After arousing Emperor Zhu Ciyu's own determination to change the law, the follow-up things were easier to do.

After all, the Ming Dynasty is so powerful now, the progress of national strength is obvious to the people of the world, and the conservative forces have also been swept away by Zhu Shuren's two waves of tax reform and official reform in the previous fifteen years, and the law of the ancestors is not so important.

Of course, the direct cause of this change is, after all, the invention and application demonstration of the Newcomen steam engine, so to change, we must also start from this entry point.

Zhu Shuren wants to reform the official system and law of the Ming Dynasty as a whole, and he cannot say that he wants to rebuild the Ming Law as soon as he comes up, but he must emphasize that the consistent defects and coverage of the Ming Law are too narrow, so that the follow-up laws are cumbersome and can only be added but not changed.

Zhu Shuren said to the emperor and his courtiers: "At the beginning of the formulation of the "Da Ming Law", a great drawback was that it only focused on the official system and criminal names, and other things were mixed in and promulgated. The implementation and implementation of the Daming Law is dominated by the Criminal Department.

Even if the part violated by the common people is the content of the "Household Law", the household department can only demand correction, and the punishment still depends on the criminal department system, and even the money and property such as fines and confiscations and compensation for losses also rely on the criminal department, which is too cumbersome.

Now that all industries are prosperous in the Ming Dynasty, we have also carried out the division of workers and peasants, and abolished the tax on peasant households and the land tax on workers, which is a great good governance that has not been seen in 300 years. Since industry and commerce are so prosperous, it is really inappropriate that the punishment of private money disputes still depends entirely on the jurisdiction of the criminal department system.

Therefore, in the future, the law should first be divided into 'criminal/civil', and only the crime and punishment will be punished by the public organ of the state, and there should be a new law for civil infringement compensation and industrial and commercial economic disputes. ”

It is also normal for Zhu Shuren to think of this, because one of the most important watersheds in the construction of the rule of law in a modern country is to completely separate criminal law and civil law. There are some things that the government does not need to exercise the power of punishment, and the government only needs to arbitrate for fair civil subjects.

And to separate the law from the root, first formulate a new "Daming Civil Law", and then you can take this opportunity to abolish the household law part of the old "Daming Law" and other provisions of civil financial disputes.

In the future, another "Daming Criminal Law" will be formulated, and other laws will be slowly supplemented to form a new unified code, and in this process, the old "Daming Law" can be gradually abolished, and the "Chenghua Case" and "Jiajing Case" These hundreds of years of additional examples, do not need to appear in the form of patches, should be incorporated into the new law of the Ming Dynasty to absorb directly, and outdated should be abolished directly abolished.

In this way, in the end, it seems that Zhu Shuren does not want to abolish the law of Taizu, but that the law of Taizu is really chaotic, and the rights and responsibilities of each category are not confirmed enough, and the division is not detailed.

……

After Zhu Shuren put forward the general outline and roadmap of the ideology led by this outline, Zhu Ciyu, Zhang Huangyan, and Fang Yizhi were all dazzled, and they had to admit that this idea was very good and very stable.

Even if he did the thing, no one would think that this was "Shen instead of Zhu", completely excavating the ancestral law of the old Zhu family, and at the same time advancing with the times.

Zhu Ciyu couldn't help but ask: "If you want to divide the law between criminal and civil law, I don't know how to formulate this new civil law and where to start it?" How many years will it take for the subsequent reforms to be carried out? ”

Zhu Shuren had been in retreat for more than half a month in advance, so he had already thought through the problem thoroughly, and when his son asked him, he didn't have to think about it, he blurted out directly:

"The new civil law naturally focuses on civil and commercial affairs, and mainly deals with money infringements, disputes, and contracts between the people and industry and commerce.

And this entry point, isn't it there now, you can learn from the "Monopoly Law" of England, first set a copy of my Ming Dynasty's "Science and Education Monopoly Civil Law", as a chapter of the complete "Civil Law Code" in the future, and then gradually fill in the infringement, contract, and business parts of the civil law.

Nowadays, I still lack the legislative talents and experience to combine Chinese and Western styles and improve and keep pace with the times, so the first "Monopoly Law" can leave more time, and it can be completed within three or five years, and there is no hurry.

