It was already snowy in Beijing in December, but the newly built sports hall on the west side of Xiyuan Jingshe was as warm as spring. This longhouse, modeled after a Tang dynasty building, is three and a half rooms long, with a horizontal width of two and a half rooms, and the span of each room is about 33 meters.

With rubber, many ball games can be promoted. Among them, badminton is the easiest to make, and it is also suitable for children and girls. Zhu Youzhen also hoped that he could find a place to exercise after work, so that he could sober up and sober his mind, so he asked people to build this sports hall.

The sports hall is 75 cm away from the ground, which can not only isolate moisture and insects, but also burn floor heating in winter. The teak flooring in the building is made of the finest wood from Thailand, so you won't feel stiff when you run and jump on it. Therefore, when the sports hall was completed, it became the most favorite activity place for the palace concubines.

Sometimes, however, Zhu Youzhen would invite cabinet ministers or courtiers from other ministries to come here for pastime and talk about some informal topics. Badminton is a sport that can be both intense and soothing, and the space occupied does not have to be very standard, so it quickly became popular in the capital.

For Qian Qianyi, it is also extremely beneficial for him to be able to accompany the emperor to exercise and listen to the emperor's private views on certain things. Therefore, he put a lot of effort into badminton, but his motor nerves were obviously not very good, so he was defeated after playing with the emperor for a while, and was replaced by Lian Shanxiang, the head of the imperial guard.

Qian Qianyi, who was out of breath, took the warm water sent by Lu Qi and drank several sips in a row before quenching his thirst. He held the teacup, and then he had time to watch the scene on the field. Although Lian Shanxiang is also a beginner in badminton, he has been practicing martial arts since he was a child, but he has a close fight with Chongzhen.

Qian Qianyi looked at it for a while, and couldn't help but envy Chongzhen with infinite energy in his heart. Whether it is Wanli or Apocalypse, although these two emperors have their own advantages, they seem to be inferior to the young emperor in front of them in terms of physical strength. Although Chongzhen had a similar temperament to his grandfather and brother and was not very enthusiastic about political affairs, he was obviously more patient than his grandfather and brother, and even if his decision was unanimously opposed by the courtiers, he would not abandon government affairs and courtiers.

Chongzhen's abundant physical strength also enabled him to persist in pushing forward the reform affairs with his own opinions, and would not give up halfway because of opposition from officials and local authorities. It is precisely because of the tenacious character of the emperor that the atmosphere of the officials in the court and China began to slowly improve, after all, this person can follow the progress of the same thing for three or four months in a row and will not forget.

Ever since a few clever people tried to wait for the emperor to forget something with a delay in time, and finally sent themselves to the central government academy to study, and thus were put aside and ignored, basically no official wanted to challenge the emperor's memory.

Although Lian Shanxiang's reaction was extremely flexible, for Chongzhen, who was wearing loose clothes and special sneakers, he could basically recover more than ten years of sports experience in his previous life, so after holding on for 3 times longer than Qian Qianyi, he still changed to another young guard to fight against the emperor.

After exercising for nearly 45 minutes, Zhu Youzhen got off the field sweating and let the other guards freely pair up and exercise. Although he was sweating, Zhu Youzhen's spirit was exceptionally good.

He handed the racket to the eunuch on the side, took a cup of tea from Lu Qi's hand and drank a few sips, before he relieved himself and said to Qian Qianyi: "Mr. still needs to exercise more, without a healthy body, he can't afford such a heavy state affair." In my opinion, in the cabinet and the six ministries, such a sports venue should be built, so that the courtiers have a place to move their bodies, and maintaining proper exercise is much better than any supplement. ”

Qian Qianyi replied with some amazement: "The minister is too old to compare with His Majesty." However, if the cabinet and the six ministries of the yamen build this, will others say that the minister is not doing his job? ”

Zhu Youzhen wiped his face with a warm towel, and said, "Not doing your job? I think some people are really not doing their jobs. I asked the soldiers to cut their hair, and they said that their parents should not be damaged by the hair and skin of their bodies. The result? I haven't complained about the lack of manpower in the palace, but there are so many people who are very keen to cut off other people's sons.

They wrote to me all day long, saying that since I ascended the throne, I have stopped the system of entering people in the palace, and now that the palace is not accepted, I am afraid that no one will be able to serve the nobles in the palace in the future. Therefore, it is advisable to reopen the ban and select young children from white families everywhere to train palace attendants. What is wrong with this innocent white boy to come into the palace to serve me? ”

Qian Qianyi was suddenly dumbfounded, and it was really difficult for him to express his position on the emperor's complaints. Now the property under the name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is too huge, whether it is the big eunuchs in the palace or the officials outside the palace, they are all salivating for these wealth.

However, since Chongzhen ascended the throne, he has been reducing the number of people in the palace and stopped the system of entering the palace. In such a situation, everyone wants to know who will manage these properties when this group of stewards and eunuchs grows old. Some people proposed to restore the recruitment system of eunuchs in the palace, presumably because some of the big eunuchs hoped to find a good successor for themselves by selecting the younger eunuchs.

