prosperous age

The two capitals system of the Ming Dynasty actually appeared very early. As early as when Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, in addition to establishing the capital in Nanjing, he also built a "Beijing" in Kaifeng, which was also the prototype of the two capitals system of the Ming Dynasty.

Later generations believed that the two capitals system of the Ming Dynasty was initiated by Zhu Di, but in fact they were wrong about him.

Zhu Yuanzhang's system was designed to resolve the contradiction in resource distribution between the north and the south during the Ming Dynasty, to ensure national tranquility, and to try to find a balance between the north and the south. It to a certain extent alleviated the contradiction between the southward shift of the economic center of gravity and the concentration of military forces in the north, and laid the foundation for the long-term stability and development of the Ming Dynasty.

But later Zhu Yuanzhang found that such a setting seemed to have no practical use, so in the eleventh year of Hongwu, he revoked the title of Kaifeng as the capital.

Later, Prince of Yan Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign and seized the throne from his nephew Emperor Jianwen.

However, after Zhu Di entered Nanjing, he was "forced" to deal with a group of Jianwen's old ministers who refused to surrender, causing panic among the people of Nanjing.

Even after Zhu Di officially ascended the throne in Nanjing, he still felt uneasy, always feeling that Nanjing was not as good as his base in Beijing.

Zhu Di then decisively issued an order to move the capital to Beiping and renamed Beiping Beijing.

Although Beijing became the new capital of the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing was still the nominal capital, so there were two capitals in the Ming Dynasty for a period of time.

It was not until Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty ascended the throne that the status of Beijing as the "main capital" and Nanjing as the "temporary capital" was officially established, and the two capitals system was formed.

What role did Nanjing, the “temporary capital” play?

Simply put, it is the administration of this small half of the world in the south.

Although Nanjing did not have the title of a capital city, its government institutions were retained, including the perfect six-department system and important institutions such as the Hanlin Academy and the Supervisory Office. Nanjing had everything that Beijing had.

For example, the Six Ministries of Nanjing are also powerful institutions.

The four departments of Li, Hu, Bing, and Gong were responsible for inspecting officials, collecting taxes and grain, defending the region, and managing water conservancy and military farms in Nanjing and its surrounding provinces.

Only the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Justice were somewhat embarrassed. The emperor and the court were both in the north, so the ritual and music system and the formulation of laws naturally had no place in the small court in Nanjing.

Therefore, the functions of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Punishments were weakened, and they could only manage minor matters related to Nanjing's etiquette and public security.

With high pay, little work, and a high position, you can enjoy a leisurely life all day long. It seems that being an official in Nanjing should be a very happy thing, but it is not actually the case.

Who were most of the officials in Nanjing during the Ming Dynasty?

Because his advice and remonstrances made the emperor unhappy, he was sent to Nanjing to serve as an official.

Those who have poor ability to do things and fail to meet the emperor's requirements will go to Nanjing to serve as officials.

He was so old that he had difficulty attending court, and the emperor was anxious seeing this, so he went to Nanjing to serve as an official.

It can be said that ministers whom the emperor did not want to see and were difficult to investigate would go to Nanjing to serve as officials, so Nanjing also has a title "Ming Dynasty's Special Nursing Home."

Therefore, this group of officials in Nanjing were far away from the center of power, and their political future was basically ruined. Except for a few "salted fish", other officials were very painful in their hearts. Even if they were promoted from the second rank in Beijing to the first rank in Nanjing, that kind of psychological gap was enough to declare a person's career ideal shattered.

Now the imperial court seems to want to cancel this nursing home. One can imagine what those frustrated officials will think.

If some rumors spread among the people, it would ruin their reputation.

After Lu Diaoyang expressed his concerns, he saw Wei Guangde nodding continuously, which meant that Wei Guangde had listened to what he said, but he didn't know what Zhang Juzheng thought about it.

When he turned his gaze to Zhang Juzheng, he noticed that Zhang Juzheng's brows were furrowed, and his heart skipped a beat.

Yes, this was Zhang Juzheng’s idea, and he must have considered a lot before proposing it.

Lu Diaoyang was not worried that his words would offend Zhang Juzheng, but it was not worth it for such a small matter.

So, he was thinking about whether he should say something to make amends, but at this time Wei Guangde spoke.

"Brother Shu, I think Brother Heqing's concerns are reasonable. If this matter is made public, I'm afraid there will be bad rumors below."

Wei Guangde's view on this matter is indeed contrary to Zhang Juzheng's.

It's just a small matter, not worth fighting with officials all over the world.

Although going to Nanjing is noble, it is definitely not a good job.

No one wants to go, so why do you have to restrict the official positions in Nanjing?

“There are things that can be done, but there’s no need to talk about them.”

Finally, Wei Guangde said something meaningful to Zhang Juzheng.

In fact, Wei Guangde's words were already very straightforward. This matter can be implemented in practice, but there is no need to make it public. Just turn it into an unspoken rule.

