Forbidden City, Qianqing Palace.

After Liu Jun became emperor, as in the previous dynasty, he took the Qianqing Palace, the head of the inner court, as his bedroom. This palace at the head of the Houcourt is one of the three palaces of the Inner Court, which has been burned down and rebuilt several times in history.

Qianqing Palace is the top of the yellow glazed tile heavy eaves palace, is located on the single-layer white marble pedestal, the corridor is 9 rooms wide, 5 rooms deep, the construction area reaches more than 2 acres, and the height from the table top to the main ridge is more than 20 meters.

Between the east and west two ends is the warm pavilion, the back eaves set up the fairy building, the two ends are through the hall, can pass through the Thai Palace, Kunning Palace. The palace is paved with gold bricks. On the spacious platform in front of the palace, there are copper turtles, copper cranes on the left and right respectively, sundials, Jialiang, set up gilt incense burners 4 in front, are in the middle of the Dan Majesty, connect with the high platform Yonglu and the Qianqing gate.

This lavish palace is extremely tall, with two floors and nine warm pavilions.

A major feature of the Qianqing Palace is that there are many rooms and beds, although this palace is only Liu Jun's dormitory, but there are twenty-seven beds in the palace, according to the practice of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Jun will sleep in different rooms every night, just in case, so that no one knows where the emperor sleeps.

Although Liu Jun is not worried about his safety in the palace, he has not changed these. In the more than 200 years of the Ming Dynasty, too many things happened in the Qianqing Palace, such as the Renyin Palace change in the Jiajing Dynasty, the Red Pill case in the Wanli Dynasty, and the palace transfer case of Taichang Concubine Li Xuan's competition to be the queen, all of which occurred in the Qianqing Palace.

After Liu Jun became emperor, the Ming system was still followed here, and it was used as an important place to summon courtiers, review chapters, and deal with daily affairs.

At this time, Liu Jun was dressed in a bright yellow robe, and there was no crown on his head, but he pulled his hair into a bun at some random, and then fixed it with a hosta, and tied a nine-dragon jade belt around his waist, and the jade belt was inlaid into nine dragon patterns by many white jade of the same size and specification, and a pair of bright yellow soft-soled boots were stepped on the soles of his feet.

Liu Jun was looking at the concerto, and the dynasty was beginning to stand. There are still many rebellions in the world, and countless things, big and small, are waiting for Liu Jun to deal with.

To tell the truth, Liu Jun felt that being the emperor was a lot tiring, no wonder someone once said that the emperor was actually a slave of the dynasty, and it was true.

However, many things have to be asked, and Liu Jun can't do it and throw everything aside.

After a busy day, Liu Jun couldn't help but be a little tired, and he stretched. I got up and moved.

"What time is it?"

"Back to Your Majesty, it's almost dinner time, do you want to pass on dinner?" Wang Kun, the eunuch on the side, hurriedly said.

Wang Kun is the old man who served as his director when Liu Jun was still the general soldier of Yunyang, and he has been following him in the past few years since then, and has played a great role in Liu Jun's development. After Liu Jun became emperor, he also made him the eunuch in charge of the seal. As for the original Wang Chengen, he asked him to serve the concubines of the former dynasty such as the Empress Dowager Zhou and the Empress Dowager Zhang.

Wang Zhixin, the former governor of Dongchang, was appointed as a eunuch of Bingbi, but not as the governor of Dongchang. The commander of Dongchang was changed to Lu Weining, another old eunuch of Liu Jun.

Although Wang Zhixin served as Bingbi, Liu Jun changed Bingbi from the original four. It has been promoted to seven, which is the same as the number of Cabinet Scholars.

Although he retained the eunuchs of the celebrant and the pen, these eunuchs would not be too harmful. Although many ministers have been writing to the courtiers to remove the power of the celebrant to approve red.

But Liu Jun did not agree.

It's not that Liu Jun is mediocre. Listen to traitors. It's the power of the celebrants and eunuchs to approve the red, and it's not as terrible as the ministers outside say. Actually, unless the emperor is a child of a few years old. Although the celebrants and eunuchs have the right to approve the red, in fact, this right is also greatly restricted.

The cabinet and the celebrant have the power to draw up votes. One has the right to approve red, although Liu Jun retains the Prime Minister's Office, but there is no auxiliary minister, the Prime Minister's Office is only equivalent to a court meeting.

The rank of the cabinet scholars has been improved, and they have the power of prime ministers more justly and smoothly, but it is a group system, and there are supervision and constraints between each other.

But the celebrant is different, even if they have the right to approve the red, they only have the right to approve on their behalf. The eunuchs were actually the emperor's private secretaries, and they approved the chapters on behalf of the emperor according to the emperor's requirements. In fact, every one of their instructions was just conveying the emperor's will.

The emperor is busy with government affairs, and Liu Jun alone will definitely not be busy, and there are special things in the palace, so no foreign ministers can enter it. Therefore, in the front court, there will be scholars, scholars, and Hanlin to assist Liu Jun, but when they arrive in the back court, they can only rely on the assistance of eunuchs.

Although the reputation of the eunuchs in the history books is the worst, in fact, although the eunuchs have the evil of indulgence, the eunuchs also gave great assistance to the emperor. It's just that eunuchs and courtiers are naturally hostile, and history books are written by officials, so they have this notoriety.

Liu Jun didn't want to whitewash the eunuchs, in fact, at the beginning of Liu Jun's ascension to the throne, he had already made a decree to recall the eunuchs from all over the world, and no longer send eunuchs to supervise the army, collect taxes, and take care of the emperor's village, the emperor's store, the official store, the official field, etc.

