During the early morning court the next morning, the ministers who came to court were surprised to find a group of people dressed in princely uniforms appearing in the court hall. According to Zhu Yuanzhang's old system, princes were not allowed to attend court. But smart people had already thought of it.
What, to be honest, the system of the feudal country has not yet been determined.
Yunxi didn't waste any time. He first gave instructions on yesterday's matters one by one, and then said: "My dear friends, today I will decide on the system of this feudal country."
The ministers below did not guess what the princes were asked to do, and they were all surprised.
But Yunxi didn't have time to wait for them, so he motioned to Zhang Wen, the auxiliary officer of Chun, to preside over the meeting. There was no reason for the emperor to preside over such a meeting with many people participating in it. Instead, a minister was designated to preside over it. The emperor would not chair it unless necessary.
Can talk.
Several ministers who opposed the enfeoffment of the country once again expressed their opposition, and then Yunxi asked them all to go out. What are those who don't support the enfeoffment of the country staying here? The rest are all supportive, or
At least people who don't object participate in the discussion.
To determine the system of feudal states, the first thing to be determined is rites. The meaning of "rituals" is to determine the superiority and inferiority. What is the relationship between the feudal state and the central government? What is the relationship between the feudal monarch and the emperor of the empire? What is the relationship between the feudal monarch and the emperor?
This includes the etiquette to be performed when meeting the emperor, etc. At the same time, "ritual" also includes the rights and obligations of the vassal states and the central empire in the future.
The ‘ritual’ part takes a long time and is the longest part because there are so many things that need to be worked out.
First of all, it was determined that it was in the name of a feudal state. In the end, it was decided to use the name of "respecting the emperor and rejecting the barbarians" to confer royal titles and titles as a feudal king in the border areas. The main responsibility in the name was to educate the barbarians.
This banner was copied from the Qi State in the Spring and Autumn Period, and was later adopted by many forces in the East. It is easy to understand, so it was adopted.
At the same time, the state was allowed to establish Sheji. She is the god of the land, and Ji is the god of grains. In China, only the establishment of Sheji can be regarded as the establishment of a country. And a separate lineage was separated from the Zhu family, with the Yunxi line as the main line, and the emperor was inherited from generation to generation.
; The other lines are regarded as small clans, and the position of king or prince is hereditary.
Secondly, it is determined that the king of the feudal country is equivalent to the prince's title, and the rites and the prince remain unchanged. However, there is no rule that only the prince can be crowned as the prince of the feudal country.
Then he reiterated the law of succession by direct eldest son, and emphasized that the eldest son is the first heir, and the eldest son of the concubine is the first heir. In the case of a legitimate son, unless the legitimate son has done a lot of evil, the central emperor has approved
Except for the approval of the concubine, in other cases, as long as there is a legitimate son, the legitimate son must be established.
Then what needs to be determined is the relationship between the feudal state and the central government. This part is the core part and the most troublesome part.
First of all, make sure that a feudal state is also a country, but it is not an independent country. It is subordinate to the central power. The initial establishment of a country and the succession of the king must be canonized by the central emperor, otherwise it will be invalid, and the princes can jointly challenge it. But the emperor also
The position of king cannot be removed without reason. The king must be in accordance with the regulations, and the specific regulations will be formulated later.
Then the court system was determined. Due to the remoteness of the Western Region, the king was allowed to pay court every five years; the country of Yunnan and the country of Northeast China both had court meetings every three years. The court meeting must be led by the king of the feudal country, or the confirmed prince. The basis for the expenses on the road.
The rites of Zhou were borne by the feudal state. Moreover, when the monarch of the feudal state came to court, he had to pay tribute. The emperor would give rewards equal to the value of the tribute, or rewards exceeding the value.
Then there are the rights and obligations of the central government and the feudal state. As for the feudal state, the main obligation is to civilize the barbarians. Secondly, when the central state has orders, send troops to accompany the central army to conquer the rebels. There are also a series of other obligations, which I will not go into detail.
explained.
