At the imperial meeting in late June, a group of cabinet ministers walked into the conference room one after another, one of them was only about forty years old, and the middle-aged man who looked particularly young in the group of old men kept smiling, and then poured tea and water himself.

But in fact, this person is a serious cabinet member, and he is actually the new Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, An Huaquan.

After graduating from Imperial University in the early years, he took the national examination and won the first place that year, and then entered the secretariat for several years, and then went to work in Shanghai, and then went to work in Shanghai, and then went to serve as an important position, and later transferred back to the Central Committee as the director of the General Affairs Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Then, before the age of 40, he was transferred back to the cabinet and became the co-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and this year he was promoted to the new minister of agriculture and forestry.

Anwar Ibrahim is only 46 years old this year, but he has become a veritable cabinet minister, although the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is quite low in the cabinet, but being able to become a minister at the age of 46 is a rare thing in the empire in the past ten years.

However, although he was in a high position at a young age, Anwar was not arrogant or anything like that, on the contrary, he knew very well that he belonged to the junior generation in the cabinet, and when he participated in the cabinet meetings of the imperial cabinet in the first few times, unless necessary, he generally only listened honestly and did not speak.

And he also did what every newcomer to the cabinet needs to go through, that is, serving tea and pouring water!

This is because the Imperial Cabinet meetings are confidential, and the meetings are attended by the Prime Minister, the Associate Minister, and the Ministers, as well as the Director of the Secretariat and the Managing Director.

Then came the emperor Lin Zhe and several princes who were observing.

Unless it is specially arranged, other people are not qualified to attend the meeting, and they are not even allowed to sit in on the meeting.

However, meetings are generally relatively long, and someone must do the work of pouring tea and water, so this has formed an unwritten rule, and the latest newcomer to the cabinet is responsible for serving tea and pouring water.

And Anwar is a newcomer in this group, so even if Anwar is a minister outside, many officials have to respectfully say An Ge Lao when they see it.

However, in this conference room, Anwar didn't dare to be presumptuous, honestly served tea and poured water, and only sat down at the end of the rectangular table after it was over.

The seats of individuals in this conference room are also exquisite, Emperor Lin Zhe needless to say, he is sitting on a separate throne in front of the rectangular table, and there are several seemingly inconspicuous chairs arranged on both sides of the rectangular table, but don't look at the chairs inconspicuous, but these chairs are the seats of the princes who are observing the meeting.

The director of the Secretariat and a deputy director of general affairs stayed next to Lin Zhe, but they were mainly responsible for paperwork and helping Lin Zhe deliver documents, etc., unless Lin Zhe took the initiative to ask, otherwise they had no right to speak on cabinet affairs.

The seats of the ministers are all on the rectangular table, of which the first place on the left is naturally the seat of the Prime Minister, the first place on the right is usually the position of the Minister of Economy with the rank of Associate Minister, and the second position on the left and right is the position of the two Associate Ministers, and then the position of the ministers of each ministry.

The positions of these ministers were basically determined at the first imperial meeting of the founding of the country, and although no one said anything, no one dared to sit in a disorderly manner.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has always been ranked low in the cabinet, generally at the bottom of the left, and opposite An Huaquan sits the Minister of Transport, who is also not highly ranked.

One Prime Minister, one Minister of Economy with the rank of Associate Minister, two Associate Ministers, and 10 ministers from various ministries are all counted out, and there are only 15 people who are eligible to attend the Imperial Cabinet meeting.

Generally speaking, they discuss and make decisions on the vast majority of the country's internal affairs, and when there is no decision, it is generally held in an open vote, and when the vote is made, the fifteen people have one vote, and whichever side has the most votes is the one side that passes

However, when the matter is related to the supervision and judicial decision, the president of the Inspectorate or the president of the Supreme Court will also attend and express their opinions.

At the same time, the Cabinet does not have the power to decide on war-related matters, and when it comes to important matters such as whether or not to carry out a war or whether to armistice or not, it is common to convene a joint strategic meeting of the Imperial Front, and the members of the military high command and the members of the Cabinet attend to discuss the matter.

As for the detailed operational affairs after the start of the war, it was a separate military meeting of the Imperial Front, and only military generals participated in the meeting.

Generally speaking, Lin Zhe deals with government affairs with relatively large impact through this kind of small-scale imperial meeting, usually when there is no major matter, the imperial cabinet meeting once a month to deal with some matters that cannot be resolved through negotiation within the cabinet.

However, this is not a rigid rule, and the Imperial Council can be convened at any time as long as necessary.

