The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 340: Royal Property and Title Inheritance System

There are a lot of things to do during the Chinese New Year, but basically it’s just gatherings, meals, and arranging marriages for children.

Zhu Jianxuan inspected and educated the four princes who had returned from the local areas. He was relatively satisfied with their performance, so he let them go back and rest.

Then he called the Chief of the Imperial Clan Zhu Jianxuan and asked the Imperial Clan Office to arrange concubines for the princes over the age of 20.

Including four princes who have already gone to local areas to gain experience, and another four princes who will go to local areas for training next year.

The standard was the same as when Zhu Jianxuan took his concubines: unmarried girls over 18 years old were selected from low-level officials, craftsmen, and civilian families.

Pass the exam to make sure you are smart enough, pass the physical examination to make sure you are healthy enough, and your image must also be good enough.

The clan affairs office first selected people and had Zhu Jianxuan and the prince's mother review them. After confirming that there were no problems with the girls themselves, they were directly distributed among the princes.

In this case, if the prince himself expresses his dislike and rejection of the idea, then the matter can indeed be dropped.

They don't even need to continue their training because they are directly eliminated from the competition for succession.

The purpose of taking concubines is to give birth to children for them. If they simply reject a woman with sufficiently superior conditions just because of some emotional problems, they will not do so.

Such an emotional person is indeed not suitable to be an heir.

Since this matter was essentially a concubine rather than a formal wedding, there was no need for a particularly complicated and formal ceremony.

It can be completed during the Chinese New Year and in one or two months after the New Year.

On December 30th of the 16th year of Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan held a royal family banquet in the New Palace of Beiyuan, and all royal relatives within the fifth degree of mourning who were in Beijing were present.

The new palace is a reinforced concrete structure, and the interior space is much larger than the old wooden palace, so large-scale banquets can finally be held indoors.

After everyone arrived, Zhu Jianxuan was the last emperor to enter. After he sat on the throne, all the royal family members saluted him.

Zhu Jianxuan ordered everyone to return to their seats, and then spoke using the microphone and loudspeaker prepared in advance.

According to everyone's custom, during the New Year's Day, the emperor's speeches would definitely be filled with clichés, reminiscing about the past, looking forward to the future, and so on.

At most, they would be given some warnings and alerts, or something like encouragement or rewards would be announced.

Therefore, although most of the royal family members sat upright and listened carefully to the emperor's speech according to etiquette, they were not nervous mentally.

As a result, after a brief opening speech, Zhu Jianxuan directly announced a big event.

First of all, starting from the 17th year of Tiangong, comprehensive compulsory education was gradually implemented for all young people of the royal family who were still listed in the family tree.

Zhu Jianxuan will allocate more school buildings, teachers, and funds to establish more specialized royal family schools to provide unified education for all royal family members under the age of 20.

There is no restriction on closeness of relationship, as long as one is on the family tree, one can participate and must participate.

Before this, although the clan government also opened schools of various levels and recruited children of clan members to attend, it was not compulsory, the scale was not large, and there were fees.

How to manage and educate children in royal family was mainly decided by the royal family members themselves, and the clan office never intervened directly.

Now we need to expand the size of the school, make it compulsory, and also make it completely free.

This is certainly a benefit. The school itself is completely free and also provides food, accommodation and clothing. The school's educational level is definitely relatively high.

This benefit is very meaningful for the marginalized royal families at the bottom of the society. Once their children grow up, they can just send them to school and no longer have to worry about them.

However, for members of the royal family who still have status and wealth, it can be considered an obligation and responsibility.

They can no longer discipline their own children, and their children can no longer just idle away their time; they must be sent to school to receive an education.

The royal family members who can attend the banquet today are all close relatives. Their grandfathers’ grandfathers were all emperors, and they themselves now hold different titles. Almost all of them can be considered the latter.

According to their own inner thoughts, they certainly don't want to be subject to too many restrictions.

But Zhu Jianxuan's authority is now extremely strong. In such a matter where there is no substantial loss of interests, no one will jump out to offend the emperor.

Everyone continued to keep a tense expression and dared not make any sound.

After Zhu Jianxuan finished talking about the clan school, he immediately announced another related decision.

At the same time as the royal school was opened, the Ministry of Clan Affairs took the lead in establishing a Ming Royal Industrial Company, with shares belonging to all members of the clan.

When the Royal Industrial Company makes a profit in the future, all members of the royal family will receive dividends.

Royal Industrial Company can invest in and operate any legal industry.

Including but not limited to arms, steel, metallurgy, minerals, petroleum, machinery, shipbuilding, transportation, communications, grain and oil, tobacco and alcohol, land development, immigration, exploration, security, etc.

