Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1527 Order
Now that everything has been arranged, it's no longer Zheng Shijie's business.

"Hey, A-Jie." After Ao Zang left, Zhu Xianxi made a phone call directly. "We've made up our minds. We'll exchange Lan Fang for Long Gong."

"Oh, is that so? Eh?! What did you say?! I'm asking why you sold me out!"

*Smack*
Zhu Xianxi hung up the phone immediately.

"Alright, I'll just wait for him to come to me tomorrow. I think he'll probably arrive tonight."

"Senior brother, is it okay for you to do this to him?"

"He only feels at ease when I tease him occasionally. If I don't tease him all day long, hehehe, he'll get uneasy."

I understand, it's just their personal fun, and it's best if we don't interfere.

"Speaking of which, Shangluo, what do you think of Ao Zang's plan?"

Ao Zang's proposal this time was quite unique, but it also aligned with Shangluo's previous plans.

After the Heavenly Court gradually withdraws from this world, it will not be returned to mortals—it never will. After all, it would be a waste of effort to return it to someone else.

The Heavenly Court will not only refuse to hand over the world to mortals, but will also destroy all mortal nations and establish extraordinary political entities. Therefore, regardless of their composition, these political entities must possess the ability to completely suppress mortals.

The candidates currently on this list include Dragon Palace, Night Shift Bureau, Automaton, and those on the observation list such as Elf and Werewolf.

Unlike Rome's silent departure, the ascension of the Ming Dynasty will completely reshape everything in this world. After that, all religious, cultural, and racial differences will become irrelevant, because the imperial court will no longer deal directly with them, but instead with this extraordinary vassal state.

Among these vassal states, the most powerful Dragon Palace was a vassal of Zhu Xianxi himself, while the Night Watch Bureau was established by Shangluo.

The situation with automata is rather special. Automata is a collective consciousness that does indeed pledge allegiance to Shangluo, but everything they do besides loyalty is highly questionable.

As for elves and werewolves, they haven't yet entered this system. The current Night Shift Bureau was established as a reward system during the campaigns against elves, and it's not impossible that the elven kingdoms could eventually cease to exist. After all, all the elven kingdoms we've seen so far are enemies of humans, feeding on them. Celestials are also a type of human; both the Celestial race and the Cyber ​​race are. While the Ming Dynasty and New Rome have certainly transcended mortals, mortals shouldn't be treated as prey.

This sets two boundaries for the next steps: upwards, all mortals should be completely suppressed by the superhumans, erasing any possibility of them banding together based on religion, culture, or race. However, downwards, all individual humans should be respected and thrive within this system.

In fact, this process should have been accomplished by modernization in the normal course of history.

This is indeed the function of modernization. Modernization is an evolution, and like evolution in nature, it is not necessarily a good thing, but its power is undeniable—it can cleanse all cultures into largely similar modern people, allowing urban life to guide humanity's new life, rather than old customs.

Only truly powerful and deeply rooted cultures—those that were prepared for urbanization and various forms of development in ancient times—can maintain their unique characteristics amidst the upheaval of modernization.

Apart from that, all other cultures inevitably suffer a cut below the neck during the process of modernization.

What Shangluo and Zhu Xianxi are now introducing is a method that is even more effective than modernization:

How can we completely erase the differences between humans? The answer is, of course, to find a group of superhumans to rule over humanity.

"But then again, Shangluo, aren't all the people we've brought in a bit inhuman?"

"It seems...it seems that's indeed the case."

The Automaton Kingdom is a group of silicon-based life forms with collective consciousness that operate using perpetual motion machines.

The Ryugu (Dragon Palace) do not define themselves as human, but they are loyal to humans and accept the process of humans transforming into dragons.

Of all these organizations, only the Night Shift Bureau seems human, but in reality, it's the least human because its rulers are a bunch of dead people.

As for elves and werewolves, the former see humans as food and hosts, while the latter consider themselves a completely different race from humans, even believing that their very existence requires differentiation from humans.

"Our Earth is getting more and more lively. We haven't even entered space yet, and we've already created so many powerful forces that seem like 'native aliens.' Each of them probably has the ability to become an alien, right?"