Let the researchers of Nanjing University study the methods that can be used in Western Zhuyi by the way. As well as the essence of the ancient Roman bronze table law on the folk industry and commerce, learn while learning, learn from the body, learn from the West, and use it in order to be safe. After all, our Chinese heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce since ancient times is too serious, this aspect is indeed inexperienced, Europa countries heavy business, in the civil and commercial law, we need to learn from the place, and the future criminal law, can be based on my Chinese tradition. ”

Zhu Shuren also knows very well that today's Ming Dynasty is strong and has no obvious internal and external troubles, so it is impossible to learn from Western law like the late Qing Dynasty in parallel time and space, and there is no need for this. West France in the 1670s was indeed very backward.

However, there is one thing to say, in the field of civil and commercial law, because of the attention of the West, there is now a company system and a banking system, and there is indeed something worth learning. In this regard, Daming's absence from class is too serious, and he has no historical accumulation of his own.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren set the guiding ideology of seeking truth from facts of "only learning from Western commercial law, and basically not learning from Western administrative law and criminal law".

And, aside, in 1677, England did not yet have a Patent Act in the modern sense (thirty years later when Newcomen invented the steam engine), but today England has a Monopoly Act enacted in 1624.

Therefore, in Zhu Shuren's words just now, he suggested that the department in charge of legislation should learn from this "Monopoly Law" in the future.

This thing has been around for 50 years, and it is in the form of written regulations, and Zhu Shuren has borrowed a set of original readings from Newton, and has compared them with the legal codes of later generations in his memory.

Compared with the later British Patent Law, the most important difference between the Monopoly Law and the later British Patent Law is that the validity period of the current Monopoly Law does not seem to be 20 years, but can be longer.

Moreover, it is similar to the later "Copyright Law" and other laws, which can protect the inventor for life, and as long as the inventor is alive, he can always have the exclusive possession of the technology. In other words, if a person is very young when he invents a certain technology, and he has a long life expectancy, well beyond 20 years, then he earns it, and they eat it alone for many more years, at least until he dies.

(Note: However, in British history, from the late 17th century to the early 18th century, because of this system, there were many craftsmen who invented the technology of tween, and because of their crimes, they often relied on immortality after 20 years of protection, and finally died inexplicably.) Later, the British estimated that they also took this factor into account, and when the Patent Law was promulgated, no matter how long the inventor lived, it would be uniformly protected for 20 years.

In contrast, the Copyright Law protects the author for life plus 50 years after death, which is not so much of a moral hazard, after all, copyright was for literary and artistic works in the early days, and there was not so much economic benefit. No one will think that Jin Yong's life is too long in order to invite people from all over the world to watch Jin Yong's martial arts for free a few years earlier. ）

In addition to the term of protection, there is another important difference between the Monopoly Act of 1624 and the later Patent Act, which is that the requirements for the degree of technical disclosure of patent applications vary considerably.

Later, the Patent Law required "full disclosure", that is, to ensure that after the expiration of protection, others could copy your invention. However, the Monopoly Act of 1624 is not so demanding, as long as you can create a sample and demonstrate your design indicators and functions in public, then the specific technical details and principles can be fully disclosed.

And now that the Ming Dynasty is borrowing from the "Monopoly Law", there are similar considerations. Daming has so many scientific and technological innovations in the field of biochemical ring material formulas, if the formula is disclosed for patent protection, then Daming will lose. Originally, Daming could have kept it secret for at least forty or fifty years or more, just as long as Coca-Cola's formula had been kept secret.

Therefore, the early legislation of the "Monopoly Law" of the Ming Dynasty should also be carried out to emphasize the review of physical experiments and ignore the interpretation of principles. If you can demonstrate in public that you can do this, you can authorize it. As for how to do it, you can keep a little secret.

(Note: This also has the disadvantage of being if someone later invents a way to achieve the same function using other principles, but at a lower cost.) However, because the external functions of the two are similar, and the former does not need to disclose the internal technical principles, the later inventor of the cost-reducing and improved type may not be authorized.

In other words, such a law is very incentivizing for encouraging human beings to create products with completely new functions from scratch, but it is very detrimental to encouraging human beings to invent 'low-cost improvements of existing products'. It's just that now the Ming Dynasty has not yet reached the era of striving for industrialization to reduce costs as the main contradiction, and there are not many "cost-reducing and efficiency-increasing inventions", so you can choose the lesser of two evils. ）

As for the transformation of the "Monopoly Law" to the "Patent Law" in the future, it will be at least a few decades later.

