Wang Siren, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, was in charge of the ceremonies of the Ministry of Rites and the reception of foreign guests, and Zhu Youzhen did not have much expectations for the foreign affairs of the Ming Dynasty, but he still gave Wang Siren a task, that is, to send officials to Ryukyu and Japan and other countries next year, and even take the initiative to contact the Dutch East India Company.

Zhu Youzhen believes that before the Ming Dynasty decided to rely on war to compete for overseas interests, the Ming Dynasty should use diplomatic means to promote the degree of diplomatic relations and foreign trade openness between the two countries.

Of course, this is only one of the many tasks of Wang Siren, the right attendant of the Ministry of Ceremonies, and as the person in charge of foreign affairs, he also has to set up a translation school, which is specially responsible for training general affairs and diplomats in various Chinese languages.

In addition, Wang Siren also has to manage the foreign affairs that come to China, and now with Zhu Youzhen's intention to open the country, in order to promote the development of the natural science field of the Ming Dynasty, he intends to recruit Western scholars who are good at natural science research, so there are more and more missionaries who come to the Ming Dynasty.

Naturally, the Ministry of Rites, as the department that manages these foreigners, cannot ignore the discipline of these people.

However, all this should not be a problem for Wang Siren, today's Ming is not the end of the Qing Dynasty that was bullied by the powers, and has extraterritoriality, and the foreign fans do not dare to despise the Ming Dynasty, although the Ming Dynasty is now only half of the country, but it is still an eastern power in the eyes of overseas countries.

Even the current Japan does not dare to underestimate the Ming Empire.

And as the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, Wang Siren is unlikely to have a flattering attitude towards the outside world, and in the current Ming Dynasty, the scholars still have a national self-confidence in the outside world.

Sometimes, Zhu Youzhen had to persuade Wang Siren and other Ming officials not to care too much about the respect of the kingdom, and to absorb as much as possible the good technology and scholarship of the foreign world.

After summoning the Ministry of Rites, only the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Criminal Affairs, and the Ministry of Officials were left among the six departments, but Zhu Youzhen did not intend to give any instructions to the Ministry of Justice, after all, the Ministry of Justice, together with Dali Temple and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, are judicial supervision organs.

When the autocratic emperor was still in power, there could be no reform in the Three Law Divisions, and of course, there would be no legal system in the current Ming Dynasty.

The outer court of the Ming political system is composed of the cabinet and six ministries and five temples, the five temples are Dali Temple, Taichang Temple, Guanglu Temple, Taifu Temple, Honglu Temple, Dali Temple as the supreme appellate organ and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Criminal Department to form three legal divisions, as mentioned earlier, Zhu Youzhen has no intention of reforming the judiciary for the time being.

In addition to the Taifu Temple, which is in charge of Ma Zheng, the responsibilities of the other three temples overlap with the Ministry of Rites, and Zhu Youzhen plans to let Liu Zongzhou take charge of these three temples at that time, which can be regarded as streamlining the organization and eliminating redundant personnel.

For the horse administration of Taifu Temple, Zhu Youzhen also plans to attribute Taifu Temple to the Ministry of War and be managed by the Ministry of War, after all, the main purpose of horses is cavalry combat.

This is equivalent to further strengthening the functions and powers of the six ministries, in addition to the six ministries, Dali Temple Zhengqing, Zuodu Yushi, and the general political envoy are still with the six Shangshu to form the Jiuqing.

Zhu Youzhen's assumption was that in the future, major matters would still be decided by the Six Ministries and Nine Secretaries, but the daily administrative affairs would be handled by the Cabinet with full powers, and in addition to the Criminal Department and the Dali Temple of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry, and the Guozijian and the Hanlin Yuan, which were not among the six ministries and nine secretaries, were all responsible to the Cabinet.

Of course, the Ministry of War is also accountable to the Generalissimo's Office and serves as a bridge between the Generalissimo's Office and the Cabinet.

