Originally, Li Shizhi could not be the prime minister and concurrently served two books, but the old Tang book said that Wei Jian Tianbao was crowned as the imperial history in the third year, and in September, he was the secretary of the criminal department, but some said that this was September of the fourth year, and the sentence in the old Tang book was not allowed. Xiao Tian also didn't find out what year it was here, in order to increase Li Shizhi's authority, add some difficulty to Li Linfu's downfall, and make the battle in the article more exciting, so he made such an arrangement. The first court battle in this book began, and this was also the first battle in which Li Linfu overthrew Li Shizhi and became prime minister!

Li Shizhi's estimate of the dispatch of the internal guards last night was not very accurate, and he did not wait for two days, and in the afternoon of the same day, a member of the criminal department who was in charge of examining the murder case files in various places sent a copy of the file.

Li Shizhi's errand at this time was to lead the subordinates to save affairs, ranking as the prime minister, and at the same time concurrently holding the two powerful books of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Crime, while Li Linfu, the right minister at this time, was only leading the Zhongshu Province and then the Ministry of Rites. However, in addition to the weight of the annual scientific expedition, the Ministry of Rites is usually only responsible for the preparation of large-scale activities such as sacrificial celebrations, which is actually a noble yamen.

In addition, the Hongwen Pavilion under the Zhongshu Province and the Jixian Yuan under the Menxia Province were considered to be a high-ranking official transportation place, and the people who walked out of it would also read a little incense from the chief, and some even simply recognized it as a teacher, and followed it all their lives, and it was also regarded as the best horse boy training place for the left and right sides.

However, after Xuanzong came to power, he snatched the Hanlin Yuan from the Ministry of Rites, and let the Hanlin Yuan be in charge of the Quartet to express the replies and respond to the articles, and its functions seem to overlap with the "Zhongshu Menxia", but the Hanlin Yuan was directly sent by the emperor, while the "Zhongshu Menxia" was subordinate to the left and right ministers, although their functions were roughly the same, their status was very different. If someone in the Hanlin Academy has the blue eyes of the saint, so that the courtesy is beneficial, outsiders often call it "the inner minister". At this point, Jixian Yuan and Hongwen Hall were no longer valued by those scholars and literati, and these people took entering the Hanlin Academy as a shortcut to embark on the road to Qingyun.

And most of the people in the Hanlin Academy are talented and arrogant literati, Li Linfu's reputation among this group of people is really not good, but Li Shizhi is very close to this group of people because of his heroism, and Li Shizhi is the prime minister, so they can't get Li Linfu's turn to tie up.

What is important is the restriction of Menxia Province on Zhongshu Province, and when it comes to this, we have to mention the origin and evolution of the next three provinces.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to strengthen the power of the central government and weaken the power of the prime minister, he selected the officials and attendants around him to set up a new decision-making body in the palace - the "Zhong Dynasty", which was directly appointed by the emperor, and was generally of a lower grade and did not hold special administrative positions. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the position of "Shangshu" became increasingly important, and "Shangshu" was originally a subordinate official of one of the Shaofu, one of the nine Qings, and kept the emperor's chapter documents. The ministers' recitals could not be submitted directly to the emperor, but had to be sent to the Shangshu Bureau, and the prefect of the Han Cheng Emperor's Fashion Book Office was changed to a scholar (who was a eunuch in the past), and the office was changed to Taiwan, so Shangshutai became the emperor's confidential secretariat. It was not until the Cao Wei period that Shangshutai became independent from the Shaofu and became the highest authority at this time, and the highest administrative power at this time was transferred from Cheng to Shangshutai.

After Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi ascended the throne, he changed the secretary to Zhongshu, and set up Zhongshu Jian and Zhongshu Ling as the chief, and the post in charge of the secret was gradually expanded to Zhongshu Province. The main functions and powers of the province are to draft edicts, participate in legislation, and convey edicts. Since Zhongshu Province actually participated in the decision-making of the military plan, it could also advise and refute the emperor's edicts in the course of implementation, and had the right to choose between the officials, and the political center of the state was transferred from Shangshu Province to Zhongshu Province, and Zhongshu Ling replaced Shangshu Ling as the de facto prime minister.

However, with the increasing authority of Zhongshu Province, lest it have an impact on the imperial power, starting from the Wei and Jin dynasties, the emperor gradually let Shizhong participate in politics, and later formally established Menxia Province to contain the power of Zhongshu Province. In the Han Dynasty, Shizhong was just a petty official who handled some daily affairs and even trivial matters for the Son of Heaven, but because of his closeness to the emperor, he invisibly became a valuable position for his cronies. During the Western Jin Dynasty, Shizhong already had a prominent position in the court, "be prepared to ask about the near pair, and pick up the missing and make up for it." "By the time of Emperor Wai of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Menxia Province was officially established.

Later, Yang Jian usurped power as a relative and established the Sui Dynasty, in order to prevent the same fate from playing out on himself. Emperor Wen of Sui formally established the system of the governors of the three provinces as prime ministers on the basis of the six ministries of the three provinces of Wei and Jin, which was followed by the later Tang Dynasty.

Looking at the origin of the three provinces, it is not difficult to find that this is actually a game between the emperor and the ministers for administrative power. In the Qin and Han dynasties and even earlier in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the monarch appointed the prime minister to call it "worship the prime minister", and when the prime minister took office, the emperor had to salute the prime minister. However, after the establishment of a centralized unified feudal dynasty, in order to maintain hereditary rule, successive monarchs were committed to strengthening imperial power, and it was inevitable that they needed to suppress relative power, and the methods were all strikingly similar.

