The capital, the outer court, and the Wenhua Palace......

When these three place names appeared, the ministers of the 23rd year of the Apocalypse had already gathered, and today it was September 17, and there were still 53 days left before the day of King Qi's inauguration.

Around the long table, six ministers were seated, and the atmosphere was silent, until Hong Chengchou walked into the hall and sat on the main seat, and the solidified atmosphere was somewhat relieved.

The reason why they are like this is because on the first day of the ninth month, Zhu Ciran once again restructured the Ming Dynasty according to his own needs.

This restructuring involves many figures, and the content of the restructuring is the complete separation of the cabinet and the six ministries.

When it comes to the cabinet system, it is necessary to mention the relationship between the prime minister and the monarchy, which are very important in the political system.

After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty in the early Ming Dynasty, he believed: "Since ancient times, the three princes have been divided, and the six ministers have never been established. Because of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties, although there were virtuous ministers, there were many villains during the period, and the dictatorship was chaotic......"

In the thirteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang took the case of Prime Minister Hu Weiyong as an opportunity to order the abolition of the prime minister system established since the Qin Dynasty.

This practice strengthens the imperial power and facilitates the centralization of power to deal with things, but it is easy to cause the contradiction of the concentration of government affairs and the inability of the emperor.

In order to solve this new contradiction, in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang set up scholars in the palaces and pavilions, read the chapters, wholesale manuscripts, and assist the emperor in handling government affairs, but did not participate in decision-making.

In the early years of Yongle, Zhu Di inherited his father's will, and selected the Hanlin Academy to compile, lecture and read into the Wenyuan Pavilion, and participated in the maintenance of the machine, which was called the cabinet, and the cabinet system was formed.

At this time, the cabinet was only the emperor's private secretary, and the non-commissioned officers of the cabinet university were also low, only the fifth rank, and their status in the imperial court was not too high, and the cabinet was only equivalent to the emperor's advisers.

However, as the dynasty gradually stabilized, the need to deal with more than 200 pieces of music every day almost consumed most of the emperor's energy.

In addition, the emperor of the early Ming Dynasty still needs to go to court three times a day, so except for Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, who have good physical fitness, the physical fitness of other descendants is slightly worse and linked to diligence, it will inevitably be difficult to live long.

A diligent emperor does not live long, and it is not that he does not live for a long time.

In such a situation, the direct result is that there are many young emperors in the Ming Dynasty.

Such as Zhu Qizhen, Zhu Houzhao, Zhu Yijun, Zhu Youxiao, Zhu Youzhen and others.

Therefore, when the emperor was young, the cabinet would often act on behalf of the emperor to handle state affairs, and it was in this context that they gradually grasped greater power.

However, the scholars of the palace during the Zhu Yuanzhang period were just consultants.

As for Zhu Di, although he restored the palace scholars of the Hongwu period after his accession to the throne, the first batch of cabinet ministers did not enter the cabinet as palace scholars, and after entering the cabinet, only some of them were promoted to a certain palace or a certain cabinet scholar.

At first, they only participated in the aircraft affairs in the Wenyuan Pavilion as editors and other officials, called the cabinet, and gradually moved to the positions of bachelors and Zhan Shifu, and their power was not great.

The power of the cabinet is to be a tutor since the first year of Hongxi, and he has been promoted to a teacher, a scholar, a squire, a secretary, and a bachelor and a university scholar.

However, since Zhu Di set up the cabinet, not all cabinet ministers were able to obtain the title of a certain palace or a certain cabinet scholar.

During this period, ministers such as Xie Jin, Hu Yan, Ma Yu, Cao Nai, Miao Zhen, Yin Zhi and other ministers did not get the title of palace scholar for life.

This situation lasted until the end of Chenghua, basically one-third of the Ming Dynasty, and it was also the time when the imperial power was larger.

Such a cabinet system has both good and bad, and the advantage is that it shares the administrative pressure of the emperor and performs part of the functions of the prime minister.

Since the abolition of the prime minister by Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor has also taken care of the minister, and the task in the middle is unimaginable.

The highly centralized rule made the emperor need to devote a lot of energy to it, and the cabinet used the power of drafting, making edicts, etc., to command the ministries and institutes under the pretense of imperial power, in fact, fulfilling some of the responsibilities of the prime minister, so that the government could function, and at the same time did not violate the "Emperor Ming Zu Xun".

