Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 153: Read to Me

In the end, no official raised any objection to the court discussion on the formulation of the "Imperial Constitution Outline".

Because the senior officials of the Ming Empire had never thought that the empire's system needed to be explicitly stipulated, Zhu Houzhao's proposal was undoubtedly too novel, catching them off guard and making them very confused, not knowing whether to stop it or agree to it.

Under such circumstances, Zhu Houzhao could only use his imperial power to order the Hanlin Academy to organize a Constitutional Institute, which would draft the "Outline of the Imperial Constitution."

At the same time, the draft will be discussed again in court after it is completed.

However, the scholars of the Hanlin Academy who were responsible for drafting the imperial constitution in the Constitutional Hall had to be appointed by Zhu Houzhao himself.

Zhu Houzhao required that the Hanlin Academy be selected from officials of different classes to participate. It could not be only those from the official gentry class, but also those from the commoner landlord class. There had to be those with a merchant background and those without a merchant background. At the same time, it could not be only northerners, nor could it be only southerners.

It can be said that although Zhu Houzhao formulated the "Outline of the Imperial Constitution" with the purpose of safeguarding his own imperial power, his approach was still very democratic. He did not make decisions directly without consulting his ministers.

Of course, Zhu Houzhao's purpose in doing this was actually to make the civil servants of the Ming Empire accustomed to the way of thinking of governing the empire with the rule of law, rather than governing the empire with ethical relationships.

Wang Yangming, who was the governor of Southern Zhili at the time, also learned through Huangming Bao that the court was going to formulate a constitution. At the same time, he also learned about the content of the court discussion on the formulation of the constitution and the debate in the newspaper from Huangming Bao.

This discussion on drafting a constitution had a great impact on Wang Yangming, just as it had on other officials of the empire.

Wang Yangming found that even though he was in the court at the time, he could not tell whether the emperor's actions were right or wrong.

He had to admit that the current Emperor liked to make rules very much. He had just formulated a "Convention" in Nanzhili, and then formulated a "Covenant" with several important officials inside and outside the country who were related to the Royal Bank, and now he was going to formulate a "Constitution".

But Wang Yangming had to admit that these rules were necessary and effective. Once there were rules, there would be order and fairness. For example, the "Convention" of Nanzhili forced the gentry in Jiangnan to pay taxes, and they had no way to refute it because the rules were written in black and white.

But this also made Wang Yangming realize that the Confucian knowledge he had learned was very insufficient in this regard. It seemed that the Confucian knowledge he had learned only focused on self-cultivation and emphasized ethical relationships. There was never any explanation on what rules were needed to govern the empire. There was no clear political program. It only said that the monarch was the leader of the ministers, and the father was the leader of the sons.

But what exactly is the ruler's authority? What powers does it have? Does Confucianism mean that everyone in the world should be a slave to the ruler? What the ruler says is the truth? The ruler controls the life and death of his subjects? If this is the case, why is there a saying that "If the ruler regards his subjects as dirt, then the subjects will regard the ruler as an enemy"? Isn't this contradictory?
Wang Yangming found that he needed to start studying again to explain the relationship between people, people and nature, people and the country, people and the monarch, and the relationship between people and themselves. For the world, specialized knowledge is needed to interpret what is the most reasonable system, and what rights and obligations people should have.

Wang Yangming found that he was about to open up a new world of thought.

To this end, he started reading Zhu Houzhao's "Outline of Governance", went to the bamboo forest again, went up the mountain to find monks who were meditating and Taoists who were practicing Taoism, and even went to ask farmers what they wanted, and asked his maid what she wanted. With Wang Yangming's repeated encouragement, the maid shyly took off her clothes and said that she wanted to be a concubine.

Like Wang Yangming, Kang Hai, the president of the Hanlin Academy, is also very confused now. In his opinion, it is ridiculous for the Emperor to formulate a constitution, because since ancient times, dynasties have never had any constitutions to govern the world. They are either based on Huang-Lao doctrine or Confucianism.

But Kang Hai couldn't point out the absurdity now. Even though the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was the orthodoxy of the country, there was no explicit stipulation that Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism could be used directly as a political system, or even that it could not be used directly as a political system at all! Because "preserving the principles of heaven and eliminating human desires" is something that is used to demand of individuals, and it seems a bit irrelevant to demand it of the country.

Moreover, even if the doctrine of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism is used as a political program, it seems very contradictory. According to the idea that the emperor is the leader of his ministers, the gentry of the world should not question the emperor or advise him. Otherwise, even if they advise the emperor, if the emperor does not listen, they can only obey.

As a member of the official gentry class, Kang Hai had to admit that he was very resistant to such views in his heart, but he did not understand why he regarded such ideas as orthodoxy.

But when Kang Hai thought about the fact that the father is the leader of the son, he felt that it was nothing wrong. How could a son go against his father!

Kang Hai fell into confusion. He found that the emperor in the palace had given him a difficult problem. He also realized that even though he was the top scholar, he did not seem to be proficient in his studies and did not understand many things clearly. Especially when he saw those usually gentle and polite Hanlin scholars in the Constitutional Hall arguing with each other, he did not expect that the officials from the gentry and the officials from the common people would have such a big difference in the formulation of the constitution.

