The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 417: Torture and Local Power

The eldest prince Zhu Jingkun reminded his two younger brothers not to take the topic too far.

However, the two younger brothers did not necessarily listen to his reminder, especially the Ninth Prince, who turned around and asked:

“Big Brother, the topic we are discussing is directly related to what we discussed today.

“We are princes, not ordinary officials. We should consider the governing ideas rather than how to deal with specific matters.

"Besides, my dear brother, are you the host of today's meeting?"

The Eighth Prince presided over today's meeting. Upon hearing this, he immediately spoke up:

"That's true. I think we should think about specific things and consider the root causes of these incidents."

The eldest prince sneered at this rhetorical question:

"Yes, that's right, what you said is right, how about we divide the work.

"You guys volunteered to handle the case of Jinyiwei in Huashan County causing death due to illegal work, and investigate and analyze the underlying causes of this incident.

“I will continue to lead a few brothers to deal with the division of Guangzhou Prefecture and the adjustment of Guangdong’s administrative divisions.

"I will also investigate and analyze the basic situation at the grassroots level and formulate the final adjustment plan based on the actual local situation.

"If you have no objection, shall we do this?"

The Eighth Prince, the Ninth Prince, and the Tenth Prince who had participated in the discussion earlier, all looked dejected when they heard this sarcastic reminder.

They all realized that the incident in Huashan County was an emergency local affair and not specially arranged by the emperor. Even if it was handled well, there would be no special rewards.

That in itself was a small thing, a routine matter.

The division of Guangzhou Prefecture and the adjustment of the administrative divisions of Guangdong Province were tasks arranged by the emperor himself and were things that had to be done well.

Of course, they could not accept such a division of labor.

The Tenth Prince was not hostile to the First Prince. He was just a little angry at the argument with the Ninth Prince. But after hearing the First Prince's reminder, he suddenly sobered up:

“Thank you, my great brother, for your reminder. We should resolve the incident of Jinyiwei in Huashan County causing death as soon as possible, and then focus our main efforts on the adjustment of administrative divisions in Guangdong Province.

“I suggest that the Jinyiwei centurions of Huashan County and the Jinyiwei flag officers who tortured someone to death be exiled to Africa and sentenced to three years of hard labor.

“At the same time, we will jointly ask Father whether the rules for punishing grassroots officials and Jinyiwei should be clarified in the future.

"As for whether the three brothers surnamed Lin and their father from Huashan County have committed any theft, let the Jinyiwei of Guangzhou Prefecture restrain the Jinyiwei of Huashan County to continue the investigation."

After hearing this, the eldest prince raised his hand and said:

"I agree with the Tenth Brother's solution."

The fifth prince, the seventh prince, and the eleventh prince also raised their hands. After hesitating for a few seconds, the other princes also raised their hands one after another.

Therefore, the handling plan for the incident in Huashan County where the Jinyiwei violated regulations and caused death was preliminarily determined.

The eighth prince arranged for the clerk to write the report, and he and his brothers began to discuss and arrange the research plan.

If twelve princes go to one place to investigate at the same time, the impact on the local area may be relatively large, but the key is that the risk is too high.

If any unexpected incident happened and all twelve people were killed at once, the whole world would be shocked.

Although the consequences of killing the prince are very serious, many ordinary people who have no worries at all do not care about the consequences.

In addition, Guangdong Province is relatively large, and if twelve people were to investigate it one by one, it would waste too much time.

So the princes discussed it for a while and naturally decided to act separately.

The twelve people were divided into three groups and first went to investigate the situation in Guangzhou city and the surrounding built-up areas, mainly in Panyu, Nanhai and Foshan.

Then we went to the three groups of county towns, namely Qingyuan, Huashan, Conghua and Longmen in the north of the city, Zengcheng, Dongguan and Bao'an in the southeast of the city, and Shunde, Xiangshan, Xinhui and Xinning in the southwest of the city.

Then they went to the main prefectures in three directions of Guangzhou Prefecture to understand the situation: Lianzhou, Shaozhou, Nanxiong, and Fogang in the north, Huizhou, Jiaying, and Chaozhou in the east, and Zhaoqing, Luoding, and Gaozhou in the west.

Finally, we went to the three most remote places: Leizhou, Qiongzhou and Lianzhou.

After the twelve people formulated the investigation plan, their report was also written by the clerk. After being handed over to the princes for review and confirmation, it was sent to Beijing via telegram.

