Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 197: The Sixth Year of Zhengde
For the Ming Dynasty's nearly 100 years of magnificent and glorious history since the Zhengde period, the sixth year of Zhengde was not a very special year.

Compared with later historical events such as drinking from the Rhine River and offering sacrifices to the gods in the Rocky Mountains, the history of the sixth year of Zhengde can only be described as ordinary, and is not even as exciting as the elimination of the three cabinet ministers in the early years of Zhengde.

But hundreds of years later, Professor Fang Chuan, an authority on imperial history at the Central University of the Ming Dynasty, which is the first in the study of Ming imperial history, claimed in his best-selling monograph "The Sixth Year of Zhengde" that the sixth year of Zhengde was the true symbol of the Ming Empire entering the Age of Discovery and the Age of Primitive Accumulation of Capital!

Because in this year, the authorities officially restored the entry and exit management agency and officially opened the country's borders, and they have never been closed since then.

"Although the Empire has not yet opened the sea and destroyed what was once the most powerful fleet in the world, under the influence of the great Emperor Zhengde, the rulers of the Empire have once again opened their eyes to the world. The Marquis of Shouning and the Marquis of Jianchang who requested an imperial decree to rebuild the Zhijiang Shipyard are examples of this. These two dandy princes who were hated by the civil officials never thought that their actions at this time would be recorded in history!"

Professor Fang Chuan wrote this in his book.

While the cabinet was conducting land surveys and border towns were ordered to set up Maritime Customs Offices to conduct border trade, Zhu Houzhao himself did not expect that Zhang Heling, Marquis of Shouning, and Zhang Yanling, Marquis of Jianchang, who were still studying at the Imperial University, would submit a petition to the court at this time, hoping that the court would rebuild the Zhijiang Shipyard. The reason was that the sea borders could not be without powerful warships, and that the Ming Dynasty was already the overlord of the sea and could not cede the vast sea borders to the western barbarians.

Of course, the real purpose of these two people is to verify whether the earth is a sphere.

Zhu Houzhao had already prepared for the possibility that these two relatives could not bear the heavy workload at the Imperial University and would go to the empress dowager to cry and ask her to set them free, but Zhu Houzhao did not expect that his two uncles did show a strong interest in geography and navigation, which made Zhu Houzhao very relieved.

Because he had to admit that his two uncles had indeed gone too far in committing evil and had done many bad things such as seizing land and bullying the people. Sometimes he could not blame the civil officials for frequently impeaching these two people.

But because the empress dowager really doted on his two younger brothers and the late emperor Hongzhi had promoted his two brothers-in-law to the rank of marquis during his lifetime, although he was the emperor, he was still a junior after all, and sometimes he really couldn't make up his mind to get rid of these two relatives who would cause trouble for the royal family.

Now, after staying in the Imperial University of Peking, these two relatives have their own things to do, and Zhu Houzhao no longer needs to worry that these two people will continue to cause trouble after leaving the Imperial University of Peking and eventually force him to turn his back on his relatives.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao approved the two relatives' request for permission to rebuild the shipyard without hesitation. He also personally ordered Zhang Heling to graduate from the Imperial University of Peking and supervise the Zhijiang Shipyard. He also allocated two million taels of silver from the Royal Tax Bureau, which was Zhu Houzhao's treasury, to Zhang Heling to rebuild the sea vessels.

In addition, Zhu Houzhao also appointed Zhang Heling to go to the Guangdong Navy to learn naval warfare in preparation for future services for the empire's maritime trade.

The civil officials were all very surprised. They did not expect that His Majesty the Emperor would agree to the two relatives' plan to rebuild the shipyard. In their opinion, the two relatives were trying to make money from the court. In addition, the civil officials also knew through their recent research on Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling that the real idea of ​​the two relatives was to verify an unrealistic conjecture, which was to prove that the earth is spherical.

"Have you heard that Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, founded the Ming Maritime Association and has been trying to win over officials and gentry to give them money to accomplish a feat. He said that he wanted to prove that the earth is spherical and that he wanted to start from Ming and keep going forward to see if he can eventually return to Ming!"

"How could you not know that Zhang Yanling had brought a group of people from the Imperial University to set up this association, saying that he was carrying on the legacy of Eunuch Sanbao and reviving the maritime affairs of the Ming Dynasty? In fact, he was just taking the opportunity to make money. The officials had already submitted a memorial to impeach him, but His Majesty did not object, and even the Cabinet voted to approve it. The current His Majesty even rewarded the Maritime Association with 100,000 taels of silver, saying that the royal family also wanted to contribute to the revitalization of the maritime affairs of the Ming Dynasty! Isn't this obviously giving him silver as a reward for Marquis Jianchang!"

"Although it is the royal treasury that is being used, it is also a tax collected from merchants. The emperor is so wantonly squandering and giving away money to his relatives. Isn't it hurting the people? And reviving the maritime industry is not a good policy. In the past, Eunuch Sanbao made seven voyages to the West, wasting countless money and grain, which led to the poverty of the country and the people. Now your majesty's move is undoubtedly to imitate Taizong's desire to create a prosperous era where all nations come to pay tribute! Your majesty is too ambitious, I'm afraid it is not a blessing for the country!"

Some civil officials discussed this matter behind the scenes. In short, they were very disgusted with Zhu Houzhao's behavior of indulging and favoring his in-laws. At the same time, they were also unwilling to see Zhu Houzhao emulate Yongle and make another voyage to the West. Many of them even worried that Zhu Houzhao would open up the borders and then the seas.