However, Zhang Juzheng's frowning brows remained unchanged. It was obvious that he was indifferent to Wei Guangde's proposal and had no intention of changing it.

In fact, Zhang Juzheng's considerations were much more profound than those of Wei Guangde and Lu Diaoyang.

Using Nanjing official positions to make a fuss was just his first attempt to bring some things that could be done under the table to the surface and form a system.

Yes, it was actually an attempt by Zhang Juzheng to reform the many unspoken rules in the Ming Dynasty officialdom.

"Unwritten rules", also known as "money rules", was first coined by contemporary historian Wu Si after studying the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties. He used this as the title of a book that comprehensively expounded the officialdom ecology of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

At this point, everyone is tacitly aware of these rules.

The "civil servants" in ancient times all had one thing in common, that is, they were baptized by the teachings of Confucius and Mencius and the Four Books and Five Classics since childhood, and each of them shouted "loyalty to the emperor and love for the people, integrity and honesty, benevolence, righteousness and morality".

Of course, these are all empty talk. Behind them there is another unique set of behavioral norms, which are the unspoken rules.

In the officialdom, what can you do without money?

  Who is an official who doesn’t do it for money?

From the time you become an official, you have to spend money on promotion, assessment, and social activities. Your salary is so low that a month's salary is not enough to pay for a gift! What else can you do if you don't want to be greedy?

Besides, this official was promoted by buying his position. How can he get his money back if he is not greedy?

This is the original logic behind the formation of the unspoken rules. People travel thousands of miles to become officials just for money, and everyone takes the imperial examinations just for the money.

Therefore, the first unspoken rule of the Ming Dynasty appeared. It was not to encourage people to be greedy for money, but whoever proposed anti-corruption would suffer.

In addition, there was actually a unique unspoken rule in the Ming Dynasty officialdom, which was not to seek merit but to avoid mistakes.

In the Ming Dynasty, inaction would be considered fair, and those who actually got things done would most likely not have a good ending.

Because people who really get things done are bound to be careless in some aspects, and that's why mistakes are made.

If you make a mistake, you will lose your official position.

Before this, in the Ming Dynasty officialdom, as long as you did not make mistakes as an official, you were basically in office for life, and you would not be dismissed until the Ministry of Personnel evaluated that you were no longer capable of doing the job.

Officials will not be demoted as long as they do not make mistakes, even if they do nothing. This kind of atmosphere has made the officialdom more and more corrupt, with everyone seeking not to make achievements but to avoid mistakes, which has greatly reduced work efficiency.

Speaking of which, when this unspoken rule was first formed, most people believed that it was related to the empty seal case initiated by Zhu Yuanzhang.

The Empty Seal Case was a famous case during the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty that involved the practice of pre-stamping documents with seals, which ultimately led to the execution of a large number of officials.

The core issue of the Empty Seal Case is a simple method used by Ming Dynasty officials to handle financial accounts, that is, to stamp blank documents in advance and fill in the specific content when they are actually used. This method was widely used at the time to save time and energy, especially when dealing with complex financial accounts.

However, this method was regarded by Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, as evidence that officials might use blank documents to commit fraud, so he severely punished officials who adopted this practice.

As a result of the Empty Seal Case, officials developed a great fear of the emperor's authority, to the point that strict unspoken rules were formed in the officialdom, that is, in order to avoid offending the emperor, officials had to act cautiously and would rather do nothing than take the initiative to do anything.

If you do nothing, Zhu Yuanzhang will at most consider you incompetent and you will be dismissed.

But if you do something, it might be taken as criminal evidence by Lao Zhu and directly dragged out and snapped.

Therefore, for more than a hundred years thereafter, officials tacitly agreed to handle official business in a non-action manner, but when the Ministry of Personnel and the Censorate conducted inspections, they waved gold and silver coins and made bribes lavishly to secure their own careers.

After Zhang Juzheng promoted the performance evaluation system, he inevitably had to face a problem, that is, whether officials who failed the evaluation should be dismissed or transferred.

If Zhang Juzheng wanted to dismiss people, it would inevitably affect the unspoken rules of officials' duties.

After all, the evaluation of the Kaocheng system is different from activities such as the imperial examination, and is carried out every year and every quarter.

Officials who fail to complete their work tasks on time may be considered unqualified at any time and face the risk of being laid off.

As for the unspoken rules, Zhang Juzheng used the method of political struggle, pulling one group together and beating another.

That is to find ways to abolish some unspoken rules, while also rectifying some unimportant unspoken rules, or unspoken rules that cannot be changed.

For example, the exorbitant taxes and levies at the local level. Everyone knows that these things are extremely harmful to the imperial court, but they are indispensable to local governments. Anyone who wants to eliminate them will be an enemy of all officials in the world.

Things like this cannot be moved.

Not only can you not move, you also have to find a way to whitewash yourself.

In this regard, Zhang Juzheng already had an idea, which was to incorporate the miscellaneous taxes that the people had the most complaints about into the Single Whip System, mixing the regular taxes and miscellaneous taxes together so that the ignorant people would not know about them.

