Dashun Yongchang

Hearing Ruan Dacheng's footsteps walking away, Li Zicheng asked Li Laiheng to invite Gu Jiang, Li Laiheng replied to him: "Gu Jiang has changed her name to Yanwu, Your Majesty, don't call her wrong next time."

The familiarity of this name shocked Li Zicheng for a few seconds, but he finally came to his senses. The current Gu Yanwu is not the Confucianist who devoted himself to Confucianism after the Ming Dynasty died, so he calmly nodded to show that he knew.

Not long after, Gu Yanwu was brought over by Li Laiheng. When Li Zicheng saw him, he looked at him twice more than before, and then he said to him: "You should all understand the parliamentary procedures these days, so about the new How should the center be established, and has the system management reached a definite conclusion?"

After thinking for a moment, Gu Yanwu said: "According to His Majesty's request, since His Majesty went to the north, we have been conducting several months of research on the establishment of a new center.

More than a month ago, we submitted two plans to His Majesty. One plan was to disband the central systems of Daming and Dashun, and then re-establish a new central government; the other plan was to retain the systems of Nanjing and Xi’an, and On top of the two, a central court to rule the overall situation was established.

At that time, we were more inclined to the first plan, because this plan could quickly establish a new regime that unified the whole country, so that the people of the world could realize that this dynasty had replaced Ming Dynasty as the new dynasty.

However, based on the communication with members of Parliament over the past month, we think that this plan may hardly get the support of the majority of people, because many places do not want to make any local changes, and they only obey Marshal Dou because they want to maintain the status quo government order.

On the contrary, everyone has little opinion on the second plan, because they feel that this plan has neither changed their lives, but also conforms to their cognition that His Majesty is already the new master of the world.Therefore, our conclusion is that adopting the second option, establishing a new center on top of the two imperial courts, is the least disturbing way to the world. "

When Gu Yanwu said this, he also felt admiration for Li Zicheng. You must know that after the Shun army defeated the Qing army who went south, even those who missed Ming the most among them had to admit that the era belonging to Ming was over. The most important thing is how to transition to the new dynasty.Therefore, everyone agrees that breaking the existing systems of Dashun and Daming, and then rebuilding a brand new system is the inevitable way.

However, Li Zicheng was very calm and suggested that they ask the views of the provincial councilors when the big meeting was held, and then draw a conclusion.Judging from the current results, Li Zicheng's judgment is undoubtedly correct. The provincial councilors almost don't want to make a fuss. Maybe they will not oppose the first plan when they express their views publicly, but when they talk in private, there are few people. support.

Li Zicheng nodded and asked again: "The purpose of adopting the second plan is not to maintain the status quo, but to give the people a period of adaptation. We will eventually merge the powers of Xi'an and Nanjing into the new central government. So , the most important thing at present is to clarify their respective responsibilities and rights, how did you arrange this?"

Chapter 548 New Framework II

Regarding Li Zicheng's question, Gu Yanwu said with confidence: "According to the idea given by Your Majesty, the central government takes away the power to appoint and remove officials above the middle level in diplomacy, military affairs, education, the judiciary is independent, and the parliament separates the power of legislation and tax collection. With Nanjing, there is only administrative power left, which will hardly pose a challenge to the central government."

Li Zicheng expressed his approval for the plan proposed by Gu Yanwu, so he decided to submit this plan to the parliament for voting tomorrow, but the most troublesome personnel issue came next.The establishment of a new central government is obviously a new big cake, and all parties will inevitably focus on this cake. If it cannot be allocated properly, it will be a series of troubles.

As expected by Gu Yanwu and others, there was little opposition to Li Zicheng's desire to establish a new government over Xi'an and Nanjing.Because this increased the number of official positions, it gave hope to many people who wanted to be officials, and many members of parliament also hoped that Li Zicheng could formally hold the imperial examination.Before Li Zicheng held small imperial examinations in Xi'an and Yangzhou, because of the rush of time, only the nearby scholars received the news, and the number of participants was not many, so they were called small imperial examinations.

