Chapter 620: The General Assembly (5)

Time: New World Crossing Calendar year 1854, old lunar calendar 11th month 1st day, Kuiyou year, Kuihai month, Yichou day, old world Gregorian calendar year 16, January 1st, Thursday.

Location: The Grand Assembly Hall.

Persons: All Transmigrators present at the assembly.

Today is the sixth day of the General Assembly, and also the day of the closing ceremony.

The hall was packed with people, densely seated. In fact, as long as a Transmigrator could make it here today, every single one without exception was present, even those in critical posts at key positions.

For this reason, enterprises like the Steel Plant had even started their annual maintenance several days in advance, in order to free up time for their managers.

The reason it was made so grand was that today truly is a day of great historical significance: all the important agenda items of this General Assembly are to be voted on by all Transmigrators today.

Certain people who had been slacking off the previous few days all showed up one by one today without needing to be notified. After all, in the official histories of later days, who attended today's closing session would certainly be recorded, and no one wanted their descendants to be unable to look up their seniority records.

With people sitting below the stage, naturally there were people on the stage. The one standing on stage reading the script at this moment was none other than the Senior Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, Xia Xianze.

Xia Xianze was carrying out the first item on today's agenda: delivering the closing summary for the previous Cabinet.

According to the agreement made at the first General Assembly of Transmigrators held as early as the end of year 168, the Cabinet's term is 5 years per term. And the First Cabinet, led by Xia Xianze, has served until the end of this year (year 16), exactly 5 years.

That is to say, shortly after Xia Xianze finishes reading the summary report, the First Cabinet, which played an immense role in the history of the Crossing Over, will formally bid farewell to the stage of history.

The summary report, needless to say, was naturally full of self-praise, carrying forward past traditions and forging ahead into the future, linking the past and the future.

The masses expressed emotional stability.

Any fool knew that Xia Xianze, as the executive and the Senior Grand Secretary of the First Cabinet, was bound to desperately put on a good face for himself; this is only human nature.

However, in the view of the majority, judging the matter on its own merits, the First Cabinet, born under that extremely chaotic internal and external environment back then, had truly done a decent job up to today.

Everyone has a scale in their heart; if they themselves had taken over, over these 5 years, they might not necessarily have been much more impressive than old Xia.

Thus, old Xia's cabinet summary report ended smoothly and steadily amid a round of applause. Next, the Cabinet members collectively took the stage to bow three times to the masses, and then this group disbanded, stepped down, and called it a day.

In theory, all the big shots including Xia Xianze, at this very moment, all became the same status as the onlookers: the masses.

Next was the second agenda item: electing the second Senior Grand Secretary.

As the saying goes, a nation cannot go a single day without a ruler.

Although everyone had an Emperor above them, previously the Emperor didn't manage affairs. So after the First Cabinet closed its doors, the Second Cabinet needed to be elected at the first moment.

The Senior Grand Secretary of the Second Cabinet, without a doubt, was still Xia Xianze.

Old Xia was now at the optimal age for politics, seasoned and experienced. With his immense prestige within the Transmigrators today, being elected as the Senior Grand Secretary of the Second Cabinet was an unquestionable outcome.

Moreover, before this, Xia Xianze had already done sufficient work with every group. It is no exaggeration to say that, at least for now, no one within the Transmigrators had yet emerged who could contend with him.

Thus, Xia the Masses was soon elected with a high vote count as the second Senior Grand Secretary of the Crossing Faction.

It is worth mentioning that regarding the Senior Grand Secretary vote, Yao Jianshe, who had obtained the information beforehand and communicated with the north via telegraph, also cast a vote of approval on behalf of his northern colleagues during the assembly voting.

After this, Transmigrators working in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang region also successively cast votes on behalf of their distant colleagues.

In the end, less than 15 minutes passed from the moment Old Xia resigned en masse from the First Cabinet and became an ordinary member of the masses, to his return to the pinnacle of power.

Unlike the complex and massive election processes of later generations, the Transmigrators only have this many people, and the various big shots with voting rights don't need to be responsible to those Natives outside, so all political procedures were uniformly simple, fast, and arranged on the spot.

For example, the Cabinet election: once Xia Xianze was confirmed as Senior Grand Secretary, this issue was considered completely settled. As for the other cabinet members, they would all be appointed by Xia Xianze in the aftermath, with no need to go through any further procedures at all.

As they say, the real kung fu is all off-stage.

In fact, all the proposals requiring a full vote today had already gone through multiple rounds of public discussion in the previous days, and were the result of mutual negotiation and compromise among various groups. Being brought to the stage for a vote today was merely to go through the formal procedure.

After the Senior Grand Secretary of the Second Cabinet was confirmed, the next was the third agenda item: establishing the development framework for the next 5 years.

This stripped-down version of the Five-Year Plan was relatively short in content. The most important part of it was "Industrial Sedimentation": establishing a new industrial development framework for the Crossing Faction with steam power as the mainstay, supplemented by coal gas and electric power.

This report, which incorporated opinions from multiple groups including industry, the military, and even scientific research, had already undergone sufficient discussion in the previous days, and everyone had a thorough understanding of it.

Thus, the report was quickly passed.

Next was the main event: the Emperor's Personal Rule Ceremony.