When the "Decree" system appeared in the later period of Xuanzong, the cabinet played the role of "interfering in the affairs of the machine" and helping the emperor to deal with administrative affairs.

After Yingzong ascended the throne, the Chinese and foreign concerts were signed by the cabinet, and the decisions of affairs were fully in the hands of the cabinet, which helped the emperor to relieve pressure and manage the government.

The existence of the cabinet system can be said to have strengthened the absolute monarchy of the Ming Dynasty, after all, since the abolition of the prime minister, six parts of the affairs of the general affairs, major matters by the Shangshu presided over by the court decision.

However, after the formation of the cabinet system, the first assistant relied on the emperor to command the six ministries, and the power of the six ministries was gradually eroded.

Since the cabinet can only be attached to the emperor, the expansion of the power of the cabinet is also the expansion of the emperor's power.

After the abolition of the prime minister, the political struggle continued to be intertwined between the Chinese and foreign dynasties, the emperor and the cabinet, the cabinet and the six ministries, the emperor and the Chinese and the DPRK, and so on.

But as the core of the centralized system, the emperor is mostly in the role of the controller.

It was not until the Hongji period that a new situation suddenly appeared in the temple and began, and this situation was broken.

During the Hongzhi period, no matter what position the cabinet ministers used to enter the Naobunyuan Pavilion, they could finally obtain the title of Scholar of the Imperial Court, and gradually formed a situation in which officials at all levels first added the title of Imperial Scholar and then entered the Cabinet.

After this beginning, if you can't use the rank of a scholar of the palace university, you will be regarded as an anomaly by the hundred officials.

This head seemed to be nothing at the time, but the power and responsibilities of the cabinet ministers reached their peak, and finally in the eighth year of Hongji, there was a phenomenon that the cabinet ministers were also selected by the court.

Tingtui, which was the main way to elect ministers in the Ming Dynasty, was not applicable to cabinet ministers before the eighth year of Hongzhi.

The cause of this incident was because of the lack of members in the cabinet, so Zhu Youzhu of Ming Xiaozong ordered to promote the cabinet ministers in the same way as other ministers in the court, so the Ministry of Officials together with the six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the General Administration Department, Dali Temple and the Taoist officials elected six ministers, and finally the emperor selected Li Dongyang and Xie Qian to enter the cabinet.

Because the court push was jointly elected by the Ministry of Officials, Jiuqing and Kedao, and the ministers who were elected were often some ministers with good prestige, the scholars of the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to the court push and believed that only the positions obtained through the court push were reasonable and legitimate.

The simple way in which the emperor used to appoint ministers directly seemed to them to be all disadvantages and had no merit at all.

Therefore, since the beginning of the eighth year of Hongzhi, the appointment by the emperor or the cabinet will lead to a lot of discussions, and often the officials appointed by the emperor do not take office, and many people feel ashamed that they are not appointed by the emperor but by the emperor.

After a long time, the emperor also lost the right to directly appoint ministers and be trusted by hundreds of officials, and the officials who were directly appointed were often discriminated against and excluded by their colleagues, and the emperor directly lost a card that could be played directly.

Although this cabinet system avoided the possibility of autocratic ministers and the election system was relatively open, the imperial power was not as great as before.

In addition, the existence of Tingtui requires canvassing, so such a system has gradually evolved into a cradle of partisan overturning

If the cabinet ministers want to hold power, on the one hand, they have to make friends with the internal supervisors, and on the other hand, they have to dump the same bachelors, so they will become a disaster of friends.

For example, Yan Song served as the first assistant, and his authority was extremely high, but he was overwhelmed by the cabinet minister Xu Jie.

Zhang Juzheng served as the first assistant, and because Feng Bao, the chief of ceremonies and ceremonies, was able to form a friend party before he could exercise power, but when he was reforming and reviving the decline, he was still not immune to the attacks of the officials, and was accused of being an arbitrary minister who seized power, and even after the disaster, he was robbed of his title and his family.

In the Ming Dynasty, the fierce rivalry between the friends and the cabinet system was closely related to the contradictions that did not match the name of the cabinet system, so that the cabinet ministers had to become a person who was good at dancing and walking between various parties.

It is difficult to select capable people in such a system, and people like Sun Chuanting and Kim Xuan, if it were not for Zhu Youzhen's strong support, it is estimated that it would be difficult to sit in the position of cabinet ministers for the rest of their lives, so Zhu Ciran's restructuring of the cabinet is a clear division of powers.

