I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 591 Anger

Zhu Houxuan soon began to reform the existing administrative structure of the court.

After Zhu Houzhao's death, the conflict between the North and the South completely lost its buffer and war could break out at any time.

Therefore, Zhu Houxuan no longer had any scruples and began to carry out drastic reforms. He wanted to quickly transform the court system into a wartime system.

The most important of these is the nationalization of the Royal Group.

Although the Royal Group has grown into a behemoth that spans all walks of life and possesses the powerful ability to change the world's situation, and is Zhu Houxuan's base, in terms of nature, the Royal Group is a business organization that belongs exclusively to the emperor. Although it has various privileges because of the name of "Royal" and the imperial power, it still cannot change the fact that it is a business organization.

More importantly, although it is a commercial organization, many of the things it does are not something that a commercial organization can do. They are things that only the government can do. In a sense, it is even a country within a country.

If the name is not right, the words will not flow, so the Royal Group must be nationalized.

In fact, this matter looks complicated, but it is not complicated to do.

First, Zhu Houxuan issued an edict to appoint Chen Hong as the president of the Royal Group, and added the titles of Shao Bao, Grand Secretary of Huagai Palace, and into the cabinet.

Jiang Jiangong was appointed as the Minister of War, concurrently the Admiral of the Imperial Guards, and the Grand Protector, making him eligible to attend the cabinet. The General Staff, the General Armament Department and the General Logistics Department, which were affiliated with the Royal Group, were merged into the Ministry of War. The ministers of these three departments were of the second rank, and the Ministry of War was promoted to carry out organizational structure reform.

The Royal Group and the Ministry of War are the most important departments in future wars, and are also the departments that Zhu Houxuan attaches the most importance to, so he gave Chen Hong and Jiang Jiangong the title of Shao Bao.

Shao Bao was one of the three orphans, and his rank was the first grade, one level higher than the second rank of the six ministers.

In addition, important departments of the Royal Group were also separated and added to the court's administrative sequence. For example, the Ming Royal Bank and the Ministry of Railways were separated. The chief officials of these two departments were both ranked as the second rank, the same level as the seven ministers.
As for other departments, they were not split up. Firstly, because this was the first time such a reform was carried out, it was not advisable to make too big a change and the reform should be done slowly; secondly, the other departments of the Royal Group could better exert their strength as a whole.
The remaining departments of the Royal Group were also rated as second-level departments or third-level departments according to their importance. The chief officers of second-level departments were rated as second-rank officials, and the chief officers of third-level departments were rated as third-rank officials.
Then, by analogy, basically all levels of managers of the Royal Group have administrative ranks and become officials who manage the country. From then on, their management scope is no longer limited to the Royal Group, but to the relevant affairs of the entire area currently controlled by Zhu Houxuan, such as the Ministry of Mining, the Ministry of Heavy Industry, the Ministry of Light Industry, the Ministry of Shipping, etc. The scope of their functions has been greatly expanded.
Zhu Houxuan's series of reforms shocked everyone, first of all, the Royal Group. This was like pie in the sky, even more exaggerated than pie in the sky. No one expected that they could become officials of the Ming Dynasty. Many people were ecstatic about this, especially the Chen family in Fujian. Chen Hong had been unknown for so many years, but he did not expect that he would rise to the top at this time.
The morale of the entire group was boosted, and they became more loyal to Zhu Houxuan.
In Zhu Houxuan's view, this was an act to consolidate a base. After all, the people in the Royal Group had the merit of "following the dragon", and these administrative levels were rewards for them.

Moreover, Zhu Houxuan had long been dissatisfied with the political structure of the Ming Dynasty. The functions of the six ministries were too broad, and the number of officials at all levels was insufficient. It seemed that they were in charge of everything, but in fact, the limited staff could only manage a small number of affairs.
Such a political structure can only manage the country roughly.
Then the officials at all levels in the capital were stunned. They did not expect Zhu Houxuan to promote so many officials at once. The most important thing was that these officials were not scholars, had no official titles, and all came from the royal group's own education system.
This is simply unheard of!

Many officials submitted petitions to oppose this matter, but at this time the power of the civil servants in the capital had been reduced to the lowest level, because the civil servants who opposed Zhu Houxuan had long since resigned and fled to the south, and the civil servants who remained in the capital were those who supported or leaned towards Zhu Houxuan, so their opposition was destined to not cause any waves.
They soon gave up their opposition. They all had some vested interests in the Royal Group, and they also knew that their own strength was insufficient and opposition would not produce any results.

The most important thing is that Zhu Houxuan’s political reform this time was addition, not subtraction, and their official positions were not affected.

Zhu Houxuan also issued an order to increase the salaries of officials at all levels to the same level as officials of the Royal Group. Basically, the salary of each official was more than ten times higher than before.
In Zhu Houxuan's view, the number of officials in the Ming Dynasty was far from enough. This number of officials might be enough to govern an agricultural country, but it was far from enough to govern an industrial country. So he would continue to add officials, and the productivity of industrial countries could also bear so many officials.
In fact, Zhu Houxuan was not intolerant of civil servants from gentry backgrounds. What he could not tolerate was that the gentry occupied the vast majority of official positions through imperial examinations, and then used this to constantly strive for privileges for their group.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with this; this is human nature.

But they blocked Zhu Houxuan's way. Zhu Houxuan wanted to develop productivity, because only by continuously improving productivity and becoming an industrial country could the dynasty cycle be broken.
They were politically dominant and controlled most of the means of production. They were unwilling to give up their vested interests, and unwilling to cooperate with Zhu Houxuan in developing productivity. They also coveted the existing achievements of the Industrial Revolution.
This is actually the root cause of the intensified conflict between the two sides.
Zhu Houxuan also understood that this was the last and biggest counterattack of the feudal forces of the Ming Dynasty. As long as this counterattack was defeated, the future of the Ming Dynasty would be bright and promising.
The news from the capital soon spread to the south, and naturally attracted a lot of criticism.
Zhu Houxuan's move simply hit the vital points of the civil servants. They were most proud of their status as scholars and their fame, which was the source of their privileges. However, all of this was ruthlessly broken by Zhu Houxuan. How could they not be furious?
(End of this chapter)