The officials who participated in the Royal Bank at the beginning have basically become important ministers in power in the DPRK and China over the years, and they have all benefited from the Royal Bank.

Therefore, Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the ministry, proposed to suspend the Royal Bank, which obviously caused public outrage.

Zhu Houzhao also saw this, and this was the first time he had seen most of the important ministers of the court obey his will and demand the punishment of officials who affected his interests.

Moreover, Zhu Houzhao also had to admit that these civil officials were not much softer than themselves in dealing with civil officials who were unfavorable to them.

Zhu Houzhao knew that from now on, the atmosphere in the Ming Dynasty began to change.

The civilian clique, lured by its own interests, has begun to diverge.

Zhu Houzhao also specially pretended to be very benevolent, in order to show most of the courtiers that his emperor is not so hateful, and what is really more hateful are those officials who do not support you.

Therefore, when Zhu Houzhao saw these courtiers asking him to kill Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, he pretended to hesitate and said: "But Gong Shangxin is the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, an important minister of the court, and it is a little inappropriate to kill him, right?" ”

"Your Majesty! Gong Shangwei betrayed his master, colluded with the courtiers, secretly formed a party for personal gain, caused chaos in the court, and even intended to dominate His Majesty. ”

Liu Yu, who had succeeded Dai Shan as the imperial history of the left capital, stood up and said.

"Yes, Your Majesty! Gong Shangwei provoked the relationship between the cabinet and the auxiliary, and it was a disaster to disturb the heart of my Ming Dynasty, and it was not enough to correct people's hearts! ”

"Your Majesty! Gong Shangwei's betrayal of his master is really unfilial! Secondly, words are disrespectful to His Majesty, and they are really disloyal! If you don't kill such a disloyal and unfilial person, how can you be upright! ”

……

The important ministers of the court and the central government were all indignant and indignant, Zhu Houzhao was not so angry when he saw this, but he felt good because of this, and only looked at Gong Shangwei:

"Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, what do you say?"

Gong Shangwei is now in a very complicated mood, both angry and afraid, angry that these courtiers will sit back and ignore the interests of the royal bank to seize the people, and even try to kill themselves directly for their own selfishness, what is afraid is that he did not expect so many courtiers to oppose him, and he can't help but wonder how much benefit the royal bank has given to these courtiers.

And now, Gong Shangwei found that his only life-saving straw turned out to be His Majesty the Emperor, whom he had always opposed, and he looked at Zhu Houzhao: "Your Majesty! The minister is just the minister, the minister is just ......"

Gong Shangwei didn't know how to defend himself.

Seeing this, Zhu Houzhao said: "Since this is the case, I will follow what you Aiqing said, send Gong Shangwei to the edict prison, and try it by the three law divisions!" ”

"Your Majesty Shengming!"

The courtiers present all replied in unison.

So, the two brocade guards walked in and dragged Gong Shangwei out, and Gong Shangwei scolded anxiously:

"You shameless! Jiao Fang! I met you in vain! I never thought that you would do this to me! You don't have to die well! None of you will die well! Your Majesty! Spare your life! The ministers are just, just for the people! ”

Next, Zhu Houzhao did not care about the execution of Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, and directly handed it over to the civil officials to deal with it themselves, in accordance with the formal procedures of the imperial court.

Zhu Houzhao believes that the civil officials who are now in power should not be too polite to Gong Shangwei.

Sure enough, as Zhu Hou expected, the three law divisions quickly reached a consensus on the verdict of Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, and the verdict was to immediately abandon the city!

didn't even give Gong Shangwei a chance to be an autumn queen.

Moreover, the cabinet and the celebrant passed it quickly, and no one raised objections.

Zhu Houzhao knew that the courtiers who had profited from the Royal Bank were using this to express their attitude to those officials who wanted to take away their interests, and at the same time warned the officials that if they wanted to suspend the Royal Bank, just look at the fate of Gong Shangwei, even if it was the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, he would still be cut in half.

Zhu Houzhao was very satisfied with the emergence of such a phenomenon, and now it was not his turn to personally deal with the opposition that prevented his reform, and he was much more relaxed because of this, which also enabled Zhu Houzhao to devote more energy to reform and develop new science and technology.

Of course, the gentry and magnates also discovered that they had to deal with not only the emperor, but also a group of courtiers.