Kang Hai submitted a memorial expressing his desire to resign from his official position and become a student at the Imperial University of Peking. He found that the content taught at the Imperial University of Peking included a lot of knowledge that was not mentioned in the Four Books and Five Classics, and many of them were directly related to the nation's economy and people's livelihood, and were very straightforward. He didn't even know what system these subjects were based on, but he decided to study them. He felt that he could learn some new knowledge from there and thus answer his own doubts.

Zhu Houzhao agreed to the request of Kang Hai, the president of the Hanlin Academy, and exempted him from military training because of his age. However, Kang Hai's request caused an uproar in the court, and even the entire Ming Dynasty literary world was quite surprised, because the position of president of the Hanlin Academy was one of the most noble positions in the Qingliu, and even indicated that the next step would be to enter the cabinet, according to the previous rules.

Now Kang Hai wanted to resign from his official position to study, which naturally puzzled many people. Moreover, he wanted to study at the Imperial University of Peking, which was not tolerated by the world and even criticized by many people. He even went there to study as a great scholar. Many arrogant Confucian scholars could not accept such a thing.

Xu Zhenqing then asked Kang Hai, "Brother, why did you resign from your official position to study there? Do you really want to study with a group of young people?"

"What I don't know is that because Your Majesty wanted to implement constitutional government the day before yesterday, I realized that I have not learned much and cannot judge whether what Your Majesty said is right or wrong. According to the saints, is it better to limit the power of the monarch or not? But even the words of the saints are not unified. As a result, no ministers in the court can refute the right or wrong of what Your Majesty did. In order to better refute Your Majesty's heresy, you must learn what Your Majesty knows!" Kang Hai said.

Xu Zhenqing was unable to stop Kang Hai's behavior.

Zhu Houzhao had never expected that he was just drafting a constitution, but he would make the civil servants so confused and even cause great disagreements. Because of his words "The constitution is the foundation of the country's governance in the future, and the king and even the subjects of the world must take it as a guideline", the scholars in the Constitutional Institute of the Hanlin Academy did not dare to take it lightly, and they failed to draft a draft for several months, and the arguments even became more and more fierce.

Zhu Houzhao did not stop it, and even said: "It is better to argue more. Now that we have understood it, we will not cause dissatisfaction in the future. If we cannot reach a conclusion, let more people argue. We will eventually be able to formulate a constitution that will satisfy all the subjects in the world. There is no need to rush."

Because of this, almost all the intellectuals in the world joined in this war of words and expressed their views on how the constitution should be formulated through the Huang Ming Pao.

Zhu Houzhao didn't care. Even if some literati rolled up their sleeves and started fighting, he didn't let the Jinyiwei intervene. Besides, he didn't have so much time to care about how these literati quarreled. In his opinion, it was good for the literati to quarrel among themselves so that they would not deal with him as the emperor.

"Your Majesty! Censor Ximen Fu impeached Shouning Marquis Zhang Yanling for allowing his servants to seize hundreds of hectares of land from the people."

Zhu Houzhao did not expect that the civil officials did not bother him, but the foreign relatives and nobles caused him trouble. It was obvious that his two uncles now thought that he would indulge them more after the death of Emperor Hongzhi, and continued to annex land unscrupulously.

"Order the Marquis of Shouning to return the land to the people immediately, and hand over the slave who occupied the land to the Imperial Guard within three days. Otherwise, I will order the Imperial Guard to arrest him personally and strip him of his title!"

Zhu Houzhao was naturally not polite, and he took the memorial to find Empress Dowager Zhang and said to her:

"Mother, although relatives by marriage are not allowed to interfere in government affairs, I feel that my two uncles cannot remain so ignorant. Not only will they damage the reputation of my mother's family, but they will also be criticized by the officials. Moreover, even if I show favor to the Zhang family now, future emperors may not necessarily show favor to the Zhang family. In order to ensure the prosperity of the Zhang family, I think my two uncles should go to the Imperial University to study, just like other nobles, so as not to leave behind a reputation as dandies!"

"But your two uncles are already quite old. Is it too late for them to study now?" asked Empress Dowager Zhang.

"There is no age limit for studying. The one who has gained enlightenment first can be the teacher. It is better to let my two uncles learn the truth than to cause trouble now. Otherwise, it will bring a terrible disaster to the Zhang family! Now the imperial censor has reported that they have encroached on the people's land. What if someone dies again in the future, and they even don't know loyalty and listen to the traitors' instigation to rebel?"

Zhu Houzhao said.

After all, Empress Dowager Zhang was just a woman who had been living in the deep palace for many years. After hearing what Zhu Houzhao said, she naturally had no choice but to agree. Of course, she didn't want her two younger brothers to continue making trouble like this.

At this time, Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling received the imperial edict to study at the Imperial University of Peking, so they came to Zhu Houzhao unwillingly and said, "Your Majesty, we have returned the seized land, and the guilty servants have been sent to the Imperial Guards, but can you please not let us go to school?"

"No! This is the decree of the Queen Mother! It is to keep the Zhang family rich and prosperous forever! And aren't you complaining privately that the Royal Bank didn't include your share? Are you regretting not investing in it in the first place? Now I'm making it clear. If you don't want to go now, you can. In the future, if I need to make money again, I won't ask you two uncles to avoid letting you lose it!"

Zhu Houzhao said.

But because of what Zhu Houzhao said, they both had to accept the arrangement to study at the Imperial University of Peking, and only asked again: "May I ask Your Majesty, can we be exempted from military training?"

"cannot!"

(End of this chapter)