Chapter 306: Establishing Institutions (V)

After spending the entire morning nailing down the most important projects, the attendees hurriedly ate a boxed work meal, then tirelessly began tackling the next tier of issues.

The three parties at the meeting today made rapid progress on those unresolved agenda items — the vast majority already had answers long ago, and simply lacked someone to make the final call.

Now that the Emperor had come out to oversee things and the obstacles were gone, most agenda items passed in a single go. Things like the organizational structure of the pocket-sized government, the designs for the soon-to-be-issued silver dollars and currency, the specification drawings for items like the "Jade Seal," "Prime Minister's Seal," and "Noble Attire" — these topics seemed important, but were actually mostly conceptual; without any bickering, no one was willing to waste breath on them.

Of course, there were still a few agenda items that sparked controversy: the calendar, for example.

The calendar currently in use by the Empire was the Gregorian calendar era brought over from later generations. This so-called Gregorian calendar era was originally called the Christian Era, also known as the Western Calendar or Anno Domini, a calendar system created by an Italian through reforms to the Julian calendar. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, then the Bishop of Rome, approved and promulgated it.

The Western Calendar takes the birth year of Jesus as the start of its era. To dilute its religious overtones and avoid aversion from non-Christians, later scholars renamed it to the two forms of CE and BCE.

The year after the Xinhai Revolution broke out, the then-government of the Republic of China adopted the Gregorian calendar as the national calendar.

In the Old World, the so-called Gregorian calendar continued in use just like that. Additionally, the traditional lunar calendar was also preserved later on, though it had very few uses — mainly just for merchants hyping mooncakes and for watching the Spring Festival Gala.

For the Imperial Han, the calendar issue was absolutely a matter of principle: using the birth year of Jesus as the epoch was simply too ridiculous. Rather than that, they might as well use the Jade Emperor's era — both were chief gods, so whose godhead was lower than whose?

Now that the Transmigrators had founded a new dynasty in a new time-space, if they still used the Jesus calendar, that would be absurd + farcical. This was intolerable — it had to be changed!

Xia Xianze and his faction did not see it that way.

Unlike the Imperial Han, who were full of ideological rhetoric, the Conservative Party members who actually controlled government resources were more concerned with implementation issues: changing the epoch would not only affect the existing administrative system, but the industrial and educational systems would be impacted as well.

Including the computers and textual data brought from the Old World, the entire Transmigration Nation would experience a period of chaos along with the epoch change. This was not a situation Xia Xianze, who was currently striving for stability, wanted to see.

Furthermore, regarding the ideological aspects the Imperial Han were loudly clamoring about, the Conservative Party members actually scoffed: over a billion people in the entire Old World nation lived their lives using the Gregorian calendar, and had anyone been seen humiliated to the point of suicide?

One point four billion people sang the Internationale while using Celsius, moles, Newtons, and amperes. If the calendar needed to be elevated to a matter of national dignity and political correctness, then what about all those other things that came from the West? Change them all? That would just be deceiving oneself...

"Heh heh heh..." After listening to the arguments from both factions, Cao Chuan laughed. "You old fellows all make quite valid points."

"The way I see it, each of you has your own standpoint, and neither can be called wrong." Cao Chuan said up to this point, then turned his head to ask Bai Hongda: "Old Bai, this new calendar you're advocating — do you plan to start counting from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, or the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods? Or perhaps the golden ages of Han and Tang?"

"Ahem..." Upon hearing this, Bai Hongda raised a hand. "Anything's fine, as long as we're not following the ancestors of the White-Skins."

"Oh... I understand now." Cao Chuan rubbed the center of his brow with his middle finger, then looked up and said: "In that case, while our operation is still small, let's just change the calendar. Otherwise, once the population grows and the masses form a habit, it'll be too late to change even if we want to. Old Xia, what do you say?"

Xia Xianze thought to himself, you've already set the tone, and now you're asking if I agree? Damn, what a fatuous ruler.

Thinking this, Xia Xianze nodded with a formal expression: "Since Cao Zong has said so, we will simply act accordingly."

Seeing Xia give him face, Cao Chuan smiled and nodded at him: "Mm, good then. We must keep the bigger picture in mind. Also, the original lunar calendar doesn't need to be abolished — we'll keep the dual-track system, same as in the Old Time-Space."

After a pause, Cao Chuan continued: "As for the starting year of the 'New Calendar'... since you all don't care, let's start counting from the Qin Dynasty. You've messed with my dynastic title — there ought to be some compensation, no?"

"Agreed!"

"Very fair..."

"Excellent idea!"

Seeing their goal achieved, several Imperial Han hurriedly piled on the flattery in rapid succession.

And so, the New Calendar of the transmigration time-space was settled just like that. The new calendar would push the original historical Year 1 of the Western Era back by 221 years, exactly the year the first centralized, unified Han state, the "Qin Dynasty," was established.