In terms of rights, the position of the king of a feudal country is hereditary, and except for the appointment of the left and right kings and ministers by the central government, the central government shall not interfere with other affairs of the feudal country. When the feudal country is attacked, the central government should be responsible for protecting the feudal country.
At the same time, in accordance with the Zhou rites, the monarch of a feudal state is given the power to confer hereditary marquis and earl. He is not allowed to confer hereditary duke, and to confer hereditary marquis, earl needs to report to the central government and obtain the approval of the central government before it is completed. However, he can revoke the title on his own.
At the same time, the central government has the right to confer hereditary marquis and earl in the feudal country, and such centrally conferred marquis, earl, and feudal monarch can depose the hereditary marquis or earl without the consent of the central government, but he has no right to reduce the title. Find
Others in his clan inherit the title.
The monarch of a feudal state is allowed to confer hereditary official positions, similar to those for thousands of hereditary households, and can confer and revoke them on his own without the approval of the central government.
Then what is determined is the relationship between feudal states. All feudal states, no matter how big or small, no matter how close or distant they are to the central empire, are equal countries. Big countries are not allowed to oppress small countries, and they are not allowed to arbitrarily exercise the power of the central empire...
War is not allowed between feudal states. If there is a dispute, please ask the central government to make a decision. If one feudal state attacks another feudal state without authorization, the emperor has the right to cancel the feudal state that takes the initiative to attack, or replace the monarch of the feudal state. At the same time, it is necessary to protect the feudal state; if
If a country is subjugated, the central government has the obligation to help it recover. However, Yunxi feels that this provision should not be used while he is alive.
When determining the power of the feudal state, Fang Xiaoru said: "Your Majesty, according to Zhou Rites, all official positions in the feudal state are appointed by the monarch of the feudal state, and the central government is not allowed to interfere. Why is it that the central government appoints the position of king and prime minister now?"
Although Yunxi claimed that the feudal state was based on the Zhou rites, in fact, it mainly followed the system of canonizing sons and nephews as kings in the early Han Dynasty. In Yunxi's view, the feudal state was impossible without checks and balances, so it was based on the system of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty.
The central government appoints the left and right kings and prime ministers.
Most of the ministers were well aware of Yunxi's thoughts, and the Zhou rites were indeed very inconsistent with the current situation and could not be fully followed, so they had no objections. As a result, Fang Xiaoru only received the imperial edict in the Shu Palace yesterday and had the right to go to court today.
An objection was raised.
However, Yunxi was already prepared. King Zhu Song of Han said: "Fang Zhongshu, who in the world can do nothing wrong? If all the officials in a country are appointed by the king of the feudal country, then who will be the one who thinks differently when the monarch and the ministers have different ideas?
Can it stop the monarch from going his own way? His Majesty the Emperor, who is far away in the capital, is unlikely to know this soon."
"So it is very important for the central government to appoint the king and prime minister, which can prevent the mistakes of feudal kings."
Yunxi saw that Fang Xiaoru was lost in thought, and quickly ordered to move on to the next topic. Otherwise, if Fang Xiaoru was asked to ask, "How is the emperor?", there would be chaos.
Then it was decided that the monarch of the feudal country would not be allowed to leave the feudal country without the permission of the emperor at other times except to pay tribute once every few years.
At the same time, it was stipulated that the monarch of a feudal country had the power to initiate war, cease war, and form alliances with barbarian countries.
They also discussed the official country names. In the end, it was decided that the titles of King Zhu Shangbing of Qin and King Zhu Ji of Min would remain unchanged. After the official sealing of the country, they would be Qin and Min; King Zhu Song of Han, because Yunxi thought of the country in the northeastern region, it would be called Korea.
There was a lot of disagreement, and then the characters "Yuan" and "Yuan" had the same pronunciation. Finally, Yunxi made the decision and was crowned the King of England. After that, the country was officially founded and it was called Britain.
Well, Yunxi may need to consider giving the country on that small island another name.
…
Although all the above contents include part of the system construction, they can all be regarded as the contents of "ritual".
After discussing the "rituals", the next step is to build the system. The first thing involved in the construction of the system is the location and territory of the feudal state.