At the same time, students who complete their studies in the royal school and obtain a diploma in the future will have priority in employment in the royal industrial company.

This is equivalent to the emperor leading all his relatives to invest, and it can also provide a way out for his children.

No one would doubt the investment vision of the current emperor. Almost all industries organized by him make huge profits.

If we must find a difference, it is that some make profits early and some make profits later.

You can also arrange jobs for the children of the royal family so that they have something to do in the future. Naturally, they can also get a salary, which will give them an extra option in the future.

For the royal family members present, this was of course an absolutely great thing, and naturally no one would object.

The slight entanglement in my heart caused by the compulsory education was also swept away.

If the main officials of the court were present at the scene and heard about Zhu Jianxuan's plan, they would most likely be worried.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty also established many state-owned companies to carry out industrial construction in the Ming Dynasty and overseas.

However, the state-owned companies in the past were truly state-owned, with the court directly controlling the equity and dividends, and of course directly governing them.

Now this royal industrial company belongs to the royal family members.

The most critical question is whether this company will be supervised and managed by the imperial court in the future, or even pay taxes to the imperial court?
Is this the emperor using his power to benefit the royal family, or does he want to split the power of the existing court system?

But there were few officials at the scene, and Zhu Jianxuan did not give anyone a chance to question.

Zhu Jianxuan actually has three considerations for doing this now.

First of all, we are indeed preparing to establish another relatively independent industrial system outside the existing state-owned industries.

Because Ming Dynasty's industrialization is about to enter a new stage.

The industrialization of the Ming Dynasty was not completed completely spontaneously, but was directly initiated and rapidly expanded by national power.

In the early stages of this process, the main forces of the entire country can be concentrated in a single company to specialize in the operation of a single industry.

Be able to complete the construction of universal industrial infrastructure as quickly as possible.

Now that Ming has a basic industrial foundation and the entire country has basic industrial strength, it is time to consider opening multiple companies in the same industry.

Try different development methods and directions, improve efficiency through market competition, and provide more diversified specific products.

The next step is to change the clan’s source of income and reduce their dependence on the imperial court.

In the future, we can no longer rely solely on direct funding from the court, but should gradually shift to living mainly on industrial profits.

With the advancement of industrialization, the urbanization rate and literacy rate of the Ming Dynasty are constantly increasing, and more and more people are able to think. Now the Ming Dynasty court is extremely efficient, powerful enough, and has huge fiscal revenue. Now it is not a problem to directly allocate funds to support the royal family.

Once the court's efficiency declines, corruption breeds on a large scale, and fiscal revenue continues to decline, when the court needs to find a way to raise money, someone will consider this issue.

If the royal family relies entirely on the court's funding for their lives and does not hold important positions in the court, then they will have no say in the court.

If officials collectively demanded a reduction in royal spending, later emperors and royal family members would probably have no effective way to deal with it.

If the royal family can live on their own property, and even become a check and balance on the court because of their property, then the actual status of the royal family can be guaranteed.

This can also cultivate and train the abilities of clan members, and screen out clan members with talents in various aspects, so that not all of them will become waste.

The last step is to provide royal family members with a regular way out, turning the royal family population from a mere burden into a resource and strength.

Zhu Jianxuan already has more than sixty sons, and by the time he is sixty years old, he may even have hundreds of sons.

According to the method of training princes and selecting heirs designed by Zhu Jianxuan, his sons will also have a large number of children, and he may have thousands of grandchildren.

If other clan titles were required to be inherited through competition, the number of their children would also increase significantly.

The number of their offspring will expand exponentially at an unprecedented rate.

If we don't plan ahead, these royal children will become a huge burden in the future.

Therefore, we must implement compulsory education and at the same time establish royal industrial companies, and through the support of court policies, allow this system to develop rapidly.

Allow them to support themselves and even form a force to restrain the imperial court.

After Zhu Jianxuan announced these two important events, today's family dinner officially began, and everyone present began to eat with great interest.

Zhu Jianxuan also had a simple meal on the spot, and then returned to his palace by the Shichahai Lake to rest.

After the royal family dinner, everyone else went home to wait for the New Year.

The next day, which was the first day of the first lunar month of the seventeenth year of Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan ascended the throne in the Grand Hall and held a New Year's court meeting.

All the monarchs of the vassal states and their close relatives, nobles, and officials in Beijing once again collectively paid homage to the emperor.

Then Zhu Jianxuan held a New Year's banquet in the Grand Hall and once again had dinner with all the vassal monarchs and nobles.

After the ceremonial New Year's morning meeting, everyone can finally relax a little.

