I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 431 "New Laws of the Ming Dynasty"

Huagai Palace.

After the Spring Festival holiday, all officials returned to work in the court.

The six cabinet ministers were all summoned by the emperor, and they were accompanied by the ministers of various central ministries of the Ming Dynasty.

Meng Yan, the daily commentator of His Highness, stopped reading and wrote: "In the spring of the sixth year of Jianwu, the emperor came to the palace and summoned the cabinet and central ministries to review the draft of the "New Code of the Ming Dynasty."

Zhu Yijiong looked at the first draft of the "New Laws of the Ming Dynasty" that had just been submitted by the cabinet and the Ministry of Punishment. It was really just a first draft, and many of the contents in it were not perfect.

Wang Li cupped his hands and said: "Your Majesty, the contents of the "New Code of the Ming Dynasty" related to the "Huang Ming Ancestor Instructions" have been edited by the Ministry of Punishments and approved by the Cabinet. Your Majesty is now invited to review them."

Starting to formulate the "New Code of the Ming Dynasty" and editing and revising the "Ancestral Instructions of the Emperor Ming Dynasty" were tasks assigned by Zhu Yijiong to the Ministry of Punishment a few years ago.The cabinet was involved in the entire process, most of which were corrections in decision-making, and incidentally helped the Ministry of Punishment to find out.

Now, after several years of editing, the first draft is finally finalized.This was mainly because Zhu Yijiong basically ignored the "Huang Ming Ancestor Instructions" and proposed too many revisions, which really cost the cabinet and the Ministry of Justice a lot of effort.

Zhu Yijiong opened the first draft of the case, and what came into view was the "New Laws and Constitution of the Ming Dynasty". The original title of "The Ancestral Instructions of the Ming Dynasty" had been deleted by his order.

The word constitution has been around since ancient times, and can be traced back to the Warring States Period. Similar to it, there are words such as constitution and constitution, and their general meanings are the same as law, and they all refer to national laws.

Zhu Yijiong is preparing to try to establish a constitutional monarchy, but it is only a tentative one, because he neither intends to establish a parliamentary constitutional monarchy in the UK, nor does he intend to learn from the dualist constitutional monarchy of the German Empire.The former has the final say in parliament, while the latter is purely a compromise between the imperial power and the nobility, which is worse than the British one.

At this stage, Zhu Yijiong still plans to colonize the world. Naturally, he wants to firmly control power in his hands. Moreover, the constitution itself is difficult to restrain the emperor. It also took a long time for the British king to be successfully suppressed by Parliament.

There was no rush, he just set up a big framework first.

Zhu Yijiong then looked down:

"Article [-]: The Manchu and Qing dynasties were brutal, causing all life in the world to be devastated and the people to live in dire straits. The New Ming Dynasty complied with public opinion, raised troops to defeat the Qing Dynasty, wiped out the puppet Han, and determined the chaos of China for a hundred years. This is in compliance with the will of God and the support of the people, and it should be the orthodoxy of Ming Dynasty China also!"

"Second, all the peoples in Ming China, including Han people, Yao people, Zhuang people, Li people, Tujia people, etc., all live in the nine states of China. Naturally, they are all Chinese people and brothers of the Han family. As for the Han family, as The direct descendants of Yan and Huang are naturally the brothers of all clans, while the other clans are brothers and sisters."

"Article [-]: Taizu regarded Annan and Korea as a country that was deferential and declared it a country without conquest. However, Annan invaded the territory, rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, and defected to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. How can it be considered a country that is deferential? If it is not deferential, how can it be a country that does not conquest. Korea is like this .”

The first three articles, the first and second, are quite normal. The former is a declaration of orthodox legal principles and is conventional political propaganda.The latter is unifying all ethnic groups in China and setting the tone for future development between the Han people and other ethnic groups.

Only the third one is full of Ming Dynasty's ambition and desire for expansion.Not only did they revoke the title of Annan and Korea as a country without conquest, but they also stipulated that as long as they were not obedient, they could conquer and destroy the country.

This is barely concealed. Isn’t it the Ming Dynasty that has the final say on whether to be respectful or not?

In this regard, the cabinet is actually helpless, but it has to do it.Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty would turn around and annex Annan and North Korea, and the emperor would be very embarrassed.

Zhu Yijiong looked at it, but suddenly took up his pen and wrote a reply after the third article: "Additional, all the places illuminated by the sun and the moon are the territory of Ming China, which cannot be divided and cannot be abandoned."

