After sending Cui Chengxiu away, Zhu Youzhen, who was about to take a shower and take a good rest, heard the news from Lu Qi that Huang Liji was waiting outside the door.

Zhu Youzhen, who stopped moving, couldn't help but smile bitterly and said, "Mr. Huang, can't you even wait for tomorrow?" Forget it, please let him in, and by the way, someone will bring a pot of black tea. ”

"Okay, Your Majesty, do you want a plate of red date cakes? I heard that you came back today, and the minister specially prepared it in the morning, which is very fresh. ”

"Well, let's take a plate, are all the newspapers here for the past few months?"

"Yes, Your Majesty..."

When Huang Liji was brought into the living room by Lu Qi, Zhu Youzhen put down the newspaper in his hand, got up and invited Huang Liji to talk in the sofa area.

Before sitting down, Huang Liji glanced at the emperor's clothes, and now that Qingming has just passed, the temperature in Beijing is gradually rising, and it should be said that it is a cool season that is neither hot nor cold. On such days, an undergarment and an outer robe, with a net towel and a wing crown, were the most common wear worn by the emperor.

But Chongzhen was wearing a white cloth shirt woven with a mixture of cotton and silk, a pair of black pants underneath, and no crown on his head, only short hair. For Huang Liji, this outfit is too strange. However, after a few glances, he finally did not speak out to admonish.

Huang Liji comforted himself in his heart, he was just dressed in strange clothes, he didn't learn from those Jiangnan scholars, and openly wore women's clothes to show off in the market, which was already very good.

"Sir is in such a hurry to see me, but is there anything you want to discuss with me?" Zhu Youzhen didn't notice the strange color on Huang Liji's face, and asked him straightforwardly after sitting down.

Huang Liji immediately put aside the troubles about the emperor's costumes, and said to Chongzhen seriously: "That's true, Your Majesty has been out of the palace for so long, and the minister is discussing several important matters with Your Majesty. The first is the adjustment plan for the cabinet members after the resignation of the minister..."

Zhu Youzhen took the document submitted by Huang Liji, and listened to the other party's explanation while flipping through it. This change of cabinet and officials of the six ministries can be said to be the largest change since Chongzhen ascended the throne.

As he gradually mastered the government, it was no longer possible to endure the conservatives and incompetents of the six corpses. So he simply took advantage of the change of cabinet and performed a major operation on the officials of the six ministries.

Zhu Youzhen silently read the list of cabinet members on the first page of the document, the first assistant of the cabinet: Qian Qianyi, the second assistant of the cabinet: Wen Tiren, the minister of finance: Guo Yunhou, the minister of agriculture: Yang Jingchen, the minister of industry: Wu Chunfu, the minister of posts and transportation: Tian Yang, the minister of water resources: Fan Jingwen, the minister of education: Li Tianjing, and the minister-at-large: Jiang Dejing.

Five of the nine courtiers were replaced, which was almost the limit of what the courtiers could accept. After all, every cabinet minister has a group of protégés behind him, and the replacement of each cabinet minister is equivalent to a small personnel change. The replacement of the five cabinet ministers has almost transferred all the middle-level officials in the DPRK and the central government.

The next six Shangshu, except that the Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites was replaced by Zhou Yanru, and the others did not change. In addition to the original addition of the Food Bureau, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water Resources, and the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Commerce, and the Ministry of Industry have been set up.

After listening to Huang Liji's explanation, Zhu Youzhen closed the document and said: "I think there is no problem with these personnel adjustments, Mr. can organize the court according to the old practice, and I will determine the candidates according to this personnel plan." ”

Huang Liji immediately relieved his mind after hearing this, and was able to turn the original aimless court push into the current pre-communication personnel, which was indeed a lot of effort for the cabinet. This can be regarded as a compromise between the civil officials and the emperor, so that the two sides do not have to speculate and fight in private.

Of course, this is also because neither Chongzhen nor Huang Liji wants another person who opposes reform to take over the position of first assistant. This will not only lead to a reversal of reform policies over the past few years, but it will also lead to a political reckoning for reformers, which is not an undesirable outcome for both sides.

The second important thing that Huang Liji proposed was to ask the emperor if he wanted to change the yuan, he observed Chongzhen's face and said unhurriedly: "... Now the Mongolian tribes have presented the jade seal of the country to His Majesty, and have been given the honorific title of Heavenly Khan, although the previous dynasties of this dynasty are one emperor and one yuan, but according to the current situation, it is natural for His Majesty to change the yuan..."

Zhu Youzhen quickly understood what Huang Liji meant, the so-called change of yuan is also to commemorate or celebrate the occurrence of a certain event, which is equivalent to the reigning emperor making some kind of meritorious service for future generations to remember.

