The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 419 Future Considerations
The twelve princes conducted investigations and discussions in Guangdong for more than half a year.

It was not until the imperial court completed the division of the western part of Guangdong Province that the Guangnan Provincial Administration under Guangxi Province was fully established.

Only then did they reach a consensus on the administrative division adjustment plan for Guangdong Province.

The final plan is very different from the original plan proposed by everyone.

Initially, most people supported the three-point plan, followed by the two-point plan, and only three people supported the four-point plan.

But after more than half a year of investigation, more than two-thirds of people supported the four-point plan, and some even suggested five points.

They all support separating Foshan and surrounding areas from Guangzhou Prefecture, and also support separating Qingyuan County at the northern end of Guangzhou and giving it to other prefectures.

Because they found that the situation in Guangdong Province was very different from that in Central Plains, Jiangnan, Huguang, Sichuan and other places.

There has been no large-scale war here for nearly five hundred years, which means that there has been no large-scale upheaval that would subvert the overall social structure.

Local clan forces have achieved long-term and stable development, forming an extremely solid foundation with intricate connections at the grassroots level.

Although the Hakka-Punti issue has not escalated, the two sides are clearly divided and have deep prejudices against each other.

At the same time, the cultural customs of Cantonese were little influenced by the central court, and the number of people with the same or similar local language and customs was large.

The population of the entire built-up area around Guangzhou Prefecture and Foshan County has exceeded three million, almost all of whom are Cantonese natives and basically speak the same language.

Guangdong Province and even Guangzhou Prefecture have an inexplicable sense of isolation compared to the Ming Dynasty itself.

In Jiangnan, Huguang, Sichuan and other places, people have strong feelings towards the central court, and most ordinary people are very yearning when talking about the court.

But the emotions of the natives of Guangzhou Prefecture and Guangdong Province were obviously much weaker, and they even had an inexplicable tendency to resist.

As a result, when they were there under the guise of practical training, arranging various affairs in Guangdong was far less smooth than when they were in the north and the south of the Yangtze River.

"It's still too far away from the central government, especially after the central government moved to Shuntian Prefecture..."

"Guangdong is basically the limit of the direct influence of the imperial court."

“The imperial court’s influence in places like this is insufficient, so we can no longer maintain strong local institutions.

"The population of Guangzhou Prefecture is too large. It needs to be further divided."

"In the future, the four government offices in Guangdong should be moved to Bao'an. After my father gave Qiongzhou, Gaozhou, Leizhou, and Lianzhou to Guangxi, Bao'an will be closer to the center."

"Guangdong Province has lost four prefectures, so we can demolish a few more in the central area."

The princes' conclusions were basically very similar, so they considered splitting the administrative districts to minimize the core appeal of Guangzhou.

After the plan discussed by everyone was voted on, it was sent to the emperor in Shuntian Prefecture as a general report.

After finishing his work for the day, the Ming Emperor Zhu Jianxuan opened the formal administrative division adjustment plan report from his sons.

The first is the splitting plan of Guangzhou Prefecture, in which only five counties, namely Panyu, Nanhai, Huashan, Zengcheng and Conghua, will be retained in Guangzhou Prefecture.

The new Foshan Prefecture was established, which governed the five counties of Foshan, Sanshui, Gaoming, Shunde and Heshan.

The new Bao'an Prefecture was established to administer the original Bao'an and Dongguan counties, but was later split into five counties: Dongguan, Bao'an, Humen, Longgang and Hong Kong.

The new Xiangshan Prefecture was established to administer the original three counties of Xiangshan, Xinhui and Xinning, and the three new counties of Jiangmen and Doumen were established.

The new Qingyuan Prefecture was established, administering Qingyuan, Fogang, Lianshan, Lianzhou, Yangshan, and Yingde.

Longmen County was transferred to Huizhou Prefecture, and Huizhou Prefecture was divided into Huizhou and Heyuan Prefectures.

At the same time, the three counties of Haifeng, Lufeng and Hetian in the southeast of Huizhou, together with Huilai, Meilin and other areas of Chaozhou Prefecture, were merged to establish Huihai Prefecture, with its seat in Lufeng County.

Zhaoqing was divided into Enping and Zhaoqing prefectures. The western coastal area of ​​Xinning (Taishan) of the former Guangzhou prefecture was transferred to Enping prefecture, and Guanghai County was established in the old Guanghaiwei area.

Enping Prefecture governs the five counties of Enping, Kaiping, Yangchun, Yangjiang and Guanghai, while Luoding, Yunfu, Xinxing and Xining counties are under the jurisdiction of Zhaoqing Prefecture.

Zhu Jianxuan looked at the plan and recalled the administrative divisions of Guangdong in his previous life, and found many similarities.

