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Chapter 958 Ten Years Later 5
Now that they have power, what should they do? It's simple. They should start a comprehensive reform, from the civil service system to the military system to the economic model and education system. They should eliminate all that is not suitable and add all that is necessary.

According to the emperor's consistent style of leading by example, the biggest change in this reform should be the royal family. Yes, after nearly three decades of improvement, the previous huge and bloated inner palace system is indeed no longer suitable for current needs.

Hong Tao's approach was still so direct. With one order, he cut the bloated internal affairs department to pieces and then stuffed the required functions into the remaining departments. This not only met the basic needs of the royal family, but also reduced the number of eunuchs and palace maids by nearly half.

Specifically, four offices, five factories, eight bureaus, eleven rooms, the garrison and part of six bureaus and one office were abolished, as well as the Shangbao Supervisor, Sishe Supervisor, Zhidian Supervisor and Duzhi Supervisor. The work that originally belonged to these departments was distributed to the remaining eight supervisors according to their functions.

What to do if some jobs are really not suitable? Hong Tao also has a solution. He set up a separate department called the Office, which governs the Cuju Team, Gecko, Royal Academy, Newspaper, Office of the Secretary, Zhongshufang, and the Imperial Property Department.

Led by Wang Chengen, it has a number of secretaries from the Cuju team and the Gecko, who are responsible for handling various trivial matters in life for the emperor. It is also the emperor's personal intelligence gathering system.

In addition, the Statistics Department, which originally belonged to the General Staff, was also officially placed under the direct jurisdiction of the emperor. Its functions were still similar, but it was renamed the Advisory Office and was headed by Wang Datou.

With the two intelligence collection systems of the Gecko and the Advisory Office, the East Factory, which had lasted for more than 200 years, finally completed its mission. But before its death, it did not get any good results. It became a tool for the emperor to show political integrity and was thrown into the trash without mercy.

It would have been said that since the emperor was so harsh on himself, the imperial court and local governments at all levels would have been drastically cut down and abolished. However, the result was unexpected to many people.

The emperor did not take a one-size-fits-all approach to the various departments of the court, but rather took targeted and different measures. Some departments were indeed ruthlessly abolished, and none of the six censors were retained. Some of the supervisory functions were handed over to the Censorate, while the other part was replaced by the public, such as local newspapers.

The Honglu Temple, Taichang Temple, and Taipu Temple were also merged into the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War, and the Guanglu Temple was no longer established. The royal family's food and drink were completely the responsibility of the Shangshenjian, and there was no need to add another intermediate link.

As the new learning gradually grew stronger and formed a situation of competing with the imperial examination, one department became very embarrassed, the Imperial College. Originally it was suppressed by the imperial examination, and now it was overtaken by the new learning, and it seemed that it had lost its necessity to exist.

Ever since the emperor merged the two royal institutions, Haihusi and Beixing Palace, into the Royal Academy, the Imperial College's function of providing protection for its survival was completely stripped away.

In the future, if the children of meritorious officials feel that the imperial examinations and new studies are too difficult, they can take the path of the Royal Academy. But there is one thing: they must do it as early as possible. If they are over 7 years old, I'm sorry, they will lose even the opportunity to inherit their ancestors' influence.

The Hanlin Academy and the Imperial Medical Service retained their establishment, but were all downgraded to a lower level and became subordinate institutions of two new departments, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. They were respectively headed by Ma Jinglun's grandson Ma Baoguo and Han Ping, the head of the Imperial Pharmacy who came from the Cuju team, as the Shangshu.

The Ministry of Education, as its name implies, oversees the national imperial examinations and new education systems, and formulates corresponding education policies. The work of the Ministry of Health is closely related to diseases, and currently focuses on popularizing and promoting the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases such as schistosomiasis, malaria, smallpox, and hepatitis, while also doing some medical research and pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In addition to these two departments, the Chemical Industry Department, which belonged to the Ministry of Industry, was also taken out of the reform to form the Ministry of Chemical Industry. Bi Maokang, a doctor of the Chemical Industry Department, was fortunate enough to serve as the first minister. After all this, in addition to the 12 ministries and the Censorate, the Dali Temple, and the Tongzheng Department, there are now three more equal departments in the court: the Customs, the Sun and Moon Bank, and the Salt Company. All of them are responsible to the emperor, and no one is subordinate to anyone else.

In addition to these functional departments, the cabinet remained unchanged and continued to serve as the emperor's assistant minister. The new cabinet chief, Yuan Yingtai, was well-deserved in terms of qualifications, ability, and achievements, but the two cabinet ministers were a bit awkward, the former army governor Li Ruzhang and the former left vice minister of the Ministry of Taxation, Silva.

The emperor also gave an explanation for the selection of these two people into the cabinet, one civil and one military. Li Ruzhang had been in the military all his life, and now he was nearly seventy years old. His body and energy could no longer bear the heavy burden, but as a military expert, it was still necessary for him to give advice.

The same goes for Silva. He once served as the vice president of Sun Moon Bank and worked in the tax department for many years. He knows the economy of Ming Dynasty very well. He can't make big decisions and big strategies, but he is definitely good enough to help the emperor pick up the pieces.

The most important thing is that cabinet positions do not have a fixed workload and are not responsible for any decisions, which makes them very suitable for experienced and dedicated old ministers.

Although it is said that he serves as an adviser to the emperor, in fact it is a kind of gift or benefit before complete retirement, so as to avoid the difficulty of adapting to sudden demotion from a high position.

As the central government made great moves, local governments also underwent some changes, mainly in the division of administrative regions. The original two capitals and thirteen provinces were divided into North and South Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang.

Later, Nanzhili became Jianghuai Province, Liaodong Town became Liaoyang Province, Shaanxi Xingdusi and western Inner Mongolia became Ganliang Province. With the addition of the three special administrative regions of Qinghai, Luzon, Annan and Inner Mongolia, the administrative area became one capital, four special administrative regions and sixteen provinces.

But this is not the end. With the continuous expansion of the empire, the Kingdom of Yarkand, Shalian, Colombo and Enniao Port have been ruled for at least ten years. If they are called provinces, there is no administrative connection. If they are called special zones, they cannot fully implement the imperial policies. They even cannot speak the same language. Most of the people who live there for a long time are imperial troops.

So what should we call it? This time, Hong Tao did not find another way, but simply borrowed the words from Europeans and called it the Governor's District. So there were three more Governor's Districts: Western Region, Colombo and Xhosa.

The laws of the Ming Empire were not enforced in the Governor-General's District, but rather the Governor-General's Law, which was a mixture of the Ming laws, the Ming military laws, and local customs. This was also a preliminary integration, a gradual process.

Compared with the great changes in government affairs, the changes in the military were relatively small. The army re-divided its jurisdiction and made a large-scale rotation of troops. There were 11 Dusi, 40 guards, and 22 troops in the Northeast, North, Northwest, Sichuan, Southwest, Central China, South China, Southeast Asia, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, and Western Regions.

The Navy has increased its Indian Ocean Fleet, bringing the total number of warships to 8. It also has nearly 50000 armed cargo ships and Marine Corps Marines with more than troops.

At the same time, the army and navy also set up separate intelligence agencies, which were managed by the navy and army staffs and were recruited by the general staff. They were called the Army Statistics Department and the Navy Statistics Department respectively. The emperor changed the name of the Statistics Department to the Advisory Office, in large part because of this, because of the name collision!

(End of this chapter)