Take the arsenal to Da Ming

Chapter 263 Forming a Cabinet
Tang Ning presided over the formation of the cabinet first.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty had a cabinet when Ming Chengzu was established, but the power was still in the hands of the emperor. There was no virtual monarch and no constitution, so it was fundamentally different from the modern constitutional monarchy and the virtual monarch cabinet system.

If the Ming Dynasty survived until the end of the Qing Dynasty, it would be much easier to carry out reforms. It would not be like the Qing Dynasty that had to wait until its demise to overthrow the feudal autocracy.

Since the cabinet had been in operation for hundreds of years in Ming Dynasty, Tang Ning did not encounter any obstacles in organizing the cabinet. Many people even thought that the so-called constitutional monarchy was just a change of soup and not a medicine, and only let the cabinet help the emperor handle some government affairs.

But they were wrong. Tangning's cabinet formation was only the first step.

In order to limit the power of the cabinet, he will next create two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Members of the Senate come from various provinces, including Beizhili, Nanzhilu and thirteen provinces, a total of fifteen provincial-level administrative regions.

Regardless of the number of people in each province, four people are elected from each province, making up a total of 60 people.

Since the north of the Yangtze River was occupied by the Qing court, and Sichuan was occupied by Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi regime, including half of Southern Zhili, there were only nine provinces in total.

Therefore, in order to achieve a quorum so that the Senate can operate effectively, the nine provinces are tentatively elected five people each.

The House of Representatives allocates seats according to the population of each province. The more populous a province, the number of members of the House of Representatives will be correspondingly higher, but each province has at least three members, and the total number of members of the House of Representatives is tentatively set at 500.

Whether it is a senator or a member of the House of Representatives, the identities of the members elected by each province must cover three classes.

These three classes include the upper class aristocrats and bureaucrats, and the middle class bourgeoisie, the so-called landlords and squires.

The lower class is naturally the civilian class.

Especially the civilian class, among the senators and representatives, there is at least one person in each province.

The reason for this is to ensure that the bills submitted by the two houses and the decrees introduced are more fair. If there is no participation of the civilian class, which accounts for the vast majority of the number, how can it be fair?
After the establishment and operation of the two chambers, all existing policies and regulations, or those that need to be supplemented, must be re-drafted by the House of Representatives and then submitted to the Senate for approval.

The Senate can only vote to pass or not to pass, and cannot modify or interfere with the proposal.

The purpose of such a division of power is that any proposal is for the benefit of the people of the whole country, and the interests of provinces with a small population cannot be harmed by a province with a large population.

In order for the House of Representatives to pass the proposal smoothly, it is natural to consider the interests of the provinces.

Once the proposal is passed by the Senate, it will be submitted to the chief minister of the cabinet for approval and implementation. The chief minister of the cabinet represents the interests of the entire country.

Of course, the chief minister of the cabinet has the right to deny the proposal.

The treaties concluded between the chief minister of the cabinet and foreign countries and the appointment of officials must go through the Senate, and the Senate has the right to re-elect the deputy chief minister under certain conditions.

The House of Representatives has the power to propose financial and impeachment bills, and has the right to re-elect the chief assistant under certain conditions, but the impeachment bill must be reviewed by the Senate.

It can be seen from this that the House of Representatives and the Senate restrict each other and promote each other, and the power of one house will not be too greater than that of the other house.

The deputy chief minister automatically becomes the speaker of the Senate, while the speaker of the House of Representatives is elected at a general meeting of the House of Representatives.

These are Tang Ning's plans for the two houses. From the composition of the two houses, everyone can see that Tang Ning doesn't seem to have much selfishness.

Although some people with social status worry that too many people will participate in the power center and the power in their hands will be divided, but they dare not stand up and oppose it.

Standing up to oppose at this time, it is easy to be labeled as something, and then pulled out and shot, the loss outweighs the gain.

The Senate and the House of Representatives have a large number of members and are relatively complicated. It will naturally take a lot of time and energy to elect members.