Zhu Youzhen knew that the current cabinet of the Ming Dynasty was actually the highest decision-making body of the Ming Dynasty, but he wanted to make this system clear, and even directly write it into the Emperor's decree to avoid another change in the cabinet's functions and powers in the future, and even meddle in military affairs and justice.

Now Zhu Youzhen has already made the three law divisions independent, and the cabinet is not in charge of the Criminal Department, Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

The court officials of the Three Law Divisions are directly responsible to themselves, the emperor.

Like the Generalissimo's Office, which manages the military affairs of the world, under his own emperor, the empire began to truly realize the separation of powers between the executive, military, and judicial.

As an intervention agency in the administration, Zhu Youzhen does not want to abolish the celebrant and the six branch corridors, after all, this is an important part of protecting his imperial power.

As the organization department of the Ming Dynasty, the Ministry of Officials managed the promotion and demotion of officials in the world, and had great power, and even could compete with the cabinet in the early days of the empire, but now Zhu Youzhen continues to clearly recognize that his authority is under the cabinet, so it is natural to strengthen the ruling authority of the cabinet in terms of administrative officials.

This would facilitate the unification of decrees and the faster way for those in charge of the Cabinet to reform the new policy.

Of course, because of the addition of the Generalissimo's Office and the theater system, the highest-ranking local officials, namely the Governor and the Commander-in-Chief, as well as the independence of the judiciary and the existence of the celebrant superintendent, the prefects of the Three Law Divisions and the six section officials, as well as the officials of the inner court and even the high-ranking officials of the administrative system, such as the cabinet ministers and the officials of the six ministries, are still directly appointed by Zhu Youzhen, including the officials of the Generalissimo's Office.

However, the first assistant of the cabinet began to have the right to recommend the officials of the six ministries, and in order to ensure the effective implementation of the cabinet decrees, most of the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen would also follow the advice of the first assistant of the cabinet to appoint and dismiss the senior officials and cabinet ministers of the six ministries.

In other words, the Cabinet now has the power to appoint and dismiss officials from the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Rites, and the administrative officials below the level of local governors.

Except for the low administrative ability of the cabinet ministers or the serious party strife in the empire, which led to the six section officials and celebrant supervisors and the generalissimo's office deliberately embarrassing the cabinet, basically the daily administrative affairs of the entire Ming Empire, Zhu Youzhen can ignore it, which can be regarded as reducing his work burden.

Zhu Youzhen can basically completely let go of the daily affairs of the administration and let the cabinet preside over it, while the public security and criminal cases of the judicial organs can be completely handled by the three law divisions, and generally there will be no major cases that will alarm him, the emperor.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen felt that he could work more easily after the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, and it was completely possible to spend his mind only on military and industrial advancement.

Among the current cabinet scholars, Wu Xian had already resigned a month ago, and this time Zhu Youzhen approved his resignation.

And He Tengjiao was instructed by Zhu Youzhen to impeach a royal historian for He Tengjiao's inaction during the Huguang period, which caused Zuo Liangyu to rebel, and Zhu Youzhen degraded He Tengjiao as Guangxi's envoy on the grounds of leniency, supervised the school administration, and ordered him to improve the education level of the people in Guangxi, which can be regarded as a meritorious service.

Gao Hongtu is still on vacation, and Zhu Youzhen has issued an order that he can return to Beijing after the end of the first month.

Li Banghua and Lu Zhenfei have been added to the official titles of young master and young bao respectively, and no longer serve as cabinet scholars.

In other words, among the current cabinet scholars, there are only Fan Jingwen, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Ma Shiying, a scholar of Wu Yingdian University.

At the same time, Zhu Youzhen also added Liu Zongzhou, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, as a scholar of Wenyuange University, Song Yingxing, the secretary of the Ministry of Engineering, as a scholar of Dongge University, and Ma Shiying also replaced Gao Hongtu's position and became the second assistant of the cabinet.

(End of chapter)