The eunuchs were only responsible for the affairs of the palace, and only one east factory was retained outside the palace.

The 24 yamen in the palace have been greatly reduced and reduced, and many institutions that are not particularly important have been cut and merged, and for some business, those that can be handed over to the outside will be directly handed over to the outside.

And now, Liu Jun is planning a new decision.

It is planned to further streamline and merge the eunuch institutions, and at the same time abolish most of the eunuchs, so that those who are old and sick will be released from the palace. Those who have family members are sent back to their hometowns and given monthly pensions in the future, and those who do not have family members are paid by the court to build nursing homes and settle them.

Even some young people must also be cut by half, and those who have family members are allowed to find their own way out and be given severance pay. If you don't have a family, the court arranges work.

Liu Jun wanted to cut the eunuchs at this time, but it was really because there were too many eunuchs.

There are more than 10,000 eunuchs in the palace, and recently the palaces of the former dynasties in various places have been abolished, and the eunuchs in the palaces have also been sent back to Beijing, adding up to more than 20,000, more than the palace. According to the rules, there was originally a fixed number of eunuchs in each palace, but many palaces were in violation.

Because life was difficult at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many people who couldn't survive went to the palace. After all, compared to starving to death, if you enter the palace after the palace, you can at least eat with a mouthful of food, and maybe even mix well.

Often when the imperial court wanted to recruit eunuchs, thousands of people from the palace sought to enter the palace at every turn.

Once, because the imperial court only recruited more than 1,000 people, as a result, four or five thousand people came from the palace, and the number of places was too small to be selected, and it also caused a rebellion of the purifiers, forcing the imperial court to recruit a lot more, and then distribute them to various places.

There are so many eunuchs, it is already seriously overstaffed.

Liu Jun planned that in the future, the eunuchs would only serve in the palace, so there would be no need for so many eunuchs in the palace.

He only planned to abolish most of them, and at present, the eunuchs add up to tens of thousands, and there are still many clans who have rebelled, and the eunuchs in the palace have not been sent back to Beijing.

Now there are about 35,000 eunuchs in Beijing, and Liu Jun plans to directly lay off 30,000 people first, leaving 5,000 people to use first, and then slowly streamline the eunuch yamen, and then abolish some eunuchs. Liu Jun felt that it was actually enough to have more than a thousand eunuchs in the palace.

After all, in addition to the eunuchs, there are also palace maids and maids in the palace, and there are not many people they have to serve. Liu Jun and his parents, wives and children, that is, a family, three or four thousand people to serve is far enough.

The situation of the palace maids was better than that of the eunuchs, and some of the palace people sent to Beijing in various royal palaces, but most of Liu Jun had the local officials dismiss them on the spot. After all, palace people are not eunuchs, eunuchs are a special group, but the palace maid is still an ordinary woman after leaving the palace.

Now the palace maids in the palace add up to no less than five thousand.

Liu Jun planned to cut 3,000 and leave 2,000 people.

In this way, the eunuchs judged 30,000, the palace maids 3,000, and the remaining eunuchs were 5,000 and the palace maids were 2,000.

In the future, it may be necessary to cut more than 1,000 eunuchs and more than 1,000 palace maids. A royal palace with three thousand people serving, is already quite a few.

Cutting out redundant eunuchs can also reduce the cost of the palace. At the same time, it can also strengthen the management of the people in the eunuch palace, especially no longer let the eunuchs out of the palace to prevent them from interfering in politics.

"It's so late? Let's pass the meal. ”

The emperor's meal was not as exaggerated as later generations imagined. Just like the imperial meals in the Forbidden Purple Palace, there are very strict regulations, such as the emperor's daily meal, which is only thirty-six taels. This is also the reason for the high price of the emperor's food, under normal learning, the emperor is not allowed to drink alcohol for breakfast and lunch, but must prepare wine for dinner.

After Liu Jun became the emperor, he didn't change the original rules much.

Lunch and dinner are still a must, and now Liu Jun's breakfast has 12 dishes, including pigs, cows, sheep, geese, chickens, fish, etc., as well as vegetables and tea. Lunch will have 20 dishes and will have a seafood dish.

What kind of bird's nest, shark fin, bear's paw, abalone and the like, even the emperor is not a meal. In fact, Liu Jun was no better than Chongzhen when he became the emperor, but he just had more beef, and the imperial court used to prohibit the slaughter of cattle privately. But now the Great Han has to be attached to the Mongolian tribes, and the trade of all kinds of livestock and fur is very smooth, so the beef and mutton ghee milk powder is not an uncommon thing, and the more precious thing is the seafood, after all, it has to be transported from Tianjin, which is hundreds of miles away.

Under normal circumstances, Liu Jun eats alone, and the other concubines are probably the same. According to the grade of each person, there will be a corresponding level of meals, and how much each meal is, there are regulations, and the imperial dining room will do it according to it. If the concubines have other requirements, they have to pay their own money to order in advance.

Soon the dinner had been delivered, and it was still twenty dishes, thirteen lingering dishes, seven vegetarian dishes, and tea and wine.

Each meal has already been tasted, so the dishes are not very hot, but fortunately it is summer.

Wang Kun saw that the emperor picked up the rice bowl, and hurriedly waved his hand, and immediately a team of palace people came forward with various musical instruments, sat on the side and began to play music.

The sober music sounded, which was really good. (To be continued.) )