if there is no organization that specializes in this matter, just let the several ministers of the Ministry of Rites come, they will be too busy. After all, the Ministry of Rites still have to be busy with many responsibilities such as sacrifices, imperial examinations, and control public opinion."

When Zhu Youxiao mentioned the popularization of education, the back hook aroused the interest of Queen Zhang Yan.

She is a civilian, and she is very good at Zhu Youxiao, which is a way to make every Ming Dynasty child have enough to learn for five years, so she couldn't help but ask:

"Your Majesty, do you really want every child in the Ming Dynasty to enter school? Not only the children of bureaucratic and official families but also the children of ordinary people, but also the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and force each family to allow each child to enter school for five years?

But the fact is that not all families can afford to send their children to school. Maybe one or two are okay. If a family with five or six children is allowed to go to school for five years, I am afraid that the whole family will be dragged down because of this.”

Seeing that her queen Zhang Yan pouted, she was very playful and cute, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but pinch her cheeks, then spread a piece of paper, holding a pen in her hand and said while writing:

"Look, I have now reduced their labor service and reduced their taxes again and again. Now the Ministry of Revenue has made a rough statistics. The income of the people at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty has long been four times that of the people at the same level in the 20th year of Wanli. I only let them bear 10% of the education costs, and the remaining 90% will be borne by the local government and the central court. In this way, as long as his family is not able to give birth to dozens of children, it should not be dragged down.

Of course, after a few years, the court will be rich enough to directly implement free five-year compulsory education. Perhaps not a few years, three-year compulsory education will be realized next year, because starting next year, the first phase of construction and development of the Ming Dynasty in Java will be announced, and customs taxes and commercial taxes in Java will be deported to Beijing. At that time, this amount of money will be used as education, which is just enough."

"What I want to do is to make every child of the Ming Dynasty understand words and understand books, so that more children who could have greater potential can make more contributions to our Ming Dynasty.

Think about it, if every child could read and read, then in the Ming Dynasty many years later, everyone could read and practice etiquette. Everyone could express their joys, anger, sorrow and sorrow through words, and they could also achieve improvement through words. The Ming Dynasty would have more wise national talents. At that time, it was the true prosperous and prosperous society of Datong;

In short, my purpose is one. No matter whether you are from a poor, wealthy or noble family, as long as you live in the Ming Dynasty and are a citizen of the Ming Dynasty, you must receive education."

After Zhu Youxiao said this, Queen Zhang Yan became full of expectations: "In this way, not all the people in the world have become well-educated people, but it may not be necessary. Not everyone can learn the Four Books and Five Classics, and can make the Eight-Legend Chapter."

“I don’t let everyone study and become a scholar and Jinshi after they go to school;

My beloved concubine is right. Everyone has their own expertise. Luban carpenters are good at writing poems. Emperor Taizong of Tang is good at doing so. Wang Anshi is a good prime minister. Not everyone in the Ming Dynasty can be a scholar. They can go to the affiliated schools of the Royal Academy of Sciences or the Academy of Engineering to study technical studies, or they can go to the Hanlin Academy and the Academy of Sciences to study classics and history books and various miscellaneous studies, or they can take the exam for military schools, ship politics schools or mining schools;

But you must have basic academic exams when entering these schools.

In the future, the Ming Dynasty will not only have imperial examinations, but also various professional examinations, and the imperial examinations will be just an official selection examination.

Even if it is the imperial examination, the content of the imperial examination has to change. Although the eight-legged seal can produce some extremely smart people, it will also select a large number of mediocre people who can only take exams and not do things.

However, basic education is all about the Four Books and Five Classics and Zhu Zi's thoughts, so it is not easy to suddenly change the content of the examination. When the basic education method is changed, the content of the imperial examination will also change;

Perhaps by then, the fame and honor of scholars and juren is just a symbol of academic qualifications. For example, what school examination can a scholar take? Juren can choose to pass the imperial examination and become an official in the administrative system. If an official in a scientific research system, judicial system, and military system must pass other types of examinations.