In fact, "Emperor's Personal Rule" was a false concept. Because in the years prior, no one had ever prevented Cao Zong from "not ruling personally"—he himself had put all his energy into mysteriously appearing and disappearing in the Old World, playing at vanishing acts; he couldn't blame anyone else.

And the so-called "Personal Rule" act, in essence, was more like a return "announcement": Old Master Cao is back today to officially work and manage you bunch of unruly subjects.

The return of the decadent feudalist leader received a warm and enthusiastic welcome from the broad Landlord Class. The next moment, the future great Nobility and great Landlord groups saluted in unison, shouting "Long live!" in a roar that soared straight into the clouds.

Everyone had experienced the same scene once before, 5 years ago, when Cao Zong was enthroned.

Yet unlike 5 years ago, when hearts were full of various thoughts and private mutterings about imperial authority, today, after several years of firsthand experience, as members of the Transmigrators, everyone increasingly understood where their own future lay.

Given the current development direction of the Crossing Regime, even an ordinary Transmigrator of mediocre aptitude had long since seen clearly: only this kind of constitutional system could, to the greatest extent, guarantee the future prosperity and wealth for themselves, and even their descendants.

Even, to a certain extent, what everyone needed right now was a Cao Emperor with greater power, one who was even more assertive.

Only such an Emperor could establish and represent a Nobility system with imperial authority as its legal basis, thereby securing the future vested interests for the Transmigrators.

Moreover, only by having Cao Chuan step forward to represent imperial authority could the Transmigrators be left with nothing to say, preventing massive internal strife. Otherwise, if someone else were put in his place, civil war would break out in minutes: everyone is an ordinary person, you don't even know Sleeve Cosmos, so on what basis do you get to be Emperor? Are kings and nobles born from a special seed?

Therefore: Cao Chuan's return came at exactly the right time.

And so, Cao Zong, seated high upon his elegant throne, once again enjoyed the heartfelt support of his subjects.

As for the Opposition within the crowd—the Opposition was now a shadow of its former self, with only three or five old cats remaining, having fallen into a low ebb of revolution.

There was no helping it; those muddle-headed ones who had been fooled before, after seeing clearly the wind direction, mostly betrayed the revolution and defected to the enemy. There was no helping it; as major Landlords, whether cultivating peasants or the working class, it ultimately meant revolution against one's own family—no one was a fool.

There were many reasons why the Opposition's days were hard. One must know that the Crossing Faction itself was liberating and absorbing Ming peasants in large batches, so the peasant class could not be mobilized.

Furthermore, the Opposition's working-class base was also in poor shape nowadays. As anyone could see, those poor Ming peasants were crying and shouting, begging to come carry loads for Lord Cao. After becoming workers, they ate in the Mess Hall and lived in brick houses every day, so content they forgot their homes; one simply couldn't see any hint of class hatred on these people's faces—truly impossible to mobilize!

Finally, because there were too many internal positions and power was readily available everywhere, the very foundation upon which the Opposition depended for survival within the Transmigrators had vanished.

With nothing left worth fighting over, there was no more factional strife.

Cao Chuan the Cao Emperor, passionately acknowledged by all the Transmigrators, then rose and waved his hand, and shook hands and chatted amiably with the Senior Grand Secretary who had come forward to pay his respects, performing a scene of ruler-minister harmony under the watchful eyes of the crowd.

Next was the Emperor's governance phase—ambitiously taking personal rule, he had to issue a few decrees to suit the occasion, right?

Speaking of this governance, it was actually within the scope of imperial authority defined several years ago. It was more an expression of the Emperor's attitude of participating in the internal management of the Transmigrators, not an infringement on the Cabinet's executive power.

Thus, after a whisper with Cao Chuan, Xia Xianze returned to the stage and announced the first "edict": reopening immigration channels; in the days to come, "high-quality" immigrants would be "introduced" at irregular intervals.

This item once again drew cheers, among which the cheers from the Military camp were the loudest.

The second item was an old tradition: a general amnesty upon the new emperor's enthronement.

As for this so-called amnesty, the trick had already been used five years ago and had proven highly effective: Xia Xianze announced that, effective immediately, every Transmigrator would receive half a cubic meter of spatial quota, with which they could freely choose import goods.

The Transmigrators, long cut off from enjoying import goods, erupted in cheers so loud upon hearing this joyful "imperial decree" that they nearly blew the roof off.

The third decree was very simple: effective immediately, all departments could recommend a group of "loyal" Native rosters to the Cabinet, and ultimately the Emperor himself would personally confer titles of nobility and issue commendations to these Natives.

This item was a matter of course, falling under "grace flowing from the sovereign," and was an important right of the emperor. Moreover, there was an earlier agreement regarding this ennoblement roster: the Emperor could, without Cabinet approval, directly designate one part of the Native quota for ennoblement, with the numerical ratio roughly set at a three-to-seven split.

After these items were proclaimed, the final and comparatively more important "imperial edict" was issued: effective immediately, on the grounds that the Cao Clan originated in the land of Yan, the Transmigration Nation would be renamed "Great Yan," the Twin Dragons Spitting Pearl design would serve as the national flag, and the 11th day of the 11th month of each year would be established as National Day.

Thus decreed.