Daming 1805

Chapter 610 The small kingdom taking shape
Zhudi Lan returned to the Yamen and asked his colleagues first.

It turns out that the Grosvenor family seems to be quite famous.

The Grosvenor family was originally relatively famous in Britain and was considered one of the wealthiest nobles.

After Britain became a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, this family became even more famous.

Regardless of the Ming Dynasty, the British or the Indians, they all felt that there was something wrong with the Grosvenor family.

He always wears what he considers to be traditional Thai and Western clothing, and adheres to what he considers to be the daily walking, sitting and lying posture of a Thai and Western aristocrat.

His family's property in Alexander Bay has been managed into a small kingdom that is almost isolated from the world.

Of course, it's just "almost", not actual. This place is still under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty.

This land located in the southwest of Mozhou, on the north-south boundary of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, was named the Ming Dynasty India in this world.

King Judy Man of India is the second son of Emperor Zhu Jingyuan of the Ming Dynasty and Queen Charlotte of the United States, and the half-brother of King Judy Yu of England.

The State of India also established the Chief Envoy of India and accepted the comprehensive asset verification and registration instructed by the Ming Dynasty.

Since the original free people in India were basically former British and Americans, their assets were registered in the United Kingdom or the United States.

Therefore, India mainly conducts verification and supervision to ensure that their registered data and status are basically accurate.

Make sure everything in the local area does not violate the laws of Ming India.

Therefore, all the Grosvenor family's properties, including diamond mining, textile and clothing factories, as well as the family's manor, were specially inspected and verified by the Jin Yiwei.

It was determined that the land and houses in the small town of Alexander Bay, as well as the surrounding tracts of desert moorland, were owned by the Grosvenor family.

But the only local free people were the Grosvenor family.

There are at least 3 remaining people, all of whom are slaves of the Grosvenor family.

A dozen years ago, there were other free men in the town who were employed by the Grosvenor family as factory and estate managers.

But in the past ten years or so, these externally hired managers have been fired or transferred away one after another.

Robert Grosvenor has been operating here for more than ten years and has specially trained a group of slaves with a certain culture to manage other slaves.

In order to make these slaves more reliable, Grosvenor certainly gave them different treatment than ordinary slave labor.

They can have a certain amount of personal wealth, enjoy a high degree of freedom within the estate, and enjoy a certain level of living facilities.

In fact, they have become de facto middle managers, but their status is still registered as Grosvenor's slaves.

This situation is very rare in other parts of the Ming Dynasty, but it is quite common in India.

There are not many indigenous people in India. The main population now is slave workers sold by the British from Tianzhu.

After India joined the Ming Dynasty's system, even if it carried out comprehensive social reforms, it would not be able to change the status quo.

However, there are not many slave owners who are as serious as Grosvenor and spend money to train slaves.

Most slave owners hired free men to manage their factories.

Slaves simply work.

The Grosvenor family all used slaves in order to preserve what they considered to be their Thai-Western traditions and not to be affected by the general wave of enlightenment outside.

It just so happened that his place was almost isolated from the world, so he could implement this kind of plan.

But Grosvenor did not rebel, and at the same time paid sufficient taxes in accordance with regulations, and the Ming Dynasty's royal guards and the army did not do anything to him.

Some people have come to the Yamen to report and inquire before.

After people from the prison agency specifically checked the law, they found that what the Grosvenor family did did not seem to be illegal.

According to the laws of Ming Dynasty India, how slave owners manage their slaves is their own business.

Moreover, Grosvenor's treatment of these slaves was not too bad, and there was no incident of the master persecuting the slaves for entertainment.

The master requires the slave to live in the way he is accustomed to, which is also the basic right of a normal slave owner.

Therefore, Si Yamen, the chief envoy of India in the Ming Dynasty, knew about the situation here, and after registering and verifying, he just let Grosvenor go.

At the same time, the imperial court did not issue regulations requiring civilians in vassal states to change their Ming Dynasty clothing.

After other countries became vassal states of the Ming Dynasty, civilians continued to wear their original clothing. As long as it was not trespassing within the legal framework of the Ming Dynasty, it could be considered legal.

So everything Grosvenor and the others did was indeed legal.

The Grosvenor family is registered in India and usually lives in their own manor.

They only come to Xiyang Cape regularly to purchase daily necessities and sell products from their factories and mines.