Needless to say, the emperor occupies the position of the monarch and the minister, and he cannot oppose it clearly, and the other officials who oppose him are not underestimated, they are all in charge of the imperial court, and the family power behind them is enough to make most civil officials dare not offend easily.

Even if they want to assassinate now, they don't just want to assassinate Emperor Zhu Houzhao alone, but they also have to kill all the officials who follow Zhu Houzhao for profit.

At this time, Jiao Fang and other officials who had the same interests as Zhu Houzhao also knew that they were enjoying the huge benefits distributed by the emperor, and they had completely become people in the same boat as His Majesty the Emperor, so if they wanted to hold power, and if they wanted to continue to let the Royal Bank exist and benefit from it, they had to find a way to ensure that Zhu Houzhao lived longer.

Now whether it is Liu Jin and others in the inner court or Ma Wensheng, Jiao Fang and others in the outer court, they are extremely concerned about Zhu Houzhao's health, Zhu Houzhao's daily food and clothing, Liu Jin and others will personally ask, and Ma Wensheng and others will often ask Zhu Houzhao if he is healthy.

But Zhu Houzhao did not completely relax his vigilance against others, he knew that as the helmsman of the Ming Dynasty, as long as he wanted the ship of the Ming Empire to continue to move forward, it would be impossible for him, the emperor, to live comfortably, and he would let more people choose to support him.

Most of the officials who received dividends deposited their money back in the Royal Bank, but there was no way, according to the contract, they either spent it directly, or they could only store it in the Royal Bank, not to mention that there was interest to be earned in the Royal Bank, so that the gold and silver of the Trance Royal Bank did not flow out much.

Moreover, when Gong Shangwei, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, was cut off and abandoned because of his request to suspend the Royal Bank, the people also began to know that the existence of the Royal Bank was irreversible, whether they actively accepted it or passively, they began to consciously put their gold and silver into the Royal Bank, not to mention that they could eat interest.

But the Royal Bank can't keep money all the time, that would be a loss.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao had to find a way to let the Royal Bank release the money, let the Ming Empire and his people spend the money of the Royal Bank, and make the economic life of the entire Ming Dynasty active, and the courtiers who participated in the shares also realized this.

Because of this, when Xu Jinshang, the secretary of the Ministry of War, requested that 3 million taels of silver be allocated to renovate the border wall of the border town and rectify the border preparations, the cabinet and the celebrant directly passed.

The household department itself contributed 1 million taels of silver and borrowed 2 million from the Royal Bank to allocate to the household department, so that the border town of Daming was almost not sluggish due to the lack of silver after the second year of Zhengde.

Of course, the wool came out of the sheep, and Zhu Houzhao knew that the money of the Royal Bank did not rise from the ground, but also from the gentry and the common people, and the total wealth of the Ming Dynasty did not increase.

The common people still don't get much benefit, and the only point now is that they have cultivated a few big capitalists.

Zhu Houzhao had to take the lead in foreign expansion and plunder to earn wealth, but foreign expansion naturally had to be achieved through war, and to conduct war, he had to have a strong army to ensure the strength of the army.

To this end, Zhu Houzhao decided to set up the General Staff Headquarters of the Guards, the General Political Department, the General Armament Department, the General Logistics Department, the General Military Judicial Department, and the Military Tribunal.

Originally, Zhu Houzhao wanted to directly reform the military department and reorganize several departments of the military department, but he knew that the resistance to such a transformation was still relatively large and troublesome, so it was better to directly set up a leading body in the Guards.

After that, the Guards did not belong to the Ministry of War, but only to themselves, and these departments established by themselves were in charge of the affairs of the Guards in terms of military command, personnel organization, weapons storage and manufacturing, and logistics supply.

After all, according to Zhu Houzhao's assumption, in the future, the Guards will be mainly responsible for foreign wars, so it is most urgent to separate the command, personnel, and logistical equipment supply of the Guards from the military headquarters.

On the surface, Zhu Houzhao can decide on his own, but the problem is the appointment of officials after the establishment of the organization and the political changes that may be caused in the appointment.

The current Ming Dynasty is mainly in charge of the military in the civilian command, the military attache is responsible for the execution, the minister is responsible for supervising the army, basically the emphasis on civil and military suppression, the emphasis on checks and balances rather than efficiency, Zhu Houzhao decided to change this form in the Guards, improve the status of military generals, but it does not mean that civilian officials are excluded from entering the military system.