When a person feels that he is unable to do something, he is most likely to talk to his side. The supreme emperor is no exception, after losing power in the struggle for administrative power with the ministers, he set his sights on the people around him, but in addition to the concubines and palace maids in the palace, only the eunuchs are left, and obviously a group of women cannot be allowed to go to the court to fight with the ministers, so the eunuchs have become the only choice. This is also the root of the abuse of power by eunuchs in the past dynasties.

From the Shangshu Department to the Zhongshu Jian to the Menxia Province, most of the first governors were eunuchs, and over the centuries, the emperor continued to use the eunuchs around him to divide the power of the ministers, but the inherent defects of the eunuch dictatorship made the newly established departments robbed by the ministers again and again. Eventually, the executive power returned to the courtiers.

And Xuanzong's practice of recovering the Hanlin Academy is not another struggle and suppression of the power of the ministers, so Li Linfu at this time is far from being in power.

……

Wai Lang, a member of the criminal department, handed the file to Li Shizhi, and after the death case was discovered, a copy of the file would be copied and sent to the criminal department for the record, and after the case was solved, the file in the whole process and the confession of the prisoner and the relevant evidence would be handed over to the criminal department for review. After the Criminal Department confirms that it is correct, the criminals who need to be sentenced to death will be submitted to the emperor for execution, generally speaking, as long as the king is not too mediocre, he will not give up the power of life and death in his hands, Xuanzong Li Longji is naturally not mediocre.

It's just that the criminal department is busy with affairs, and the chief is also the prime minister, so how can he have time to bow down to everything, so in addition to submitting the list of hooks, Li Shizhi, who has been the secretary of the criminal department for several years, rarely cares about the affairs of the criminal department, and the saint added him the secretary of the military department at the beginning of this year, so he has no time to pay attention to it.

The file sent over is naturally the case about the murder of Tang Yuan's family handed over by the magistrate of Poyang County, but such a case has not even been found by the suspect, not to mention that Tang Yuan, who is the bitter master, is still missing. It stands to reason that this kind of case, which is still in the investigation stage, will never appear on Li Shizhi's desk, but this outsider wasted a lot of effort to hand over the sign into the imperial city, find Li Shizhi, and hand over the file to him.

After Li Shizhi finished reading the dossier, he didn't know why, and then looked up at the outsider who still had no intention of leaving, he began to realize that something was wrong, and after reading the dossier carefully, he asked quietly: "Who is this Tang Yuan?"

"Back to Xiangye's words, the girl that the internal guard took away from the Dongshi wine store last night was this Tang Yuan's daughter. But the outsider replied that he was not asked, and said such a sentence.

Li Shizhi, who heard this, was immediately stunned, and then he figured out the hidden information behind this. Li Shizhi was silent for a moment, and then said to the outsider: "Got it!"

"Retire!" The outsider immediately bowed and withdrew.

Li Shizhi's eyes stared at his distant back, he didn't know what he was thinking about, and then raised his hand and pulled a rope hanging down beside his hand, and after a while, an old man appeared in front of Li Shizhi.

"What is the origin of this person?" asked Li Shizhi.

"Luoyang people, more than ten years ago, were admitted to the Jinshi, and then they have been serving in the Criminal Department, and they have been promoted to the rank of foreigner, which is two years ago. The old man replied after a moment's recollection.

Li Shizhi lowered his head and thought about it, but immediately shook his head again.

Seeing this, the old man hurriedly asked, "Proprietor, what is the reason why this person is here?"

"Oh, the letter came!" Li Shizhi stretched out his hand and handed over the file.

"This ......" After the old man finished reading it, a trace of doubt appeared on his face.

"Last night, Hua Zhai sent someone to Dongshi to pick up this Tang Yuan's daughter. Li Shizhi saw that the old man was puzzled, so he explained.

"This ......" The old man still said these two words, but his eyes widened at this time.

"The proprietor only took over the secretary of the military department at the beginning of the year, and he was just put on a table by Li Genu two months ago, and now the third and fourth elders of the Hua family are on an errand under the proprietor, if this matter is not handled well, I am afraid that the war department will not be able to do it well in the future. The old man said worriedly.

"Hehe, but the old man, as the prime minister and the head of the civil officials, if he stands on the side of the Hua family in this matter, he can't explain it to the hundred officials. Li Shizhi shook his head with a headache.

"People are looking at the old crane has stretched out its sharp beak to remind me that this little clam should hurry up and close the shell!" Li Shizhi thought of the second phase that was older than him for a moment.

"Tomorrow is the big court meeting, followed by three consecutive days of Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, you don't know what the saint is busy with these days, and there is only more than this day left for us! Hehe, we really want to thank this kind man for giving us more time than this day!" Although he obviously knew that this so-called "good Samaritan" wanted to be the fisherman watching the battle, Li Shizhi, who had lost the opportunity at this time, had no choice.

"The proprietor is also in charge of the Criminal Department, so the situation is not so critical, is it?" the old man said.

"Hehe, when have you ever seen the prime minister personally copying the knife during the trial of the three divisions?" Li Shizhi said with a wry smile.

Originally, if this kind of thing happened, he only needed to send a capable subordinate to do it, not to mention that he had been in charge of the Criminal Department for several years, and he had also laid some foundations in the Criminal Department, but this was just an errand to deliver letters, and it was convenient to sacrifice a foreigner so generously, which shows the determination and strength of the other party, and he really has no confidence in his foundation in the Criminal Department!

"Then let's let Wei Zhongcheng pay more attention when the time comes, and go to Dali Temple to say hello!" the old man continued.

"That's all it can be!" Li Shizhi said with a sigh of relief.

The conversation between the two people jumped a little, but everyone could understand it, although what they could see so far was only a murder case on the surface, but neither of them was a mediocre person, since the matter had involved the internal guard, and there were still people who wanted to stir up trouble so much, a big war was inevitable, and how could the old fox who had been staring at them from the side give up this opportunity?