Of course, at that time, Shunjun hadn't really established the trend of the world, so many scholars were unwilling to follow the bandits, which made Li Zicheng not interested in holding the imperial examination. He just wanted to get a few scholars to use.But it is different now. After repelling the Qing army, Dashun and Daming were reunified by a parliamentary resolution. At this time, Dashun is already qualified to hold national imperial examinations. Naturally, everyone hopes that the normal imperial examinations can be restored. Exam.

Li Zicheng could only agree to the request of the congressmen. He ordered to announce that the imperial examination would be held in the spring of the third year of Yongchang. Explain the Four Books, and ask scholars who are interested in becoming an official in the new dynasty to study a series of words published by themselves carefully, so as to understand what is the destiny of Yishun Daiming.

For most of the councilors, they are satisfied as long as Li Zicheng agrees to conduct the examination. As for what textbooks to use for the examination, it is of course Li Zicheng's decision.There are also some members of parliament who are dissatisfied with the abolition of the "Four Books Chapters and Sentences Collection" as the standard answer, because without the standard answer, they will not be able to pass the exam by rote memorization.

However, Li Zicheng used another trick to block these dissatisfied members. He said that every province should establish a university. University graduates are equivalent to recruiting people. It is up to the provincial councils to decide where to build the university and how to solve the funding. , the central government will allocate certain funds according to the plans of the provinces.

Although they knew that Li Zicheng bribed them with the establishment of a university, the congressmen still accepted the bribe.Especially in the provinces with the most prosperous literary style in the south, the competition for imperial examinations in the provinces is too fierce, and there are too few things that scholars can do. Now establishing a university in the province can not only solve part of the examination quota, but also solve the problems of some scholars. The way out can be said to be the best of both worlds.

Next, Li Zicheng proposed several small proposals, such as modifying the written country name and replacing the name of Dashun with the Chinese Empire; Laws on parliamentary elections and being elected.It can be regarded as throwing a bunch of new problems to the parliament.

While members of parliament were discussing these new issues, Li Zicheng also entered into the most troublesome consideration of personnel arrangements for the new central government.In fact, he now has the following groups of civil servants:

The first part is the meritorious faction represented by Niu Jinxing. The highest level of these people is juren, and the lowest level even has children. However, they participated in the rebel army fighting before the founding of Xi'an, which can be said to be a part of the civil servants who have worked hard;

The second part is the officials who surrendered in Shaanxi, mainly Jinshi. Although they did not participate in the actions of the rebels, they are fellow villagers in Shaanxi after all, and they still have a certain relationship with Li Zicheng;

The third part is the officials who surrendered after the fall of Beijing. They were dissatisfied with Dashun because of the torture of the Shun Army, and finally transferred to the Prince’s Wenhua Palace. Although they still contributed to the Marshal’s Mansion, they advertised themselves as the survivors of the Ming Dynasty. ;

The fourth part is Ma Shiying and other officials in Nanjing. Although he is a traitor in the eyes of Jiangnan Qingliu, Ma Shiying still maintained the situation in Jiangnan for Li Zicheng during the battle with the Qing army.

The fifth part is Qingliu in the south of the Yangtze River. Although Shi Kefa and Lu Daqi insisted on refusing to cooperate with the Marshal's Mansion, Qingliu represented by Qian Qianyi still bowed to the Marshal's Mansion.

As for the remaining civil servants, they can't be called forces, they can only be called small gangs. Naturally, these small gangs can't dream of creating new control power of the central government.

Through conversations and interest exchanges with various forces, a preliminary personnel plan appeared in front of Li Zicheng.After talking with all parties, Li Zicheng finally decided not to move in Xi'an, but to make a big move in Nanjing, in exchange for a plan that satisfies all parties as much as possible.

At the same time, Ma Shiying's plan for the governance of the Jiangnan area was also sent to Xuzhou.Seeing the report that Ma Shiying tried to attack the servants of the prominent families in the south of the Yangtze River and the privileges of the gentry, Li Zicheng finally stopped hesitating and wrote Ma Shiying on the name of the chief minister of the cabinet.

