Chapter 571: A Four-Article Covenant

It turned out that Zhu Cilang had been forced into becoming emperor against his will — it must have been a case of being compelled to take the throne. How pitiful. Although he had been pushed into the position of head of a feudal state, he still had his own principles — his ministers had to agree to his conditions, or else the great Crown Prince Zhu simply would not become emperor!

His not becoming emperor was out of the question, so the ministers all shouted in unison, "We, your subjects, are willing to heed Your Majesty's commands!"

"Good!" Zhu Cilang nodded heavily. "All of you, rise. Everyone, come out to the courtyard. We shall make a four-article covenant with all you ministers outside the Hall of Literary Splendor!"

A three-article covenant was not enough; there had to be one more article!

Today was the great day when Zhu Cilang became emperor, so of course the ministers had to go along with him! Whoever chose to make trouble today would find his official career plunged into utter darkness.

So the whole crowd, including the Chongzhen Emperor, whose eyes brimmed with tears of excitement, followed him out into the courtyard outside the Hall of Literary Splendor, where, buffeted by the cold wind, they listened to Zhu Cilang, now the seventeenth emperor of the Great Ming, lay out his covenant.

Huang Xiaobao, the brush-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and Chen Shifang, the director of the Eastern Depot, personally carried a chair out from the Hall of Literary Splendor for Zhu Cilang.

Zhu Cilang stepped up onto it and looked down from above at the assembled ministers in the courtyard. A sense of standing high above all, of looking down upon the masses, welled up from the bottom of his heart.

Was this what it felt like to be emperor?

Zhu Cilang drew a breath, steadied his surging emotions, and his thick brows slowly knitted together again. "All you ministers, listen. The realm is now in great chaos. The Central Plain, the southwest, the northwest, and the northeast have all fallen to bandits and barbarians. Only the southeast remains secure. These times are no longer an age of peace and prosperity, but an age of warring states and chaos!

Therefore, in governing the state, We shall employ the methods of a chaotic age and a warring states era, not the methods of a benevolent ruler in times of peace. You ministers are all pillars of the Great Ming, and you must shoulder the task of pacifying this chaotic age. You may not slacken in the slightest, nor may you cling to the methods of a peaceful and prosperous era. Therefore, from this day forward, all laws and institutions established in times of great peace may be changed! Do you ministers understand?"

This was the first covenant between Zhu Cilang and his assembled ministers — to govern a chaotic age with the methods of a chaotic age!

Zhu Cilang had read the histories, and he had noticed that the Southern Song and the Southern Ming, the two dynasties that had fled south, had never fully shifted their thinking — they had not transitioned from a peacetime mode to a wartime mode. The clearest sign of this was their utmost insistence on upholding the ancestral rule of civil officials controlling the military!

In a chaotic age, picking up the wrong script was absolutely fatal!

"We, your subjects, all understand!"

The high ministers shouted in unison, though perhaps the words came from their mouths without conviction. As for a certain Retired Emperor, he had gained new knowledge — so the realm was already in chaos! If he had known earlier, he should have taken out and studied the methods the Exalted Founder had used in the chaotic age.

Zhu Cilang continued in a grave and solemn tone, "The realm of this dynasty has always been half governed by rotating officials and half by enfeoffed lords, with both together assisting the sovereign. Yet the rotating officials have regulations, while the feudal system has no law. Thus the guard-battalion system, which half-implemented feudalism, has decayed and rotted away, and our Great Ming's million heavenly soldiers exist in name only. That is why the realm could not endure in peace, and the world has fallen into chaos.

Therefore, in governing the state, We shall first clearly establish laws and institutions, then delegate authority above and assign responsibility below. There must be no violation!"

The assembled ministers shouted, "We, your subjects, receive the decree!"

In the history of the Ming dynasty, there had been three systems of internal feudatories: the first was the frontier princes, the second was the guard-battalion system, and the third was the native chieftain system.

But by the time Zhu Cilang took power, the only one still functioning normally was the native chieftain system. The frontier princes had been done away with by Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Di.

The guard-battalion system, meanwhile, suffered from severe institutional flaws. The guard battalions operated on hereditary offices and hereditary soldiers — a classic feudal system — yet this feudalism suffered from insufficient delegation of authority and no one who could be held accountable. The lords of the guard battalions had limited authority, not enough to strictly discipline their units. At the same time, they bore no responsibility for the decay of the guard battalions; they simply held their hereditary posts, generation after generation lining their pockets and idling away their days.

Therefore Zhu Cilang had already decided to abolish the guard-battalion system entirely. All guard battalions in territory the court could effectively control — including the seven guards of Denglai, the eight guards and one battalion of Fengyang, and the five guards of Runing — would be dissolved. Of the guard-battalion lands already granted out, those held by serving officers and soldiers would be registered as office fields, to be converted to private fields only when the holder completed his term, died in battle, or retired due to injury. Lands not yet granted out would all be held by the Military Fields Bureau of the Ministry of War, to be rented out to fund military pay, or used to reward meritorious soldiers of the new army.

