After comforting Shen Shiming on the phone, Li Yongji originally wanted to make a phone call to Wang Tao, but after thinking about it again, he felt that the current situation of the cabinet was not the same as what he originally thought, and it was somewhat unworthy of the name, so he decided to take this opportunity to reorganize the cabinet of the State Council and give full play to the principle of democratic centralism in the cabinet.

Why? We have to start at the beginning.

In the past, when Li Yongchang was in power, government affairs were actually Li Yongchang's personal words, and all policies came from him and his staff group, and his staff group could reach 38 people at the most.

In other words, in that era when the Chinese Empire had not yet been established and the New Deal had not been implemented, there was no such thing as a cabinet system.

After the founding of the Chinese Empire, although Li Yongji implemented a cabinet system, because Li Yongchang was still in power at the beginning, he also moved in the staff system, and the prime minister responsibility system was actually implemented.

As for the other cabinet members, at the beginning they were more honorable nominations, in other words, most of the first cabinet members were not nominated for the cabinet because of their governing ability, but because of other talents.

In this regard, just look at the list of cabinet candidates in the first batch.

The first batch of cabinet members were Li Yongchang, Rong Hong, Wang Tao, Huang Kuan, Yang Fang, Xu Shou, Li Shanlan, Hua Hengfang, and Wu Jialian, a total of nine people.

It can be seen from this that more than half of the cabinet members were valued and nominated by Li Yongji because of their scientific and technological level, and the purpose was to show that they paid attention to science and foreign affairs, but the soldiers did not expect them to have much ability to govern.

In this, Huang Kuan, Xu Shou, Li Shanlan, Hua Hengfang, and Wu Jialian are just in the name of cabinet members, and in fact, they are still concentrating on research in the secret base of Guangde County.

The remaining four are all in the State Council in Suzhou, but except for former Prime Minister Li Yongchang, everyone else. That is, Rong Hong, Wang Tao, and Yang Fang.

These three people did not pose a threat to Li Yongchang at all, but at that time, Li Yongchang was more modest and cautious, and held meetings at every turn, that is, holding cabinet meetings, which allowed everyone to speak freely, so the cabinet meeting was barely like that, but in essence, it was the Prime Minister's Office that had the final say.

In other words, at least for now. Cabinet members are just a nice name, but they just put an extra word on their heads, but at least for the time being, except for the emperor or the prime minister to make speeches and suggestions when the cabinet meeting is convened, they do not have much ability to influence the government, and the power in their hands is more of their actual position.

For example, when I was nominated. Rong Hong is already the Minister of Foreign Affairs, so his actual power lies in diplomacy; Wang Tao is the Minister of Education, and his power is limited to education; Yang Fang is the Minister of Finance, so his power is mainly in the financial sector.

Although, according to the structure of the government. The highest authority in the State Council is the cabinet, but because during the period when Li Yongchang was prime minister, a situation in which the prime minister's family was dominant, and most of the other cabinet members became decorations. So it can be said that the rules that were made at the beginning have been broken.

Now, Lee Yong-gil has decided to make a radical change, both to maintain the authority of the prime minister. It is also necessary to make cabinet meetings the norm and appropriately restrain the prime minister, so that democratic centralism is truly reasonable.

Otherwise, today you sue me, and tomorrow he will report to me, and it will be endless.

Why does the cabinet have nine people? To put it bluntly, it is brainstorming, and the cabinet is essentially a place where meetings are held to discuss and vote.

However, if the Cabinet is to be truly in power, it is necessary to release some of the prime minister's arbitrary powers to the cabinet. There is only one answer, the veto!

It was with this kind of intention in mind, and Li Yongji's plan to implement new weights and measures in the near future and fully implement simplified characters, so he took this opportunity to take the time to return to Yonghua Palace, and in the name of the emperor, he gathered all the cabinet members who were still in the State Council, and held a small cabinet meeting in the Qingxin Hall of Yonghua Palace.

Except for the honorary cabinets of Guangde County, as well as Rong Hong, who went to the United States, there were not many people present, only Shen Shiming, Wang Tao, and Yang Fang.

Although there are few people, the power of these three people is not small, and they can almost be said to be the hottest members of the Chinese Empire at present, and they almost represent three factions respectively.

Shen Shiming didn't say anything, although he was a newcomer, the prime minister's position was too authoritative, and he had the emperor's support behind him, so he would definitely be the boss of the State Council in the future. Therefore, he can be called an airborne faction, or an emperor faction.

Although Wang Tao actually only focuses on education, he has considerable power because of his abundant funds and large number of people.

Because many people who understand Westernization are mostly from his disciples or have been recommended by him, Wang Tao has vaguely become the leader of the Westernization faction.

Since the empire has always attached great importance to foreign affairs, most of the officials of the central departments of the State Council are from Westerners or know a little about foreign affairs, so the Westernization faction should be the most powerful faction in the imperial government at present.

Yang Fang was originally the mayor of Shanghai, and later because of Li Yongchang's vigorous promotion, he became the minister of finance, not to mention the importance of this position.

In other words, Yang Fang is now responsible for the treasury and financial problems of the empire, and this guy has lived up to expectations, at least for now, it seems that he is in good order.