……

A timetable was set for spending three to five years slowly studying and enacting the "Monopoly Law", and then spending three to five years to preliminarily complete the "Daming Civil Law".

In the end, it will take a few more years to supplement the "Daming Criminal Law" and the "Daming Administrative Law" and completely abolish the old "Daming Law", and it is estimated that the entire time cycle will take 20 years.

What will happen in 20 years? Zhu Shuren is now 53, if he can live for another 20 years, he will be 73 - even Confucius will live to 73 and then die, which is already the life of a saint.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren knows very well that the comprehensive revision of the law and keeping pace with the times set by him for the "Third Seven-Year Plan of the Ming Dynasty" will definitely not be completed within seven years, and it will be delayed. Therefore, there is no need to think about the "fourth seven-year plan" in the follow-up, just follow the inertia to see the moves and stabilize the overall direction, and it will be very good in this life.

However, since the law is to be comprehensively revised, the reform of the Ming bureaucracy and branches is also imminent.

Just as the Ming Law is about to separate the civil law from the criminal law, don't you think it's strange that in the future, under the name of a "criminal department", you will be in charge of civil and commercial cases?

The six-part system inherited by the Ming Dynasty from the Sui and Tang dynasties has been stumbling for 1,100 years. If it is counted from the Eastern Han Dynasty's division of Shangshutai into six Cao, it will be 1,600 years old, and this way of decentralizing power is really decaying and awkward.

There are several policies, the rights and responsibilities are not clear, and everything needs to be solved urgently.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren suggested that while preparing for the revision of the new law from this year, the six departments of the Ming Dynasty must be redivided and separated.

Zhang Huang Yan and Fang Yizhi are also in favor of changing this issue, because the Ministry of Industry currently in charge of Fang Yizhi is also chaotic, obviously it is only the Ministry of Industry, but the Academy of Sciences has to be under his control.

This is not counting, because it has been seven or eight years since the establishment of Nanjing University, and Nanjing University is mainly science and engineering, and the education and appointment of students here are mostly under the management of the Ministry of Industry.

But the education work turned out to be from the Ministry of Rites, and many mathematical talents taught by the Ministry of Industry would be under the management of the Ministry of Household Affairs if they took up financial management positions or went to the tax department.

In short, Daming has accumulated too many new things over the years, all of which are things that did not exist when they were once divided into six parts, and they can't be stuffed into it, so they must be split and sorted out.

The little emperor Zhu Ciyu also thought so. Finally, the Ming court focused on these issues in the spring and summer of the fifteenth year of the well-off.

While preparing for the legislative team of the new law, they discussed the separation of the corresponding departments according to the categories of work responsibilities of the new law in the future.

After five months of intensive discussions, repeated deductions and run-ins. The Cabinet finally announced:

The original six departments were split and renamed as ten departments.

The Ministry of Rites was divided into three departments: the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Literature, and the Ministry of Domains.

The old Ministry of Rites was only responsible for royal affairs and all other ceremonial activities of the imperial court.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Culture, Sports, Culture,

The feudal ministry was equivalent to the later generations in charge of diplomatic work, and the "vassal tribute" task of the old Ministry of Rites was dismantled.

The military department is still the military department, and the official department is still the official department, these two remain unchanged.

The Criminal Department was renamed the Ministry of Justice, and in the future, it will not only be in charge of criminal law and justice, but also in charge of the administration of civil and commercial disputes, but all trial work will no longer be aimed at punishing crimes by public power, and part of it will only be arbitration and coordination of private money disputes.

The Ministry of Household Affairs was split into the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance. Needless to say, this has finally separated tax collection and household registration management and population management, and the people who manage people are in charge of people, and those who are in charge of money are in charge of money.

The Ministry of Industry was split into the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Commerce. The original authority of the Ministry of Industry for the construction of vehicles and ships and transportation was split and handed over to a department similar to the Ministry of Commerce in later generations, and the Ministry of Industry itself could add another authority for the planning and management of domestic industrial construction, similar to some of the functions and powers of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Administration for Industry and Commerce in later generations.