As Zhu Cilang's regime grew more secure, the threshold for land grants would naturally rise higher and higher, and the amount of land granted would grow tighter and tighter — after all, Zhu Cilang no longer lacked for recruits, and once land was granted out, the Military Fields Bureau's income would correspondingly decrease.

Of course, not granting land at all was also out of the question — that was the painted cake that spurred soldiers to fight bitterly. Without that benefit, who would follow him and risk their lives?

Moreover, after completing the land survey of the southeast (Jiangnan, Jiangbei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang) and Huguang (Hunan and Hubei), the land under the Military Fields Bureau's control would likely reach over one hundred million mu.

As long as the situation in the southeast stabilized, the value of these hundred million mu of land should quickly reach two billion taels! And the annual land rent collected, calculated at five dou of rice per mu with a twenty percent discount (the twenty percent being the cost of rent collection), could theoretically reach forty million shi of white rice!

The military funds and bonuses for the northern expedition would all have to come from these hundred million mu!

Zhu Cilang then lowered his voice a shade further. "The chaos in the realm stems from the decay of the guard battalions, and also from the collapse of the public finances. The rot of the guard battalions lies in having enfeoffment without responsibility, while the collapse of the finances lies in treating the scholar-officials and the imperial clan far too generously!

And after the realm fell into chaos, it was the scholar-officials and the imperial clan who suffered the most! Countless scholar-official families in the north have been destroyed, and imperial clansmen and nobles who perished with their entire households under the blades of the bandits and the eastern barbarians are beyond numbering.

Such preferential treatment is in truth a death warrant! Therefore We shall make a covenant with you ministers: scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants shall all pay taxes alike; noble grace shall be cut off after five generations; and imperial relatives and clansmen may also serve in office!"

At this, the officials and nobles present were all somewhat displeased. No one likes paying taxes, and everyone hopes their descendants for ten thousand generations can enjoy endless glory and wealth!

Zhu Cilang's gaze swept coldly over the assembled ministers outside the Hall of Literary Splendor, and then he raised his voice and declared, "Running water does not stagnate, and a door hinge is not eaten by worms, because they move! And those who move are all compelled by circumstance! If ancestral grace is too abundant, how will descendants be willing to move? You all keep numerous wives and concubines and have many sons and grandsons — how much grace can there possibly be to shelter them all?

The only workable way is to let them be compelled by circumstance, so they cannot become idle wastrels, but must study, must join the army, must engage in enterprise. Only in this way can wealth and honor endure, and the family flourish for generations.

If you are still uneasy, then We may permit hardship-earned titles to be hereditary in perpetuity, but one title may pass to only one son, and all other sons shall not receive hereditary office. In the future they may enter the Imperial Academy, they may enter the Military Academy, but they may not receive hereditary office!"

Zhu Cilang's arrangement was of course not meant to block the path of meritorious officials' sons and imperial clansmen — as a feudal emperor, he naturally trusted his own people. But his own people had to have the ability to carry on the cause of feudalism!

And ability, for the most part, is forced out of people!

If someone who knows nothing can still hold office and enjoy wealth and honor, who would bother to work hard at learning real skills?

"We, your subjects, all revere Your Majesty's sacred instructions!"

With the guarantee of "hardship-earned titles hereditary in perpetuity" secured, this "third covenant" finally passed.

Zhu Cilang nodded and continued, "The fourth covenant is a sweeping reform of the civil examination system! The Exalted Founder established the examinations to select the worthy and capable for the state. But transmitted down to recent generations, the court is full of high officials in purple robes, most of them products of the examinations — are they all capable ministers and worthy men? In Our view, they are not even the equals of the so-called Eight Banners chieftains of the eastern barbarians! Otherwise, how could the battles in Liaodong have been lost time and again? The eastern barbarians' Eight Banners number only a few tens of thousands of able-bodied men. Had the illiterate warriors under the Exalted Founder's command been sent against them, they would likely have been exterminated long ago. How could they have grown to their present strength? This shows that examination scholars are not sufficient for use.

Since they are not sufficient, the method of selecting officials must be greatly reformed! We must emphasize practical learning over moral posturing, employ capable administrators and keep pedantic Confucians at a distance, and we must not allow those selected to leap to the top in a single bound. What do you ministers think?"

"We, your subjects, are willing to heed your commands."

There was of course something progressive about selecting officials by examination, but selecting high officials by examination was wrong! In the Ming dynasty, a jinshi's first appointment was generally at rank seven, and even those ranked near the bottom could get a county magistracy — that was really treating the "lord of a hundred li" far too lightly.

Therefore Zhu Cilang planned to greatly reform the examinations, abolishing the jinshi degree that allowed one to leap to the top in a single bound, and keeping only the two levels of juren and xiucai. Of these, juren could take the "provincial examination" or the "ministry examination," and passing would qualify one for office — but one would have to start from the rank of an unranked ninth-grade petty official.

(End of Chapter)