On September 29th, the second year of Yongchang, Li Zicheng participated in the parliament again and raised two important issues at the meeting. The first issue was the promotion order of imperial titles. For the dukes, Xu Wenjue, Duke of Wei, Xu Yunming, Duke of Qian, and Xu Yunming, Duke of Ding, were retained. The duke titles of Duke Mu Tianbo, Duke Zhang Shiding of England, and Duke Zhu Yuanchen of Cheng Guo were changed to the titles of Dukes of the Chinese Empire.

Here, another 11 new princes were canonized: Liu Zongmin, Duke of Qin, Li Guo, Duke of Jin, Tian Jianxiu, Duke of Song, Yuan Zongdi, Duke of Cao, Zhang Nai, Duke of Cao, Gu Kecheng, Duke of Qi, Liu Fangliang, Duke of South Korea, and Duke of Yue. Gong Liu Guochang, Wu Guogong He Guangen (He Jinzi), Tang Guogong He Ruoming (He Yilong's heir), Xia Guogong Luo Yifei (Luo Rucai's heir).

In addition to rewarding meritorious officials, the most important thing about the canonization of the duke this time is to ease internal and external conflicts.The descendants of He Yilong and Luo Rucai were found to be knighted in order to unite the internal relations of the rebel army.After Li Zicheng killed the two leaders of the rebel army, there was also great chaos within the rebel army, and many of the rebel troops left and defected to the imperial court or the Daxi army.

This time heirs were established for He Yilong and Luo Ru, and the contributions they made during the Rebel Army period were recognized, which can be regarded as easing the conflicts within the Rebel Army.As for the recognition of the several Dukes of Ming Dynasty, the same reasoning applies. Although, except for Mu Tianbo, the Duke of Qian, the others are just empty dukes, it is necessary to appease the nobles of Nanjing.

Members of Parliament have little opinion on the list of titles promoted, after all, they themselves do not think that they can really interfere with the canonization of these titles, because this is the power of the emperor.

On the other hand, Li Zicheng's second proposal, the appointment of Ma Shiying as the prime minister of the central government to form a cabinet, was opposed by nearly one-third of the members.Regarding the appointment of Ma Shiying as the prime minister of the new central government, Qian Qianyi has the most resentment, because according to Chen Yuanyuan's previous promise, this position should be his.

In addition to the objections of the Qingliu MPs represented by Qian Qianyi, Shaanxi MPs are also another major group of opposition, because they feel that since Dashun annexed Daming, people from Dashun should naturally serve as the first cabinet prime minister That's right.

Li Zicheng then summoned Qian Qianyi, and he didn't say much to him, but just showed him the memorial submitted by Ma Shiying, and then said to him: "If Mr. Qian can promise me, you can also complete these tasks." , then I can also nominate you to be the prime minister of this cabinet."

Qian Qianyi flinched after glancing at the content, because he thought Ma Shiying was crazy, if he did all these things, how would Jiangnan stay in the future?But he quickly realized that Ma Shiying is from Guizhou, so he really doesn't need to stay in Jiangnan, he just needs to pat his butt and go back to Guizhou to take care of himself.

Qian Qianyi could only say to Li Zicheng with a look of embarrassment: "I really can't do this, I am willing to quit."

Li Zicheng didn't make things difficult for him, and then said: "Actually, my idea is that after Ma Shiying finishes this year, Mr. Qian will just go up and clean up Jiangnan's hearts for me. After all, Jiangnan is still the country's source of wealth, so we can't keep suppressing it to death." .”

Qian Qianyi felt that what Li Zicheng said was ridiculous. If the above things were done, the gentry in Jiangnan would have to live a hard life for at least a few years. Isn't this called a death blow?But in front of Li Zicheng, he could only reply embarrassingly: "Your Majesty is wise, with this strategy, Jiangnan should not be troublesome."

Li Zicheng thought for a while and said to Qian Qianyi: "Of course, there will be one or two positions in the cabinet assigned to you, and you will be nominated for election. In addition, I plan to set up a national budget committee in the parliament to review the country's budgetary expenditures." , so that the budget can be arranged more reasonably. How about you come to be the chairman of this committee?"

