The Ming Dynasty started with saving the eldest grandson

Chapter 420 Official

The decision to set up a college for officials and nobles was thus finalized.

Regarding the training content, the idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor and patriotism is inevitable.

Chen Jingke further proposed the idea of ​​serving the country and the people:

"If the court's definition of 'official' is simply a shepherd who herds the people for the court, then corruption is bound to prevail."

To herd the people for the emperor, to herd cattle.

The position of "provincial governor" in the Han Dynasty came from this.

The word itself is full of discrimination against the common people.

In this context, being an official is just to realize personal value and is just like being a worker working for the emperor.

What I am greedy for is the emperor's money, and what I am disregarding is the life of the emperor's 'sheep'.

Under such circumstances, corruption among officials is natural.

Anti-corruption is the emperor's personal business. We are all workers, so why should we hurt each other?
Before the Sui and Tang dynasties, aristocratic families were powerful. Although it was a family-run empire, what everyone was loyal to was actually this system.

It doesn’t matter who the emperor is; what matters is that there is an emperor.

So there is the saying of Mencius: If the ruler regards his subjects as dirt, then the subjects will regard the ruler as an enemy.

From the emperor to the bureaucrats, everyone will protect this system.

Of course, this is just an ideal situation.

In fact, everyone is doing things that harm the public interest and benefit themselves, digging up the foundation of the "public" and enriching their own small family.

That's how aristocratic families came about.

Therefore, there is no need to imagine that aristocratic families are too good.

After the Song Dynasty, aristocratic politics ended, centralization of power was further strengthened, and imperial power truly became supreme.

The object of everyone's loyalty also changed from the "Son of Heaven" to a specific family or surname.

The Song Dynasty was loyal to the Zhao family, the Ming Dynasty was loyal to the Zhu family, and the Qing Dynasty was loyal to the Aisin-Gioro family.

At this point, it was no longer enough to be loyal to the imperial power and the system, but one had to be loyal to the emperor himself.

Because many times, the emperor's interests and imperial power are in conflict.

Isn't it weird?
In fact, it is not surprising that imperial power requires the emperor to strengthen centralization and govern the country well.

But some emperors were too indulgent in pleasure and had no ambition to make progress, which eventually led to a mess of the country.

Are the interests of the two in conflict?
Faced with this situation, should the subjects be loyal to the imperial power or to the emperor himself?

The emperor is artificial, and true loyalty is to be loyal to me personally.

Hence the saying 'If the ruler wants his subject to die, the subject must die'.

Officials all have this kind of thinking, and it is very difficult to expect them not to be greedy.

Of course, there have been many honest and good officials in history who have spoken up for the people, but they are only a minority.

And it must be admitted that many people's iron-fisted anti-corruption efforts are not for the people, but out of loyalty to the emperor.

Because rampant corruption would affect the imperial power and the interests of the monarch, they naturally had to crack down on such behavior.

Although the idea of ​​serving the people was proposed a long time ago, it did not receive further development under the idea of ​​a family-based monarchy.

This time, Chen Jingke was ready to take this opportunity to further expand his ideas for the people.

Previously, he used the "mission given by history" as a basis to bind the imperial power with national peace and prosperity, and made Zhu Yuanzhang face up to the concept of "Son of Heaven".

He also used the concept of "Greater China" to establish the highest goal for imperial power.

But the bureaucratic system was not touched.

The reason is very simple. The emperor himself does not have the idea of ​​being the "Son of Heaven" and certainly will not allow officials to have other ideas.

Now that the royal trio have accepted the concept that "history has given the imperial power a mission", it is time to loosen up the bureaucrats' minds.

Chen Jingke said: "The Chinese ideology actually advocates the idea of ​​family, country and the world."

"Loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, and pleading for the people are concepts that are implanted deep in our brains."

"So, for Chinese people, noble goals make it easier for us to gain a sense of accomplishment."

"For the morality we firmly believe in, we can give everything."

Old Zhu and the other two all looked at him with smiles, revealing expressions of understanding.

If others said this, they would be skeptical, but Chen Jingke said they were convinced.

Because he himself is the best example.

In order to go down in history, to make the Chinese nation stronger and to make Chinese thought more brilliant.

For this dream, he gave up too many personal pursuits.

Even the issue of offspring, which is of the utmost importance to the Chinese, seems to be of no concern.

I'm already twenty-six or twenty-seven years old this year (in lunar age), and there has been no movement at all.

If it were someone else, they would have been extremely anxious and would have no idea how much the concubine had taken in.

He was not in a hurry.

Lao Zhu and the other two all thought at the same time: If we didn't know what you really want, we would have thought you had some serious problem.