“Hmm,” Shangluo thought for a moment, “Actually, when you think about it, they are all human beings—or at least they used to be human beings. Their power comes from some kind of alienation. The further they go down the path of alienation, the stronger they become.”

Needless to say, the Night Shift Bureau consists of dead people. Other superhumans are more or less involved in the formation of the organization, some by blood, some by culture.

For example, although the Dragon Palace's structure is strange, containing everything, its culture is completely understandable from a human perspective. This is because humans themselves have social structures similar to the Dragon Palace, and the Dragon Palace's practices are far less extreme than Lan Fang's.

The same applies to automata. The materials used to create the Vulcan Core are related to humans, and their self-identity is based on humanity as a mirror; their self-perception is actually how humans see themselves. As for elves and werewolves, they are entirely human in blood.

Our world isn't very big, but there are so many turtles. This tiny planet is practically overflowing with extraordinary beings.

"But no matter how strange they are, they are not as strange as human beings themselves."

"Yes, that makes sense."

If we're talking about threats, actually
"Senior brother, I think there's something very important—these humans, who have been mutated on various levels, may pose some threats to us. But I believe that the greatest threat to us is still mortals."

"..." Zhu Xianxi pondered for a moment, then nodded: "Mortals possess limitless potential because we are mortals, and we are mortals now. What we can do, other mortals can do too—Rome did it. Who can guarantee that another one won't emerge? The Ming Dynasty and Rome occupy both the Yin and Yang realms, the physical world and the virtual world; there's no room for a third successor among us. So, you're right, while we certainly can't completely contain the dangers posed by these extraordinary nations, these dangers are merely a drop in the ocean compared to the dangers posed by mortals."

If danger is unavoidable, then trying to "perfectly eliminate the danger" is a waste of time; the focus should be on "how to reduce the threat." This is also an art of governance.

Whether it's the Night Shift Bureau or the Dragon Palace, these mutated humans have undoubtedly gained greater power, but they have also lost the limitless potential that humanity should possess. Ordinary people, on the other hand, do not possess this potential. Compared to them, ordinary people are the ones who should be eliminated more decisively.

"So, this is our final choice," Zhu Xianxi said in a deep voice. "We must suppress mortals, but we cannot destroy them. Similarly, we must allow the extraordinary to rule over mortals, but we cannot allow the extraordinary to enslave mortals. We must find a balance in the middle to uphold the middle way. Because if we cannot suppress mortals, their potential will cause us trouble. And if there are no mortals, those who are difficult to suppress will become the extraordinary, and they will also cause us trouble."

For example, if automated nations were to expand indefinitely, they would inevitably cause great trouble for humanity. However, if the scope of automated nations could be limited and they operated under certain rules, their efficient operation and adaptability to the environment could lead humanity to new heights.

For example, if the Night Shift Bureau continues to expand, it will form another extraordinary empire, similar to the Heavenly Court, which is not a good thing.

“It feels like we’re back to the old ways,” Zhu Xianxi said, taking a sip of tea. “But these old ways are our comfort zone, this is the world we’re familiar with. If we hadn’t come this far, I myself would have been at a loss as to how to govern a new world. Now, it’s all back, all back.”

A new world, new ways of governance, but the old tricks of moderation remain unchanged, always fresh and relevant.

"Furthermore, senior brother, with these extraordinary nations as transit points, dealing with mortals will be much easier for us—after all, we are not the ones who directly rule them."

"Speaking of which, Shangluo, I can tell you something—do you know why the current emperor governs the world with a policy of emptiness and stillness?"

"I don't know." This is a matter of imperial strategy, which he hadn't studied, so he couldn't speak carelessly.

"The so-called 'governing the world through emptiness and stillness' means non-action. And non-action means doing everything. When no one knows what you have done, no one can find fault with you. And precisely because you do nothing, you can arbitrarily judge those who have done things—that's how the cabinet is established. The court does not appoint a prime minister, but divides the prime ministers into a group. Because you can't easily dissect a person's heart, after all, I am not King Zhou of Shang. But if it is a group of people, then you can often take out your hearts to wash, air, and tidy them up."