Qian Qianyi didn't quite understand what Li Zicheng was thinking, so he asked, "What is a budget? What is a committee?"

While thinking about it, Li Zicheng explained the basic meaning of budget and committee to Qian Qianyi.Hearing the news that he could audit the government's indiscriminate spending and collection of money, Qian Qianyi immediately accepted the proposal.

After reaching an exchange with Qian Qianyi, Li Zicheng warned the pushers who wanted to select a Shaanxi native as the cabinet prime minister again.Then he had a conversation with Chen Mingxia. After confirming that Ma Shiying was appointed as the prime minister of the cabinet, the vacated position in Nanjing would be handed over to him, and Chen Mingxia accepted Ma Shiying's new appointment.

Chapter 549 Pipeline

When Chen Mingxia came back from Li Zicheng's residence, he was not in a very high mood. When Liu Yumo and others learned that he had finally taken Ma Shiying's class, and that Ma Shiying had gone further, they immediately became upset.

In front of Chen Mingxia, they said one by one, "Ma Shiying is just a corrupt official who broke the law. He was restored to his official position only after colluding with the eunuch party. What ability does he have to be the prime minister of this cabinet? I think this The new dynasty is coming to an end..."

"Yes, yes. This country prospers because it is close to virtuous ministers and far away from villains. It is good that this person has just established himself in the world, but he is eager to get close to villains and alienate virtuous ministers. How stupid..."

"The new center has been established, isn't Nanjing back to its old retirement look? What can the chief assistant do? Daming is gone, who else can help?"

Chen Mingxia's head was getting dizzy from the quarrel, but he still didn't want to give up this position after all. Even if he was the first assistant with moisture, he was still the first assistant.In fact, he also knew in his heart that the dissatisfaction of these people was that what they wanted was not a position for the elderly, but a position with real power.

They followed themselves to support the prince because Li Zicheng lost Beijing, and he no longer looked like the leader of the new dynasty who could unify the world.Therefore, I hope that Li Zicheng will send the prince south, and then everyone can be the minister of the dragon.After all, the Ming Dynasty lasted for more than 200 years, and it still had considerable influence in the south. As long as the crown prince arrived in Nanjing, he would definitely be able to rebuild the Ming Dynasty.

It’s just that everyone didn’t expect that the southern gentry officials would be the first to support King Fu’s ascension to the throne, which made them have to stand on Li Zicheng’s side to oppose the Hongguang Dynasty, because as a supporter of the prince, it was no longer possible for Emperor Hongguang to accept them. Naturally, we can only fight to the end. Although Emperor Hongguang was forced to abdicate in the end, he missed the best opportunity for Nanjing to rebuild Ming Dynasty.

Just when everyone was hesitating, Li Zicheng defeated the Qing army who went south, so that Daming lost the chance to recover.The Dashun after clearing up the Qing army is obviously not something that can be stopped by a group of scattered gentry in the south, and no matter whether it is King Jian Guofu in Nanjing or the prince in Yangzhou, they don't want to take any more risks to confront Li Zicheng. .

Especially King Fu, the retired King Fu has seen through the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty. These people don't want to support him as emperor or defend the Ming Dynasty. It's just a privilege.If Li Zicheng is willing to promise that nothing will change, then they will not hesitate to abandon themselves or the prince and surrender to Li Zicheng.

After realizing this, King Fu refused to have contact with Qingliu or anyone else since he abdicated, and he himself enjoyed the leisurely life after abdication in Nanjing.As a condition for persuading him to abdicate, Ma Shiying still shed a lot of blood. He no longer has to worry about his life and can continue to enjoy a rich life. Naturally, King Fu doesn't care about the Ming Dynasty.To be honest, when he was the emperor, it was not his turn to make decisions on major national affairs. People like Ma Shiying and Shi Kefa were still in charge, and no one wanted to listen to what he had to say.

