Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 303 Pilot System of Governors
Zhu Gaoxu learned through intelligence agencies such as Jinyiwei that the ills in some provinces of the Ming Dynasty are becoming more and more serious, such as Beiting Province among the six provinces he mentioned.

After nearly 20 years of development in the province, while the Han population has increased significantly, the population of aborigines has also increased, and the relationship between the two sides has become increasingly complex. Occasionally, there will be small-scale frictions and disturbances, such as in aboriginal villages and immigrant villages. of weapon fighting.

The situation in Liaodong Province is similar to that in Beiting Province, in that conflicts are mainly caused by the complex relationship between immigrants and indigenous people.

Of course, Zhu Gaoxu knew that changing folk customs did not happen overnight, so in the future it might take several years or even more than ten years for the imperial court to send governors to places.

At that time, if the governor is not allowed to take his own children to live in the local area, it will appear unkind.

If the governor is allowed to take his family to the local area to take office, the court should provide corresponding treatment to the governor, such as allocating funds to build government offices, etc.

In this way, the governor will inevitably become a permanent local official and theoretically the highest official in a province.

When the governors of the Yongle period were sent out on errands, they were responsible for mostly different affairs each time.

Zhu Gaoxu felt like a mirror. When the governor became a local official in the future, how to formalize the governor's powers and integrate them into the local government system became an important issue that he had to consider.

The governor has supervisory powers that are terrifying to the third division.

Every three years, the imperial court will evaluate officials. The governor's office is responsible for cooperating with the Metropolitan Procuratorate to evaluate officials from the three local departments.

In addition, the governor also has the authority to control the generals and can supervise the commanders in the army.

For Zhu Gaoxu, the governor was a tool he used to control each province and a weapon to maintain imperial rule.

The first task of the governor was to help the Ming Emperor maintain the stability of the province and coordinate with the three local departments to ensure the normal operation of the local government.

"According to the rules set by Taizu, if there is an important matter in the local area, the three departments will jointly hold a meeting to make a joint decision."

Zhu Gaoxu said slowly: "However, the chiefs of the three departments have their own responsibilities, and no one can bypass the other two departments and make their own decisions when discussing matters."

"Although this system weakens local power, the disadvantages are also obvious. Because the three departments are not under each other, whenever things cannot be defined, they will inevitably blame each other, making it difficult to achieve practical things."

"In addition, some matters require the coordination of two or even three departments, and it takes a lot of time just to transfer documents, resulting in a very low efficiency, so that many local affairs have been put on hold and have not been resolved to this day."

"Because of this, during the Yongle period, my father sent imperial envoys many times to act as governors to coordinate with the three local departments to handle affairs."

When Zhu Gaoxu said this, all the officials in the palace were silent.

During the Yongle period, the governor, as an imperial minister, represented the imperial court, so his power was greater than that of the three local departments, and all local officials obeyed his orders.

In addition, the governor's wife, children, and children are all in the capital and have nothing to do with most local powerful people. There is no need to consider other factors and worries when handling things, so the efficiency of work is extremely high.

In this way, it gradually became a routine for Zhu Di to send officials from the capital to serve as governors.

In other words, there is a legal basis for Zhu Gaoxu to turn his former temporary governor position into a permanent local official position.

The ministers' concern was that they were worried that the governor would become bigger in the future and the disaster of the vassal towns in the Tang Dynasty would reappear in the world.

"Your Majesty is in the prime of life in the Spring and Autumn Period. It is a blessing to the people of the world that he wants to make a difference. The veteran minister is already old and is about to retire. I don't want to say more, but your Majesty must pay attention to the chaos in the feudal towns in the Tang Dynasty!"

Fang Xiaoru stood up, bent down and saluted with his hands in his hands: "Old minister, please think again, your majesty."

He submitted three consecutive applications for employment last month. Although Zhu Gaoxu approved the last time, he asked him to work for another month.In other words, Fang Xiaoru will retire after this month.

He can really ignore it, get through this month with peace of mind, and then retire safely and take care of himself.

But the value of eating the emperor's salary and being loyal to the emperor made him unable to sit idly by and ignore Zhu Gaoxu's "dangerous ideas."

"Mr. is serious."

Zhu Gaoxu raised his hand to signal Fang Xiaoru to sit down, then looked around at the ministers in the palace, then turned his attention to Xie Jin and asked: "Xie Jin, where do you think the source of the chaos in the feudal towns in the Tang Dynasty was?"

"Go back to Your Majesty."

Xie Jin stood up, bowed and saluted, and said, "I believe that the Jiedushi envoys of the Tang Dynasty were essentially just the highest officers of the frontier armies sent by the imperial court."

"At that time, the Tang court considered that the border troops were stationed in remote areas. If they only had military power but no administrative and financial power, it would be detrimental to the war."

"Therefore, the Tang court authorized all local administration and finance to the Jiedushi, and also made the Jiedushi responsible for local security. In this way, the Jiedushi completely became a feudal lord integrating military, finance and politics. Official."

"Moreover, the Jiedushi also had a very important power, which was the power to appoint and remove officials. The Jiedushi at that time had the power of control and life and death over the generals under their command and the governors and officials of the prefectures and counties."

"Therefore, Jiedushi can completely replace all the military and political officials in the areas under his jurisdiction with his direct descendants, so that rebellion and rebellion will become easier."

Zhu Gaoxu said: "Are you done?"

"Your Majesty, I have finished my answer." Xie Jin said respectfully.

Zhu Gaoxu nodded and said to the others: "Xie Jin is indeed a great talent, and his analysis is clear and logical."

He changed the topic and said loudly: "But the governor I want to set up is completely different from the governor of the Tang Dynasty."

"First, the governor must report all the more important local government affairs to me and wait for my instructions to act. If the governor has deviant behavior or violates the rules, he will be punished by law."

Although this sentence is short, it contains a lot of meaning.

The literal meaning is that if there is an important matter to deal with in a certain province, the governor must act according to the order.

In other words, Zhu Gaoxu could use Zhu Pi to give direct instructions to local governors, thus putting aside the Six Ministries and allowing the emperor to directly control local governors.

Historically, the imperial government has mainly implemented local governance through memorials from local officials to the emperor and edicts issued by the emperor.

In the first year of Qianxi's reign, Zhu Gaoxu once issued an imperial edict: "All the shortcomings of the place, the industriousness of the officials, whether the superiors are public or private, whether the subordinates are good or bad, whether the troops are in good order, etc. can be reported to me in detail."

In other words, local officials such as the three divisions and prefectures and counties have the power to report secret reports to the Ming Emperor.

These officials were the Ming Emperor's eyes and ears, and could prevent the governor from cheating or seeking selfish interests.

In this way, let alone ceding territory and becoming independent, even the governor would not dare to do anything illegal.

In Zhu Gaoxu's design, secret music was one of the ways the Ming court implemented long-term control over governors and other high-ranking local officials.

(End of this chapter)