This is far more effective than King Zhou of Shang dissecting his own heart. Even if you physically cut open a heart, all you'd see is blood. But by dividing the cabinet into groups, while it can still execute collective decisions, communication between individuals must be through language, writing, or other means, rather than brainwaves. Because of this, the cabinet's actions are understandable and can be monitored.

"In the end, no emperor in any dynasty did everything—but they also didn't do absolutely nothing. Ultimately, the emperor always had to do something. In our Ming Dynasty, the emperor actually concurrently served as the Censor-in-Chief, taking on the supervisory function. Therefore, the emperor's direct department consisted of secret agents, which was essentially the role of the Censor-in-Chief."

The Chancellor, the Grand Commandant, and the Imperial Censor were the Three Dukes established by the Qin Dynasty, which formed the framework and underlying code of the central empire itself.

"What about before that? Like the Song Dynasty?"

“If you look closely at the Song Dynasty, you’ll find that the Song emperors actually held the position of Grand Commandant. Don’t be fooled by the fact that the Song Dynasty ended the chaos caused by military men through civil administration and emphasized civil affairs while suppressing military power. In reality, this was because the Song emperors defined themselves as the greatest source of military strength. You can see that the Song emperors had all the characteristics of a Grand Commandant, such as directly mobilizing troops through the staff, having a large imperial guard as their direct command, and abolishing other regional military governors.”

"So, what's the price?"

"The price, of course, was that after he abolished the military governors on the frontiers, subsequent emperors would have to take matters into their own hands, and any external enemy would require the imperial guards to deal with it personally. This is different from the Tang Dynasty, whose frontier wars had a much lower win rate than the Song Dynasty, but the Tang Dynasty could lose countless times on the border because the fighting would not damage the core area. Now that the Song Dynasty has taken back all military power and made himself the Grand Commandant, it has lost the shield of the regional military governors. This means that every defeat of the Song Dynasty will be magnified into a decisive defeat, which is worth considering for later generations. However, the Song Dynasty did this mainly because of the traumatic stress syndrome of the chaotic times."

"What about the Tang Dynasty?"

"The Tang Dynasty? The Tang Dynasty is simple. Look at how the Jiedushi (military governors) came about—a characteristic of Tang emperors was that they dispatched envoys everywhere, bypassing the regular official system to appoint temporary officials. This was actually a way of controlling personnel, which is the function of the Shangshu Sheng (Ministerial Secretariat). That's why you see the Tang Dynasty didn't have a Shangshu Ling (Minister of the Secretariat), because the Tang emperors themselves held the real power of the prime minister. The Song Dynasty had a nominal Taiwei (Grand Commandant), because the Song emperors themselves were Taiwei. Similarly, our dynasty has nominal Censors-in-Chief of the Censorate, which are generally just honorary titles—because the real 'Censor-in-Chief' is me."

"Speaking of which, what did the Yuan Dynasty do?"

"Needless to say, the Yuan emperors also acted as bandits—they did the work of bandits, leaving other bandits with nothing to do. This is also a political tradition. Not just mountain bandits and horse bandits, they even did the work of Japanese pirates. They launched large-scale maritime invasions just like the Japanese pirates, something only the Japanese pirates did before. You see, the Yuan dynasty appointed Darughachi at will, which was actually just like mountain bandits and horse bandits appointing their cronies without any rules. As for their attitude towards Han officials, wasn't that just collecting protection money, that was robbery? Robbery only cares about the amount, not how the money came about."

"It really is"

Therefore, the most suitable system for the Ming Dynasty, which is also the current custom, is to let the Heavenly Court, or rather the emperor himself, govern the world through a state of emptiness and stillness. He neither exercises administrative power nor uses military power, but rather uses prosecutorial power. The emperor observes everyone, making everyone's actions transparent.

“At times like these, Lanfang and Zheng Shijie need to give him a little nudge,” Zhu Xianxi said, taking a sip of tea. “Too unfamiliar won’t do, and too familiar won’t do either. So, we need to give him a nudge now and then, tease him a little.”

So this is indeed part of the fun between these two.

(End of this chapter)