During this period of time, for the normal operation of the country, the cabinet can only directly carry out the implementation of various policies and the transmission of government orders.

The cabinet consists of ten ministers: the finance minister, the home minister, the defense minister, the foreign minister, the justice minister, the agriculture and development minister, the education minister, the business minister, the employment and pension minister, and the transport and environmental health minister.

The chief assistant of the cabinet was concurrently held by Tang Jianguo Zhu Yujian. It can be seen that Tang Ning did not directly sweep Zhu Yujian's rights to the end, making him a false king without any rights.

However, the chief minister of the cabinet has a term of office, five years as a term, unless there are special circumstances, the maximum two terms.

If the two terms expire and he steps down as chief assistant, his rights will shrink a lot.

Zhu Yujian's chances of sitting in the position of supervisor of the country are relatively small. Now that he can get such rights, he has no way to make more demands.

Fortunately, there is no term of office for the position of supervisor, and the throne can only be succeeded by the descendants of the Zhu family. Although it is an emperor with limited rights, it is better than no one at all.

The ten ministers were selected by Tang Ning and Zhu Yujian respectively, and Tang Ning elected five of them.

He appointed Yu Chenglong as the Minister of Justice, Fang Yizhi as the Minister of Education, Song Yingxing as the Minister of Agriculture and Development, Cheng Gong, the chairman of the Chaozhou Chamber of Commerce, as the Minister of Commerce, and he undisputedly served as the Minister of Defense.

The other five were appointed by Zhu Yujian. He appointed He Kai as Minister of Finance, Huang Daozhou as Minister of the Interior, Yang Tinglin as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jiang Dejing as Minister of Employment and Pensions, and Su Guansheng as Minister of Transport and Environmental Sanitation.

It seems that the Minister of Work and Pensions and the Secretary of Transport and Environmental Health are very weak and useless.

In fact, it is not the case. Daming has always attached great importance to the elderly, starting from the beginning of the dynasty.

As for employment, it has gradually become more important. Capitalism has developed rapidly from an embryonic state in Guangdong and Fujian. A large number of factories have been established and trade is booming.

Next, it is natural to promote capital development across the country based on Guangdong and Fujian. It is inevitable that there will be a lot of employment issues to consider.

As for transportation and environmental sanitation, this involves transportation, medicine, hygiene habits, and even toilet renovation and so on.

Just renovating a toilet is a big project, Tangning also plans to implement the flush toilet.

The technology of the toilet is not very difficult, and Song Yingxing's research team has already made it.

With flush toilets, the most important thing now is to build water pipes and sewage systems, which is a very arduous task.

In addition, there are underground drainage systems, personal hygiene regulations, prevention of the spread of infectious diseases, and so on.

After being told by Tangning, Su Guansheng, who used to be the head of the household department in the Hongguang Dynasty, felt a little better, and was also very interested in the toilet renovation and underground drainage issues that Tangning mentioned.

Because he knew how many people would be affected by the floods every year. If the underground drainage project that Tang Ning mentioned, combined with the dam renovation project, would definitely reduce a lot of disasters.

In this way, the staff of the cabinet was temporarily settled.

However, these people are not fixed, and it depends on their political achievements. The cabinet does not need people who are dead. If they are not capable, they will be impeached by the House of Representatives.

Because of this, although Tangning was not satisfied with Zhu Yujian's recommendation, she didn't say much, otherwise she would appear to be too domineering.

But in the future, if these people are not capable enough to be kicked out of power, that is another matter.

After the cabinet is formed, it will start to operate and stabilize the situation in the provinces as soon as possible so that Tang Ning can free up his hands to do what he wants.

Zhu Yujian presided over the first order signed by the cabinet, which was to designate Tang Ning as the King of Light, meaning to restore the Ming Dynasty, and then serve as the deputy chief assistant of the cabinet.

This order was approved by all the cabinet ministers, and after it was announced to the world, the people all thought that it was well deserved.

(End of this chapter)