Chen Jingke didn't know what they were thinking, and was confused by the laughter of the three people, but he didn't ask any more questions and continued:

"Based on this characteristic, we can give 'officials' more and higher moral responsibilities and obligations."

"For example, being loyal to the emperor and caring for the people is a basic requirement."

"When you are an official, you must benefit the people... You must have a sense of service."

Zhu Biao asked with great interest: "Service awareness? Please elaborate."

Chen Jingke was a little annoyed and quickly told him the standards of his previous life.

This certainly cannot be explained according to the concepts of the previous life, it must be modified in some way.

His brain raced, and he soon came up with some ideas:
"We must serve China. Our ethnic group was created step by step by countless sages."

"As descendants and part of China, we have the obligation to take over this responsibility and make China stronger."

"Anything that is detrimental to China is illegal and immoral and must be punished."

"To serve the emperor, this is loyalty."

"The emperor is the Son of Heaven, he acts on behalf of Heaven, he is the father of all people, and he is the leader of China."

"Being loyal to the emperor and the leader is a moral obligation, and is also stipulated by the etiquette and morality of the Chinese nation."

"We must also serve the people, because we all come from the people, and we must not forget our roots."

"Our food, clothing, shelter and transportation are all funded by the people. We enjoy their offerings, so we naturally have to give back to them."

Zhu Yuanzhang could not help but say: "You eat your salary, the fat of the people, it is easy to abuse the people, but it is difficult to deceive God."

"We ordered people to carve this sentence on every government office to warn officials all over the world not to mistreat the people."

Chen Jingke followed his words and said:
"Your Majesty is wise. I was also inspired by this sentence and came up with this idea of ​​'service consciousness'."

"We cannot treat the people harshly as administrators."

"Instead, we need to change our mindset and serve as officials with the mentality of serving the people."

At this point, a light bulb went off in his head and he had a new idea.

You can link service awareness with the five-year plan.

He quickly organized his words and continued:
"The slow progress of the Ming Dynasty's five-year plan is actually due to the lack of service awareness among traditional bureaucrats."

"The education they received was to maintain peace in their area and collect tax revenue."

"The standard for peace is very low. It's enough if the people don't cause unrest."

"How people live is secondary."

"There are very few officials who are willing to take the initiative to improve people's lives, such as building bridges and roads, or constructing canals."

“Now that the imperial court has taken the initiative to reform and implement the Five-Year Plan, they are at a loss as to what to do.”

"In their view, the imperial court is just meddling."

"The reason they have this kind of thinking is that they lack a sense of service."

"Think of it from another perspective: officials have changed from managers to service providers."

"Then officials will think about how to serve the people in their jurisdiction well."

Zhu Xiongying continued: "If the road is difficult to travel, we should find a way to repair it."

"If there is a shortage of water, we should find a way to dig wells and canals." "If there are widows, widowers, orphans and lonely people, we should build orphanages to take care of them."

Old Zhu was a little moved, but soon calmed down, shook his head and said:

"It's too idealistic. Officials are managers. This is a rule that has been passed down for thousands of years."

"This mentality is deeply rooted and it is not easy to change."

Chen Jingke said: "It doesn't matter whether they believe it or not, as long as this standard is accepted by the world."

"Even if it's for the sake of their own reputation, they have to act according to this standard."

"For ordinary people, it is a very lucky thing even if the officials are just pretending to be kind."

Old Zhu nodded with deep feeling.

In the past two years of fighting corruption at the grassroots level, he has seen too many similar things.

Those who are willing to pretend to be kind usually do things with more discretion.

Under the governance of such officials, most people actually live a pretty good life.

What’s scary is those people who are not willing to pretend. Those with such low standards are unbearable to watch.

However, he is still not optimistic about the promotion of this concept:
"After thousands of years of thinking, I'm afraid that officials will not be able to accept the concept of being a servant."

Zhu Biao's expression changed, and he seemed to want to say something, but Zhu Xiongying spoke first:
"Don't accept? Is Grandpa Huang's knife dull?"

"This time we are going to purge the nobles, so it's a good opportunity to promote this concept at the same time."

"I just don't believe that in front of the corpses of more than 400 nobles, there are still people who dare to oppose it without fear of death."

Zhu Biao glared at him angrily: "Don't keep killing, killing, killing. Do you really think killing can solve all problems?"

This is true, but...

Old Zhu looked at the list of more than 400 people who died on the table, and he immediately felt unhappy:

"Asshole, you've become bolder now that you're the emperor, you're making indirect accusations, right?"

Zhu Biao quickly explained: "No, no, Dad, you misunderstood. How dare I say that to you..."