Since the beginning of September, the cabinet and the six ministries have been separated, and the cabinet scholars have been permanently designated as seven, namely Hong Chengchou, a scholar of Zhongjidian University, Jin Xuan, a scholar of Wenyuange University, Sun Chuanting, a scholar of Wuyingdian University, Li Changgeng, a scholar of Jianjidian University, Zhou Yanru, a scholar of Donggak University, Wen Tiren, a scholar of Wenlou University, and Yang Wenyue, a scholar of Wulou University.

The six Shangshu were reappointed as Fan Jingwen, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, Xu Xiake, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, Lu Xiangsheng, the secretary of the Ministry of War, Shen Tingyang, the secretary of the Ministry of Households, Chen Qiyu, the secretary of the Criminal Department, and Sun Yuanhua, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry.

In other words, the six ministries and the cabinet were separated, and the traditional court push system was also changed.

Although the seven ministers were still selected by the officials, the decision was made by the emperor, and the officials could only recommend the ministers, and the first assistant was appointed by the emperor.

In addition, the cabinet is divided into five years of assessment, the capable go up, and the weak go down.

In terms of rank, the cabinet controls six ministries and at the same time oversees state affairs.

The Cabinet has the power to appoint most officials below the six ministries and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and is responsible for formulating and implementing all major internal and external policies of the state.

At the same time, the cabinet was accountable to the emperor, regularly reported to the emperor, and was subject to the supervision of the six ministries, the Imperial Procuratorate, and the emperor.

If the Imperial Procuratorate reports the cabinet and the emperor approves it, the cabinet is suspended and must be inspected by the three divisions.

Generally speaking, under Zhu Ciran's new system, the cabinet did the same thing, but they no longer concurrently served as the six Shangshu, which made the emperor originally need to deal with the situation of six Shangshu and cabinet ministers, and became a cabinet minister and six Shangshu.

The triangular relationship is politically stable, and the reason why Zhu Ciran made such an arrangement was because he wanted the eunuch forces to withdraw from the stage and return to the political pattern of the early Ming Dynasty.

is also a triangular relationship, the relationship between the emperor, the six ministries, and the cabinet is much better than that of the emperor, civil officials, and eunuchs.

It can be seen that Zhu Ciran dislikes eunuchs meddling in politics very much, after all, he has walked through the people and heard about the chaotic situation caused by eunuchs meddling in politics during the Wanli period.

However, such a change has made the situation of the cabinet even more awkward.

Under the new system, the cabinet could exercise the power of the emperor.

But if the emperor is all workaholics like Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, Zhu Youzhen, and Zhu Ciran, then the cabinet is basically useless.

As long as the emperor is more diligent, the power of the cabinet will shrink a little, and the more diligent the emperor is, the less power the cabinet will have.

Although this strengthened the legitimacy of the cabinet, it also greatly limited the cabinet that developed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

The cabinet can be tough on the six ministries, but not on the emperor, this is the cabinet that Zhu Ciran wants, and he also completed the new cabinet system he wanted with the help of Zhu Youzhen's remaining prestige.

Under the new system, the cabinet is mainly to help the emperor deal with the slack, which can reduce Zhu Ciran's workload, unlike before, the cabinet ministers have to be busy with six things.

However, the disadvantages of this are also obvious, that is, once the emperor is lazy, the cabinet chief assistant can always govern the government, so it also has a certain binding force on the emperor.

For the cabinet, this is good news, and for Hong Chengchou, his happiest news is that under the new cabinet system, he has finally sat in the position of the first assistant to the cabinet that he dreamed of.

Without excitement or panic, Hong Chengchou quickly adapted to his power.

Today was the first meeting of the new cabinet, and he glanced at the six cabinet ministers, focusing on Sun Chuanting and Kim Hyun.

He knew very well that Kim Hyun represented Donggong and Sun Chuanting represented the northern generals.

Kim Hyun mainly supervises the cabinet, and Son Chuanting mainly checks and balances himself.

However, as far as they wanted to deal with themselves, Hong Chengchou wanted to laugh a little.

He is not afraid of direct ministers like Jin Xuan and Sun Chuanting, compared to them, Hong Chengchou is more worried about people like Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren who hide in the shadows and hide evil intentions.

However, the Jiangnan forces behind them have been temporarily disintegrated by the King of Qi, and there is no need to be afraid of them.