The scopes of the two prefectures of Huizhou and Heyuan are almost exactly the same as the two prefecture-level cities in the previous life.

The three prefectures of Guangzhou, Foshan and Qingyuan are basically the same as in the previous life. Shaozhou Prefecture is basically Shaoguan, with only some differences in details. Foshan has an additional Heshan County.

Just because there are no Hong Kong and Macao, Shenzhen and Zhuhai will naturally not be set up specifically.

On the contrary, Bao'an Prefecture, which is similar to Shenzhen, directly governs the jurisdiction of the three regions of Shenzhen, Dongguan and Hong Kong.

Xiangshan County was not changed to Zhongshan County, so there was Xiangshan Prefecture instead of Zhongshan City, which governed Zhuhai, Zhongshan, and parts of Jiangmen.

Only the adjustment plans for Zhaoqing and Luodingzhou are the most different from the administrative divisions of the previous life, and there is no Yunfu Prefecture.

In the past, the Chaoshan area had four prefecture-level cities, but now it is only divided into two prefectures, and there are no independent Jiangmen and Yangjiang districts.

However, from the overall direction, especially the adjustments to Guangzhou Prefecture and Huizhou area, it shows that the adjustment ideas of the two worlds are converging.

In the past and modern times, the administrative divisions of Guangdong have been adjusted many times.

Some adjustments are the wishful thinking of those in power, but many are reasonable adjustments made based on local conditions.

The establishment of a new country cannot be accomplished by simply announcing it at a meeting.

There must be a process of establishing a central court institution and a process of establishing local administrative institutions.

If it is a sufficiently mature national regime, there must also be a process of integrating local forces.

Otherwise, it will be the same as in the feudal era, where the central power cannot truly penetrate into the grassroots level, and the gentry forces that have existed for thousands of years will continue to control local power.

The central power cannot directly reach the real ordinary people, and the overall upper limit of the regime is very limited.

During the change of dynasties in the classical era, the new court basically only required local forces to obey in general and not to lead ordinary people to rebel.

Traditional feudal dynasties did not seek to directly govern ordinary people in the countryside.

But when the nature of the regime undergoes major changes, the new regime attempts to directly manage ordinary people and mobilize the power of ordinary people.

It is necessary to reshape the local power framework as a whole and break the local clan power that has been passed down for hundreds or even thousands of years.

In the previous life, after the founding of the country, when the land was distributed equally, bandits were cracked down on, gentry were punished, and spies were arrested, the original administrative divisions that had existed for thousands of years were drastically reshaped.

Management was implemented in a way that was completely different from that in traditional times, which completed a revolutionary change in grassroots governance.

In the eyes of Emperor Zhu Jianxuan, the current local governance plan of the Ming Dynasty is generally a compromise, between the classical era and that new era.

The original management system was not completely overturned, but grassroots management agencies were established.

In the eyes of ordinary officials in the Ming Dynasty, this was a subversive transformation, completely different from all previous dynasties.

The administrative division adjustment plan for Guangdong Province proposed by Zhu Jianxuan's own sons is also a product of this situation.

As for his overall evaluation of his sons, Zhu Jianxuan felt that they were successful as they were able to sort things out through negotiation without being subordinate to each other.

But I still have to consider whether they can continue to coordinate decisions after my death without my suppression and restrictions.

We still need to make good arrangements in terms of objective conditions so that they will have to coordinate with each other to make decisions in the future.

Let them check and balance each other, so that they cannot act alone. This system needs to be a little more complicated, to ensure that even if the decision makers are controlled, the system can continue to operate and even continue to confront the outside world.

Let decision-making goals be dispersed and form a fixed sequence, and let the distribution of power and interests form a constraint system.

It makes it difficult for a violent coup to find a clear target and to carry out.

Combined with modern industrial distribution and military power checks and balances, it should be able to play a certain role...

In the classical agricultural era, communities of interest were determined by geographical location. At the same time, from a modern perspective, separatist forces all belonged to the same industry.

They were all farmers, and all the feudal lords were landlords, just on different scales.

Warlords' infighting and unification of the world are essentially mergers within the industry. The resources controlled by the enemy are merged and the operation can continue directly.

But in the industrial and commercial ages, interest groups were formed based on industry systems.

Different interest groups come from completely different industries, and their interests may overlap and intersect in space, but there is no way to simply merge them.

If someone in the real estate business merges with the publishing industry, they won’t be able to run it.

In the industrial and commercial era, different interest groups naturally tend to split and it is difficult for them to truly merge.

Just like the United States’ military-industrial complex, pharmaceutical group, financial group, technology group, as well as traditional agricultural industry, energy industry, and aviation industry.