From now on, in the nation founded by Transmigrators, students would learn the new calendar years in class. And the Transmigrators already accustomed to the Old Calendar would simply add the number 221 to the Old Time-Space's Gregorian calendar — the year 1628 would become New Calendar year 1849 in future official documents and textbooks, completely separated from the Western Calendar.

By dinnertime, the meeting's agenda had reached the key item of Cabinet seats.

The issue of seats was where real interests lay. Previously, over those few seats under their posteriors, the two parties had nearly beaten each other's brains out. And this time, under the mediation of the Cao Emperor, both sides finally reached an agreement.

The Conservative Party Cabinet would cede the post of Minister of Transport to the Imperial Han, and additionally, the position of Chief of the Police General Bureau was also put on the table as a trade. As for the Four Great Ministers of State that the Imperial Han yearned for in their hearts, that couldn't be helped — they were the Minority Party, after all.

Of course, the Imperial Han didn't let certain people off easy either: given that this pocket-sized nation was in a period of intense expansion and transformation, the five-year election term proposal put forward by the Conservative Party was also shot down.

The final agreement reached by both sides was: initially, a two-year term, which could later transition to three years, and eventually, on that day when the regime was stable, native elites took the stage, and the Transmigrators grew old, the elections would be fixed at a five-year term.

As the agenda progressed to this point, it touched upon the issue of the Transmigrators' numbers.

... As of today, the total number of Transmigrators who had successively arrived in the new time-space was exactly 250. Adding Cao Chuan himself to that figure made it 251, inadvertently avoiding a certain awkwardness.

And for a period of time going forward, no more people would be crossing over for the time being.

This issue had to be explained from two angles. First, Cao Chuan had brought bad external news: after years of trafficking people, he had finally been targeted by certain organizations, including Interpol. So for the recent period, or as Cao Chuan himself put it, "within three to five years," he did not intend to bring any more people over.

Second was the internal opinion of the Transmigrators: the group hadn't really wanted to absorb many newcomers in the first place.

In the late 1860s, humanity entered the "Electrical Age" and began the Second Industrial Revolution. The goal the First Generation Crossers were striving for was roughly at that standard.

As for the subsequent Information Age, the Nanometer Era, and those other lofty things — for the majority of the Transmigrators, who were already middle-aged, they were too far off, unattainable in this life.

Given this, the future Transmigration Nation in fact only needed to light up the technology tree to the crude level of ironclad gunboats to achieve global dominance. In that case, the current manpower of over 200 was already sufficient — any more, and what would happen when it came time to divide the cake in the future?

Thus, under the combined influence of these two internal and external factors, the attendees also reached a preliminary intent: for a period going forward (at least 5 years), no newcomers would be accepted for the time being. If the Transmigrators suffered major losses in the future, or if the political situation required it, then the matter of "importing" personnel would be reconsidered.

After the "immigration" agreement and the earlier election plan were reached, the atmosphere between the two parties abruptly eased.

Since it was a two-year term, plus no newcomers, and after further excluding the tech-otaku, military enthusiasts, and others uninterested in politics, there wouldn't be many among the Transmigrators still interested in playing politics — those present could simply take turns governing; there was no need for overly intense struggle.

The problem that had previously been the hardest to resolve was thus defused right at the dinner table. So, sometimes an Emperor could still play a positive role, especially during tripartite talks — a suitable arbitrator could save all parties a great deal of time.

After dinner came time to fight the landlord: this time, since Cao Chuan held the bottom cards, the members of the two parties instantly united, preparing to fight the one biggest landlord boss.

What was the content of this struggle? Imperial power and the treatment of the Imperial Household.

The first topic everyone discussed was imperial power.

Regarding the Emperor's rights, there was actually not much controversy: all rights nominally belonged to the monarch, who would then delegate actual power down to the Prime Minister. This was the governmental framework all Transmigrators, including Cao Chuan, had long tacitly agreed upon, and it was also the central idea Cao Chuan had promised during his "back-court dialogue" with Xia Xianze back then.

So Cao Chuan did not make excessive demands in this area.

Of course, the premise for delegating power was that his own security had to be guaranteed — prosecution immunity (no lawsuit could be directed at the Emperor) and tax avoidance clauses (imperial fiefs were not taxed), this series of bills to safeguard the monarch's rights, Xia Xianze and the others had long since indicated would be written into the Constitution.

Cao Chuan was very thorough in relinquishing power in this area.

Regarding rights such as declaring war abroad, approving and promulgating laws, and appointing and dismissing the Cabinet Prime Minister, Cao Chuan stated on the spot today: he and his descendants would only be responsible for signing the documents; actual decision-making power belonged to the Prime Minister and Parliament.

The only thing Cao Chuan stated needed adjustment was the ennoblement system.

He raised an objection to the clause that "ennoblement must first be approved by Parliament and the Prime Minister": the Emperor must have, at the very least, the right to freely ennoble a portion of the Nobility... even if the quota was small, it absolutely had to exist.

Upon hearing this, the members of both parties present instantly understood: he wants to promote newly promoted people, huh? Wasn't this exactly how the treacherous sycophants in history rose to power?

Alright, this matter needed to be talked through properly.