The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 458: The Eldest Grandson, the Youngest Son, and the Grand Pilgrimage

The third batch of fifteen princes led by Zhu Jianxuan went to Africa. After a year of busy inspection in Africa, it was the thirty-sixth year of Tiangong.

After the official start of the 36th year of Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan celebrated his 59th birthday first.

Zhu Jianxuan will be sixty years old next year.

People from all walks of life in the Ming Dynasty court began to speculate who Zhu Jianxuan's successor, or the crown prince, would be.

According to the system personally drafted by Zhu Jianxuan, when all nobles reached the age of 60, the Institute of Honors and Conferment would be responsible for assisting the emperor in selecting suitable successors.

Of course, the people in the Academy of Honors and Conferment did not dare to think that they were qualified to help the emperor choose a crown prince.

But it is also natural to speculate that Zhu Jianxuan might choose his favorite prince from among his existing sons when he is sixty years old.

According to the tradition of the past twenty years, Zhu Jianxuan's birthdays in regular years are kept simple.

A normal-scale celebration is held every five years’ birthday, and a large-scale celebration is held every ten years’ birthday.

The main purpose of Zhu Jianxuan celebrating his birthday in this way was to use the celebration of his birthday as an excuse to hold a large-scale pilgrimage ceremony, so that princes and monarchs from all over the world would come to Beijing to pay homage to him.

All the monarchs and top nobles in the world regularly went to Shuntian Prefecture to pay homage to the Ming Emperor with great fanfare.

It can make the reality that all countries in the world are vassals of the Ming Dynasty deeply rooted in people's hearts and become an objective fact that ordinary people take for granted.

This will further strengthen the imperial court's control over overseas vassal states and consolidate the centripetal force of all human beings in the world.

It seemed a very appropriate arrangement for Zhu Jianxuan to decide on his future successor at the grand pilgrimage ceremony on his 60th birthday.

The selection of a crown prince will directly affect the structure of the court and even the power structure of the entire world.

The crown prince is the heir to the throne and the clear future emperor. He can legally have his own team and can naturally share some of the emperor's power.

Before the establishment of a crown prince, the emperor was the absolute center of the court, both inside and outside.

With the emergence of a crown prince, the emperor is no longer the only absolute center, because the crown prince will naturally become the secondary center.

All senior officials must consider how they should respond in the process of changing power structure in order to obtain the most favorable results for themselves.

Older senior officials, who would most likely retire or even die before the crown prince ascended the throne, might continue to follow the emperor unconditionally.

Younger officials, middle-level officials in the central court, may begin to think about the future.

They rarely have the opportunity to come into contact with the emperor. On the contrary, after the crown prince ascends the throne, they are likely to be promoted to higher positions in the court and then deal directly with the crown prince.

It is possible that when they think and act, they will no longer pin their hopes for the future on the emperor, but will start to consider the future succession of the crown prince.

It is natural that cracks will appear within the court.

At this time, the slightly older princes could not help but begin to speculate about this matter in their hearts.

It seems to be a completely unsolvable question to guess who my father likes more, as my father treats all the princes very similarly.

Except for a few brothers who were clearly eliminated when they were young, and the sixteenth prince who went to England to become king, their father never made special arrangements for any prince.

All brothers are treated equally and all follow the arrangement of centralized study - local internship - collective decision-making training.

But this matter is so important that even if there are no traces to follow, many people's minds cannot help but start to wander.

Many people began to find it difficult to concentrate on the things at hand and were particularly concerned about all the movements and information of the court.

People who originally didn't care much about the matter couldn't help but become nervous because the people around them were obviously nervous.

As for Zhu Jianxuan himself, he has seriously considered the issue of succession many times over the past few years.

But the ideas and standards used are not on the same channel as others.

In Zhu Jianxuan's view, it would be difficult for his successor, the future emperor of the Ming Dynasty, to have the same prestige as himself, nor would he be able to take over all his power.

Therefore, Zhu Jianxuan had already started making arrangements, assigning tasks to all his sons who were above average in batches.

Let them control an industry in the future, and then, as representatives of the industry, participate in future national affairs, assisting or sharing power with the emperor.

This formed a pattern in which the Royal Council and the Emperor cooperated with and also restricted each other.

But there is an obvious problem: he will eventually have to choose his successor, that is, the crown prince and the future emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and his team must be different from that of his other brothers.

Even if the prince has the cooperation of a dozen brothers, the prince himself must be the core.

Rather than having the same power and status as in an ordinary prince's team.

The crown prince and the future emperor must control the most important industries, or have an important share in all important industries, at least one third or even two thirds.

The future emperor will also be the future helmsman of the Ming Dynasty.

His ability and attitude will determine how many of the rules he has set can be retained in the future and how long they can last.

