It is now the mid-spring season of the twelfth year of Zhengde, everything has germinated, and the Jingshi, who has been dry for a winter, has added a trace of warm humidity, and the Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao has also gone to the Hanbi Hall of the Royal West Garden to ask about politics.

The Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City is not a suitable place for the emperor to work.

After all, when Emperor Yongle built the Forbidden City in Beijing, he was only repaired as a line at the beginning, and it is no wonder that the emperors of Zhengde and Jiajing in history also moved out of the palace, and even the emperors of the Manchu Qing Dynasty also had to build the Old Summer Palace outside to live, rather than live in the Qianqing Palace.

Zhu Houzhao also had to admit that the front hall of the Forbidden City was magnificent, and the inner court was indeed a little narrow compared to the emperor.

What's more, the current Ming dynasty's political system has changed.

It is no longer the cabinet and the celebrant who are on duty to decide all military and political affairs.

Zhu Houzhao naturally did not need to discuss with a group of ministers in the narrow cabinet and the celebrant duty room every day.

Zhu Houzhao basically handed over all the day-to-day administrative power to the cabinet, and in order to facilitate the cabinet ministers to handle daily government affairs, they were specially ordered to use the Wenhua Hall as an office space.

And the celebrant basically exists in name only, because Zhu Houzhao is not an emperor who is willing to be the shopkeeper, as long as he has been involved in the government affairs, the eunuchs of the ceremonial eunuch can only be a senior secretary who can only approve the red on the song.

Naturally, the Governor's Office of the Five Armed Forces has long existed in name only, but now the Fourth Department of the Guards is now temporarily used for the office of the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army, and has become the highest military command organ for foreign operations, and it almost looks like it is in charge of military affairs with the cabinet.

Zhu Houzhao is now only in Hanbi Hall to approve the recitals, which is one of the daily office locations of Zhu Houzhao, the emperor.

Hanbitang not only has eunuchs who are celebrants, but also some civil servants of Zhu Houzhao.

Zhu Houzhao now has two attendant rooms.

One is the chamber of attendants in charge of financial and economic work, which is in charge of Xu Jing, and has a group of literati who understand money, law, and economy, and as Zhu Houzhao's think tank on economic control, he even directly manages the royal investment business.

One is the chamber of attendants in charge of cultural propaganda, which is in charge of Tang Bohu, who maintains a group of literati who are responsible for the manipulation of media propaganda and public opinion, as Zhu Houzhao's think tank in ideological and cultural control.

In terms of military power, the Guards and the Ministry of War are balanced, and Zhu Houzhao naturally will not worry about the appearance of warlords.

Thus.

As long as he, the current emperor, controls the economy, ideology and culture of the empire, it means that he can control the entire Ming Empire.

As soon as Zhu Houzhao came to Hanbi Hall, the eunuch of the celebrant had already divided the things that the emperor had to deal with today according to the three categories of military, administrative, and judicial, and at the same time arranged the emperor Zhu Houzhao's itinerary and plan for today.

Zhu Houzhao first picked up the military class and looked at it, and then the administrative and judicial class.

Zhu Houzhao basically just looked at it, and then said that the eunuch of the celebrant would approve it for him, but as long as Zhu Houzhao had any doubts, he would also reject it.

This is tantamount to separating the military, executive, judicial, and supervisory powers, and to avoid the phenomenon of centralizing power in the cabinet or in the celebrant supervisors.

At the same time, in Zhu Houzhao's view, this can also improve the efficiency of the Ming court's governance, and make the court's governance more professional.

Zhu Houzhao basically doesn't need to spend too much time dealing with daily cumbersome military and political affairs, and it only takes more than an hour for him to deal with all the affairs, and he can have more time to do other meaningful things.

But at this time, Zhu Houzhao saw from the cabinet transcript that Xia Yan had returned from a trip to the West.

This made Zhu Houzhao a little interested, and hurriedly instructed Liu Jin: "Arrange a time to let Xia Yan enter the palace!" ”

After Liu Jin received the order, he turned around and went to Lan Cuixuan's current master of ceremonies, and after rearranging Zhu Houzhao's itinerary, he came back and said: "Your Majesty, after the day after tomorrow, you will have time to meet Xia Shilang." ”

Zhu Houzhao didn't even think that his itinerary had been scheduled for the day after tomorrow, so he didn't say anything, only nodded: "Then the day after tomorrow!" ”

The day after tomorrow is not shining, and the spring is gorgeous.

Zhu Houzhao summoned Xia Yan in Hanbitang.

Xia Yan wore a black gauze hat with long wings and a scarlet official robe, and bowed down when he saw Zhu Houzhao appear.

Zhu Houzhao shouted a waiver, then found a chair and sat down, looked at Xia Yan with a long face and a goatee, and only smiled slightly: "Sure enough, I lost some weight, I don't know if it's caused by traveling across the ocean, or because Xiyi women are too enthusiastic and unrestrained." ”

Zhu Houzhao naturally learned about what happened to Xia Yan along the way from Xichang, so as soon as he saw Xia Yan, Zhu Houzhao didn't ask him anything serious, but only joked first.

Xia Yan's face turned red, he didn't expect His Majesty the Emperor to know about the Xiyi woman he brought back so quickly, and he didn't know how to answer for a while.

Zhu Houzhao continued to jokingly ask, "Aiqing, how does it feel to ride this white horse?" ”

At first, Xia Yan didn't understand what Zhu Houzhao meant, but when he looked up at Zhu Houzhao's appearance with a wicked smile, he suddenly understood and hurriedly stood up:

"Your Majesty! When you summoned your ministers into the palace, did you just ask about this, Your Majesty is the father of the monarch, and he should be solemn and majestic, why do you tease the ministers for no reason! ”

Xia Yan has a straightforward personality, Zhu Houzhao knows it, and when he sees him in such a hurry, he feels even more funny: "You person, why can't you afford to joke!" Do you dare to say that you didn't take Xiyi women in the house? ”

"Minister, the minister doesn't dare to deceive Your Majesty, the minister is, the minister is, but Your Majesty, you should ask the minister about the matter, so you don't have to inquire", Xia Yan didn't know how to answer at first, but in the end, he could only say a few words incoherently.

Zhu Houzhao saw that Xia Yan was indeed not good at joking and joking, and he was not good at joking with Xia Yan anymore, so he only continued to ask Xia Yan: "What did you see and what did you do when you went to Xiyi, what can you bring back to Daming?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, the minister went to Rome and Florence this time, and met their pope and the lord of Florence, and the minister beheaded their pope, and forced them to recognize the papal succession to be approved by His Majesty the Ming Emperor, and also brought back a group of painters that Your Majesty likes, such as Leonardo da Vinci, in addition, it is more than 20 million taels of gold and more than 30,000 catties of silver! And all delivered to HMRC! ”

After Xia Yan finished speaking, Zhu Houzhao didn't come back to his senses for a long time, the first thing he didn't expect was that Xia Yan killed the Pope.

Secondly, Zhu Houzhao didn't expect Xia Yan to go to Xiyi this time and directly bring back more than 2,000 catties of gold and more than 60,000 catties of silver.

"You, what you said is true?"

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but stand up and asked.

In Daming, 10,000 taels of silver can be regarded as a huge amount of money, but Zhu Houzhao didn't expect Xia Yan to bring back so much gold and silver once he went to the West, which is equivalent to letting the Royal Tax Bureau have millions of taels of silver in the account at one time!