For most civil officials who studied Confucianism, opening up the seas and borders was a behavior that favored commerce and hurt agriculture, and was also not in line with the teachings of the saints. After all, the Ming Dynasty was already the center of the world, the Celestial Empire that occupied the benefits of the world. It should not earn profits from other foreign countries or even plunder them! Instead, it should show them kindness and make them grateful to the Celestial Empire.

After all, the empire is already so powerful and wealthy that there is no need to compete for interests with some barbarian and small countries. Moreover, the benefits of trade with the barbarians should be given to the people, and the court does not need to take them. In the final analysis, it is not necessary to compete with the people for profits.

However, the civil officials could not do anything to Zhu Houzhao now. Zhu Houzhao was not willing to let the Ming Dynasty become a superficial dynasty, nor was he willing to be fooled by the civil officials. Therefore, the entire civil official gentry group could only be forced to accept Zhu Houzhao's transformation of the empire. But although these civil officials were reluctant in their hearts, they responded very well on the surface. On the one hand, they secretly criticized Zhang Heling's Ming Maritime Association for not doing their job properly, and on the other hand, they tried their best to let their family members join the Ming Maritime Association. Even after Zhu Houzhao gave silver to the Ming Maritime Association, they rushed to donate money to the Ming Maritime Association in order to please His Majesty the Emperor.

Not only that, after more and more civil servants realized that they could not defeat Emperor Zhu Houzhao, they began to learn to curry favor with Zhu Houzhao. Before Zhu Houzhao even proposed opening the sea, some clever civil servants, with their keen sense of smell, had already proposed to re-establish the Maritime Customs Office to open the sea.

For example, Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, suggested to the court to open up the sea for trade on the grounds that most of the poor people in Guangdong and Guangxi made a living by sea, and encouraged the countries in the South China Sea to come to the court to pay homage.

Although the memorial submitted by the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi, Lin Tingxuan, was criticized by many court officials, who said that he was just a sycophant who was trying to figure out the emperor's intentions for his own personal achievements.

However, Zhu Houzhao was very supportive of Lin Tingxuan's proposal to open the sea, and allowed him to set up a Maritime Customs Office in Guangdong and open ports for trade as a pilot site. At the same time, he specially appointed Lin Tingxuan as the Prince's Guardian and promoted him to the second rank.

The civil servants are now increasingly aware that the current emperor does not like conservative officials, but likes new officials, so naturally they have begun to propose suggestions for reforming various matters.

In addition, today's performance evaluation system no longer mainly requires officials to be honest, but mainly examines their political achievements, that is, what they have done. As a result, officials have gradually begun to shift their main focus from managing their own reputation to creating some new political achievements.

Zhu Houzhao now received a lot of memorials about reform and elimination of malpractices every day, but he had to admit that few of them were really meaningful for reform. However, there were some that were indeed worthy of reform, and Zhu Houzhao would approve them.

Speaking of the Performance Evaluation System, the administration of officials in the Ming Dynasty has indeed improved a lot since its implementation. Zhu Houzhao learned through the investigation of the Western Factory that although the civil and military officials in the court still took the silver and tried to find ways to put money into their own pockets, they did begin to do some practical things.

In particular, the phenomenon that those who used to become officials only needed to write a few articles to build up a reputation or even spend money to use connections to obtain important positions in the court has become much less common.

Because whether it was Zhu Houzhao's appointment, the recommendation by the six ministries and nine officials of the cabinet, or the recommendation by the Ministry of Personnel, the political achievements and records of each recommended candidate for important official position would be examined in advance, and their resumes during their tenure would be announced in the Huangming Pao. Their political achievements would be clear and would even be seen by the people all over the world.

Ordinary people are illiterate and would not care much, but for scholars from poor families, if a big shot in the court allows a member of their family to be promoted without any political achievements, they would dare to bring the case to the emperor.

Because of this, the Kaocheng System not only ensured the empire's tax revenue, but also greatly changed people's livelihood. Some local people-friendly officials no longer just fanned themselves and took a few gentry to chant poetry and sing for the moon, or wrote birthday poems for the ministers in Beijing, but began to take the initiative to repair river embankments and build bridges and seriously judge cases.

As a result, the Emperor Zhu Houzhao and important officials such as the cabinet secretaries received fewer compliments and were no longer flattered. There were even fewer examples of filial piety, so that the civil service was not as corrupt as it had been in history, since the Zhengde and Jiajing periods, when superiors only cared about collecting money and subordinates only cared about making money, and being an official was judged only by how much money one made rather than how well one did things.

It was also because of the gradually clean administration that the reform of the Ming Dynasty's border trade system and the land survey were successfully implemented. In order to get promoted, most officials had to do their best to complete the instructions of the central court.

Of course, whether it was the Kaocheng Law or the reforms that followed it, such as the opening of border towns and the survey of land, they were all enforced by the emperor and reformist civil servants using the power in their hands. For the vast majority of gentry groups and even rulers such as nobles and princes, they were unwilling to do so in their hearts.

But there is no way around it. The reason for the reform is that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people has led to intensified social contradictions and affected social development. It is necessary to change the social benefit distribution system to make it more reasonable so that wealth can be in the hands of people who can help increase social wealth.

Thanks to my book friend SHAJIA for the 100 Qidian coins reward

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(End of this chapter)