Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 98 Local Administrative Divisions
"Please let your majesty clarify whether the local three judicial departments need to be adjusted."

"Let the old minister have a clear mind and facilitate the restructuring of the Three Laws Division."

Yuan Keli asked as he did not believe that the emperor did not adjust the local three-law department.

Zhu Youjian actually also considered the local three judicial agencies, but because he was not familiar with local affairs, he did not dare to make a decision easily.

At this time, Yuan Keli was willing to discuss, so he tried to say:

"The county level will remain unchanged for the time being, and the magistrate will still be responsible."

"However, the magistrate can only judge cases with the penalty of rod or less. Cases of imprisonment and exile must be submitted to the court for formal trial."

"Those who use flogging or caning at the county level to cause death or disability must also be held accountable and they must not be allowed to act recklessly."

This is to limit the power of the county magistrate. In the Song Dynasty, the magistrate was stipulated that the county magistrate could only sentence criminals with the penalty of a stick or less. The Ming Dynasty also stipulated that the county magistrate must submit the crime to the superior after being exiled.

Zhu Youjian went a step further and clearly stipulated that the county magistrate had no power to try fugitives. Moreover, when carrying out flogging and cane punishment, attention should also be paid to not beating to death or maiming prisoners, to prevent them from using punishment wantonly to harm the people.

Yuan Keli also agreed very much with this point and felt that the power of the county magistrate should be restricted, and asked again:
“How should local courts be set up?”

"Is it at the Procuratorate of Punishment or at the state capital?"

Zhu Youjian thought for a moment and said:

"The government should set up a court, and the general judge and the judge should be responsible for it."

"States must be treated separately. Directly controlled states directly under the jurisdiction of the province shall be treated as lower government offices, and the magistrate shall be responsible."

"Those under the jurisdiction of a prefecture with more than five counties will also be treated as subordinates. Those with less than five counties will remain unchanged for the time being and will be treated as county-level."

Zhu Youjian really had a headache regarding the establishment of prefectures and counties in Daming Province.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, the roads under the provinces were abolished, and the roads were reorganized into prefectures, and the provinces were reorganized into three divisions, which directly governed prefectures, prefectures and counties, simplifying the administrative division system.

However, Fuzhou and County are still unsatisfactory even after many adjustments were made later.

The magistrate of the Ming Dynasty is the fourth rank, a very high level, only one rank lower than the inspector, and only one rank lower than the chief envoy who was demoted to the third rank by Zhu Youjian.

Some prefectures are very large, with twenty or thirty counties. These counties are all under the direct jurisdiction of the government and obviously cannot be managed. Therefore, there is a state level from the fifth level, which governs one to several counties.

For example, under Kaifeng Prefecture in Henan, there are Zhengzhou, Yuzhou and other subordinate states, totaling four states and thirty counties. It belongs to the four-level system of provinces, prefectures and counties.

There are also some states under the direct jurisdiction of the Chief Secretary, called Zhili states. It belongs to the three-level system of province, state and county.

As for those prefectures that do not belong to states, they naturally belong to the three-level system of provinces, prefectures and counties.

Looking at this alone, it seems that it can be reluctantly accepted, but the Chief Secretary and the Inspection Department also sent officials to divide the various roads, including the Food Supervision Road, the Education Road, the Patrol Road, and the Military Preparation Road.

In Zhu Youjian's opinion, these Taoisms were the role of later generations of provincial departments. It's just that under the creation of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Dynasty was a small government model. Many institutions were not set up, not even local transfer offices. The actual revenue from the Ministry of Household Affairs was only a few million each year.

Power hates a vacuum, and according to Chinese tradition, the government has many responsibilities, so it naturally has obligations such as disaster relief and requires corresponding powers.

So as time went by, Tao's responsibilities became more and more, taking over the responsibilities of institutions that were not set up in the province, and his power became more and more powerful.

Later, it evolved into the Qing Dynasty, and the Tao became the superior unit of the government. It can almost be said to be a five-level system of provinces, roads, prefectures, and counties.

Emperor Yongzheng felt that this was really chaotic, so he changed the subordinate prefectures to scattered prefectures and no longer governed counties. Only Zhili prefectures could govern counties. It has become a three-level system in which provinces and counties, provincial capitals and prefectures, and provinces, states and counties coexist, which has somewhat curbed the tendency of complicating local administrative divisions.

However, this approach did not completely reverse the complexity of administrative divisions, and the road level still inevitably became local administrative divisions.

Later, the Republic of China overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Seeing that this messy administrative division was really unsatisfactory, some people proposed to abolish all the prefectures and prefectures and turn it into a two-level system of provinces and counties.

