Chapter 505: Imperial Power, Political Power (Third Update)
"Lord Governor, the area we control now is more than twice that of Ming Dynasty, and the population under our control is close to 40 million. It is very inappropriate to still use Taiwan as our name. Therefore, we believe that we respectfully invite you to ascend the throne as emperor, officially Establish a country and establish a national title."[]
Xiao Mingqian had just returned to Taiwan. Tang Hongsheng gathered all the officials of the military government and formally proposed support to Xiao Mingqian.
Establishing a country was something Xiao Mingqian expected. In fact, after Taiwan discovered Australia, someone raised this question.
It¡¯s just that at that time, Xiao Mingqian wanted to wait until he occupied the entire land of China before ascending to the throne. That's why it has been delayed until now.
"But after occupying Liaodong, he discovered that although the people of Liaodong recognized Taiwan's rule, they differentiated themselves from Taiwan on a daily basis. Call those foreign armies the Taiwanese army, and call the Han non-Liaodong people Taiwanese.
This phenomenon tells Xiao Mingqian that he cannot let this situation continue, otherwise he doesn¡¯t know what problems will arise in the future.
After all, the area currently ruled by Taiwan and the areas where the Han people traditionally live, including Liaodong and the three southeastern provinces, if they continue to have no sense of identity with the regime they established, they will easily be ideologically disrupted by the Ming Dynasty.
So this time when Tang Hongsheng raised the issue of ascending the throne and establishing a national title, Xiao Mingqian immediately agreed.
"I can ascend the throne, but I don't want to follow the past rules and establish an era name or something, and I won't call it Gudaowu. Our country is called the Chinese Empire, and the year when Qin Shihuang unified the world is the first year. Each year is a certain year of Huayuan."
Although Xiao Mingqian agreed to ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor, he also made some demands. The abolition of honorary titles and reign titles is only one of them, and there are other proposals that many people think are incredible.
"Besides the emperor, only the crown prince can be crowned a prince, and no one else can be crowned a prince, let alone a land. Other members of the royal family only have the power to own part of the royal property and do not have the power to occupy the country's land resources. If they want to live a better life, they must fight for themselves.
Correspondingly, the government has no right to interfere with the succession of the royal family. The succession to the throne is always based on the order of succession. That is to say, among the royal family, the person closest to the emperor himself, who has no physical or psychological disease that would cause the throne to be unstable, and who has no widely known moral problems or violations of the law, is the first-in-line heir to the throne.
For example, Xiao Mingqian¡¯s first-in-line successor to the throne is Xiao Hong, and the second-in-line successor is Xiao Xiong, not Xiao Hong¡¯s son. In addition, female members of the royal family also have the right to succeed to the throne. For example, Xiao Mingqian's daughter Xiao Fei can have the right to succeed after all princes over the age of sixteen. This ranking method must be supported unconditionally by the military government and the United Guards. When the heir has no physical or mental disease or major moral problems or crimes, it shall not be changed for any reason.
In fact, this is to avoid the turmoil in the country caused by the struggle for the throne, and also to prevent the emperor from being too young and being controlled by some people with ulterior motives.
The emperor is the supreme commander of the military and the supreme head of the government. However, the emperor has no right to interfere too much in the execution of government affairs. When the chief minister of government decides and executes government affairs, unless it involves the specific rights and interests of the citizens, such as taxation and military service, Basic national policies such as land ownership only require the emperor's signature and consent. Other daily government affairs do not need to be reported to the emperor.
The emperor has no right to decide a person¡¯s life or death at will, and everything must be judged in accordance with the law. The emperor had no right to interfere with prisoners who had already been sentenced, but he had the power to grant pardons a certain number of times each year and could pardon some people who were generally considered undeserving of the sentence and exempt them from punishment. But this right of pardon cannot be received twice by a man.
But here, Xiao Mingqian did not set up a procedure to remove the emperor, because that was too democratic, and it did not rule out that some people with ulterior motives could use clever means to slander the emperor, or even the entire royal family. That is not a good thing for the country.
This is part of the restriction on imperial power. At the same time, Xiao Mingqian also restricted the power, that is, members of the government, except for the chief minister of the government, are not allowed to interfere in military affairs. Once they enter the government department, they are absolutely not allowed to concurrently hold military positions.
In addition, once the emperor signs an order to declare war, the government must unconditionally support the military's actions until the end of the war. Any objection must be raised before the order is signed, and any obstruction of military operations after the order is signed is considered treason.
Similarly, the military shall not interfere with the government's ordinary affairs, and shall not have any power to collect taxes or expropriate people's property without compensation.?. Even in wartime, the military must obtain the consent of the government before it can impose short-term military control over an area. Once the government decides to lift martial law, the military will have no power to perform any form of management functions.
After Xiao Mingqian proclaimed himself emperor, no one was allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the royal family in any name, and no one was allowed to make financial demands to the royal family under any pretext. That is, the royal property belongs to the royal family and the state has no right to expropriate it. Of course, if the royal family takes the initiative to donate, this will not be included.
eloquently, Xiao Mingqian put forward a lot of restrictive requirements for the royal family, the military, the government and other departments. If these requirements are strictly implemented, then the functions of various aspects will be divided very clearly.
This kind of restriction may not have much binding force on Xiao Mingqian himself during Xiao Mingqian's reign, but after Xiao Mingqian, the emperor's power will inevitably be severely restricted.
Although he is nominally the supreme head of the military and government, his actual power is simply not comparable to that of the Ming Emperor.
Of course, it is not wrong to say that the emperor has become a puppet. After all, he is still the supreme commander-in-chief of the army, rather than the current heads of government of various countries who also serve as the supreme commander-in-chief of the army, breaking the somewhat dualistic system.
Of course Tang Hongsheng and others were very happy that Xiao Mingqian was able to take the initiative to limit the imperial power. However, they could not figure out Xiao Mingqian's proposal that eunuchs should not be kept, that female royal members also have the right to inherit the throne, and that the era should be changed. They insisted on persuading Xiao Mingqian. Undo these decisions.
"But Xiao Mingqian is very insistent on these three issues and must ask for them to be passed.
In the end, the military government had no choice but to accept a series of demands made by Xiao Mingqian. Although Xiao Mingqian did not implement monogamy, did not forcibly abolish the emperor's murder, and legal organs had no power to judge and other unreasonable systems, this was enough. For this era, it is already a very remarkable progress. If there are too many restrictions, it will really constrain Xiao Mingqian.
After reaching a consensus, the military government decided that Xiao Mingqian would ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor on the fifth day of September in the third year of Chongzhen in 1851, officially announcing the establishment of the Chinese Empire to the world.