He just hesitated, then shook his head and said: "It's still not necessary, the Mongolian tribes have not all surrendered, and the trouble of Houjin has not been completely eliminated. ”

Although Zhu Youzhen didn't like the name Chongzhen, he was not so taboo that he needed to take the initiative to avoid it, so after a short period of thought, he rejected Huang Liji's proposal.

Huang Liji's face did not show a look of disappointment, but he immediately mentioned the third matter, which was about land reform. He didn't know what the emperor had just explained to Cui Chengxiu, so he only made his own suggestions to the emperor as the first assistant to the cabinet.

As the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, in fact, Huang Liji is the person in charge of maintaining the normal operation of this country. From his gaze, the current Daming is like a seriously ill patient who is recovering day by day, no longer like before Chongzhen ascended the throne, the court was helpless, watching Daming's condition deteriorate day by day.

As the person in charge of Chongzhen's reform, Huang Liji naturally hoped that the reform would take effect and restore the Ming Dynasty to its prosperity in the early Wanli period. In this way, his reputation in the history books will not be lower than that of Zhang Jiangling. Now that he was ready to step down from the position of Shousuke, he began to think about his posthumous name.

Under such circumstances, Huang Liji naturally did not want to cause side effects, which greatly reduced the results of his reform. It was he who suggested that the emperor might as well compromise with the Shandong gentry on the matter of land reform, so that the two sides did not have to be at odds, so that the Shandong gentry fell to the side of the Jiangnan gentry. After all, judging from the current reform process, it will soon be pushed from the north to the south.

The Jiangnan gentry had much more control over the local area than the northern gentry. After all, the natural conditions in the south are much better than those in the north, and the yeoman farmers in the south can still get by, and they don't like any changes in their lives so much. In addition, Huang Liji also hopes that the large-scale migration to overseas can be stopped and resources can be used at home.

Zhu Youzhen did not agree with Huang Liji's proposition, he thought for a long time before saying: "Since I ascended the throne, I have also understood the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty.

The officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty blamed every thing the court wanted to do, and as long as there was a little flaw, they had to be criticized under a magnifying glass, that is, the so-called eggs and bones.

And these same officials and gentry will persuade others to accept a matter that is a foregone conclusion, even if it does more harm than good, and will never propose to reform such a matter.

What did those officials say, in the officialdom, there are cases that are not abolished, and there are no cases that are not prosperous. These people regard the reluctance as a motto for promotion and wealth. What is the use of such a person for Daming?

Sir, don't look at the opposition of these gentry bureaucrats to the reform policy with such violence, as if it were the tide of the Qianjiang River on August 15. But as long as we make up our minds to have a tough fight with them, it remains to be seen who will wear leggings after the tide goes out. ”

The corners of Huang Liji's eyes jumped, and he didn't know how to respond to the emperor's words. However, Chongzhen only paused slightly, and then jumped to another topic.

"As for what the gentleman said, the resources should be spent in the country, and the population should also be kept on the mainland, so that these people will not be difficult for the imperial court to manage after they are far away from the mainland, but will become an external trouble, and reduce the tax revenue in the country.

I don't agree with Mr. Ir's idea, I have read a lot of history, but I have also gained some things, so I will ask him to judge it. I thought that our country had a history of thousands of years, and it could be called a powerful dynasty, but it was just Qin, Han, Tang and my Ming Dynasty. The other generations, with the exception of the Meng Yuan, are difficult to compare with these dynasties.

As for the reason why these dynasties were strong, I thought it was these dynasties that targeted external enemies. Qin annihilated the Six Kingdoms, Han expelled the Xiongnu, Tang destroyed the Turks, and our Ming Dynasty took Mongolia as its enemy. However, when these dynasties abandon their external goals and retreat to self-control, it is often the beginning of the decline of the dynasty.

Even if I am the Ming Dynasty, I was able to sweep the Mongolian steppe in the early days, but once the strategy was contracted, it was invaded by the Mongolian tribes under the city of Beijing several times. Even the small Jurchen clan at the beginning now occupies the entire Liaodong, and my Ming soldiers can only stick to the fortified city and dare not go out of the city to fight.

I often think, why is this so? Now there is a small gain, and if an empire wants to unite the hearts of the people, it is not enough to rely on education and rest with the people, the empire also needs an enemy. The people need to redirect their daily misery to hatred of their enemies, and the upper echelons of the empire need new lands and new people to support their extravagant lives.

But once the empire stops expanding, the upper echelons of the empire will inflict their own ** on the people, and the people will direct their pain and hatred to the upper echelons of the empire.

Therefore, empires rise to the outside world and die to a halt. In today's Ming Dynasty, the wealth we use to support the consumption of the bureaucracy and gentry comes from overseas, the resources used to build the country come from overseas, and the resentment of those people at the bottom is also used to expand overseas.