Old Zhu raised his eyebrows: "Don't dare? That means you are secretly criticizing it."

Zhu Biao didn't understand. The old man was speaking for his grandson, so there was no point in explaining.

So he simply gave up explaining and said, "Please just spoil him, old man. If you continue to spoil him, he will be in heaven."

Old Zhu said disdainfully: "Our good grandson is so smart, what's wrong with spoiling him?"

"If you were half as smart as he was, I wouldn't be chasing you with a sword every day."

Zhu Biao: "..."

Let me explain it to you nicely. It was because I refused to kneel down to attend the funeral of your concubine that you chased me with a sword.

How did it become every day?

Besides, I don’t know who it is, but he chased me with a sword and then went back to apologize to my mother in a servile manner.

I haven't said anything about you yet, and you still have the nerve to say something about me.

Of course, he certainly didn't dare say this out loud and could only complain in his heart.

Chen Jingke and Zhu Xiongying on the side were speechless as they were discussing serious matters.

Can you two be more serious and act like an emperor or senior emperor?

What a headache.

Zhu Biao also knew that there was no point in arguing with his old man, so he quickly changed the subject:

"I think Jingke's service awareness is very good, but it can't be achieved in one step."

"Thousands of years of old ideas cannot be changed easily. We can implement them in stages."

Jokes aside, Mr. Zhu is still very satisfied with his son.

When it came to business, he stopped joking and asked:

"Oh, what's the phase method?"

Zhu Biao said: "First tell them that officials cannot always have a managerial mentality, but also need to have a sense of service..."

"After a few years, when they have accepted this concept, we will tell them that officials are both managers and service providers."

"After a few years, it will be changed to officials must have a sense of service."

"When the time is right in the future, we will completely eliminate the concept that officials are managers."

"In this way, they will naturally not object."

Chen Jingke couldn't help but nod his head. This trick was actually not bad.

It's like boiling a frog in warm water.

The key point is that the three generations of successors of the Ming Dynasty all held the same idea.

There will be no major policy changes for at least the next forty or even fifty years.

There is no need to worry about policies being abolished due to changes in successors.

Those in power can rest assured to formulate long-term plans lasting ten, twenty, or even thirty to fifty years.

This is really a very lucky thing.

Old Zhu naturally agreed with this approach and said:

"That's fine. Make a plan as soon as possible, and once you've dealt with these people, implement it together with the academy's plan."

Chen Jingke reminded: "The etiquette of the nobles and the duties of the princes must also be formulated."

"We also need to compile teaching materials for educating overseas people and local people."

"It's better to take them out together."

Zhu Biao nodded and said, "Just hand these things over to the civil servants. I believe they will be happy to do these things."

Everyone laughed.

Isn't it true that the civil service group and the nobles naturally don't get along.

Now that there is an opportunity to put a tight rein on the nobles, they will definitely be more enthusiastic than anyone else.

The general policy was decided, and the topic returned to the beginning.

The matter of that training academy.

Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to assign this task to the Imperial College, after all, they were specialized in this.

Chen Jingke thought it should be given to the Ministry of Personnel: "The rank of the Imperial College is still not high enough, and its authority is not heavy enough."

"After those people obtain official status, they won't care too much about the authority of the Imperial College."

"Also, although the Imperial College is a place to train reserve officials, it is still an academy in essence."

“Putting the training class there will mislead many people into thinking that this is where the etiquette of pre-employment training is given.”

"This leads to contempt, and the training courses become just a formality."

"So I think it is most appropriate to hand it over directly to the Ministry of Personnel. No official dares to ignore the authority of the Ministry of Personnel."

"Besides, it is managed by the Ministry of Personnel, which can distinguish it from ordinary academies."

"Let those people understand that the training class is not a formality, but an assessment that they must pass."

"The content of the training is not a simple matter of etiquette, but a matter of principle."

"In this way, no one will dare to ignore the training courses and training content."

Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it and said, "Yes, it is more appropriate to entrust it to the Ministry of Personnel rather than the Imperial College."

Chen Jingke continued, "It would be best if the emperor could be the dean of the academy. When he has nothing to do, he can go and give them lessons."

"In this way, all officials will be the emperor's disciples in name and in reality."

"And we can also select some desirable talents through this kind of training."

Lao Zhu and the other two couldn't help but nod their heads. This was a very good suggestion.

Strengthened the connection between the monarch and officials.

Chen Jingke suddenly remembered something and said quickly:

"And it also gives them the opportunity to play some secret politics."

Old Zhu's eyes lit up immediately and he said, "Secret politics? Tell us in detail."

(End of this chapter)