Zhu Jianxuan hoped to use his direct influence, educate and guide the future emperor directly, and determine the long-term plans for the future as much as possible.

In other words, when Zhu Jianxuan chose his successor, he did not consider the ability of the person, but the continuity of his policies in the future.

How long can the successor you choose rule stably according to your arrangements?

Based on such considerations and worries, Zhu Jianxuan's attention was divided into two aspects: which one is more suitable, the eldest grandson or the youngest son?
It’s not that Zhu Jianxuan was planning to let his grandson succeed to the throne directly, but he was considering both his sons and grandsons, and while establishing the crown prince, he would also determine the candidate for the crown prince.

Then he would personally train this grandson as much as possible so that his policies could be passed on to his grandchildren.

This requires that one choose an heir from among the older sons, and the grandsons should also be adults before one dies.

In this way, he could observe and teach his grandchildren as much as possible.

He could even consider abdicating voluntarily, but still control the actual power over the military, finance, legislation, and judiciary.

Let the son who succeeds the throne take over only the administrative power and do the work of the prime minister in the capacity of emperor.

Then, when he chose a grandson who was in his thirties, he asked his son to abdicate at the age of sixty so that his grandson could succeed him during his lifetime.

When he died, he passed the most important military, financial, legislative and judicial powers directly to his grandson, skipping over his abdicated son.

In this way, when his grandson succeeds to the throne, his age can be controlled in his thirties, and he will have thirty to fifty years of stable ruling time in the future.

After this operation is completed, there will be an opportunity to establish the tradition of the emperor passing the throne during his lifetime, but there are too many variables.

This might cause his son to harbor a grudge against him, and after he succeeds to the throne, he might concentrate on seizing power from him, or even take the risk of staging a coup.

I can choose a more honest son, but his honesty may just be an act...

Therefore, such an arrangement carries a high political risk.

Or they don't consider the issue of grandchildren and directly choose a younger son as the heir.

For example, a son born after you are fifty years old.

If I died in my eighties, the other person should have been in his thirties at the time. If I died in my nineties, the other person would have been in his early forties at most.

The other party should be able to govern stably for thirty to forty years.

Educating a son and letting him take power directly should be much less risky than arranging a grandson across generations. But if I choose my youngest son as my successor, I can't choose my successor when I'm sixty years old, when these youngest sons are less than ten years old.

They haven't even finished school yet, let alone received practical training in administration. Being made a crown prince right away would affect their mentality.

You have to wait until the other person is at least 20 to 30 years old, and you should wait until you are over 70 years old before making a decision.

Then we should give some hints to dispel the legitimate expectations of the now adult princes and court officials, and let them know that they will not decide on the successor when they are sixty years old.

So after thirty-six years in Tiangong, Zhu Jianxuan slightly adjusted his routine and increased the frequency of his visits to the Royal Academy.

I started to teach my school-age sons more frequently, attended classes given by professional teachers more frequently, and personally participated in the organization and judging of various examinations.

At the same time, the Imperial Medical Service was arranged to conduct a survey to count the ages of the elderly in noble families, the age of death of the elderly from wealthy classes, and the age of death of ordinary people.

The results are obvious. With the continuous upgrading and innovation of Ming Dynasty medical technology, the life expectancy of Ming people is now rising rapidly.

Especially for the elderly from wealthy families who have not endured long-term heavy physical labor, their life expectancy is getting longer and longer.

So much so that people often sigh that people used to say that people over 70 were rare in the past, but now people over 70 can be seen everywhere.

After the statistics, Zhu Jianxuan asked the Ministry of Rites and the Imperial Hospital to write articles and make program descriptions in official newspapers, radio, and television, which was considered to be a way to boast about his own achievements.

The princes and court officials of the Ming Dynasty soon understood Zhu Jianxuan's mentality from the news.

The fact that the emperor did such a thing when he was about to turn sixty years old showed that he had indeed considered the issue of his successor, but was not in a hurry to determine the successor immediately.

The emperor is now in good health, and it is very normal for him to live to be over seventy years old, unless he suddenly suffers from some serious illness.

Many people felt a little regretful, but also a little relieved at the same time.

The crown prince will not appear immediately, and the situation in the court will not change significantly immediately. Everyone just needs to continue to do things completely according to the emperor's orders.

The princes no longer need to be highly nervous and expectant in the next few years.

But the princes also began to worry instinctively that in another ten or eight years, their competitors would increase a lot.

Before he was fifty years old, his father gave birth to four to five sons almost every year. Even after he was fifty years old, he still gave birth to two to three sons every year.

If the decision on the crown prince is delayed by one year, several more brothers will complete their studies. If it is delayed by ten years, dozens more will be able to complete their studies.