Although Yang Fang also understands foreign affairs, because most of the people under him are former Qing officials, such as Xue Huan, Wu Xu and others, these former Qing officials are now re-promoted under his disciples, so Yang Fang should actually be regarded as old-fashioned.

It's just that because the former Qing officials recruited by Yang Fang are all those who are more familiar with foreign affairs, or can adapt to foreign affairs, and most of these people are re-emerging, paying attention to Tianxingjian, and gentlemen are constantly striving for self-improvement, so they can also be said to be self-improvement.

In fact, for those officials of the former Qing Dynasty in the early days, since Li Yongji's rebellion, they were all released after being detained for a while, showing considerable generosity.

However, although these people did not suffer any trouble, they suddenly changed from high-ranking officials to ordinary people, and the gap was not ordinarily large.

Among them, it can be roughly divided into three categories:

The first category is not adapted to the new era and is powerless to change this qiē. can only get by, and then sink, many former Qing bureaucrats who get drunk all day long are mostly these people.

The second type is not adapting to new changes, and trying to change a qiē. These are the people who are on the bus. The energy of this group of people was originally very small, and it used to be the most powerful group, but after the bus book incident, this faction was hit hard, and it has died down for the time being.

Category III. It's the self-improvement faction mentioned earlier. This part of the people know the current affairs, know how to be flexible, and after realizing that the general trend of the previous dynasty has gone, they decisively find a way to hug their thighs everywhere, even if they are shameless, they must regain power.

Xue Huan and Wu Xu are examples of this kind of people, Wu Xu won't talk about it, Xue Huan was a person with a higher status than Li Yongji, and he once served as the governor of Liangjiang. But after recuperating at home for a period of time, he decisively changed his door and started from scratch.

He was introduced to Yang Fang and met with Li Yongchang. And he quickly impressed Li Yongchang and obtained a position as the director of the Customs Department.

You know, at that time, there was no imperial examination reform, and the Chinese Empire had not yet been established. Xue Huan was able to change the court so early, which can be regarded as great perseverance, and his approach has also given him full rewards.

Now. Xue Huan is already the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and he has climbed back to the position of minister, that is, from the position of a first-class official, compared with the authority of the past, it is not much better.

In a short period of time, Xue Huan's ability is not to mention, the key is amazing, if this is not a cabinet meeting, but a ministerial meeting, then he may have to show up.

In fact, there are many people like Xue Huan, but there are not many who can climb so fast, and more than half of the officials at all levels in the Chinese Empire are actually officials of the former Qing Dynasty. Otherwise, how could it be possible to provide a large number of qualified officials to the new imperial government in such a short time, just because the civil service examination and the internal affairs examination, which have not yet been implemented and have not really worked.

It can be said that in the current cabinet, most of Wang Tao's Western-style faction holds the power of the central government, and most of the ministerial-level officials at all levels are from the Western-style faction, while Yangfang's Tuqiang faction mainly controls the local grass-roots level, and most of the local grass-roots cadres are from the Tuqiang faction, that is, the old-school bureaucrats.

Due to the small number of people in the meeting, plus the emperor Li Yongji, there are only four people in total, so there is no need to be too complicated.

At the very beginning, Li Yongji went straight to the point and put forward Shen Shiming's statement, that is, he agreed with Shen Shiming's practice of taking the rule of law as the skin and the rule of man as the inside, and appropriately carrying out some small internal reforms to better adapt to the environment.

However, immediately afterwards, Lee Yong-gil put forward another reform proposal, that is, if a cabinet member questioned the prime minister's order, then if the emperor could not be contacted, or if the emperor did not say anything and did not make a ruling himself, as long as three or more cabinet members jointly applied for it, an enlarged cabinet meeting could be compulsorily convened.

At an expanded Cabinet meeting, all Cabinet members are required to attend or speak by phone to discuss whether the Prime Minister's decision-making should be communicated to Guò.

In the end, whether the Prime Minister's questionable decision can be made depends entirely on the voting situation of the enlarged Cabinet meeting, and the voting at the enlarged Cabinet meeting is based on the principle that the minority obeys the majority.

In other words, at an enlarged cabinet meeting, the prime minister has only two votes and the others have one vote, and if the number of votes for agreement is equal to the number of negative votes, it will be considered a pass, and only if there is a majority of opposition can the prime minister's controversial decision be rejected.

In other words, giving the enlarged cabinet meeting an additional veto power to negate the prime minister's decision-making is equivalent to giving the prime minister an additional constraint, so that the prime minister cannot really cover the sky with one hand, and in this way, the cabinet meeting will no longer be an ornament, and other cabinet members other than the prime minister will have more power, and once there is a problem, it can be completely used to fight against the prime minister's disorderly government.

Although it is difficult to implement this veto power, it is the same as nuclear weapons, which are completely different from whether they are used or not, and whether they are used or not. In other words, once this power is available, the power of other cabinet members will be artificially expanded, and cabinet members will not just be an honorary title, but a real powerful minister.

What's even better is that these policies are under the authority of the emperor, which means that if the emperor intervenes, he doesn't have to say anything, he listens to the emperor, but if the emperor doesn't care about anything, then the State Council can still run smoothly, and there won't be too much chaos. (To be continued......)