Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 698 Clan Mansion

The reason why Zhu Shencui summoned the three of them was that, apart from the fact that they had always had a good relationship with Zhu Shencui, Zhu Qiuqi, in particular, had long guessed Zhu Shencui's thoughts and took the initiative to join him. He also helped him deal with the Fan family, and thus became a true member of his family.

He was also very kind to the brothers Zhu Minfeng and Zhu Minyu. Zhu Minfeng was cautious in his work, while Zhu Minyu was a little dull, but they were not villains and there was no problem with their character. Moreover, they had worked hard with Hengtong over the years and had never made any mistakes.

Zhu Shenzhu, who is now the regent, was born in the royal family. After taking control of the power, Zhu Shenzhu has considered a lot about the attitude of the royal family of the Ming Dynasty. In the past, Zhu Di suppressed the royal family, which was what Emperor Jianwen intended to do but failed to do. Although this result allowed Zhu Di to sit firmly on the throne, it also planted hidden dangers.

The issue of the Ming royal family is an important issue for the Ming Dynasty. The Zhu family has a large population. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there are 34 princes and more than 80 dukes in the Ming Dynasty. If the middle-level royal family members such as generals are added, the number is as high as 6,000. If the middle and lower-level royal family members are included, the number is even larger, and the number of registered people has reached about 16,000.

Such a large group does not include their families and children who are not old enough to receive salaries. If these are also included, the number will be even more frightening.

The issue of supporting these royal family members has always been a difficult problem that the Ming Dynasty has been troubled by. According to the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang in the past, and the regulations determined by Zhu Di later, the annual salary expenditure allocated by the court to these royal family members is an astronomical figure.

Although successive Ming emperors continued to adjust the salaries of royal family members and even came up with various methods, the expenditure was still considerable every year.

Zhu Shenzhui himself was born into a royal family, and even a lower-middle-level royal family member. He had a deep understanding of what life was like, and he was also very familiar with the shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty's royal family management.

The Ming imperial family treated all the royal family members like pigs, fearing that they would pose a threat to the imperial power. However, as a result, tens of thousands of royal family members became useless, and many high-ranking royal family members could do nothing but eat, drink and have fun, while low-ranking royal family members had no way to change the status quo, and lived worse than ordinary people, which was extremely miserable.

This is also the reason why in history, when the Ming Dynasty was finally destroyed, there was no capable royal family member who stood up to save the situation. Even Emperor Hongguang and Emperor Yongli were the same. They were able to ascend to the throne only because of their status and bloodline, not their ability.

Treating the royal family well and at the same time finding ways to change their current status quo is a problem that Zhu Shencui intends to start dealing with. Moreover, Zhu Shencui, who has risen to power from the royal family, must win over the royal family group and gain recognition from within the clan.

Although the clan members were kept in captivity on the surface, they were still clan members after all. The Ming Dynasty belonged to the Zhu family, and the Zhu family still had some say. In fact, these were all "original shareholders". If the original shareholders strongly opposed the family, even Zhu Shenzhu, who held military power, would have to think twice.

In addition, the political struggles of successive Ming emperors since Zhu Di were often struggles with civil servants and gentry groups. In order to strengthen the control of imperial power, they not only set up the Imperial Household Department, but also used the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the East Factory, the West Factory and even the Inner Factory to try to change the situation.

However, these practices did not produce good results. From the emperor's perspective, he was always at a disadvantage in the struggle for imperial power. Even Emperor Jiajing, who was known as the smartest emperor of the Ming Dynasty, could only maintain the balance by suppressing civil servants.

Zhu Shenzhui studied these issues in depth and understood that this was not a problem of the emperor's ability, but a systemic problem. Zhu Yuanzhang's original idea of ​​a power structure was to check and balance the various parties, including the civil service group, the noble group, the royal family group, the Jinyiwei organization and the imperial power, thus ensuring the stability of the imperial power.

Among them, the civil service group represents the gentry class, the noble group represents the military, and the royal family group represents the foundation of the Zhu family. Among these three forces, the civil service group is the weakest, and the royal family group is the strongest, and the latter is directly controlled by Zhu Yuanzhang.

But as time went by, all this gradually changed. First, after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he began to reduce the power of the princes and set new rules for the royal family, directly keeping all the royal family members in captivity. Although his approach solved the problem of the princes being too powerful to be eliminated and avoided the possibility of royal family members imitating his rebellion, it also directly deprived the royal family group of most of their rights, resulting in the royal family group having no role other than a political reputation.

After the abolition of the imperial clan group, the Silijian came into being. Using eunuchs to control the cabinet became the emperor's workaround. Thus, among the original three parties of the civil servant group, the noble group and the imperial clan group, the Silijian replaced the role of the imperial clan group. It seemed that there was no problem, but in fact, the Silijian was only an extension of the imperial power and could not replace the real role of the imperial clan group at all.

After the Tumubao Incident, the noble group was also finished. After that, the military power fell from the noble group to the civil group, the power of the Ministry of War increased greatly, and the Five Military Commandery established by Zhu Yuanzhang existed in name only.