At the same time, this department similar to the Ministry of Commerce has the authority, and it can be in charge of foreign trade import and export, and the development of maritime colonization, which can be regarded as directly elevating the work of opening the eyes of the Ming Dynasty to the level of an independent ministry, and can have its own political achievements to pursue. Zhu Shuren believes that this demolition can definitely greatly increase the intensity of overseas development work.

Officials, soldiers, rituals, literature, vassals, laws, people, finance, industry, and commerce.

These 10 ministries, plus the internal affairs office, which is independent of the 10-ministry system, a total of 11 ministerial-level units, according to the old law, brought the secretaries of each ministry into the cabinet for discussion of government affairs, it will be too bloated, and the efficiency of political deliberation will also be low.

Moreover, considering that the more modern it is, the larger the span of work specialties, and the transfer of officials across departments and systems, it is easy to have the problem of "outsiders managing insiders".

The officials of the future will not only be corrupt people who can only read the Four Books and the Five Classics, but you will have to understand more and more professional knowledge, and in many cases, the ability to work in a position cannot be simply transferred.

Therefore, Zhu Shuren pointed out that it is necessary to avoid the problems of "chickens talking with ducks" and "laymen commanding insiders," and we must no longer drag 11 officials at the level of Shangshu into the cabinet for discussion.

The solution to the final discussion is also to set up "Cabinet Associate Ministers" above each ministry, similar to the previous "Cabinet Vice-Minister", except that the current Cabinet Associate Ministers can have three or four, and then it is no longer an equal random cross-cutting assistant, but a clear division of labor, and each Associate Minister is only in charge of a certain number of ministries (similar to the later deputy assistant ministers, some are in charge of science, education, culture and health, and some are in charge of foreign affairs)

Four Associate Ministers of the Cabinet, the first of whom was in charge of the three ministries of rites, culture, and domain;

the second in charge of the law;

The third is in charge of military and commercial affairs (that is, the foreign navigation colonization and national defense are handed over to the same assistant minister, this is considering that the colonization of this era is mostly armed colonization, not peaceful business, and needs to be protected by force)

The fourth is in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Finance, Industry, and Internal Affairs.

As a result, the Cabinet Ministers were renamed "Prime Ministers," and there were four "Associate Cabinet Ministers" at the next level, each of whom was in charge of two or three ministerial-level units.

Eleven Shangshu-level existences will no longer directly enter the cabinet in the future.

However, in exceptional circumstances, the Prime Minister or the Associate Cabinet Secretary may be allowed to serve directly as the secretary of a ministry at the same time. In this way, if a scholar is also a cabinet minister, then he can still enter the cabinet to discuss politics.

After the system is decided, in order to ensure a smooth transition to the new system and avoid encountering resistance, the first batch of candidates should naturally be cautious.

Zhu Shuren himself has actually not been to the front desk for many years to directly govern, and he didn't care much about these titles, so he wanted Zhang Huangyan to directly change from the first assistant to the prime minister.

However, Zhang Huangyan resolutely refused, saying that after the reform, the power of cabinet ministers has actually increased compared with before. In this critical period of change, people who can stand more calmly are needed to stand on the platform.

In the end, Zhu Shuren, who had retired for several years, had to reluctantly make it difficult to serve as the first prime minister of the Ming Dynasty. Stand on the platform for this post and increase the confidence of the people of the world.

He doesn't care, but the people of the world force him to calm people's hearts, and he can't help it.

After Zhu Shuren, the four Cabinet Associate Ministers (in order, the higher the power), are:

Zhang Huangyan, the first associate minister of the cabinet, is in charge of the work of the Ministry of Officials and the Ministry of Justice;

Fang Yizhi, the second assistant minister of the cabinet, is in charge of the work of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs;

Zheng Chenggong, the third assistant minister of the cabinet, is in charge of the work of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Commerce;

Gu Yanwu, the fourth associate minister of the cabinet, is in charge of the work of the Ministry of Rites, Culture, Sports, and Domain.

The above-mentioned readjustment of the power structure was finally completed within 15 years of the well-off. The yamen and teams of various ministries have also completed the split and reorganization of the situation, and the new personnel who should be added to the staff, and the introduction of professionals who should be introduced. Everything went very smoothly.

(End of chapter)