On May 18, Zhu Cihong drove back to the palace.

In the main hall of the Qianqing Palace, there was a death-like silence, and time seemed to stand still at this moment.

Qiu Zhizhong's chief eunuch knelt on the ground, and there were several ministers standing next to him, all of whom did not dare to breathe, and sometimes glanced at the empty throne behind the dragon case.

Finally, there was a sound of footsteps in the heavy veil of the passage of the side hall, and Zhu Cihong, who was visiting the prince in the Chunhe Palace, came back.

He walked to the throne and did not sit down, but held one of the armrests on the side of the throne with one hand, and looked indifferently at the few celebrant eunuchs kneeling on the ground.

At this time, Qiu Zhizhong took the lead and shouted: "Slaves and maids welcome Your Majesty back to the palace, long live!" Banzai! Hooray! ”

Zhu Cihong's eyes looked at Qiu Zhizhong, and said lukewarmly: "Did the arson of the Great Main Hall find out?" ”

Qiu Zhizhong replied: "Back to the emperor, the eight eunuchs on duty in the main hall and all the eight eunuchs who entered and exited the main hall last night have all been taken to the imperial prison and are still under interrogation.......

Zhu Cihong frowned slightly, and raised the tone of the question: "After a night, no one pleaded guilty?" ”

"Not ...... yet"

Qiu Zhizhong's face became more and more unnatural, those little cubs all knew that this was a matter of losing their heads, where did they dare to admit their guilt, no matter how Jinyiwei tortured, they all shouted that they were wronged.

"Did I go and check on your business?"

Qiu Zhizhong replied: "The slave maid is presiding over the cabinet meeting and handing over the errand to Shunzi, and before they can start the investigation, there is an incident of the main hall going to the water, fortunately, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is blessed by heaven.......

Zhu Cihong's face sank, and he still knew in his heart that the water in the main hall was not an accident, but the thief who stole the property in the palace got the news and directly set fire to destroy the evidence!

This kind of thing is not uncommon in history, such as Puyi, the last emperor of the Tatar Qing Dynasty, once accidentally found that the list did not match the treasures in the treasury, and was furious to personally check the treasures in the palace, and the eunuchs who stole the treasures did not do anything, and directly set the Jianfu Palace on fire and destroyed the evidence.

Seeing that the emperor didn't speak, Qiu Zhizhong knelt there and began to secretly look at Zhu Cihong's face.

Zhu Cihong sat down, his tone turned cold, and said: "Since no one admits it, the eight minions who entered and exited the main hall will all be executed, and you, go to the inner palace to receive forty rods, work in the Huanyi Bureau for half a year, and then go back to the celebrant supervisor." ”

"Yes." Qiu Zhizhong was stunned and hurriedly lowered his eyes.

"And!"

Qiu Zhizhong's eyelids were slightly raised, and his ears were pricked up to listen to the hadith.

Zhu Cihong said: "In the harem, there will be no internal servants, and those who originally served in the palace will be retained as usual, and the royal family will support you for a lifetime." ”

Qiu Zhizhong's eyes showed due panic, and he said in a low voice: "The emperor ......"

Zhu Cihong's words shocked everyone present, especially the several cabinet ministers present, who were even more surprised than the eunuchs.

In short, no one would have thought that Emperor Tianwu would be able to abolish the eunuch system!

After being shocked, Yang Tinglin and the others began to feel sincere admiration for the emperor's courage.

With this alone, Emperor Tianwu was enough to surpass all the sage emperors of the past dynasties.

On the surface, it is the eunuchs who represent the emperor and compete with the civil official group to achieve balance, but to put it bluntly, the emperor is useless, which leads to the phenomenon of eunuch dictatorship, and it is the embodiment of the emperor's continuous operation.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty and even the previous dynasties, the common denominator of this situation is: the emperor did not hold military power!

To control the military power is to control everything, as long as the emperor controls the military power, the so-called civilian clique will be honest, where is there so much, and there is a balance?

Zhu Cihong naturally knew this truth, so he felt that eunuchs were dispensable.