After all, according to the current situation in the Ming Dynasty, many civilian officials also have experience in leading troops because they have been leading troops in border towns all year round.

Zhu Houzhao wanted to ban the distinction between civil and military in the Guards, but in later generations, there was no distinction between civil and military, only between military and government, so Zhu Houzhao decided to select officials who knew the army from the entire Ming bureaucracy to enter the leadership system of the Guards.

In the end, Ma Wensheng concurrently served as the secretary of the General Staff Department, Xu Jin concurrently served as the secretary of the General Political Department, and the secretary of the General Logistics Department was concurrently served by Wang Qiong, the left attendant of the household department, and Zeng Jian, the secretary of the General Armament Department.

It seems that in the beginning, the leading members of the central organs of the entire Guards were still civilian officials.

But there is no way, the phenomenon of emphasizing literature and suppressing military force has existed for so many years, so that almost all the military talents who really know the army in the Ming Dynasty are civil ministers, and for a while, even if Zhu Houzhao wants to use power to change the phenomenon of civilian officials in command, it is impossible, so he can only take his time.

In the future, it may be possible to have professional military personnel in charge of military war activities after there is a special military academy, and the distinction between civil and military will disappear completely.

The courtiers actually didn't understand why His Majesty the Emperor changed the army of the forbidden army and the Beijing camp into the Guards, and also set up a special leadership organ, only Zhu Houzhao himself knew that he wanted to change the military system of the Ming Dynasty and let the Ming have a strong army that could carry out external expansion.

The establishment of the leading organs of the Guards means that the organs of the Guards have been basically perfected from the top to the small, and the next step is for these five leading organs to begin their respective work.

Among them, the General Staff is to determine the combat missions of the Guards.

The courtiers did not understand why the Guards were on combat missions now that it was not a war period, and that the Guards were also Gyeonggi troops.

But Zhu Houzhao's meaning was to let the Guards have a combat mission and expand externally, and in the end, the first combat mission established by Zhu Houzhao and Ma Wensheng was to recover the Hetao.

According to the previous rules of the Ming Dynasty, the resolution of such a military government affairs was naturally drafted by the cabinet and decided by the emperor, but now Zhu Houzhao has changed this way, and the general staff of the Guards army draws up the battle plan and submits it to him, the emperor, for approval, without even going through the cabinet and the celebrant supervisor!

But because now the cabinet and the celebrant are only obeyed by Zhu Houzhao's orders, so there is no objection, and there is no way to stop Zhu Houzhao's behavior, Zhu Houzhao knows that many political systems in the Ming Dynasty do not have a written rule, and in terms of system, the emperor decides everything, no matter what is the emperor himself.

When the emperor favored the eunuchs, all power naturally went to the eunuchs, including military power.

When the emperor trusted the cabinet, all power was vested in the cabinet, including military power.

Therefore, this leads to the fact that the Ming Dynasty is sometimes a eunuch dictatorship, and sometimes it is a civil dictatorship.

However, Zhu Houzhao now decided to establish the political system of the Ming Dynasty in the form of explicit laws, so as to avoid the arbitrary transfer of imperial ruling power by later generations of monarchs and ministers, and let the eunuchs dictate the power for a while, and even the emperor could not even guarantee the imperial power in the end.

For this reason, when the General Staff of the Guards drew up a battle plan for the recovery of the Hetao, he also convened a court meeting of civil and military officials and imperial historians above the second rank in Beijing, and decided to formulate an "Outline of the King James Constitution", which mainly stipulates the power of the monarch and the rights and obligations of his subjects in the form of law.

Because Zhu Houzhao did not want the Ming Dynasty to become a constitutional state, in order to protect his imperial power, the constitution he asked for was still different from the constitutions of later generations, at least there was no restriction on the monarch's power, and of course there was no blind emphasis and explanation of the divine right of the monarch, but only to clearly stipulate the power of the emperor and the distribution of power and the rights and obligations of his subjects.

For example, the emperor has the supreme military command and the highest personnel appointment power of the Ming Empire, as well as the functions and powers of the cabinet and the celebrant supervisor, the powers and obligations of the guards and border troops under the jurisdiction of the Guards and the Ministry of War, and the procedures for initiating military wars.