In this way, under his rule, the Ming Dynasty was free from the harm caused to the people by heavy taxes and levies.

In Zhang Juzheng's eyes, the unspoken rule of inaction among officials mentioned earlier needed to be broken.

In fact, Zhang Juzheng himself might not have known that the performance evaluation system he promoted was actually similar to the KPI evaluation system of later generations, which only looked at data and ignored other factors.

In the actual implementation of the performance evaluation system, the six ministries and the Censorate issued KPI indicators and performance indicators, setting rules and deadlines for officials to follow.

The quality of these officials' work depends not only on the evaluation of their superiors, but is also subject to supervision and impeachment by the six censors. The content of the impeachment and the comprehensive evaluation of their superiors' indicators will affect and influence the officials' rewards, punishments and promotions.

Of course, the implementation of all these systems is subject to unified management and verification by the cabinet, so that government orders can be managed and controlled from issuance to implementation.

Zhang Juzheng's intention to influence the unspoken rules of the Ming Dynasty officialdom was naturally no small matter.

However, he didn't intend to tell Wei Guangde and Lu Diaoyang about this thought.

They each have a group of followers behind them, and telling them might have the opposite effect.

  Wei Guangde may approve of his attempt, but what about the people behind him?

Lu Diaoyang's situation is similar, but his strength is not as great as Wei Guangde's.

"Your concerns are reasonable, but I still intend to report this matter to His Majesty."

Zhang Juzheng's words made Wei Guangde squint his eyes.

Obviously, Zhang Juzheng raised this matter after careful consideration.

Wei Guangde had no idea what Zhang Juzheng was thinking behind this attempt. He just thought that after gaining power, he might have become a little too proud, and planned to use this incident to test the attitudes of officials in the court and use it as a judgement to see who supported him and who opposed him.

Wei Guangde glanced at Lu Diaoyang, his eyes full of helplessness.

Zhang Juzheng had made up his mind that it would be difficult to persuade Wei and Lu, and it seemed that they were not discussing the matter, but were discussing it directly with the palace.

The Prime Minister naturally has this right.

He was the first person to communicate between the cabinet and the emperor, and if Zhang Juzheng had discussed this with Feng Bao in advance, the probability of this matter being accomplished would be very high.

Wei Guangde no longer had the thought of trying to persuade him any further. He just let him and Feng Bao do it. It would be interesting when the court and the public started to make a fuss. It would also be time to dampen his arrogance.

Wei Guangde and Zhang Juzheng maintained a cooperative relationship most of the time, and the court was relatively stable.

As for Zhang Juzheng's disregard of his opinions today, Wei Guangde simply thought that he thought he could control the court and could do things without him, Wei Guangde.

The relationship between the two is certainly not close, they just use each other and get together because they are useful to each other.

Wei Guangde has already made up his mind and all he has to do is sit back and watch the show.

"Shan Dai, He Qing, are there any documents you are handling today that require discussion?"

After finishing his own story, Zhang Juzheng asked again.

Upon hearing this, Wei Guangde sneered in his heart but did not show it on his face. He first glanced at Lü Diaoyang, and seeing that he was also looking at him but did not make any other moves, he immediately reached out from his sleeve and took out a memorial and said, "Here is a memorial from Yang Bing, the military governor of the Beijing camp and the Earl of Zhangwu, proposing to build chariots. The Ministry of War has already reviewed it."

After saying this, Wei Guangde handed the memorial to Zhang Juzheng and asked him to take a look at it.

"The Beijing Camp wants 1,140 chariots?"

Zhang Juzheng only saw what was ahead and frowned.

Well, now most of the money of the Ministry of Works is invested in the Jiayun Canal, grain transport and the navy, and most of the time it has to rely on the Ministry of Revenue to cover various expenses.

Now the Ministry of War is going to build chariots again, and the number is quite large. I’m afraid that in the end it will require subsidies from the Ministry of Revenue again.

"Is it too much?"

Zhang Juzheng asked with a frown.

"This number was determined based on the configuration of the Ji-Liao Chariot Camp. It would take this many to form a camp.

Fortunately, the Ministry of Industry had previously supervised the production of a batch of tanks, so there should be some in the warehouse, so there is no need to build all of them new.

Yes, all will be sent to the Beijing Battalion, and the Ministry of Industry will speed up the production and delivery of the missing parts."

Wei Guangde explained.

Now, because of Cheying’s previous performance at the Jizhen Great Wall, the court has developed a mysterious confidence in Cheying, believing that the Ming Dynasty has found a way to deal with the Mongolian cavalry.

For their own safety, officials in Beijing urged the Beijing army to set up a chariot camp as well.

Wei Guangde was also happy to see this happen.

As for the expenses, that is the business of Zhang Juzheng and Wang Guoguang, as well as Tan Lun and Zhu Heng, and they will argue about it. (End of this chapter)