In the Manchu Qing Dynasty in history, Emperor Shunzhi originally had the intention of abolishing the eunuchs, and later thought about it and still kept it to do chores, but he set the iron tablet ancestral system that influenced the Manchu Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years: eunuchs interfered in politics, and Ling Chi was executed, and he would not be tolerated! If you are not sent, you are not allowed to leave the imperial city without permission, and if you have a friend with a foreign official, you will be killed if you find it!

Therefore, the eunuchs of the Qing Dynasty were the most bitter, tired, aggrieved, and powerless, and they were truly dispensable and had no sense of existence.

The Qing Dynasty inherited the Ming system, and there was also a cabinet, and there were also votes and approvals, but throughout the more than 200 years of the Tatar Qing Dynasty, there was no eunuch containment, and there was never a so-called civil official group.

Because the previous generations of emperors of the Tatar Qing Dynasty have always held military power, this is the confidence of the people.

Civilian officials can form a political force, one is ideological unity, the other is related interests, and it needs to be born in a political environment.

From the perspective of the ruler, Zhu Cihong couldn't understand why the emperors before the Ming Dynasty connived at the dispute between the civilian cabinet and the officials over a trivial matter.

He really couldn't understand why the previous generations of emperors had adopted conditional compromises under the aggressiveness of the civilian bureaucracy.

Perhaps, all of them want to be the "saint of tomorrow" who will go down in history, create a good political environment for the civil and official groups, and let people work together to deal with themselves.

Zhu Cihong's thoughts were a bit extreme, he felt that the emperor who could not control the military power was just a puppet.

The generations of small wild boar skins of the Tatar Qing Dynasty can do it, and the Ming Dynasty can also do it, completely eliminating the civil official group and the eunuch power.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhu Cihong set up the division of civil and military affairs at the beginning, creating a novice god gift package for future generations of successors who can receive it when they come to power.

"When the country is difficult, it is difficult to be a family, and the country and the family are the same thing."

Zhu Cihong sighed, and suddenly turned his gaze to the cabinet again: "Yang Tinglin, you are the head of the cabinet, how is the tax reform system that I handed over to your cabinet?" ”

Yang Tinglin was a little surprised, and hurriedly said: "Back to Your Majesty, the cabinet belongs to the imperial court, and the ministers are also errands for the imperial court, so they don't dare to pretend to be family members......."

After some verbal beating, Zhu Cihong introduced the words to the topic.

Yang Tinglin said sincerely: "Huang Butang of the Ministry of Finance proposed a tax reform policy to abolish the agricultural tax, which is intended to completely eliminate the exploitation of the people by the local government. ”

"Hehe, I'm worried that the grain will be intercepted by the magistrate, so you just don't accept it, it's a good draw!"

Zhu Cihong laughed lukewarmly, and he didn't know whether to criticize or praise.

The scene was silent for a moment, Huang Zongxi seemed to have plucked up his courage, and looked at Zhu Cihong with the notebook in his hand: "This is the minister's notebook, please Your Majesty Longmu Yuxuan!" ”

There are a lot of words in this recital, not so much a recital, but more like a thesis, from the Three Emperors and Five Emperors to the Great Ming Wu Dynasty, Huang Zongxi briefly summarized it, and listed a lot of data, and finally came to a conclusion:

"In the past dynasties, the tax has increased every time there has been a reform, and the burden on the peasant households will rise to a higher level than before the reform after a period of decline, and they will enter a strange circle of accumulation of irreversible harm, so the abolition of agricultural taxes is the fundamental way to solve the problem."

At this time, Zhu Cihong's face was particularly wonderful, and there was an indescribable expression, and he muttered in his heart: "Isn't this the "Huang Zongxi's Law" that was said at the 20th Century National People's Congress? ”

In order to get out of the strange circle mentioned by Huang Zongxi, in the fifth year of the 21 st century, the 19th meeting of the 10 th National Council of Senior Officials passed a resolution announcing the abolition of agricultural taxes nationwide......