A prince and a king of fortune, these two are at the forefront, and the other clans are traitors if they want to save the Daming country.Although there are many officials and gentry who want to make a contribution to the dragon, but there is really no clan that is more qualified to recover than these two.What's more, no matter who supported the prince or the King Fu, they would not be happy to see other clans become emperors of Ming Dynasty, because they would lose their status.

Compared with other clans ascending to the throne, they would rather Li Zicheng become emperor, because for Li Zicheng, it is not a black spot which clan they supported in the past, because his throne is not directly related to the Ming Dynasty, so there is no need to worry about seizing power question.Since they can't be the ministers of the prince's servants, they don't mind taking a step back and being Li Zicheng's ministers of the dragon.

But now that Chen Mingxia's appointment is tantamount to kicking them out from the center, the new court's ministers from the dragon can't be counted on.This naturally aroused the resentment of these people.

Although Chen Mingxia is the nominal leader of these people, he also knows one thing very well. His foundation lies in Li Zicheng, so there is really no need for him to be tied to these people.Now that the prince can no longer rebuild Daming, the prince faction should disappear naturally, and then he only needs to take a few of his own people to Nanjing, after all, his upward path is not broken.

He didn't mention how Chen Mingxia was intriguing with his colleagues, he just wanted to escape and go south as soon as possible, and he didn't mention how Ma Shiying, who received the news from Xuzhou, was ecstatic and prepared to pack his bags and go north.

At the invitation of Fang Yizhi, Li Zicheng went to the Xuzhou Manufacturing Bureau to watch a new coinage method.Since the Marshal's Mansion proposed to abolish the two yuans, casting silver dollars has become the first problem to be solved by the mint. It uses silver rods to cut and hammer them into silver dollars. This is the way the Spaniards make silver dollars.

However, this method is too time-consuming. Compared with the amount of currency required by a huge market like China, it obviously takes two to 30 years to complete, and the silver coins produced in this way are also easy to be forged.

At the request of Li Zicheng, a method of making coins by machine was invented.What Fang Yizhi invited him to see was a basically completed assembly line minting process.

I saw that the silver block was melted in a large pot after being weighed, and then poured into a rectangular metal block in a mold, and then the metal block was knocked out of the mold and put into a huge flattening machine. Driven by the joint force of the horses, the metal block was rolled into a thin plate.

After the sheet is checked, it is sent to a lever-driven punching machine, still relying on the power provided by the horse, to punch out small discs, and then sent to a screw machine to roll into discs, and the discs are placed in the gears and engraved with edge marks; The appropriate pattern is then embossed on the surface.

It seems that this is a rather cumbersome and complicated process, but after being broken down into a series of procedures, it becomes a job that can be completed with simple operations.Although the whole working process seemed quite monotonous, everyone kept repeating several actions, but Li Zicheng, who stood watching from the side, felt that this assembly line had a unique aesthetic feeling.

Fang Yizhi at the side introduced to Li Zicheng the uses of various machines and the work content of the personnel, and finally boasted proudly, "Once this assembly line is in operation, people and machines can work for several hours at a time. The output in one hour is more than three times that of the past, and 3 times that of the period of pure handwork. As long as there are two such production lines, the task of currency recasting can be completed within six years. And the silver dollars produced are more than handmade. It must be exquisite and difficult to be imitated..."

Looking at the scene in front of him, Li Zicheng also had to admit that in the current era, only currency reforming needs this kind of construction method the most, because other industries neither have such a large supply of raw materials nor such a large market to accommodate them. Such productivity.

For example, using assembly line construction, 10 people and 18 processes, each person can make 11 catties of medium-sized needles per day, about 4800 pieces; it is 240 times the daily efficiency of manual craftsmen in the past.A skilled blacksmith can make 800-1000 nails a day; however, several apprentices can make 2300 nails per day using flowing water.

However, if there is no market, the results of labor cannot be exchanged for labor value, which means that the increase in productivity does not bring about an increase in labor remuneration, but wastes his own time and raw materials. Therefore, a blacksmith would rather make 800 yuan a day according to the needs of customers. -1000 iron nails, and I don't want to hire a few apprentices to make iron nails.

