My Daming New Empire

Page 728

Therefore, this book only needs to be revised briefly before it can be published, and then let people all over the world study it.

Zhu Zhanji is ready to propose this plan at the New Year's Grand Meeting.

But before that, we still need to lay the groundwork. After preparing for so long, it's time to take out the newspaper.

(This chapter was the most difficult to write. I wrote [-] words for ten hours, but I don’t know if everyone will like it...)

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After printing became popular in the Song Dynasty, there were no technical problems in printing newspapers.

There are two main reasons why newspapers did not spread in ancient times.One is the court's control over public opinion, and the other is the cost issue.

In a feudal society, ordinary people had no say in state affairs. In fact, ordinary people would not care about so-called state affairs at all.

Those who really want to speak out are scholars and officials.However, the imperial court lacked the ability to manage this aspect, so it simply implemented the strategy of not being in its position and not seeking its own government.

The emperor did not allow it, and the Confucian policy of obscuring the people would not allow ordinary people to open up their wisdom.

They study the scriptures hard in order to become officials in the future, and then become masters.Can the people know what they do and make irresponsible remarks?

In fact, the residence newspapers of the Ming Dynasty had become very popular, but this kind of residence newspapers could only be passed on among officials. At most, some scholars and juren could see the court's residence newspapers in the county government.

If the emperor and officials don't support it, don't think that ordinary people can understand state affairs casually.

Later generations of the Donglin Party came up with a couplet that says "the sound of the wind and rain, the sound of reading, the sound of reading, family affairs, state affairs, and the world, and everything concerned".

This couplet has the commendatory meaning of not forgetting the safety and security of the country in later generations, but in fact, this couplet originally appeared because of the complaints and dissatisfaction of the frustrated Donglin Party members with the imperial court.

At the beginning, they were not concerned about the country and the people, but just for power and profit.

Another reason is very practical, and that is cost.

In this era of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business, newspapers have no advertisements.The cost of newspapers is high, but no one buys them when they are too expensive. How can it continue?

You must know that today's materials are tight, and most of the papermaking is manual workshops, and the cost of paper is astonishingly high.

To give a simple example, today, one steamed bun costs one copper, and one meat bun costs two coppers, but the cost of printing a [-]-character book is only one or two hundred cash, and the selling price will increase by more than [-]%, because the transportation cost is also high. very high.

In the later generations, a 4-page newspaper cost a few cents for the paper, but in this era, the cost of paper accounts for more than [-]% of the cost of the newspaper, which is enough for many people to go to a restaurant.

Not to mention printing and ink, including labor costs such as transportation.

Not to mention printing multiple newspapers, only one 4-format newspaper is issued at a time, excluding transportation, paper and printing, labor costs are more than [-] cents.

The cost of a newspaper is enough for the common people to eat for three days. Who can afford it?

What's more, most of the common people are still illiterate.

So after understanding these, Zhu Zhanji put out the idea of ​​running a newspaper.

But after Zhu Di went on an expedition, Zhu Zhanji gradually took control of the overall situation, and now he needs a mouthpiece to speak for himself.

Although the Di Bao is useful, it is not enough to just use the Di Bao. He needs a wider influence.

For example, the grain corruption in Shandong, and the official's policy of immigrant policy against the ground, is the disconnected relationship between the imperial court and the common people.

Just like the later generations, the common people can know about any movement in the court, so is there any official who dares to obey and violate?

Although the power of the imperial court today is controlled by Zhu Zhanji, this control is still very weak.

In other words, throughout the feudal era, the emperor's control over the entire power of the world was very weak.

Nominally, the emperor is in charge of the world, but there is at most one place that an emperor can really control, and that is the imperial palace.

In addition to the imperial palace, the emperor in the feudal era needed to control the three systems in order to ensure the implementation of government orders and the stability of the regime.

One is the royal direct management system. In the case of Ming Dynasty, this includes the inner prison, Jinyiwei, and the Jingwei.

This is the basis for whether an emperor can secure his position. Without the stability of this system, there will be no stability for the other two systems.

The second is of course the government order system, which is the embodiment of the emperor's authority, and any policy policy must be reflected through this system.

In order to ensure its own authority, it needs a third system, which is the military system, to restrict it.

The army controls the civilian officials, the civil officials control the inner prison, and the inner prison controls the generals.

During this period in the early Ming Dynasty, the previous emperors used this balance to maintain the balance, allowing the emperor's authority to be fully reflected.

However, this kind of restriction is not static, because in many cases, the relationship between the three is mutual restriction, which mainly depends on the emperor's wrist.

If Zhu Zhanji just wants to maintain stability, then he doesn't have to do anything, he just needs to maintain the balance between the three systems.

But he wants to reform, he wants the army to conquer foreign countries, he wants civil servants to rely on professionalism to govern the country, and he wants the internal supervision and direct subordinate system to form stricter monitoring.

Then he has to change.

Any change will destroy the balance among the three, so the adjustment of this change, while being careful, must let everyone understand his determination and direction of reform.

It is even more necessary to let the common people of the country outside these three systems become the third eye of the royal family.

The common people in the feudal era were not valued, they had no rights, they were just an exploited class.

But if this class uses it, even if it only uses a part of it, it can play a not insignificant role.

This requires the guidance and publicity of public opinion, so no matter how high the cost is, Zhu Zhanji will run the newspaper.

The Mansion Newspaper is the information channel for officials in this era, so the purpose of running a newspaper is to form an information channel that is known to ordinary people across the country.

This information channel can only be controlled by the royal family, and no one can interfere.

Only news that is beneficial to the ruling, and only news that is beneficial to Zhu Zhanji can be published, and no one else has the right to interfere.

With this kind of thinking, Zhu Youdun, a doctor of the Ministry of Rites who is in charge of world literature and publishes publications, was pushed to the forefront by Zhu Zhanji.

Zhu Zhanji used him not because of his status as a doctor in the Ministry of Rites, but because of his status as a member of the royal family.

As the clan of the Zhu family, it is almost impossible for him to betray the Zhu family and stand on the side of civil servants or generals.

Under Zhu Zhanji's arrangement, he resigned from the Ministry of Rites in the summer and began to form the "Da Ming Royal News".

Except for a few officials from the Ministry of Rites, this newspaper office is composed of two parts, one is the content department composed of Jinyiwei, the Department of Internal Supervision and Information, and the Department of General Affairs.

This department is mainly responsible for the content collection and editing of newspapers.Government decrees of the imperial court, corruption cases of officials from various places, and the reform direction of the imperial court will all be collected through this department.

There is also a development department composed of the internal supervisor, the Ministry of Industry, and the internal treasury.

Regardless of the content, this department is responsible for paper production, printing, advertising, and sales.