With the decline of the noble group, the noble group could no longer pose a threat to the civil group. In addition, the military power was lost, and the emperor could no longer control the military power directly through the noble group as before. This is why Emperor Zhengde later came up with a method of self-proclaimed mighty general and commander-in-chief to seize military power. From the initial three-legged tripod to the later one-strong group, with the marginalization of the royal family group and the noble group, the political power of the Ming Dynasty was increasingly transferred to the civil group. The emperor could only barely grasp the last bit of authority through the Silijian and constantly tried to take back power from the civil group.

Throughout the middle and late Ming Dynasty, it can be said that the politics of the Ming Dynasty was a constant struggle for power between the imperial power and the civil service group, and this struggle would continue until the end of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Shenzhu saw this situation clearly, but he was smart and did not rush to fight for power with the civil service group. Instead, he first stabilized the current situation, controlled the Beijing camp, started over, and seized his military power. In addition, he won over the class groups behind the northern Shanxi merchants and gained some support.

While doing all this, Zhu Shenzhui also took the royal family group into consideration. It would be inappropriate for the future Ming Dynasty to continue to keep the royal family in this way, but it was also unrealistic to directly overturn the status quo. Not to mention the consequences of doing so, just the huge salaries of the royal family would be difficult to come up with with the current Ming Dynasty finances.

Zhu Shenzhui planned to gradually change the current situation of the royal family in a few years, starting with the middle and lower-level royal family, because this group is the largest and relatively easy to deal with. This time, Zhu Minfeng, Zhu Minyu and Zhu Qiuqi were sent to Beijing not only because they were needed, but also to send a goodwill signal to the royal family of the Ming Dynasty, indicating that Zhu Shenzhui was ready to gradually relax the restrictions on the royal family.

In addition to this, Zhu Shenzui also planned to re-establish the Zongrenfu.

The Ming Dynasty's Zongrenfu was originally called Dazongzhengyuan, and later changed to Zongrenfu.

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang himself was the Grand Clan Leader, the Clan Leader was Zhu Chong, Prince of Qin, under him was the Left Clan Leader, Prince of Jin, Zhu Gang, the Right Clan Leader was Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, the Left Clan Member was Zhu Su, Prince of Zhou, and the Right Clan Member was Zhu Zhen, Prince of Chu.

However, after Yongle, the Clan Court began to be marginalized. Because Zhu Di was wary of the royal family, the Clan Court was instead run by meritorious nobles and relatives of the emperor. Later, many of the functions of the Clan Court were transferred to the Ministry of Rites, and thus the Clan Court of the Ming Dynasty existed in name only.

Now the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Clan Court has long become an empty shell. Even after its transfer to the Ministry of Rites, it only has one function left, which is that members of the imperial clan must report to the Ministry of Rites before naming themselves. The Ministry of Rites will check the list of imperial clan members to make sure there are no duplicate names, and then register them after they ascend the throne.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty's Zongrenfu is now no different from the Household Registration Office, which is to determine the names and household registration of the clan members and then register them. As for other things, except for the succession of senior clan members, or funeral arrangements, etc., it has no other use at all.

Moreover, the clan government had no presence at all in the local areas. Most of the local clan affairs were under the jurisdiction of the princes or dukes. Some minor matters were resolved internally, and those that could not be resolved were reported to the court.

For example, Zhu Shenzhui's previous status as a low-level royal family member was under the jurisdiction of the Prince of Jin's Mansion, and the Prince of Jin's Mansion entrusted the jurisdiction of Pingyang to the General's Mansion.

From these aspects, the jurisdiction of the royal family was very loose. Coupled with Zhu Di's changes in attitude and rules towards the royal family, the entire Ming royal family was almost in disarray and could not be reused at all.

But this was before. Now Zhu Shenzui had already started to rebuild the Zongrenfu. He planned to take back the right of the Ministry of Rites to govern the imperial clan, strengthen the management and control of the imperial clan by rebuilding the Zongrenfu, and push the authority of the imperial clan step by step, thus completely changing the current situation.

As the regent, and since this is an internal affair of the royal family, he naturally has considerable say. Moreover, the six ministries have no right to object to such matters. What right does the outer court have to interfere in the royal family's own affairs?

Zhu Shenzhui in the capital city found the regulations of the Zongrenfu originally formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang and studied them carefully. After reading them, he had to admit that Zhu Yuanzhang had put a lot of considerations into the establishment of the Zongrenfu. The regulations of the Zongrenfu were clear, the responsibilities and powers were clearly defined, and the Zongrenfu was able to govern the clan members very well.

Except for some places that need to be modified due to changes from more than 200 years ago and now, most of them can be used directly. After spending some effort to modify the charter, Zhu Shenzhui was ready to start rebuilding the Zongrenfu... No! To be precise, the Zongrenfu has always been there, but it has become an empty shell. Now it is re-activating the Zongrenfu instead of rebuilding it. As for the Grand Zongzheng (Grand Zongzheng Ling), Zhu Shenzhui is the right person. If he, as the regent of Jiaocheng King, cannot be the Grand Zongzheng, who else can be qualified?
As for the subordinates, the Left and Right Zongzheng, the Left and Right Zongling, as well as the Experiencers, Directors, Doctors, Yuanwailang and so on, there is no rush for them. The framework can be built up slowly. Especially the positions in the Zongrenfu can be used as a means to win over senior clan members. Zhu Shenzhui needs to consider carefully who to choose among these candidates.

(End of this chapter)