In such an era of agriculture, commerce is actually more important than industry, because only when sales are made can industry continue to produce, instead of working for one day and resting for three days.This is why, the productivity of the Jiangnan region in China has always been higher than that of other regions in the world, but it has not been able to trigger the industrial revolution, because there is no market that can accommodate the productivity of the Jiangnan region, and the Jiangnan region can already meet the needs of markets in various places by hand alone. , What kind of industrial revolution is going on to destroy his own job.

But the industry of making currency does not need to worry about the market, because the coins produced are not afraid that they will not be spent, but in the past China used to measure the value of coins by weight, so there was not so much demand for face value currencies.It's just that the Marshal's Mansion doesn't have so much silver in their hands now, and they don't want to let private individuals control the value of precious metals, so they promote the currency reform.

In essence, currency recasting is to replace worthwhile currency with insufficient currency, which has long been done in the recasting of big money in dynasties of all dynasties.It’s just that the dynasties of the past dynasties have placed the objects of looting on civilians, and only made a fuss about copper coins. The civilians who originally occupied less social wealth will soon be unable to survive this kind of looting, which often leads to uprisings that destroy the dynasty. .

However, Europe often recasts currency without causing any trouble. The root cause is that Europe recasts not only copper coins, but also silver coins, making the scarce gold the best currency to escape inflation. .Simply put, because Europe was too poor, the king had to plunder even merchants and nobles, which eased social conflicts.

What Li Zicheng wants to do now is not fundamentally different from what the British and French will do decades later, which is to plunder their own people to fill the shortfall in the country's finances, but his target is to hold silver wealth It is mainly the people of the country, forcing these people to throw silver into the market, thereby raising the price of gold.

A large amount of silver was unearthed from the cellar, which not only supplemented the liquidity in the market, but also prospered the market.The reason why Dashun's government bonds were sold so well was that, apart from Li Zicheng's threat of force, the continuous depreciation of silver also made many people want to buy government bonds to recover their losses.

Although the interest on public debt is not high, only the public bond market can absorb such a huge amount of funds. Tens of millions of taels of silver are loaned to farmers to charge usury, even lunatics dare not think so.After the Shun army defeated the Qing army, the security of public bonds was even more guaranteed, and the banks also launched a market for buying and selling public bonds, which increased the liquidity of public bonds, which greatly increased the value of public bonds.

Chapter 550 Ma Shiying

On October 10, Ma Shiying finally arrived in Xuzhou, and at this time the meeting of the big council was coming to an end.Before officially nominating Ma Shiying, Li Zicheng called Ma Shiying and Jiang Chen to have a night talk in his residence.

Before Li Zicheng's order arrived in Nanjing, Ma Shiying was concerned about his future.Only when he received the order from Li Zicheng, did he become convinced that the pie had indeed fallen on him.

Therefore, he appeared in front of Li Zicheng in a ecstatic mood. For Li Zicheng's summoning, he originally planned to show his wholehearted loyalty to the other party, but Li Zicheng obviously didn't care about it.

After seeing him, he introduced Jiang Chen who was interviewed with him, and Li Zicheng said to him straight to the point: "In the past, the Marshal's Mansion was in charge of the overall situation, and all civil affairs had to give way to the war. They are all more cooperative, but this state obviously cannot last for a long time. The common people can sacrifice their lives for a while for the war, but in essence they still want to live a peaceful life after the war.

Therefore, in order to allow the common people to resume production and life in peacetime as soon as possible, the Grand Council accepted the method proposed by the Marshal's Mansion to set up a central government to take over the country's civil affairs.During the war, you comforted the people in the south of the Yangtze River and raised a lot of supplies for the Marshal's Mansion. I saw it.

Therefore, I think it is appropriate for you to be the Prime Minister of the new central government.Now that you have arrived in Xuzhou, I also want to hear how you plan to report to the congressmen and what you will do during the seven-year term. "

Ma Shiying originally thought that the first thing Li Zicheng would talk about when he summoned him was personnel affairs, but he didn't expect Li Zicheng to ask this first. Fortunately, he knew that he was selected by Li Zicheng because of the memorial he had posted before, so he followed Li Zicheng's tone and once again He talked about the privileges of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River and the slave change, and expressed his intention to solve these two problems during his term of office.