Of course, these imperial meetings are all about dealing with major matters, and ordinary government affairs are generally handled through processes such as excerpts and other documents, and Lin Zhe will also frequently meet with ministers in ordinary times.

Although Lin Zhe did not like to hold court meetings as much as the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, his efficiency in handling government affairs was far higher than that of the emperors of those traditional dynasties.

Because Lin Zhe is not working alone, behind him, there is a palace secretariat with a scale of hundreds of people to assist him in handling the work.

Anwar Ibrahim has not been in office for the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry for a long time, and he has only participated in two imperial meetings before, so today he just sat in his place after doing the work of serving tea and pouring water according to the practice of the previous times, and then talked in a low voice with Qian Yuanli, the Minister of Justice next to him.

Qian Yuanli became the Minister of Justice two years earlier than him, and he is not very old, 50 years old this year, although he was born in the provincial examination, he has good ability and is willing to learn after entering politics, and has presided over the compilation of many major laws and regulations.

The Ministry of Justice of the Reich is actually different from the Ministry of Justice in the sense of the later generations, and the Ministry of Justice in later generations is different from country to country, some are in charge of lawyers, sound courts, some hold procuratorial positions, and are responsible for prosecuting, etc., but the Ministry of Justice of the Reich is not responsible for these things.

The Ministry of Justice of the Empire is responsible for compiling and revising laws and regulations!

In other words, the Ministry of Justice is not about enforcing the law and upholding the law, but about making laws.

However, unlike the various parliaments that had legislative power in later generations, the Imperial Ministry of Justice did not have the power to issue laws, and the power to make laws was vested in the Emperor.

Generally speaking, the Ministry of Justice proposes various laws and regulations, and then asks the emperor to promulgate them, and after the emperor promulgates the law, the patrol police department enforces the law and the inspectorate conducts a public prosecution, and the court makes a judgment.

At the same time, the Inspectorate is also responsible for some administrative affairs to maintain laws and regulations, such as establishing and improving the lawyer system, evaluating and issuing lawyer qualification certificates, and so on.

Although the Ministry of Justice has the power to compile laws, in practice this power is very limited, because it is not they who have the final say in making certain laws, but the emperor, and their main job is to do some paperwork and formulate detailed laws and regulations.

Therefore, among the ministries of the empire, the status of the Ministry of Justice is not too high.

There are only three of the most important departments in the empire, one is the finance department, one is the industry and commerce department, and the other is the organization department. Although the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is only responsible for industrial and commercial affairs, under the wave of the industrial revolution in the empire, the development of industry and commerce is the most important thing, so the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has always been one of the most powerful departments in the cabinet.

In the early years, when Jiang Daoquan was the Minister of Education, the Ministry of Education was still more powerful, but since Jiang Daoquan stepped down as Minister of Education, and in 1876, when he was appointed from the position of Associate Minister due to old age and illness, the importance of the Ministry of Education has declined even more.

In the final analysis, the weight of the Ministry of Education in the early years was because of Jiang Daoquan, and it can be said that Jiang Daoquan held up a piece of the sky for the Ministry of Education, not that the Ministry of Education brought any power to Jiang Daoquan.

Today's Ministry of Education has become a veritable noble department, which is good for raising hope, but it is basically impossible to gain any voice in the cabinet.

After the two of them whispered for a while, they saw another person coming in from outside, and Anwar recognized that this person was the deputy director of general affairs of the palace secretariat, and the position of deputy director of the palace secretariat was indefinite, but there was only one deputy director of general affairs, and he was a veritable second-in-command in the secretariat.

When this man came in, he sang: "The emperor has arrived!" ”

Immediately, everyone in the conference room immediately stood up, and then they saw Lin Zhe walking into the conference room with steady steps, followed by Lin Xuan and the other four princes.

After Lin Zhe took his seat, Lin Zhe stretched out his hand and pressed down, and everyone took their seats one after another, and the four princes also sat on one side.

At this time, Lin Zhe spoke: "Let's start the Zhongqing family!" ”

As in the usual imperial meetings, Lin Zhe has always disliked to talk too much, sometimes after the entire imperial meeting, Lin Zhe will not say more than ten sentences, and when he speaks, it is often when he approves a certain proposal, and he never participates in the discussion of the courtiers.

This kind of relatively large-scale imperial meeting, in most cases, is the cabinet ministers themselves to discuss, the quarrel, the quarrel, the ministers are also accustomed to this, if you think that there is His Majesty in front, do not dare to let go of the debate, then the unlucky is yourself, immediately the cabinet Prime Minister Guo Longyun is the first to speak: "Today we have to discuss a lot of things, first of all, talk about the reform of customs tariffs!" (To be continued.) )