Shang Bing's territory is Shazhou, and then he can freely march westward; Zhu Song's fiefdom is Kaiyuan City, and then he can freely march northward.
Although Zhu Ming could freely head west and south, Yunnan's geographical location was too remote and it was full of high mountains, so it was difficult to decide where to seal it.
Yunxi thought about it for a long time, and finally decided not to give him the Dali Palace, but to give him the Golden Teeth Military and Civilian Command Department as the capital. The Golden Teeth Military and Civilian Command Department was located in today's Baoshan area and was developed during the Dali Kingdom. There are also many people.
To the west and south of Jin Teeth, the Burmese Xuanwei Envoys, Mengyang Xuanwei Envoys, Luchan Pingming Envoys, and Mengding Prefecture were all handed over to Zhu Chu.
Then there is the official system. The left and right kings and prime ministers have already been mentioned, and they are appointed by the central government. From the second rank, the left king and prime minister are military commanders, and the right king and prime minister are civil servants. And they can both open houses and manage affairs.
Six departments were set up to imitate the six departments of the capital. The chief officer was called Pu She, from the third rank; the adjutant was called Ye Zhe Pu She, from the fourth rank. There were divisions under the hall, and the chief officer was called Dian Ling, from the sixth rank; the adjutant was called it For Dian Cheng, from the sixth rank.
Due to current constraints, local officials can basically only set up administrative units at the county level. Yunxi said: "The situation in each place varies greatly. Your uncles and brothers are trying to educate the barbarians, so the system of local officials will be put on hold for the time being." It was shelved.
In addition, Yunxi also established institutions similar to the Hanlin Academy to teach Confucianism in the feudal states, but these institutions were not actually important.
After talking about the official system, there is the official selection system. This time Yunxi acted arbitrarily for a while, requiring that each feudal state must set up an imperial examination, and the imperial examination in the feudal state was called the provincial examination, and the title was the judicial examination, which was completely equivalent to the imperial examination in the Central Plains. You can take the central examination. However, you are allowed to determine the content of the examination by yourself.
Yunxi planned to change the content and format of the examination to test practical things, and strive to ensure that the people in the feudal state would not suffer losses, but the specific changes have not yet been determined.
Yunxi believed that in order for the people of the feudal state to think that they were still Ming people or "Chinese", they must maintain frequent exchanges so that talents can flow relatively freely. Therefore, Yunxi ordered that the merits and titles should be equal, and he allowed candidates from the Central Plains to be elected. Scholars went to various feudal states to seek officials, and the king of the feudal state could also appoint anyone without an official position or title as an official.
However, each feudal state has a quota limit to prevent the monarch of the feudal state from recruiting a group of people in the name of being granted an official position. As a result, he cannot become an official in the feudal state and still does his job. It is equivalent to abducting people in the name of being granted an official position.
Yunxi opposed large-scale abduction of people, and only a small amount of abduction was enough. However, he announced that in the future, if the feudal states needed it, all the exiled prisoners could be exiled to the feudal states; and if they needed people, they could discuss it with Yunxi, and Yunxi would consider relocation as appropriate. However, he still hopes that the monarch of the feudal country can use favorable conditions to attract those who dare to fight and fight to take the initiative to feudal the country.
In addition to the exchange of talents, to ensure the unity of cognition, we must maintain the unity of culture, especially the unity of writing. Fortunately, Chinese characters have great advantages in this regard. Even if the radicals are separated to form another character, for example, many vassal kings in the late Ming Dynasty, Xin The characters that appear are also considered to be Chinese characters.
Unlike after the Germanic barbarians captured Rome, they borrowed Latin letters and combined them randomly to form different words. 'Hello' in English and 'hallo' in German have almost the same meaning, with only one letter difference, they became different words.
language.
There are many other systems, but they are all details. This discussion lasted all day and did not end until the sun went down in the evening. Everyone ate lunch at noon and finished it.
After lunch, we immediately moved to Jinshen Hall to continue the discussion.
After the last matter was discussed, Zhang Wen announced that today's court meeting was officially over, and the Ming Dynasty's feudal system was officially established.