Li Zicheng nodded, expressing his agreement with Ma Shiying's opinion and said: "Because of war and plague, the population in the north has been greatly reduced. Compared with the early years of Chongzhen, the population in the north has been reduced by at least half. Therefore, the north focuses on restoration and reconstruction, so I advocate for the north. The policy of resting with the people.

As for the south, although disasters have also occurred in the past two years, compared with the north, the south is almost a peaceful year. The only problem is that there are too many people and too little land, and there are conflicts between people and land.Therefore, what the south needs is not to recuperate, but to solve the contradiction between the large population and the small land, so that the surplus population can survive.

Whether it is the privileges of the gentry or the issue of slavery, it is actually a problem in essence. The land in the south cannot support so many people, so there are so many social problems.If we cannot solve the problem of survival of the surplus population in the South, then it is impossible to completely solve the phenomenon of slavery.Therefore, we must first solve the problem fundamentally, and then take advantage of the trend to solve the gentry's privilege and slave change. "

Ma Shiying is quite smart. He just thought about the contents of the newspapers he had read, and he came to his senses. He asked Li Zicheng tentatively, "Does Your Majesty mean to move some of the southern population overseas?"

Li Zicheng nodded and said: "This is a way of thinking, but we have to solve two problems first. The rich are unwilling to go overseas to reclaim wasteland, and the poor are unable to go overseas to reclaim wasteland. Therefore, we must force the gentry to liberate their slaves and give them When we distribute land, they can use the overseas land as credit; on the other hand, when we liberate the slaves, we also force them to go overseas to cultivate wasteland. It can reduce the contradiction between more people and less land in the south.”

Li Zicheng's study room was not too big, but it was quite private. Ma Shiying gradually integrated into the conversation environment, forgetting that he was talking with an emperor, and felt that he was exchanging political opinions with his colleagues instead.Under such circumstances, the three of them quickly talked about the time when the moon was in the mid-heaven. Li Zicheng felt a little hungry and asked Li Laiheng to make three bowls of noodles. After eating, the three of them dispersed.

After leaving Li Zicheng's residence, Ma Shiying was walking on the road, admiring the moonlight of Mount Hubu, and couldn't help sighing to his entourage: "I didn't expect that your Majesty lived in such a simple place. Back then, King Fu just entered the palace. After a few days, they clamored to build the palace, and they didn't feel the slightest aura of the country's peril. The prosperity of the new dynasty can already be seen."

On the second day, Li Zicheng formally proposed the nomination of the prime minister of the new central government cabinet to the big meeting. Ma Shiying immediately went to the stage and said to the members: "Before coming down, I have read all the regulations passed by the members. I want to assure you that The current cabinet will act under the supervision of the law and strive to build a society where everyone is equal and free..."

The humble attitude shown by Ma Shiying greatly benefited the northern councilors. Even the southern councilors, Guizhou, Huguang, and Sichuan councilors felt that Ma Shiying was one of their own and worthy of support. Qian Qianyi, who had reached a deal with Li Zicheng, did not object. Ma Shiying was elected as the first Prime Minister with a large proportion of votes. After all, Li Zicheng only nominated him.

With Ma Shiying taking office, the Great Council also announced its dissolution. According to the previous decision reached by the Great Council, 69 people including Li Zijing, Qian Qianyi, and Ruan Dacheng formed the Standing Committee of the Imperial Council to act on behalf of the Great Council and assist in guiding Organizational construction of local councils.

Previous councilors were almost all local elections, with almost no elections.However, after discussions among members of the Congress at this meeting, they believed that the election system was too informal, which meant that the number of members of the assembly was in the hands of local officials. Therefore, they decided to use a more fair method to select members. Restricting the candidates for the election of members of parliament, followed by restricting the election of members of parliament in terms of property.