I have now asked Zhang Dai and Wei Min'er to add pinyin to the characters, correct the pronunciation and writing methods, and when the compilation of the primary textbooks is completed and the academic department is established, and after the education system of various prefectures and prefectures is re-reformed, this set of basic education methods can be implemented immediately.

At least the first five years, scholars should not only learn the basic human ethics of Confucianism, but also be able to read, calculate simple numbers, and have basic common sense. After completing basic education, excellent people can further their studies. Whether they choose to enter the court or the army, they can always find a path that suits them. Those who are unwilling or unable to further their studies can still return to their hometown to farm or do other things. Even if they are still farmers, they will no longer be foolish people, they will no longer be instigated and exploited by cults, and they will not be easily bullied by corrupt officials."

After hearing what Zhu Youxiao said, Queen Zhang Yan couldn't help but be substituted first, and had imagination about the Ming Dynasty in the future, and couldn't help but clasp her hands together and said:

"Your Majesty, if this is the case, you can not hear poetry chanting on the ridges of the fields, old, young, women and children can read books with a lamp, scholars can carry three-foot swords, and martial artists can write ten thousand words. At that time, the Ming Dynasty might have been filled with books and a country of etiquette."

Zhu Youxiao only smiled at this. His intention to improve the literacy rate and education level of the people of the Ming Dynasty was not just to make the Ming Dynasty prosperous, but to develop the potential of the Ming Dynasty, a populous country, to fully develop the national strength of the Ming Dynasty, and then to occupy a greater advantage in the future maritime competition. He can not lag behind other countries for hundreds of years in the future, and to make China no longer rely on the etiquette order of Confucianism and the law to continue to play the historical cycle of the changes of family and dynasties.

Since the seventeenth century, the entire world's political society underwent unprecedented major changes. Not only political society, but also religious status and academic thoughts, will undergo major changes, which will also lead to major changes in the mode of production.

In this transformation, some nations and countries will begin to lag behind, and some nations and countries will rise because of this. Because of factors such as Neo-Confucianism and inherent production model and geographical isolation, China will become the former.

But what Zhu Youxiao needs to do now is to let this transformation happen in the Han Circle and in the Ming Dynasty.

Let the Ming Dynasty continue to lead the world and clarify the direction of progress. If this transformation is to happen, it must not only start with changes in production methods, but also start with basic education.

From the basic education stage, every Ming intellectual knew that the way of thinking and rules of the world was interpreted not only in Confucian methods, but also in other ways. He could seek answers to life by studying astrophysics, and also to explore the mysteries of microbial organisms to obtain the laws of social development.

In short, this will truly revive the Ming Dynasty's ideological world and truly realize the situation of a hundred flowers competing for beauty.

Although many things can only be imagined now, Zhu Youxiao is also beginning to gradually guide and indulge the emergence of new ideas, and to downplay the absolute rule and authority of Confucius and Mencius's thoughts. Even in political struggles, any officials intend to attack political enemies on the grounds of disrespect of Confucius and Mencius will not receive too much support from Zhu Youxiao. Even if someone wants to play inquisition to attack political enemies by suppressing new trends of ideas, Zhu Youxiao will not hesitate to punish those who report.

The Ming Dynasty was not the Qing Dynasty, and Zhu Youxiao was not worried that anyone would question his orthodoxy, nor did he need to limit the development of other ideas in order to strengthen the monarchy's idea.

Therefore, he would not support the Confucian defenders to suppress other ideas for the sake of their dominance of Confucius and Mencius' thoughts, but Zhu Youxiao would not clearly encourage which idea to become the dominant thought of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Youxiao's essential purpose of external publicity now is that as long as he follows me, he can have more wealth, and as long as he is in the Ming Dynasty, he can realize your own dreams.

Of course, Zhu Youxiao didn't know which idea would become the mainstream of the Ming Dynasty in the future. He might be supporting the existence of his king or opposing the existence of this king.
Chapter completed!