Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 405 Heaven and Earth Association

At the same time that Yu Qian was ordered to leave Beijing and go to Liang Siam to collect corruption evidence of Yang Wei and Liu Xin.

Two months later, Zhu Gaoxu took the lead in discovering Liu Xin's secret-the black mine through his special intelligence channel "Tiandihui".

This information came from Liu San, the adopted son of Liu Xin, a member of the Tiandihui, and he was Liu Xin's most trusted confidant.

Liu Xin never expected that Li San, an orphan who had just turned [-] years old and had been adopted from the nursing home ten years ago, would be Zhu Gaoxu's son.

Zhu Gaoxu did not expect that Li San would step by step become Liu Xin's confidant by chance.

Li San, whose original name was Li Han, was originally an orphan in Liwangzhuang, which was originally an imperial village.

Since Liwangzhuang merged with the two adjacent imperial villages to form Xiren Township, Li Han's name in Liwangzhuang has completely disappeared from the capital's household registration records.

Liu Xin didn't even know that ten years ago, among the eight children aged [-] years and above in the Wanping County Almshouse, only two children looked smart and well-behaved, and these two children happened to be the children Zhu Gaoxu released at that time. The spy in the almshouse.

From the age of eight, they began to live in Zhu Gaoxu's Imperial Villa and receive training in delivering intelligence.

After reaching the age of twelve, they will be randomly sent to almshouses in various places in the capital, waiting for a suitable "target" to appear.

As long as valuable information is obtained, you can be promoted to an official royal agent step by step.

If they cannot be adopted within three years after entering the nursing home, they will be transferred to the cub army recruit camp.

Zhu Gaoxu's move was passed down from Zhu Di personally and is a secret between father and son.

Children like Li Han, who were originally orphans and were later selected to enter the Huangzhuang Villa for training, range from dozens to hundreds every year.

In order to ensure that the children will not be abused after being adopted, the imperial court has requirements for the adoption of children from the nursing homes by the government and the public. When adopting a child of [-] years old and above (regardless of male or female), the adoptive father must be an official of ninth grade or above, or have a family fortune of [-] Rich people of [-] and above.

Wealthy people can be businessmen, farmers, or craftsmen. As long as they can prove that their wealth is no less than [-] yuan, they can adopt children who are twelve years old and above.

The reason for such a regulation is that, first, children of this age are growing and may not even have enough to eat in ordinary families.

Second, because most of the children adopted in almshouses are young and do not grow up in a prosperous life, the vast majority of the children have weak constitutions. Only the older children have slightly stronger constitutions and are easier to feed, such as twelve children. [-] year old and above.

Of course, this was a clear reason and there was no loophole, but only Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Di knew that this rule was actually to allow royal spies to sneak into the homes of officials or wealthy people to collect intelligence.

As for the adoption of children under the age of twelve, although there are relevant regulations, the conditions are slightly looser than those for the adoption of children aged twelve and above.

Regarding the adoption of an adopted son, let me say a few words here.

In ancient China, there were many regulations on the adoption of adopted sons. The first one was seen in the "Book of Jin". During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, adoption of sons with different surnames was prohibited.

The Song Dynasty inherited the laws of the Tang Dynasty and still prohibited the adoption of children with different surnames. Although the laws of the Yuan Dynasty also stipulated that those with different surnames were guilty, they relaxed the requirements. If there was no suitable successor among the same clan, the child could adopt a child with a different surname as an heir.

The Ming Dynasty further relaxed the regulations on the adoption of children with different surnames, and stipulated in the law: "If the adopted man is raised for a long time and marries him, he can be regarded as a descendant."

In order to meet the needs of the people to adopt descendants of different surnames and not to break the legitimacy of the family blood relationship, Zhu Yuanzhang divided the boundaries between adopted sons and heirs during the Hongwu period.

An adopted son is a kind of de facto adopted son with a benevolent nature. Generally, he cannot inherit the family property or inherit an heir.

An heir is an inherited legal adopted son who exists to inherit the family property or inherit the heir.

In order to distinguish between these two kinds of adoption, the former is also called "begging" and the latter is called "adoption" or "transfer".

The laws of the Ming Dynasty stipulate that if there are no descendants, a person can be selected from the nephews of the same clan to succeed him.

If there are none, heirs with the same surname can be selected from distant relatives.

After choosing an heir, if there are biological children later, the family property will be divided equally between the adoptive person and the biological children.

Adoption is to change the clan relationship of the adopted child; begging is just the act of adopting a child from another family into one's own family, and there is no change in the clan relationship.

Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, folk adoptions with different surnames were not prohibited. Adoption was allowed regardless of whether the person had the same surname or a different surname. However, in theory, the adopted adopted son could not be made an heir, and the adopted son could not be included in the genealogy like an heir.The reason why it is said to be theoretical is that the patriarchal system believes that in the absence of biological children, adopted sons of the same clan can be adopted to maintain sacrifices to ancestors, but sons of different surnames cannot be adopted to worship ancestors.

However, the patriarchal system was set up for the nobles. For the common people, as long as they had children to inherit the family business and support them, nothing else mattered.

Especially starting from the middle Yongle period, with the development of the commodity economy and the increasingly serious polarization between rich and poor, the patriarchal concept of the common people was further weakened.

The patriarchal system and the establishment of heirs are originally "rituals" for the nobility, and are measures taken to prevent the nobility's title, official position, fame and wealth from falling into the hands of others, but ordinary people have no such worries.

Furthermore, for the Ming Dynasty, local officials did not care about who would inherit the people's families and who would worship their ancestors. What the officials were concerned about was the survival and analysis of the people's household registrations. What they cared about was the population under their rule. and tax control.

Regardless of whether the heir is inherited by a parent or an adopted son, as long as the taxes collected are not affected, the local government will not interfere.

Due to the weakening of this patriarchal concept, during the implementation of the Qianxi New Deal, Zhu Gaoxu further relaxed the restrictions on private adoption of adopted men.

From then on, when a righteous man adopted by the common people inherited the family business, the local government would generally recognize it if there were no personnel disputes.

From the time when Zhu Di delegated power to Zhu Gaoxu in the 17th year of Yongle, to the 19th year of Qianxi, after nearly 30 years of accumulation, there are still more than 2000 members of the Tiandihui like Liu San who were born as orphans in the entire Ming Dynasty.

They are mainly distributed in officialdom, shopping malls and the military.

Yes, there are members of the Heaven and Earth Society in the military too!

As mentioned earlier, children who have not been adopted will be selected into the young army recruit camp, and after being trained, they will enter the military service.

Generally speaking, since the members of the Tiandihui were all orphans and grew up with the help of Zhu Gaoxu, they are much more loyal to Zhu Gaoxu than the Jin Yiwei spies.

However, there is an exception, which is to get rid of the Tiandihui by creating the illusion of death and changing one's identity.

Of course, there are very few such people. After all, Zhu Gaoxu does not restrict members of the Tiandi Society from marrying, having children, serving as officials, doing business, or doing other things.

After these Tiandihui members are adopted by adoptive parents as children, [-]% of them will be regarded as their own children by the adoptive parents, and [-]% of them will be adopted as adopted sons like Li San.

Therefore, those who are regarded as their own by their adoptive parents will usually follow the life path paved by their adoptive parents, while those who are adopted as adopted children will have their life path already arranged.

Therefore, for the members of the Tiandihui, their status as scholars, farmers, industrialists, and merchants was nothing more than a cloak to cover up their identity as the emperor's spies.

These spies have never been free-range, but have a strict organizational structure and reward and punishment mechanisms such as promotion and demotion.

The Heaven and Earth Society is divided into five sub-rudders according to southeast, northwest, and middle. Each sub-rudder has a helmsman who is in charge of the helm. There are two deputy helmsmen who are in charge of law enforcement and merit examination.

There is a hall in each province, with one hall leader and two deputy hall leaders to handle the affairs of division of rudders.

The hall belongs to the subordinate organization of the branch and executes the orders of the branch.

Each government has one deacon and two deputy deacons, who are responsible for specific matters.

Each county has a number of walking deacons to cooperate with the deacons in performing their tasks.

In other words, there are seven levels of members of the Tiandihui. From high to low, they are the rudder, deputy rudder, hall master, deputy hall master, deacon, deputy deacon and walking.

Members of the Tiandihui at different levels enjoy different powers and status, as well as the resources they can mobilize.

In addition, if you reach the level of deacon, you can get a place to study in Beiping Academy of Science. If you reach the level of hall leader, you will get two additional places. If you reach the level of helmsman, you can also get an additional place to ask the emperor. opportunity to reward.

Because the status of members of the Tiandihui is lifelong, some new helmsmen will use the opportunity to ask for rewards to ask Zhu Gaoxu to grant their names (that is, restore their original names), while others will strive for opportunities for their descendants to become officials or join the army.

Liu San had merit in reporting Liu Xin this time. Zhu Gaoxu asked the southern helmsman to reply and tell Liu San that after Liu Xin was dealt with, Liu San would be given a new name - Li Han.

Since Liu San's name was registered in the household registration, Li Han has become history.

But now, a turning point has appeared. With this contribution, Liu San will restore his original name and become famous in one battle.

(End of this chapter)