The introduction of these two conditions is mainly to limit the appearance of slaves and poor people in the meeting. Members feel that since the meeting is a place to discuss national affairs, slaves and poor people should not appear in the meeting. Requires the abolition of allowances for MPs.According to some congressmen, since a person doesn't even have the ability to support himself, why should he dictate the country's major affairs?

What surprised Li Zicheng was that many congressmen who had been promoted by him from slaves and craftsmen actually raised their hands in favor of these proposals.Li Zicheng specially called a few people over to ask the reason, but these people said to him: "If a person is willing to be a slave and a poor person, then naturally he should not dictate the country's affairs. If we work hard like us and get His Majesty's approval, it is natural I can get rid of the status of slaves and accumulate wealth."

What these people mean now is that although they were slaves and poor people in the past, they have never considered themselves slaves and poor people, so they are different from those who are willing to be slaves and poor people.Simply put, they feel that their current status comes from their own efforts, so as long as they work hard, they can change their destiny, and those who cannot change their destiny are not working hard enough.

For such an answer, Li Zicheng had nothing to do. In the end, he only retained the allowance system for members of parliament, and greatly reduced the family property limit of candidates.In a way, he is also trying to ensure that he can control the parliament.After all, excessive property restrictions will only make MPs a hereditary official position for some wealthy people.

After the disbandment of the big council, he really needs to clean up the county councilors.From the current point of view, the gentry who do not pay taxes occupy too many positions, which is obviously not in line with Li Zicheng's next transformation of the country.

After the big meeting was dissolved, the prince also came to him to ask him, hoping to go to Xi'an to see his two younger brothers.Seeing the twinkling eyes of the prince, Li Zicheng asked, "Do you really want to see your two younger brothers? Or did someone teach you to say that?"

The prince was silent for a while and then said: "I really miss my two younger brothers."

Li Zicheng looked at him and said, "You still don't want to go to Xi'an, it's not suitable for you. When the situation settles down, I'll have someone send your two younger brothers to Yangzhou. Make preparations, then go back to Yangzhou and continue to supervise The construction of Yangzhou New Town."

Although the prince was a little relieved, he still hesitated and said: "Now that the new dynasty has been established, is it suitable for me to continue to supervise the construction of Yangzhou New City?"

After pondering for a few breaths, Li Zicheng said bluntly to the prince: "I want to fight for the throne because the throne is a public property, not private property. I have repeatedly reiterated before that rebellion is the emperor's rebellion, and revolution is the emperor's rebellion." The fate of Ge's family. So, I don't think anything was stolen from your Zhu family, and you don't have to be so frightened.

I always believe that this country is not ruled by one family, but by the people of the world.Since the world belongs to the people in the world, then this world naturally has your share, and of course you have the opportunity to display your talents.Don't think that this world is my personal property, Li Zicheng, and no one else can touch it. If I don't do a good job, someone who does a good job will naturally take over this responsibility from me..."

Faced with Li Zicheng's frankness, the prince finally withdrew his request.He was not very willing to go to Xi'an at first. Although he also missed his two younger brothers, he was really worried that he would never be able to return to Yangzhou after he went to Xi'an.Compared with the various places he has been to now, Yangzhou is the place he likes and wants to stay the most, even more than the Forbidden City in Beijing.

It's just that he was also very worried that after the merger of the two courts, he, the prince of the Ming Dynasty, would become an eyesore to Li Zicheng, so when people around him asked him to protect himself, he finally chose to ask Li Zicheng to go to Xi'an.But as long as there is a chance, he is of course willing to go back to Yangzhou, at least he feels that he still has freedom in Yangzhou.

Li Zicheng sent the prince away, and the next step was to discuss the composition of the new central government with Ma Shiying. After weighing and considering, in addition to adding some civil servants from the Marshal's Mansion to the new government, Ma Shiying's people were in the new government.In addition to the three warriors, Liu Zongmin, Minister of War, Zheng Zhilong, Minister of Navy, and Liu Kongzhao, Minister of Colonial Affairs.

When the list of cabinet organizations for the new government was completed, it was mid-November, and Li Zicheng finally decided to go south to Yangzhou for the winter.