The Grosvenor family itself is not under the jurisdiction of Xihai Mansion.

Another civil affairs deputy prime minister talked to Zhudi Lan:
“To be honest with Your Highness, we don’t like this family either, but what they are doing is indeed not illegal.

“Their family does have some assets, and the cost of the slave factory is very low, and the things they sell are cheap.

“Apart from the outrageous habits of food, clothing, housing and transportation, there is nothing out of the ordinary.

“So businessmen in the market are willing to continue trading with them.

"If Your Highness is concerned about these matters, you can try to give His Majesty some advice.

"Is it possible to make a rule that requires all aliens to change their clothes?"

Judy Lan initially felt uncomfortable with the Grosvenor family, but after hearing the introductions from her colleagues, she became hostile.

The so-called "small independent kingdom", a place that the court could not directly touch, made Zhudi Lan, who had received royal education, particularly sensitive.

To ordinary people, Grosvenor was just managing a group of slaves.

But in Judy Lan's view, it was a group of tens of thousands of "nationals" who only listened to Grosvenor.

Grosvenor is the little king there.

Zhu Di Lan vaguely understood that from Emperor Shizu to his own father, they were all obsessed with gradually abolishing slavery.

Because slavery is a legal secondary relationship of personal dependence.

If all men were free men, then all free men would be directly under the jurisdiction of the court.

Not so with slaves.

They must first submit to slave owners, and slave owners must submit to the jurisdiction of the court.

A more direct and detailed issue is that the management and punishment of slaves by slave owners are not restricted by the imperial court to a certain extent.

Under the laws of the imperial court, slaves were regarded as property and objects.

But they are indeed alive.

Slave owners had the legal right to lynch.

The royal guards of the imperial court can patrol such small kingdoms, but they cannot stay there for a long time.

Over time, the slaves in these manors will only know their slave owners, but not the significance of the Ming Dynasty.

If you don’t know the meaning of Ming Dynasty, you will have no fear when you resist.

This kind of small kingdom is not just Grosvenor, there are a large number of similar small kingdoms in India.

Grosvenor is just the most visible one.

After Zhudi Lan thought about it for a long time, she really wrote a report to her father seriously.

He explained his concerns about the issue of slave estates in India.

and put forward their own suggestions and ideas.

Implement forced reforms to abolish slavery in these areas, or let the four major industrial groups come forward to buy them out.

Zhu Jingyuan was more concerned about Zhudi Lan. After receiving his report, he read it directly. As a result, he only opened his mouth and was obviously stunned:
"The Grosvenor family? Isn't that the Duke of Westminster? The richest man in Britain since the Victorian era?"

"Now that there is no Victoria, the title of this family in the UK remains at the stage of Earl Grosvenor...the leader."

"What's going on with this family now? Did you ask Di Lan to write a report to explain it?" Zhu Jingyuan continued to read Zhu Di Lan's report and subconsciously summarized what Grosvenor had created.

There is the monarch, namely Robert Grosvenor.

There is territory, which is the land of the Grosvenor family in Alexander Bay and the surrounding desert.

There were classes, Grosvenor family members, slave managers, slave laborers.

There were officials, slave managers trained by Grosvenor.

There are laws, various rules in their home.

There is culture, and although their kind of dress is not a real Thai-Spanish tradition, it has become the tradition of the small kingdom of Grosvenor.

They even linked culture to dress and class and even identity.

Ordinary workers at the bottom wore black, middle managers wore white, and the Grosvenor family at the top wore red.

There are also clear distinctions in style between men and women.

Their sovereignty is of course incomplete, and top-level laws must abide by the laws of the Ming Dynasty.

However, Ming Dynasty's actual local management ability was very weak.

In a desert, there are only a few free people, and the rest are their slaves.

Officials of Ming Dynasty may be too lazy to care about their family affairs.

If it was in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, if they could operate like this for decades, there would even be a chance to form a small ethnic group and country.

The thing that makes Judy Lan feel uncomfortable, namely their idiosyncratic attire, is actually the most dangerous thing there.

Culture, they are creating and summarizing their own unique culture, and common cultural identity is the basis of ethnic groups and countries.

It just so happens that the main body of their country is Tianzhu people, who originally did not have their own unified ethnic identity.

Grosvenor now builds a common ethnic identity for them.