In normal administrative procedures, the incident of the Jinyiwei in Huashan County, Guangzhou Prefecture, Guangdong Province causing death by negligence does not need to be reported to the emperor, and even the four yamens at the Guangdong provincial level would not have direct access to it.

Otherwise, these people would be confused by similar things and would not have the chance to deal with other things.

However, the reports from the princes were different from others. All matters, big or small, could be sent directly to the emperor. This was a special request from the emperor himself.

The emperor had to guide his sons in handling routine affairs through various specific matters and teach them the logic of doing things.

In addition, the main purpose of the princes' report was to ask for instructions on the rules of interrogation, and the incident in Huashan County was attached to the report as a background condition.

The habit of Emperor Zhu Jianxuan of the Ming Dynasty is to flip through his sons' reports after finishing his court affairs.

After seeing their report and request this time, Zhu Jianxuan sighed in his heart.

The above things seem simple on the surface, but if you analyze them a little more deeply, you will find them very complicated.

According to modern governance concepts, torture and forced confessions must be prohibited, and re-education through labor must also be prohibited.

As for why the ban is necessary, there will be completely different directions of thinking in terms of national governance logic and the thinking concepts of ordinary people.

For Eastern and Western societies, there are also different internal logics and decision-making ideas.

In the past history of the West, a series of social, ideological and cultural movements such as the Enlightenment began, which gave rise to the universal value that all people are created equal.

The main goal was to abolish aristocratic privileges, with the side effects of allowing children to inherit equally, prohibiting the use of torture, etc.

In terms of state governance, the population has never been saturated, whether in Europe or America.

So when modern rational management methods become mainstream, they will adopt any policy to improve the labor force.

This includes giving priority to women, as women are able to give birth to members of the labor force, and providing impunity for crimes committed by children, as children are potential members of the future labor force.

It also includes liberating women, promoting women's labor, and allowing women to work in factories, because although women are physically weaker than men, they can also undertake a lot of social labor.

In Eastern thought and culture, corporal punishment is generally considered cruel. One’s body and hair are given by one’s parents and should not be easily defiled.

In classical times, Eastern thinkers did not support physical torture. Caution in punishment has always been a very mainstream popular thought, and cruel officials who use torture will be generally hostile.

However, the level of technology in the classical era was too low to solve the case by relying solely on silent physical evidence without using criminal law.

Therefore, physical punishment has always been despised by scholars and literati, but torturers have continued to use it.

In the Eastern governance logic, it is believed that management processes involving people cannot be absolutely efficient, honest, and fair, and cannot avoid corruption, depravity, and personal revenge.

When it comes to punishment on the human body, if it has a legal veneer, then it can be legal to carry out physical torture, forced labor exploitation, and even organ harvesting, etc.

Organ trading is generally prohibited in modern times because ordinary people can be "forced to volunteer" and can "volunteer" for certain conditions. Nobles and wealthy people can pay ordinary people to voluntarily give up their freedom, limbs, and organs.

When modern science and medicine develop to a certain level, it will become possible to remove organs while torturing and extracting confessions.

Even now, if someone is brave enough, they can draw the blood of criminals and sell it.

It is estimated that organ replacement may become possible within the next twenty years.

Even in classical times, there were cases of extracting the teeth of criminals and slaves and selling them. Washington's gang not only skinned them to make boots, but also extracted their teeth for dentures.

During World War I, there were people who specialized in extracting the teeth of dead soldiers and selling them to dentists.

What Zhu Jianxuan needs to consider very carefully now is what impact it will have on grassroots public security in the current Ming Dynasty if torture is directly banned.

Is Ming Dynasty’s criminal investigation technology sufficient to support such a policy?
Zhu Jianxuan himself had no way to make an accurate judgment and could only assign new tasks to his sons who were undergoing training.

There is no need to let the twelve brothers in Guangdong do it. The other sons who are undergoing training at the grassroots level can observe and analyze at any time during the training.

If we do not use various destructive means against the suspect's body, will it be possible to solve cases and administer justice normally?

The key is how big a difference the efficiency will make compared to using simple criminal law.

At the same time, as an attachment to the Guangdong brothers’ report, Zhu Jianxuan did not pay much attention to the Huashan County case itself.

But when I saw the name of the person involved, I discovered some additional clues.

Although Zhu Jianxuan is not from Guangdong, he has some stereotypes about Guangdong.

Situ, Rong, and Xian are all typical Cantonese surnames. Weixiong, Kam Tang, and Zhaoji are also typical Cantonese names.

Lin is a big surname in Fujian, and Shuisheng is not a typical Cantonese name.

