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

Chapter 828: Change of Title
What Zhu Shenzhui needed to do was to restore the Zhou system, changing the current three ranks of nobility into five ranks, thereby subdividing the titles.

While restoring the five ranks of nobility, Zhu Shenzhu also planned to follow the three-level division of each rank of nobility in the Qing Dynasty. After all, according to the previous system, the duke was better, with three ranks of state duke, county duke, and county duke, but it was different for the marquis, who was divided into four levels: county marquis, township marquis, pavilion marquis, and Guannei marquis. Some dynasties also set up the level of founding marquis, which made it five ranks. It was even more troublesome when it came to earl, viscount, and baron. There were a lot of messy names like founding earl, county son, county man, etc. It took a lot of effort just to figure them out, and it was very cumbersome to distinguish them.

Zhu Shenzui's idea was to re-establish viscounts and barons under the current three ranks of nobility. In addition, except for the hereditary nobility conferred by Taizu, Chengzu, Renzong, Xianzong, and Yingzong as first-rank nobility, the titles of the remaining nobility would be re-determined as second- or third-rank nobility.

The future will be the same as the Qing Dynasty in history. Each title will be divided into three grades, with a total of fifteen grades. These titles will not be awarded without military merit. Although these titles are hereditary, the inheritor must have military merit to be eligible to inherit the title. If there is no military merit, the title will be demoted one or two grades. If it is demoted to the third grade, the title will be directly removed.

This change forced the nobles to no longer be idle and indulge in eating, drinking and having fun as before. If you do not have certain military achievements, even if you are the legitimate son who inherits the title, you will be demoted. Even if it is the title of a first-class duke, if your descendants are demoted step by step in the future, not only will their treatment continue to decline, but they may even lose their title in the end.

It is absolutely impossible to sit back and enjoy the fruits of the ancestors' merits as before. If the descendants of nobles do not make a name for themselves, the family will be wiped out in the future and become ordinary people.

As for how to evaluate, Zhu Shenzui also considered this. The Five Military Commanderies, which is now in name only, is the best evaluation agency.

Of course, it is not feasible to directly restore the powers of the Five Military Commission at present. After all, this will cause turmoil in the court and will also arouse strong opposition from civil officials. You must know that when Zhu Yuanzhang set up the Five Military Commission, the power of this agency was extremely great, far above the civil officials, and it was able to decide important military and national affairs. In other words, this agency was equivalent to a military government agency at the time. As the Ming Dynasty gradually stabilized, the excessive power of the Five Military Commission also threatened the status of imperial power.

From a historical perspective, the decline of the Five Military Commission's power began after the Battle of Tumu, but in fact, there were already signs that many of the Commission's powers were being transferred to the Ministry of War and the Cabinet during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong.

As the imperial power became more stable, the emperor was afraid of the excessive power of the Five Military Commandery. Using civil officials to seize power from the nobles and weaken the authority of the Five Military Commandery, thus achieving a balance between the two sides, was the emperor's best choice. This was also the main reason why the power of the cabinet and the Ministry of War gradually grew.

But no one expected that with the changes in the Battle of Tumu, the high-ranking elites of the Ming Dynasty were killed or injured in one battle. With the death of these nobles who held extremely high status and great power, the power of the Five Military Governor's Office suddenly became a vacuum.

However, the civil service group directly seized power under the legitimate excuse of defending the capital, and took away most of the power of the Five Military Governor's Office. By the time Yingzong regained power, the situation had changed completely. By that time, the Five Military Governor's Office had become an empty shell, and almost all the power was in the hands of civil officials. The balance that had been originally intended to use civil officials to restrain military generals and suppress the Five Military Governor's Office was completely broken.

This is why the Five Military Commands Office has no other power except controlling the Beijing Camp since the reign of Emperor Yingzong. Even though the Beijing Camp is headed by a noble, there are also officials to assist in the military affairs of the Beijing Camp. And this assistant to the military affairs of the Beijing Camp is often a civil servant, which has led to the Ming nobles no longer being able to compete with the civil servant group.

Zhu Shenzhui's ascension to the throne was a special case, because he did not ascend the throne in an orderly manner, but instead raised an army to seize power in the name of clearing the court of evil officials and pacifying the national crisis.

Because of this accident, Zhu Shencui had already been in charge of the military power, and Wang Jinwu also directly served as the commander-in-chief of the Beijing Camp. However, the current Beijing Camp is no longer the same as before. With the continuous adjustments in recent years and the growth of the new army, the Beijing Camp has become an empty shell. The real military force is the new army, and this new army is completely in the hands of Zhu Shencui, and no one can command it except him.

Zhu Shenzhui had the idea of ​​reforming the Five Military Commission a long time ago. He planned to use the framework of the Five Military Commission to set up a new organization. This organization would be divided into three parts. One part was the staff organization, which was set up according to the example of the German General Staff in later generations. It would form a special staff organization for a national army. This organization did not command troops and had no authority to mobilize troops. It was only responsible for military intelligence collection, judgment, deduction, staff and other work. It was under the inner court and directly responsible to the emperor.

This institution will be headed by nobles and generals, so that the country can strengthen its military judgment and become the emperor's military think tank and backing. In addition to the staff agency, there is another institution, the military school and the training agency. The military school is equivalent to the military examination of the Ming Dynasty. The military examination system has always existed in the Ming Dynasty, but compared with the ordinary imperial examination, it has considerable imperfections and drawbacks. Reform these problems, and establish a three-level military school from non-commissioned officers to officers on this basis, plus daily military training and training institutions, so that the entire military system of the Ming Dynasty can be influenced and changed from bottom to top.