The direct interests of these industries are unrelated to each other and there is no way to directly connect them together.

However, the relationship between them is not an irreconcilable one. There is confrontation but also the possibility of common interests.

Different interest groups can confront or cooperate with each other.

Whether it is confrontation or cooperation, this relationship is always dynamic rather than fixed.

Zhu Jianxuan considered it for a moment and directly approved his sons' adjustment plan, and arranged for the Ministry of Personnel to cooperate with them to formally implement it.

The twelve princes were in conflict with each other yet had to cooperate. It took almost a year before the specific adjustment plan was actually implemented in their jurisdiction.

The imperial court selected suitable officials to take over the newly established prefecture and county agencies.

By the second half of the 28th year of Tiangong, the tasks assigned by their father were finally basically completed, and the princes' mentality began to change.

Mainly because I am increasingly looking forward to the end of the year.

When the princes were doing training in local areas, they would occasionally change locations after a year, but most of the time they would change locations every two years.

They had never encountered a training period of more than two years before.

Although the princes managed to maintain the operation of the four government offices in Guangdong through compromise and confrontation, they obviously regarded this cooperation as a training.

If possible, they don't want to continue working like this and hope that this kind of life will end soon.

At the same time, the four oldest princes have been training outside for ten years and are all over thirty years old.

They began to speculate how to arrange their next stage of practical training.

Will he continue to serve as a provincial official in another place, or will he be transferred directly to the capital and serve in various departments of the central court?

As the end of the year approached and December came, the emperor's arrangements for them finally came true.

This round of their training was indeed over, but the new arrangement their father made for them once again surprised everyone.

All twelve princes were officially conferred the title of Duke, and each of them could form a guard corps of a thousand households.

Then we went to America to investigate the actual local conditions in America, and adjusted and designed the formal administrative divisions of America through internal consultation and joint decision-making.

The princes who had a slightly better relationship exchanged their training arrangements with each other and quickly confirmed that everyone's arrangements were the same.

Then they instinctively gathered together for a meeting to discuss what to do next.

Of course, it's a good thing to have the title of Duke, and it's also a good thing to have a guard corps, but why do we have to go to America...

The eldest prince has been working tirelessly over the past two years, and in the second half of this year he finally got the position that should have belonged to him, the default host of the meeting.

When everyone was seated, the eldest prince Zhu Jingkun looked around at his brothers with a complicated expression:

"Does everyone know about the situation in America?"

The princes were all numb, and many of them had stern faces, some even closed their eyes and muttered to themselves.

"I don't know much about it, but everyone should know the general situation. After all, my father arranged a geography class for him in the past."

"Of course I know. That place is on the other side of the earth, right under our feet."

"Let me remind you that we are in Linzhou, and America is not directly opposite us."

"It's not much different anyway. It's separated from the mainland of Ming by the Pacific Ocean, and it's about the same distance from Europe."

"The key is that we can only get there by boat, and there are many European immigrants. How could our father let us go to a place like that?"

The eldest prince remembered some things from the past:

“My father had been to America when he was a teenager, and he was also the King of the United States.

“My father seems to have always attached great importance to America, which is the main place for the Ming Dynasty’s excess population to be resettled.

“The area of ​​America is larger than the total area of ​​the provinces within the Great Wall, and it should have a population of over 60 million now.

“Now we have three large cities with a population of over one million, so it’s no longer a particularly desolate place.

"After all, in the early years of Hongwu, the population of the Ming mainland was only 60 million."

The Tenth Prince seemed to have thought of something after hearing these explanations:
"In that case, training in America shouldn't be a bad thing, especially since they have arranged a guard troop for us."

The Ninth Prince continued the conversation with some anger:
"The point is... why should we continue to be together? Why should we continue to do things the way we are doing now? This is too inefficient.

"If so many of us were to come together and make a collective decision, it might not be as good as if one person did it.

“The purpose of our training is to learn governance capabilities…

"But now, what kind of ability are we exercising? To argue with each other and give in to each other?
"Will this ability really be useful in the future?"

The eldest prince Zhu Jingkun looked at his ninth brother's confused state and vaguely realized something.

Or it was because the eldest prince Zhu Jingkun had a different mentality from the other princes, and he had originally placed himself outside the competition sequence for the throne.

Then they would consider that although all of them had completed their training, not all of them could become emperors in the end, so what should be done with the remaining people?

Zhu Jingkun then looked at his ninth brother, whose personality did not match his, with some sadness, and said in a somewhat melancholy tone:
"Perhaps... in my father's plan, this ability will be very useful in the future...

“We may have to keep doing things this way in the future.”

This time, including the Ninth Prince, several other princes opened their mouths at the same time:
"Ah? What do you mean, brother?"

(End of this chapter)