This Lin Shuisheng may not be from Fujian, but may be from Leizhou or Qiongzhou, or may be from Chaoshan.

Qiongzhou and Leizhou belong to Guangdong, and are the most remote places in Guangdong. Guangzhou is now the industrial center of South China, and the employment volume is increasing every year.

Lin Shuisheng may have gone to Guangzhou from Chaoshan or Leizhou to make a living.

Therefore, simply looking at the names of the parties involved cannot rule out a typical local problem, the conflict between new immigrants from other places and local people.

Xian Zhaoji suspected Lin Shuisheng of theft, and other workers also suspected Lin Shuisheng. The local Jinyiwei were all locals.

Although there is no substantial evidence, Lin Shuisheng's family are outsiders and are not Hakkas who can compete with the Cantonese people.

Regardless of whether they simply thought that this outsider family was suspicious, or if it was a deliberate frame-up, Lin Shuisheng would have no way of speaking in Huashan County.

But how should this problem be solved? How should it be prevented?

The fundamental solution is of course balanced development, so that each place has its own industry and most people do not have to leave their homes to make a living elsewhere.

However, this would lead to the entrenched power of local clans, making it impossible for the imperial court's management power to truly penetrate the local areas.

This has always been a huge problem in modern society in the past.

Another approach is to vigorously promote urbanization and attract a large number of outsiders to form huge cities.

The number of foreign population far exceeds the local population.

If the existing local city is already very large, or if the local residents have similar culture, the size of the city has been pushed to a huge scale.

For example, this is the case in Guangzhou Prefecture.

During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, the two affiliated counties of Guangzhou Prefecture, Nanhai County and Panyu County, had a combined registered population of two million.

Although there are only a little over 500,000 people living in cities, that is due to the limitations of technology in the agricultural era.

Cities in the agricultural era did not need such a large population.

Unless there is some special status or industry, it is difficult to gather a population of hundreds of thousands, and millions is an exception among exceptions.

At the same time, rural areas need a large population to maintain agricultural production.

However, the two million people in the two affiliated counties of Guangzhou City are all potential urban population of Guangzhou Prefecture.

Once technological innovation occurs and the city is able to accommodate more people, the urban population of Guangzhou will quickly exceed one million.

After the Ming Dynasty began to industrialize, the urban population of Guangzhou soon exceeded one million.

On this basis, even if the imperial court moved tens of millions of people from other places, the local population of two million could not be diluted.

What's more, there are millions or even tens of millions of people in the entire Guangzhou Prefecture.

The only option is to build new large cities with a large number of immigrants next to the existing local large cities.

For example, the newly established Bao'an Prefecture next to Guangfu has greatly attracted people from various cultural backgrounds from all over the south, and has also gathered a population of millions or even tens of millions.

This makes the importance and status of this new big city comparable to or even surpass that of Cantonese, which is mainly populated by local people.

Let the two big cities influence each other.

When people from different regions and cultural backgrounds gather in one place on a large scale to live, the local clan power will naturally fade away.

The court's ability to manage the grassroots will quickly surpass local forces during the urbanization process.

In this process, local cities will gradually become national metropolises, and conflicts between outsiders and locals will become secondary conflicts.

Because urbanization also brings huge benefits to local people. Their original urban housing and a small amount of surrounding land will appreciate rapidly with large-scale urbanization.

As long as the locals can seize a little opportunity, they can directly join the middle class or above through urbanization.

High-level governance at the national level will also be fairer and enable local residents to break free from the constraints and restrictions of traditional clan forces.

There may just be some deficiencies in grassroots and local culture, for example, dialects may gradually lose their effectiveness.

However, the construction and governance costs of megacities are also very high, and megacities also put enormous pressure on natural environmental resources.

There is no perfect method...

We can only make a few basic typical plans, and then make some targeted plans and responses based on the actual situation encountered.

For example, Guangzhou Prefecture and Guangdong Province now have to be adjusted and split.

The Bao'an Prefecture, which is about to be split off, will become a new large city in South China where outsiders will gather, and serve as the tentacles of the imperial court's direct forces in South China.

At the same time, Guangzhou Prefecture and its surrounding areas can no longer serve as the only industrial center of Guangdong.

An industrial base can be built around the Beibu Gulf, which is the area of ​​Guangxi, Hainan and Jiaozhi.

Leizhou, Gaozhou, Qiongzhou, Lianzhou and other places can be assigned to Guangxi. This industrial base will be built by Guangxi and Jiaozhi provinces.

(End of this chapter)