Now in the entire Ming Dynasty, the only thing he needs to worry about is His Royal Highness the King of Qi, who is about to become a vassal in more than fifty days......

Thinking of this, Hong Chengchou suddenly felt relaxed, and his posture in the face of the six ministers was more calm.

"Since the beginning of autumn, the drought in various places has subsided slightly, and it seems that only this year is needed, and the field income can be collected normally from next year."

"What needs to be paid attention to is whether the following officials have added miscellaneous ......"

Hong Seungchou narrowed his gaze, but his attention was still on Sun Chuanting and Kim Hyun.

For people like them who are worried about the country and the people, what he needs to do is to do what they like, let them deal with what they hate, and finally immerse themselves in it, unable to be distracted to deal with themselves.

"That's how it should be!"

"Seconded!"

Sure enough, Sun Chuanting and Jin Xuan opened one after the other, which was in Hong Chengchou's arms.

"Then the two of them will accompany Li Gechen to supervise the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Ministry of Officials, and the Yamen of the Ministry of Households."

"As for Wen Gechen and Zhou Gechen, they will continue to be in charge of the Criminal Department and the Ministry of Industry."

"Yang Gechen still has to focus on the major affairs of the world and work with me to solve the contradictions in various places."

Hong Chengchou's arrangement seems to be very appropriate, let Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren continue to stay in their comfort zone, do not come out to disturb themselves, and let Yang Wenyue, who is not as capable as himself, be his deputy to handle government affairs.

He arranged this way, poked at everyone's weaknesses at every point, and let the power firmly control his own hands.

Of course, his actions can also be seen by everyone, but everyone thinks that he can't make too many waves.

Although Zhu Ciran is not as good as Zhu Youzhen, he is not a mediocre master after all, not to mention that he still has Zhu Youxiao behind him, and Hong Chengchou can only exercise part of his power.

As soon as he exceeds his duty, he will be immediately restricted.

Thinking so, the first meeting of the cabinet passed without objection.

However, everyone has to put forward their own opinions on the affairs of the world.

Jin Xuan frowned and said: "Science and technology are the primary productive forces of the dynasty, and the investment in the armaments institute needs to be increased next year, and the tractors also need to be quickly put into the river and Nanzhou, and they need to be strictly guarded to avoid letting foreigners see this thing." ”

"If the supply problem of the garrison in the river can be solved, then the expenditure of the DPRK can appropriately reduce some of the burden."

After Jin Xuan's words were finished, Hong Chengchou took the lead in expressing his position, and patted his palm on the table.

Seeing this, Sun Chuanting also said:

"The quality and quality of the local soldiers and horses and government servants are uneven, and while rectification is urgently needed, it is recommended that students who graduate this year be selected."

"In addition, not only them, but also officials need to increase the intensity of inspection and assessment."

"Some officials have outdated thinking, and they should go home to retire and retire for the rest of their lives."

Although Sun Chuanting didn't look down on the Yanshan faction, he also saw a lot of advantages from the Yanshan faction.

Compared with the grassroots officials of the Ming Dynasty in the past, the grassroots officials of the Yanshan faction still have a bottom line, which also shows in disguise that the Yanshan faction pays more attention to human rights, although it is not obvious, but at least there is progress.

In Sun Chuanting's view, each generation of students will be more advanced than the previous generation of students, whether they have just stepped into the officialdom or have not had time to carry out evil deeds, in short, they also have advantages.

Since it is a plus, it should be amplified.

Although they are not as skilled as the officials they once were, at least they can learn.

The Ming Dynasty must continue to inject fresh blood in order to ensure that the rule of the Ming Dynasty continues to be clear.

In this regard, Hong Chengchou also passed the case.

"The affairs of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies need to be paid attention to by His Highness and Banzai."

Li Changgeng spoke as an old minister: "Throughout the ages, if a court is strong and strong and does not fight in all directions, it will inevitably cause trouble to Xiao Wall. ”

"Now that there is no war outside the country, why don't you reduce the army as appropriate?"

"Don't ......" Hong Chengchou rejected Li Changgeng's idea.

As a civilian official supported by the Western Army, it is impossible for Hong Chengchou to lift a stone to shoot himself in the foot, not to mention that the army of the Ming Dynasty has been cut down.

"Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, there were more than 70 million people in the world, and the territory was not as good as my Ming Dynasty, and it was still necessary to maintain 570,000 troops."

