What if after the death of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Donglin Academy is more successful in gaining influence in the court and possibly pushing for reforms? What kind of reforms will they undergo and what will the future Ming Dynasty look like with a Donglin-influenced Ming Dynasty?
Donglin Academy takes power
- Thread starter E1ira2100
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What happens on the next list of reforms? What type of government will they try to adopt?
That will not be next list of reforms for them as a whold since they dod't have any more common political ideology beside a common political interest as confucian bureaucrats that come from roughly the some region. Some ot them may have some big idea for China and get other to support it but that will be a separate subject.
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Donglin movement - Wikipedia
Like many other articles about imperial China, this seems rather underwritten and scant on details. I wonder what the factions were about and what they wanted, but maybe it only makes sense within their ancient framework.
Now I'm imagining a different thread about what if the imperial system had been reduced to a Tokugawa situation where the bureaucracy does everything and the emperor is reduced to a figurehead.
Well I'm kind of thinking of the Donglin movement setting up a sort of election system among the confucian "Parliament" to choose the next leader among a line of candidates, who will rule for life, similar to the Rashidun Caliphate succession and the KurultaiDonglin movement - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Like many other articles about imperial China, this seems rather underwritten and scant on details. I wonder what the factions were about and what they wanted, but maybe it only makes sense within their ancient framework.
Now I'm imagining a different thread about what if the imperial system had been reduced to a Tokugawa situation where the bureaucracy does everything and the emperor is reduced to a figurehead.
I generally agree with these points, except I believe they were against taxation on merchants as well, the Eunuchs were trying to increase the Emperor's private treasury by setting up more merchant taxes, land taxes as well as setting up Imperial monopoly over mine, tea, and salt. Those however ran counter to many of the bureaucrats (who were part of the land-owning class that were exempt from land taxes I believe), which is part of the reason why the Donglin faction gained such wide-spread sympathies.
Yes, many of the bureaucrats longed for a government system where the Emperor would sit high and listen to the wise counsels of the Donglin bureaucrats and leave the running of the Empire to them.Donglin movement - Wikipedia
Like many other articles about imperial China, this seems rather underwritten and scant on details. I wonder what the factions were about and what they wanted, but maybe it only makes sense within their ancient framework.
Now I'm imagining a different thread about what if the imperial system had been reduced to a Tokugawa situation where the bureaucracy does everything and the emperor is reduced to a figurehead.
Could be done, many of the leader positions revolved around whoever had the most literary and political fame=.
I do think @alexei1979 would probably have a better understanding on this overarching topic.
Makes me wonder what a Chinese Confucian equivalent of the Shogun is. Would it be the Grand Chancellor or the Grand Secretary, I wonder- though in some dynasties it was one job. I guess this situation would explain some EUIII games I played where the Ming falls apart and some of the small successor states are described as Administrative Republics- they're petty kingdoms where the local scholar-gentry were successful in making their "emperor" into a puppet!
For the Ming it's essentially the Grand Secretary, the Chancellor-ship was abolished precisely to concentrate power in the hands of the Emperor and avoid a "Shogun-like" situation, but ironically the Secretaries eventually had more power. I mean to be honest during times of young or inexperienced Ming Emperors, the Grand Secretaries were essentially "Lord Protector" if you will. Zhang Juzheng had incomparable power during his tenure as Grand Secretary.
I think a good POD for this, is to have Taichung Emperor have a longer reign, and during that reign, he could appoint someone from the Dongling Movement, like Ye Xianggao. Also get rid of Wei Zhongxian