Therefore, the Beiyang government abolished prefectures to preserve counties and changed prefectures into counties. Various ancient names for prefectures have since become history. However, a province has jurisdiction over dozens or hundreds of counties, and it is obviously unable to manage them. Coupled with the need to divide local warlords, the Beiyang government retained the Tao and turned it into a three-level system of provinces, roads and counties.

The system of provinces, roads and counties did not last long. After the Nationalist Government overthrew the Beiyang government, it abolished the roads according to the two-level system of provinces and counties. Later, when the inconvenience was discovered, administrative inspection areas were set up, which can still be called a three-tier system.

In New China, it evolved into provinces, regions, and counties. Later, most areas were converted into prefecture-level cities and became a three-level system of provinces, cities and counties.

Therefore, in Zhu Youjian's mind, the ideal local administrative division was naturally a three-tier system, which was proved by hundreds of years of history.

It's just that the adjustment of the imperial court institutions has taken up most of his energy, and the adjustment of local administrative divisions is naturally beyond his power.

In addition, there is chaos in the world now. If there are problems in the adjustment of local administrative agencies, it may bring great disaster.

Zhu Youjian could only make some preparations in advance and treat Zhili Prefecture and subordinate prefectures with more than five counties as subordinate prefectures. In this way, there will be less resistance when changing them from the fourth or even fifth-grade xiafu in the future.

The remaining prefectures with one to four counties under their jurisdiction can be reduced to counties and directly under the jurisdiction of the prefecture. Change state capitals to prefectures or counties and simplify the three-level system of provinces, prefectures and counties.

Hearing the long-used term "downstate" from the emperor's mouth, Yuan Keli was keenly aware that the emperor wanted to change the system of provincial capitals, prefectures and counties.

Although he also felt that the system was a bit messy, now was obviously not the time to change, so he immediately advised:
"Your Majesty, the state capitals have existed for hundreds of years and should not be changed easily."

"Treat the Zhili Prefecture as a lower government first, and we will talk about the subordinate prefectures later."

“There aren’t many states with more than five counties.”

Zhu Youjian followed Shan Ruliu and said:
"good!"

"Then let's arrange it this way."

“Each prefecture’s general magistrates, push magistrates, and Zhili prefecture magistrates set up independent yamen offices, which are separate from the original state government yamen.”

"This government office consists of the Criminal Division, the Criminal Investigation Division, and the Court, which serve as subordinate agencies of the Imperial Criminal Department, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Dali Temple, and the Provincial-level Criminal Justice Department."

"Officials in these agencies are under the dual jurisdiction of their immediate superiors and local chief officials. The opinions of both parties are taken into consideration when promoting. Outstanding officials are given priority for promotion to the Three Law Departments of the Imperial Court."

This preferential treatment is a bit big. The Criminal Department of the Three Laws Division and the Dali Temple are okay, and the censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate is the best place for promotion for low-level officials.

Moreover, Kedao also stated that the selection criteria for Shizhong from the Sixth Section and the Supervisory Censor from the Thirteenth Section were the same. The emperor's statement was almost saying that the officials of the Department of Science and Technology would be recommended first from the local three law departments, which would naturally be of great benefit to the newly established government office.

Yuan Keli has worked as an official and highly agrees with this.

In the past, equal emphasis was placed on the selection of Kedao officials, with priority being given to officials with local judicial experience, and county magistrates with both local governance experience and judicial experience.

This seems good in theory, but because of the weight of Kedao officials, it is the best channel to be promoted to senior officials. As a result, some county magistrates ignored government affairs after arriving at the local level. After being appointed, they regarded themselves as Kedao and thought about how to impeach others and promote Kedao officials all day long.

Local officials also had no choice but to leave it up to them because they had the opportunity to become Ke Dao. As a result, local affairs became worse and worse and fell into the hands of petty officials.

Now that the emperor has clearly stipulated that local officials of the Three Legal Departments should be given priority for promotion to the Science and Technology Department, this can slightly reverse the phenomenon of county magistrates neglecting government affairs and allow them to concentrate on their duties.

As for whether the resistance to doing so is great, you have to praise the eunuchs. When the eunuch party was in power, they were worried that the Kedao would not be under control and rarely promoted local magistrates to Kedao officials.

Now Zhu Youjian follows the old rule. Even if the county magistrate wants to scold him, he should scold the eunuchs.

　"History of Ming Dynasty":
　　In the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign, Chen Qixin, who was in charge of the Shanyang Martial Arts Examination, wrote to Yi Que, saying: "The three major diseases in the world...

　　In the old system, instructors could serve as officials and censors. However, the road ahead was a little narrower, and the promotion of people, promotion of officials, and county magistrates were still on the same list. Nowadays, they can only be selected by Jinshi.

　　When he was appointed, he first treated himself as a minister and a censor, and the supervisors and county guards were busy serving him. He stripped and abused the people and did whatever they wanted. This trip is also a disease of taking exams...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)