And there are also some people who want to restore the recruitment system of eunuchs, in essence, they want to use this matter to hope that the emperor will return to tradition. After all, the national fortunes of the Ming Dynasty seem to be recovering, for example, since last year, there has been drought and little rain in several northern provinces for two consecutive years, and even Anhui and southern Jiangsu have also experienced drought, but with the grain imported from overseas, plus the water conservancy facilities and transportation facilities built before, this year is still safe and sound.

But this also made many gentry and bureaucrats think that there is no need to continue the reform, but that the emperor should maintain the tradition, cultivate self-cultivation and morality to move the heavens, and stop continuing to send disasters. Although these gentry and bureaucrats themselves did not necessarily believe that the emperor could change the heavens as long as he stopped pushing for reforms. However, many foolish men and foolish women really believed it, so they set off a counterattack by a number of local conservative forces.

Although because of the emperor's suppression of the old forces in recent years, they did not dare to blatantly jump out to oppose the reform, but the traditional remarks such as maintaining the emperor's majesty and restoring the recruitment of eunuchs were very loud.

Qian Qianyi thought about it for a while, and finally replied to the emperor ambiguously: "Although these people are not knowledgeable, they are still not bad at your majesty's friendship. This eunuch system does not originate from this dynasty, if it is abolished blankly, I am afraid that the people of the world will arrange Your Majesty's not. The minister thought that it would be better to reduce the number of eunuchs recruited year by year, and then slowly educate the subjects of the world, so that they could understand His Majesty's benevolence, and then suspend the eunuch system, perhaps the voice of criticism would be reduced. ”

Zhu Youzhen threw the towel aside and thought for a few minutes before continuing: "What Mr. said is indeed a safe way, but sometimes, there are some things that cannot be compromised. Knowing that one thing is wrong and slowly rectifying it will only disappoint those who support us, nor will it satisfy those who oppose us.

All things are born and people are precious. The purpose of my reform of the Ming Dynasty is to make this country a better place and a country more suitable for ordinary people. If we can't make ordinary people feel that their lives are precious, then what's the point of the reforms we're pushing for?

In other words, if ordinary people do not enjoy the benefits of reform, then how can they follow us to preserve the fruits of reform? In order to promote the implementation of the reform policy, we can bargain with the local gentry, but it is impossible for us to make deals with anyone in terms of the direction and purpose of the reform.

So I hope that the Cabinet will be more determined on certain issues. Our reform is not evaluated by the gentry and people of today, but by the Ming people twenty years later, fifty years later, or even a hundred years later.

Sir is a historian, and I believe that you should know better than I do, and at every turning point in history, it is often a few people who determine the correct direction of history. I firmly believe that reform is a historical process that the Ming Dynasty must go through at present, and only by unswervingly carrying out reform on the Ming Dynasty can we face the disasters we are facing for many years. ”

Qian Qianyi's heart suddenly froze, he knew that this was the emperor's dissatisfaction with the cabinet, obviously the cabinet's weak attitude towards the local conservative forces during this period of time made the emperor unbearable. Naturally, he would not let Chongzhen personally take action, thus dividing his cabinet.

Therefore, Qian Qianyi immediately expressed his attitude to the emperor: "The ministers are stupid, and they can't distinguish the intentions of these local gentry for a while, but they have taken advantage of loopholes. With His Majesty's suggestion, after the minister returns, he will screen these local gentry who have written books, whether they really love His Majesty, or whether they want to use the topic to play and insinuate the palace curtains..."

After beating Qian Qianyi, Zhu Youzhen chatted with him about other government affairs, and then left the gymnasium and returned to the retreat to take a hot bath.

As soon as he came out of the bathroom and got dressed, he heard Lu Qi come to report that Yang Sichang, the left attendant of the military department, had come to ask for a meeting. Since Yang He's death, Yang Sichang has returned to his hometown to guard the system. Although Chongzhen constantly revised the leave system, Shouxiao for three years finally gradually disappeared from officialdom.

Since Chongzhen did not use favors for certain specific people, but fixed the vacation system, which also made the officials have to accept this system. After all, not everyone is willing to gamble for the sake of a false name, and use the fame that has been hard to study for ten years.

What's more, there are many officials who have obeyed the regulations of the imperial court, and those officials who are still clinging to three years of filial piety have first become a thorn in the side of these officials, thinking that these officials who have been living and dying for three years are just inviting names. So without the emperor's intervention, those old-fashioned officials were first suppressed by their colleagues, and were either forced to quit their careers or thrown into a certain archives bureau to manage their files.

Of course, there are also some officials who think that the six-month bereavement leave stipulated by the imperial court is too short, and they have to stay at home for a full year, and would rather wait for the officials to re-elect officials, and the imperial court has also adopted a tacit attitude towards this. According to the regulations of the imperial court, those who take six months of leave for bereavement will be reinstated, those who will take one year of leave will be demoted, and those who have taken more than one year of seniority will be cleared.

Since the implementation of the regulations, nearly seventy percent of officials have chosen to take a year off, and Yang Sichang is no exception to choose a year. After he returned to his official career, he was not released from the capital by the emperor, and he took over the appointment of Wang Yongguang, the left attendant of the Ministry of War, who died of illness this year, and became the main official of the Ministry of War.