As for the last institution, it is somewhat different from the military aspect. This is the evaluation institution responsible for assessing the succession of nobles. On the surface, this institution is only used for the succession of nobles. According to the military merits, it determines whether the successor of the title is qualified to smoothly inherit the title or downgrade the succession of the title. But in fact, Zhu Shenzhu wants to make this institution into a parliamentary system similar to the House of Nobles, using the succession of nobles evaluation to cover up his true intention. Once this House of Nobles is finally established, the role it can play is unimaginable for ordinary people, and as an emperor, it can also gain the support and support of all noble groups and directly compete with the civil service group.

These changes cannot be achieved overnight, and they require long-term preparation and must be done step by step. However, the division of the five ranks of nobility into fifteen levels can be done first. After the changes in the nobility are determined, the nobility of the royal relatives in the future will not be among the five ranks of nobility. In other words, the previous nobility of nobility will be set up separately and carried out in the form of civilian nobility. This new civilian nobility will be called "honorary nobility" and will only have salary and aristocratic treatment but no real job, and it is even more impossible to inherit. After the death of the person who granted the nobility, the nobility will be directly taken back by the royal family, which also avoids the possibility of changing from nobility of nobility to hereditary easily.

Since we are discussing the enthronement and the reign title today, we might as well bring up the issue of the adjustment of titles as well to see everyone's reaction.

When Zhu Shenzui explained his idea to everyone, the civil servants present basically agreed. After all, there was basically no connection between titles and civil servants. One should know that since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there were only a few civil servants who had been granted titles, and there were only three of them.

One is Wang Ji. Wang Ji led the army in three expeditions to Luchuan during the Zhengtong period, and made great military achievements. He was awarded the title of Jingyuan Earl, becoming the first civil official to be awarded a title. When Emperor Yingzong's coup occurred, Wang Ji participated in it and helped Emperor Yingzong regain power and ascend the throne. In the fourth year of Tianshun, Wang Ji died, and Emperor Yingzong posthumously awarded him the title of Jingyuan Marquis for his contributions.

The second person was Wang Yue during the Chenghua period. He went out to the border three times to take over the Hetao area and attacked the Tatars twice in the Battle of Hongyanchi and the Battle of Weininghai. Because of his military achievements, Wang Yue was awarded the title of Weining Earl.

The third person is even more famous. He is Wang Shouren, who is known as the master and saint of Kaixinxue. Wang Shouren served in the reigns of Emperor Xiaozong, Emperor Wuzong, and Emperor Shizong. He served as the postmaster of Longchang Posthouse in Guizhou, the magistrate of Luling County, the right assistant censor, the governor of Nangan, and the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi. Wang Shouren successively quelled the rebellions of Nangan, Guangdong and Guangxi, and the rebellion of Chen Hao, and was awarded the title of "Xinjian Earl" for his merits, becoming one of the three civil officials in the Ming Dynasty who were awarded titles for their military merits.

From this we can see how difficult it was for civil officials to be granted titles, and the requirement for conferring titles in the Ming Dynasty was military merit. Those without military merit could not be granted titles (with the exception of royal relatives). Moreover, after a civil official was granted a title, his status changed, from the civil service group to the noble group, which was an extremely embarrassing identity.

In the civil service group, the civil servants who are granted titles are no longer members of the civil service group, but on the side of traditional nobles, these civil servants who are granted titles are not the same kind of people as them. This leads to the fact that the civil servants who are granted titles can be said to be neither of them. Therefore, even if they have the ability to be granted titles, they are actually unwilling to do so.

Among them was Wang Shouren. When Wang Shouren received the imperial edict to be conferred a title, he realized that he had been fooled by the bigwigs in the court, because once he was conferred a title, his official career would be completely cut off. At that time, both the chief minister Yang Tinghe and other people in the court were very wary of Wang Shouren, fearing that Wang Shouren would return to Beijing to join the cabinet. They would take advantage of Wang Shouren's pacification of Prince Ning to fan the flames and instigate the emperor to confer a title on Wang Shouren, which eventually ended Wang Shouren's official career and made it impossible for him to return to Beijing to join the cabinet.

Therefore, the matter of conferring titles had basically nothing to do with civil officials, and civil officials did not want to get involved in these things. They did not comment on the title reform proposed by Zhu Shenzhui, but they were impressed by Zhu Shenzhui's regulations on inheritance of titles. Because if the inheritance of hereditary titles could be done according to this rule, then many titles would have the possibility of being downgraded, and in this way the influence of the nobles would continue to decline. This would not be a bad thing but a good thing for the civil service group. How could they not support it?

From the perspective of several nobles, the division of titles had no impact on them. After all, their titles all came from the dynasties of Taizu, Chengzu, Renzong, Xuanzong and Yingzong. Zhu Shenzhui even said that the Yingzong dynasty was the dividing line, and the titles conferred during the Yingzong dynasty and the dynasties before it were calculated as the first class. The titles conferred after the Yingzong dynasty were divided into second to third classes, which had nothing to do with them. Anyway, even if the titles were re-defined, they would still be first class. As for other people, what did they have to do with them?

In addition, although the conditions for inheriting the title will affect the succession of the title by future generations, this is a long way off. It will have no impact on my lifetime, and as for how my descendants will inherit the title, that is still a long way off. Moreover, with my title and rank, even if I downgrade the title, it will take several or even more than ten generations to get rid of the title. I don't know how long it will take by then. By that time, my bones will have rotted away. Why worry about these things?
Although these nobles are good-for-nothings, they are not stupid. Zhu Shenzhui will soon be the emperor, and everyone will have to beg for food under him in the future. It is not worth offending Zhu Shenzhui for this trivial matter. Besides, since Zhu Shenzhui proposed this idea, the change of the title is imperative. Why should they oppose it for such a small matter?
(End of this chapter)