From the first day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth day, there are no particularly large-scale formal court meetings or official banquets.

The monarchs and nobles of the vassal states in the capital began to feast and entertain themselves.

Until the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, the fortieth birthday of the Ming Emperor Zhu Jianxuan.

The royal family members, nobles, monarchs of vassal states, and officials in Beijing entered the palace again to formally congratulate Zhu Jianxuan on his birthday.

The monarchs of the vassal states formally presented the gifts they had prepared.

Zhu Jianxuan flipped through the list to understand the situation. When he saw something that interested him, he asked someone to bring it to him so that he could observe and understand it personally.

The tribute ceremony lasted for three days and finally ended on the 20th day of the first lunar month.

Then Zhu Jianxuan issued three edicts in succession.

The first edict responded to the congratulatory messages from all the vassal monarchs, praising and encouraging their unification.

The second edict publicly reprimanded Prince Shun Li Celing for disrespecting the orders of his emperor, but considering his old age and this being his first offense, he was given a chance to make amends.

He was required to come to the capital in person to apologize before June 1st, and before that the imperial court and all vassal states would cut off all ties with Shun State.

This edict turned the oral instruction that Zhu Jianxuan asked Wang Tingzhen to convey years ago into a formal public imperial decree.

The third imperial edict finally disclosed the method of succession for nobles and vassal monarchs.

All vassal monarchs and nobles who already have a crown prince will still be directly succeeded by the crown prince after their death.

All monarchs and nobles who have not yet appointed a crown prince, all their descendants need to receive unified specialized education and take part in the assessments organized by the emperor.

The emperor himself set the questions and supervised the examinations for the sons of monarchs and nobles at the level of prince, duke, and county king.

The assessment of the descendants of monarchs and nobles at the level of marquis, earl, viscount and baron is organized by the Ministry of Honors, which is composed of dukes and above, and the results are reported to the emperor for approval.

The assessment of the descendants of gentry and local scholars was the responsibility of the branches established by the Ministry of Honors and Conferment in the corresponding provinces, and the results were reported to the Ministry of Honors and Conferment for approval.

All monarchs and nobles whose eldest sons are over twelve years old do not need to attend unified school education, and the scope of examinations will not be limited to the scope of school education.

For monarchs and nobles whose eldest sons are under the age of twelve, all their children must go to the same school and receive the same school education after the age of seven.

When the monarch or noble reaches the age of sixty or dies, all his descendants will take the inheritance examination of the corresponding level.

If the monarch of a vassal state is under the age of 60 and his sons have graduated from school, they can return to their country to live, or they can serve in other places in the Ming Dynasty like ordinary students.

All regulations will be implemented from the 17th year of Tiangong, and age will be calculated from the first day of the first lunar month of the 17th year of Tiangong.

After the three imperial edicts were issued, everyone at the scene was in a mess. Although it was not certain whether Li Celing would come, no one was thinking about him anymore.

Everyone began to think about their own family affairs and how to pass on their family business.

The rumors that had been spreading and brewing for more than ten years finally became a reality. The emperor was indeed preparing to completely abolish the system of primogeniture.

It is said that all the descendants must take part in the examination, and the eldest son and other descendants must take the examination at the same time.

But in reality, the heir was designated by the emperor and the court.

Especially for nobles and monarchs above the rank of duke, it was said that the emperor would set the questions and supervise the examinations personally, but there were no regulations on the question setting and examination process.

The emperor can choose to test the candidates in person, assess them through communication, and finally choose the one that suits his taste.

Whoever the emperor wants to inherit the vassal state and title, he just needs to choose the one with the best performance.

The middle and lower-level monarchs and nobles would be examined by senior nobles designated by the emperor, and they would certainly only choose heirs who met the emperor's ideas and requirements.

If Zhu Jianxuan suddenly announced such a rule without any warning, it would most likely cause huge chaos.

But this was not made public until after more than ten years of preparation.

All relevant personnel have been mentally prepared, and the question now is how to respond.

For the nobles in Beijing, it meant sending their children to school, waiting for them to take exams when they were old, and letting the emperor directly or indirectly designate their successors.

This would be troublesome for foreign vassal states.

Their children had to go to Shuntian Prefecture to go to school after they turned seven, and would not have the opportunity to return home until they were twenty years old, and they could choose not to return home.

If a person has lived in the most prosperous city in the world since childhood, how much affection can he have for his remote hometown when he grows up?

It is possible that all future vassal monarchs may actually be from Shuntian Prefecture.

The impact of the resources, money and manpower that the vassal monarchs spent to allow their children to go to school in Shuntian Prefecture on Shuntian Prefecture was not a big deal.

(End of this chapter)