Seeing this, the secretary who was studying ink next to him suddenly had his eyelids twitching. The sun and moon shining on it could be the sun and moon of the Ming Dynasty flag, or it could be the sky... It can't be said, it can't be said.

Your Majesty... Your Majesty should be talking about the Ming Dynasty Dragon Banner!
"Article [-]: Le Ji, Dan Hu, Ban Dang, Shi Fu, and Beggar are all common people. They are not classified as lowly."

"Article [-]: When a prince breaks the law, he is guilty of the same crime as the common people. Officials and clan members should also abide by the law and love the people. Anyone who complies with the "New Laws of the Ming Dynasty" will be punished in the same way as the people."

"Article [-]: The emperor is also the emperor..."

"Article [-]: When worshiping the heaven and earth, offering sacrifices to the country, and enjoying the ancestral temple, the main thing is to be sincere and not extravagant and wasteful..." "Article [-]: When the emperor comes in and out, he should be cautious and prudent..."

"Article [-]: Internal government official affairs must not be complicated and corrupt..."

"Article [-], officials of the foreign court..."

"..."

Going forward, we are basically planning the bureaucracy of the inner and outer courts, and even the issue of sacrifices has been included in the Constitution.

Generally speaking, there is still no way to escape the framework of "The Ancestral Instructions of the Emperor Ming". Although Lao Zhu's "Ancestral Instructions of the Emperor Ming" is now outdated, regardless of whether it is right or not, he did include everything he could think of.

Zhu Yijiong spent half the morning quickly scanning the first draft, and in the middle of the process, he picked up a pen and made comments and circles on several places, which was finally finalized.

After that, all the ministries, including the Cabinet and the Ministry of Justice, came together, the chief officers and adjutants, and even the Ordnance Bureau was called over to finalize the first Constitution of the Ming Dynasty.

This is also Zhu Yijiong's rule for future amendments to the Constitution. If future emperors want to re-amend the Constitution, the emperor, cabinet and senior officials of major ministries must all be present, and then jointly agree to vote, and A vote of at least two-thirds is required to implement the amendment.

Not only the emperor, but also the cabinet can propose amendments to the constitution. The conditions are the same and must pass a two-thirds vote.

Of course, the emperor has veto power!

In this way, the emperor and civil servants check and balance each other. In future generations, no matter how bad the emperor is, the Constitution will not have too outrageous content.Unless there really is a coalition of civil servants, or even a coalition of emperors and civil servant groups, but then it will be almost the end of the dynasty.

In addition to voting for constitutional amendments, the cabinet voting system, although retained by Zhu Yijiong, has strengthened the power of the chief minister of the cabinet.There are also regulations on the number of ministers in the cabinet, which must be an odd number, with a maximum of 11 and a minimum of three.

In short, there cannot be a tie vote like the previous one, and it is really difficult to vote for other reasons. The chief minister of the cabinet can also seek the emperor's opinion and make decisions independently.

In addition, the civil and military affairs are not subordinate to each other. The cabinet is not allowed to interfere with the power of the army. The army is directly subordinate to the supreme commander or the emperor.

Also, opening up the sea is a national policy and has been added to the Constitution.

Later emperors were not allowed to seclude the country for any reason. At most, they would temporarily block coastal customs when foreign enemies appeared.

There are also special groups such as Buddhism, Taoism and religion, including the Kong family in Qufu, which can maintain the status quo, but future emperors cannot develop and expand them again, and cannot grant them lands, titles, or official positions.

The entire "Constitution" contains a lot of content, and most of it is a framework. It basically adds everything that Zhu Yijiong can think of.

It can be said that the entire Constitution is a mixture of the extreme will of Zhu Yijiong, the founding emperor, and various later generations' ideas.

The third article alone left a hole for the ambitions of later emperors. As for whether he could do what was said in this article in the future, he didn't know, and he couldn't interfere.

Maybe the current female official system will be abolished when his son comes.

After all, female officials were at risk of colluding with the foreign court, so only the founding emperor could suppress her.

"Well, there are no problems with this "Constitution". The subsequent "New Laws of the Ming Dynasty" will be formulated according to this "Constitution". Every time a manuscript is revised, I will read it first."

Zhu Yijiong is probably satisfied, and after the "Constitution" is printed, a copy will be kept with him so that he can read it at any time and check for any gaps.

(End of this chapter)