Many courtiers feel very new to this, and at the same time feel very meaningful, and they also feel that it is necessary to clearly stipulate the power of the imperial monarch and the rights and obligations of their subjects, and they are no strangers to the word constitution, after all, in the "Chinese" there is a sentence "reward and punishment for adultery, the constitution of the country", and they all know the meaning of the constitution.

But there are also many officials who are quite critical of this.

Some officials found that once the "Outline of the King James Constitution" came out, it would only protect the imperial power, and it would not benefit them at all for the gentry!

Because once all the people of the empire follow the "Outline of the King James Constitution" to carry out their powers, then they can no longer use the ancestral system and the words of the sages and Yao Shun to advise the ancestral emperor.

After all, the "Outline of the King James Constitution" clearly stipulates that the emperor has the decision-making power over all military and political affairs of the Ming Dynasty, which means that as long as the emperor decides, no one can stop it.

But in fact, according to the existing practice of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor's decree can sometimes be refuted, as long as the officials decide that the emperor's decree is wrong, although it may cost them their lives, but at least no one will say that the officials are wrong to do so, it is against the law.

But now, Zhu Houzhao has promulgated the "Outline of the King James Constitution", which means that no one can stop any decision of the emperor, otherwise it will be against the constitution.

Therefore, at the court discussion on the formulation of the "Outline of the King James Constitution", Ai Sheng directly objected to the matter: "Your Majesty! The Shengming Dynasty rules the world with filial piety! Now setting up a constitution to rule the world may be contrary to human ethics! ”

"How is it against human ethics to have a constitution? You can be specific! Zhu Houzhao asked.

Ai Sheng was speechless for a while, as a civil servant, it has always been empty talk, why bother asking the root cause, saying that it is contradictory is contradictory, why do you have to be specific.

But Zhu Houzhao asked like this, and Ai Sheng couldn't help but answer, but said: "It stands to reason that filial piety governs the world, and the father should be the son and the king should be the minister." ”

"The constitution is to make specific explanations and regulations on this, I am the king, and the king is the minister, so the constitution stipulates that the king has the highest decision-making power, is this contradictory, for example, the father is the son, and it is also stipulated in the constitution that children should obey their parents, isn't this all adhering to the concept of ruling the world with filial piety?"

When Zhu Houzhao asked this, Ai Sheng didn't know how to answer, and he couldn't deny the contradiction between what was stipulated in the constitution and what he said.

"Foolish, please forgive your majesty!"

Ai Sheng had no choice but to retreat, he didn't know what to say for a while, but he knew that he actually wanted to say that Your Majesty wants to rule the world with scholars, and you should respect the opinions of the gentry as emperors, but these are unwritten rules, and there is no code in the Ming Dynasty that says that the emperor and scholars should rule the world together, and even some of Mencius's words related to monarchy were deleted by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.

But at this time, some officials also began to refute Zhu Houzhao's constitution by taking advantage of some of Mencius's remarks, and Du Long of the Ministry of Rites said: "Your Majesty! The sage said, the king is light, the people are important, and the community is secondary! The constitution should put the people first! Focus on the interests of the people of the world! ”

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect that Du Long also put forward the idea of "civil rights", and thought that he was about to become a Rousseau-level figure with his words, so he said:

"Du Qing is right, the people should be important, I have no objection, since this is the case, then add to the constitution, in the future, whether it is the prince or the minister or the peddler, they are not allowed to take the people's property and take the lives of the people, the people of the Ming Dynasty have the right to life and property, and the local officials who are close to the people are not allowed to kill the people at will, if the people die, they should pay for their lives! If you hurt the people, you should pay compensation! The crimes of the subjects of the world are only executed according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty and the Great Decree! The resolution will be heard by the three legal divisions of the Ming Dynasty. ”

Zhu Houzhao knew that the purpose of these officials was to restrict the monarch's power, so he proposed civil rights, and Zhu Houzhao didn't mind this, you can respect the civil rights as an emperor, after all, this is also a kind of progress, but you gentry class can't just let me, the emperor, respect the civil rights, you don't respect the civil rights.

"What does Du Qing think, as long as you and the courtiers present feel that you can make the officials and gentry and even the princes and nobles of the world respect the rights of the people, I can also respect them!"

As soon as Zhu Houzhao said this, Du Long was speechless on the spot, he naturally couldn't make all the officials in the world respect the rights and interests of the people, even himself.

"The opinion of the minister's scholar provokes His Majesty's jokes, and the minister retires!" Du Long blushed and retreated.