Chapter 87 The Sole Imperial Power
The carriage arrived at Topkapi Palace very quickly. When Selim returned to Baghdad Palace, it was already late at night. The Grand Mufti had been waiting there for a long time.
"Your Majesty, I have already informed many religious groups and guilds about your exam.
They have all shown great interest in this and are willing to take the exam in June. Your Majesty, you can meet them in person after the wedding."
Selim asked immediately.
"Regarding the marriage, how do you plan to arrange it?"
The Grand Mufti smiled bitterly.
"Your Majesty, I personally think it's best to let Miss Anna convert. After all, the main goal of the empire now is to shape religious identity to eliminate the instability brought to the empire by national identity.
Although Your Majesty has taken a series of measures to address the issue of conversion, it is still difficult for many Orthodox Christians to convert rashly.
They need someone to encourage them, and your marriage can be the first to do so.
As long as you publicize it, the daughter of the Orthodox Patriarch has converted, so will the rest of the people have any scruples?
After listening to the advice of the Grand Mufti, Selim did not speak.
After sending the Grand Mufti away, Selim lay down on the bed.
He didn't want to think about this problem for the time being. After all, the selection of civil servants is the top priority.
To be honest, he didn't actually He did not want too many jurists and local nobles to be mixed in the first batch of bureaucrats, but such a balance was the best result he could choose.
Don’t you think this is the Sultan’s base?
This is an empiricist error. Whether it is Austria next door, Tsarist Russia or even Britain far away on the island, their current situation is different from that of the Ottoman Empire.
Selim is in a process of suppressing jurists and local nobles, implementing the power of the Sultan, and establishing a vertical management model similar to that of the East. He needs officials, but he has no choice.
If the Ottoman Empire could still speak of its martial virtues in the past, without considering its low literacy rate.
Now both sides are in a mess. In the past, they could go straight to the gates of Vienna, but now, they are almost beaten to Constantinian by the Russians. Under the city.
The literacy rate was as stable as ever. Selim couldn't find a group of poor children who were loyal to the Sultan, not to mention that even if there were any, their ideological qualification might not be comparable to that of the jurists.
In this case, the method of Selim the Great was to use local tyrants to hedge against the jurists, playing a balance, the traditional wisdom of the East.
Considering that the local tyrants in the Balkans have never been particularly loyal, Selim deliberately killed only the main branch in the last Greek purge. And let the remote branches succeed.
During this period, don't underestimate the gap between the branches and the main branch. Don't you see the difference between the branches of the Chinese family? If it weren't for Selim's purge, these people would never have lived this kind of life.
It can be said that Selim made a big impression in their hearts. wave of favorability.
As for the jurists, the dissatisfaction with the Sultan because Selim tried to open a grammar compulsory education school has now disappeared with the introduction of a series of policies to support conversion, and they have become the Sultan's most loyal supporters.
But this is not a reason that can reassure the Sultan. The example of Khomeini in Iran in later generations always gives him a terrible sense of oppression. The Sultan is indeed the caliph of the Islamic world, but does it really work?
After the initial industrialization in the future, society will inevitably be impacted by capitalist ideas, and the Young Turks are the best example.
To a certain extent, this is exactly what Selim wants.
It's just that his requirements are more detailed. He needs to liberate the Ottoman Empire's ideas to a certain extent, but not too much.
In this case, will the Sultan's standards conflict with those of the jurists, and will they conflict with those of the capitalists.
Whether the jurists will confront the Sultan because of this, and whether the capitalists will start a revolution, these are all difficult for Selim to predict.
He needs a force independent of religion and capital. Such a force is the bureaucracy, a real bureaucracy that can confront the jurists.
When Sayyid was alive, he could use his prestige to support the bureaucracy against the jurists and suppress the bureaucracy.
After Sayyid died, his successors could also balance the bureaucracy and the jurists by virtue of the natural uniqueness of the sultan's status.
Although this requires the monarch to have superb skills, it is also the only feasible way that Selim can think of, after all, this only requires good education.
As for secularization now, it is definitely unrealistic.
Historically, Kemal's ability to complete secularization also has a prerequisite. From the tulip era reforms started by Ahmed III to before World War I, the influence of religion on the people has been weakened to a certain extent.
The First World War completely sent away the last conservative forces of the Ottoman Empire, but Kemal's glory still needs to be compared.
While Enver Pasha, the head of the three pashas of the Ottoman Empire, fought a world-class defeat in the Caucasus Campaign, Kemal reproduced the martial virtues that the Ottoman Empire had lost for centuries in the Gallipoli Campaign.
The genius Churchill and his genius Dardanelles plan suffered a devastating blow in the face of Kemal. The Allied casualties reached 140,000, while Turkey suffered only a little over 20,000.
It can be said that Kemal saved the entire Turkey in this battle, which is one of the most important reasons for his success in secularization.
But the key problem is that Kemal only has Turkey, and he has no theological baggage.
But Selim still has most of the Balkans, Egypt, Arabia, and the Mesopotamian Basin. He is still a caliph. If he secularizes, how can he learn from Modi's religious identity to replace national identity?
Under the circumstances where neither this nor that works.
Selim deliberately designed a system based on the original system of the Ottoman Empire.
The American separation of powers can actually be said to be the core mechanism for the operation of power in modern democratic constitutional countries. As a monarch, Selim certainly cannot engage in any democratic constitutionalism.
I have already traveled through time, so I have to sit straight.
Local judges have always been controlled by religious jurists. This cannot be changed, and Selim has no intention of changing it, but the Supervisory Department is a new thing for the Ottoman Empire.
No matter how rebellious the jurists are, Selim can still use the Ministry of Supervision to check and balance them, plus the legislative power in the hands of the Sultan, and the executive power of a group of people.
Before the bureaucracy was formed, this was Selim's way of dealing with it.
In Selim's view, as long as he played a good balance, he would have a certain chance of becoming a combination of Iran's Khomeini and Turkey's Egyptian Sultan.
With hope for the future, Selim lay on the big bed in the Baghdad Palace and rested.
He still has things to do tomorrow.
Please subscribe