The other "small kingdoms" of slave factory owners and slave owners as rulers are taking the initiative to imitate the Ming Dynasty.

They also used free outsiders to run their slave factories.

Therefore, other small kingdoms have no chance to condense their own cultures and have their own independent and common ethnic cognition.

So, what should I do?

There are only a few tens of thousands of people in this small, emerging country.

Ming Dynasty can easily destroy it.

It can also very easily interrupt the process of them continuing to shape their shared cognition.

Judy Lan's suggestion is also very reasonable.

Although the Ming Dynasty also naturally followed the basic legal logic of "laws are not retroactive".

But this does not prevent Zhu Jingyuan from immediately drafting a law that stipulates that the vassal states must also change the Ming Dynasty's clothing and etiquette in the future.

Because "past" means something that has ended.

Otherwise, it cannot be called "past events".

For example, buy and sell slaves.

If a law were promulgated on August 23, the [-]rd year of the Grand Duke, it would be stipulated that from that date no one could buy or sell slaves.

So before this day, anyone who bought or sold slaves would not be punished.

Because buying and selling slaves is an isolated matter, the key is something that has ended.

This is the direct logic of the law not being retroactive.

But many things are "continuous", such as the slave system, contracts, and customs.

If the new law stipulates that from the 24th year of the Archduke, no one will be able to own slaves.

Before the first day of the first lunar month in the fourth year of the Grand Duke, it was still not illegal for those who still owned slaves.

This is of course also the logic of the law not being retroactive.

But after the 24th year of the Grand Duke, if they still owned slaves, they would be breaking the law.

Because at this time owning slaves was not a thing of the past, but something that was happening now.

At the same time, if there is a punishment, it will be calculated from the 24th year of the Grand Duke, and the previous past will not be calculated.

This is also the logic of the law not being retroactive.

This law actually required them to demobilize their slaves before the 24th year of the Archduke's reign.

When the contract was signed, some of the above clauses were not illegal, but it does not mean that the new law makes the content of the contract illegal.

When the new law is introduced, this contract will no longer be enforceable.

However, we cannot pursue the parties who signed the contract before the law was implemented just because the terms of the contract are now illegal.

The uncomfortable modern saying that the law does not apply retroactively can be replaced by the traditional narrative method of the Ming Dynasty, which is "cannot be punished without teaching."

Rules should be reminded and announced before punishment is imposed.

Matters before the reminder and announcement of the rules will not be investigated, but matters after the reminder and announcement will be strictly investigated.

In modern times, many political and cultural systems have created many awkward narratives in order to break away from past traditions.

The non-retroactivity of laws is a typical example.

If we say "you cannot punish without teaching", most ordinary people can understand it instantly.

"The law is not retroactive" requires a special interpretation.

Zhu Jingyuan can now directly issue an imperial edict and legislate, requiring all vassal countries to grow their hair and change their clothes before the end of the year.

If they don't change their clothes next year, the court will be able to deal with them in accordance with the anti-edict.

But Zhu Jingyuan did not do it immediately after thinking about it.

If you force others to grow their hair and change clothes, there is actually no essential difference from the shaved hair and clothes you knew in your previous life.

At the same time, I actually have another more harmonious way to deal with it.

For example, arrange for a township chief to bring a grassroots uniformed guard team to station in these small kingdoms.

These people were members of the Ming Dynasty. Their clothing, food, housing, and transportation, as well as walking, sitting, and sleeping, all followed the official Ming Dynasty model.

Their local status was superior to that of slave-owning families like Grosvenor.

In the eyes of the local slaves, the Grosvenor family was also the subordinates of these people wearing Ming Dynasty clothes, and was even the same slaves as them.

Then people like them will clearly understand the existence of Ming Dynasty and have a natural fear.

After all, their masters must be respectful to these people.

More importantly, he could use this incident to give Di Lan some more courage.

It just so happened that this boy had basically mastered the criminal and prison matters in Xiyang County.

I even had time to sneak out for a walk.

How can this work.

So Zhu Jingyuan replied to Judy Lan and said:

“Whether it is to directly ban it or to let the four major groups forcefully acquire it, it is too simple and crude.

“I’ll leave this matter to you and carefully consider a more stable, comprehensive and smooth plan.

"After considering the plan, let me know. I will ask the court to arrange manpower to assist you in actually handling it."

(End of this chapter)