The princes, who are now adults, cannot help but consider the impact of this matter.

But the emperor's intention has been made clear, and the older princes now have no choice but to continue to concentrate on running their own businesses.

The emperor has already promised them that the property will belong to them no matter what in the future.

When the summer of the 36th year of Tiangong arrived, Zhu Jianxuan began to issue orders to the Cabinet, the Ministry of Honors and Conferment, the Ministry of Rites, and the Honglu Temple, and began to prepare for the grand celebration and grand pilgrimage of the following year.

It is required that all vassal monarchs and major nobles in the world come to Shuntian Prefecture to pay homage and celebrate the New Year before the end of this year.

All the princes who were doing internships and business outside had to return to Shuntian Prefecture to celebrate their father's birthday.

The sixtieth birthday was a big event in itself, and the celebrations this time were prepared with exceptional grandeur, with all the vassal states also cooperating very well.

Originally, the grand pilgrimage held every five years had become a tradition. It was the world's top aristocratic gathering, and most vassal lords and nobles liked to participate.

After arriving in Shuntian Prefecture, he could show off his wealth and various new gadgets in front of other vassal lords and nobles.

They can exchange the latest entertainment projects and experiences in the management and construction of vassal states.

Now the court also organizes large-scale cultural and artistic activities and various commercial exhibitions. They can watch the latest film and television performances and experience the latest high-tech achievements directly in Shuntian Prefecture.

The vassal states with poor economic conditions also hoped to find new ways to make money from Shuntian Prefecture, and hoped to gain experience or even direct support from the emperor and wealthy vassal states.

The monarchs of the vassal states would receive official invitations directly from the Honglu Temple and the Ministry of Rites, and the top nobles of each country would basically follow their own monarchs to participate.

Ordinary nobles and wealthy people from all over the world who want to participate can also buy their own boat tickets and go directly to Shuntian Prefecture.

Although I didn't have the opportunity to attend court banquets, I could participate in various folk activities.

Ordinary people want to join in the fun, while businessmen want to look for business opportunities.

Therefore, as the number of Hajj activities continues to accumulate, they become more and more lively and larger in scale.

The connotation of traditional feudal obligations is becoming less and less, and the commercial elements are becoming stronger and stronger.

In fact, thirty-six years after entering the Tiangong era, the monarchs of the vassal states in various places had already begun preparing for the pilgrimage.

If it were not for the rules of the Honglu Temple, they had to receive a notice before entering Beijing, and some vassal monarchs might have set off directly after the New Year.

After the imperial court issued the notice, some vassal monarchs set off directly.

Many vassal monarchs rented land around Shuntian Prefecture and built habitable manors or houses, where they could live for a long time.

There is no need to worry that the court will not arrange accommodation for them if they arrive too early.

In August of the 36th year of Tiangong, most of the vassal monarchs had already arrived in Shuntian Prefecture.

The area inside and outside Shuntian City quickly became lively.

All kinds of entertainment facilities were packed, especially the new generation of cinemas. Many cinemas had submitted applications specifically to reserve space in the suburbs and show movies outdoors at night.

Various shops were crowded with people, and sales of household appliances, automobile machinery, gold, silver, jade and various luxury goods increased dramatically.

The Grand Canal Reservoir in the west of the city is also crowded with tourists from all over the world, and it is bustling day and night.

In more serious business venues, various trade negotiations are also ongoing, and transactions related to public raw materials, tools, machinery, and technology are constantly being negotiated and finalized.

Many of these things were done under the direct instructions of Zhu Jianxuan, with official support from the court and even directly led by him.

All the large-scale commercial exhibitions, world expositions, large-scale cultural events, and large-scale sports events in Zhu Jianxuan’s previous life were held together.

It has formed the most important large-scale business event in the world.

Zhu Jianxuan also made special arrangements this year for the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering to hold an exhibition of the latest technologies.

Including handheld mobile communication devices and supporting networks, which are Zhu Jianxuan’s mobile phone and communication network in his previous life, so he can make calls at any time.

There is also the latest fiber optic communication technology, which can achieve high-speed data exchange over ultra-long distances.

and most importantly small and medium-sized personal business computers.

In the past decade, the Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Sciences have implemented many of Zhu Jianxuan's ideas and produced photolithography microchips and personal computers.

Key departments of the Ming Dynasty court are rapidly replenishing electronic office and network communications.

These new technologies of the scientific and technological age made many monarchs, nobles, and merchants of vassal states feel particularly magical, to the point of being unreal.

However, the exhibitors at the Academy of Engineering claimed that these technologies are still in the testing stage and cannot be directly supplied to the outside world.

Therefore, the wealthy classes in various countries can only dream about it and hope to use it in the future.

(End of this chapter)