"Now my Ming territory is several times more than Tang, and the soldiers and horses are only 690,000."

"As long as the dynasty resumes normal taxation, the annual tax silver is as high as more than 80 million taels, and the army is only 20 million taels."

"In my opinion, not only should the army not be reduced, but should be increased as appropriate after the drought."

"For example, at present, the western army and the northern army need to guard against tens of thousands of miles, and the total number of troops of the two armies is only 220,000 horses."

"If the field is completely restored by next year, then the northern army and the western army should each increase ten battalions, totaling more than 60,000 soldiers and horses."

The role of Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting is mainly to enter the cabinet in order to maintain the status of martial artists.

An old minister like Li Changgeng who survived the Wanli period, although he has outstanding ability, his vision of things is stuck in the past.

The current Ming army is not as good as before, and it is not something that Wenchen can cut if he says it.

Even Zhu Youzhen, the king of Qi, could only cut troops in disguise by cutting older soldiers.

What's more, the world pattern has also changed now, and it would be a bit self-funded to cut the army.

Once the Ming army used rifles to beat the arquebuses of Europeans, then 690,000 troops were naturally more than enough to crush the world.

But the problem is that in the long-term exchange and communication, the whole army in Europe has begun to equip the whole army with flintlock muskets half a century in advance, and the spread of line tactics is becoming more and more widespread, so the situation faced by the Ming Dynasty is also different.

Conscripting 60,000 troops and allowing the Ming army to maintain 750,000 field troops was an idea that Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting, and Yang Wenyue all agreed upon, so Li Changgeng's first proposal in the new cabinet was thus rejected.

Not only was it vetoed, but Hong Chengchou also proposed to recruit 60,000 troops to face the complex situation in the West.

The Western Army increased its troops, which was very much in the interests of Hong Chengchou, and the Northern Army followed the increase in troops, because Hong Chengchou gave Sun Chuanting the capital to balance himself, so that the emperor would not feel that he could not clean up.

Hong Chengchou's abacus played loudly, and Li Changgeng could only sigh helplessly when he saw this.

"Since it's okay, let's go to the prison country."

Hong Chengchou glanced at everyone, then got up and left the table.

Seeing this, Sun Chuanting and the others also left one after another, and went to do their own things.

Soon after, the contents of the first cabinet meeting were sent to Zhu Ciran's desk in Chunhe Palace.

Zhu Ciran opened it to watch the contents, and only after a while did he frown and raise his head:

"The old minister is too old and has too many rules, what do you think?"

The object of Zhu Ciran's questioning was the three people sitting across from him, waiting to answer the question.

When the dark clouds left, the sunlight spilled into the hall again, and the faces of Du Yinxi, Sun Kewang, and Li Dingguo were also illuminated clearly.

In the face of Zhu Ciran's words, Du Yinxi said:

"Although the old minister's thinking can't keep up with the changes in the imperial court, it is a process that the transformation of the imperial court needs to face, and His Royal Highness doesn't have to care, it will quietly withdraw."

"Without an old man in charge, the newcomer will be arrogant and impetuous." Sun Kewang hid words in his words, but Zhu Ciran also heard what he wanted to say.

He set his eyes on Li Dingguo, and compared with the previous two, Li Dingguo nodded without concealment:

"The old minister can not sweep it, but the old rules and bad habits must be swept away, so as not to let the people who come after him also get contaminated."

"Good!" Finally hearing what he wanted to hear, Zhu Ciran seemed a little happy, not to mention that this was what Li Dingguo, who he "favored", said, so Zhu Ciran also turned his head and said to Sun Kewang and the others:

"I see that the atmosphere in the country is very good, you can go to Mr. Jin to learn from the scriptures, some of the stereotypes and bad habits of the dynasty must be eliminated, especially the one that makes people kneel!"

Zhu Ciran has an open-minded attitude, and he doesn't like to see others kneel to him, but this rule can't be changed, so this time he wants to cancel all kinds of unreasonable rules in one fell swoop and sweep them all into the garbage heap.

He had a hunch that if he didn't take advantage of the fact that his Uncle Qi Wang was still there, and did all these things early, then it would be extremely difficult for him to do these things after that.

Thinking of this, Zhu Ciran frowned:

"Time waits for no one, I have to speed up my pace......"

Out of location, this chapter was written in the car, and the update was a little late.

(End of chapter)