"Are they still kneeling in front of the Taihe Gate?"

"Your Majesty, it's still there, and no one has left."

"Hmph, keep them on their knees!"

……

"Still kneeling?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, it's almost a day."

……

"Your Majesty, there are already a few elderly ministers who have fainted, and the slaves and maids seem to be about to lose their support."

"Your Majesty, the Ministry of Industry Shangshu fainted and was taken back by his family."

"Your Majesty......"

"Take me to see them."

In the end, Zhu Zhanji still couldn't watch his courtiers fall to the ground one by one.

He came to the Taihe Gate and saw the ministers.

These courtiers still knelt in front of the Taihe Gate, from the rising sun to the setting sun, never moving. Zhu Zhanji could even see that the bodies of several old ministers were trembling slightly, and the clothes on several people were soaked with sweat and stuck to their bodies, and they were extremely embarrassed.

But even so, these people have no intention of backing down.

This can also be seen how strong the determination of the civil bureaucracy is this time, and they will not allow the imperial power to swell like this anymore.

Seeing the arrival of Emperor Xuande, they immediately spoke:

"Your Majesty, please stop the West!"

"Your Majesty, the old minister doesn't want to give up this body, and you must be led to the right path, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, if you don't agree, the ministers will kneel down and die here, and you will also ask for the lives of the people along the coast!"

They didn't give up at all, and at the same time they said righteous and awe-inspiring words.

Seeing the confrontation of the courtiers, Zhu Zhanji also hesitated in his heart, he was no longer as firm as before.

He returned to the palace and began to think about the pros and cons of stopping his voyage to the West.

After all, he is not a powerful emperor like Taizu and Taizong.

The civil system, in fact, their resistance is very weak, unless they encounter the kind of existence that has reached the peak of civil power and can really threaten the imperial power, otherwise their resistance is actually a kind of "moral kidnapping" and a kind of "gambling".

Because public opinion is controlled by civil officials, some moral systems are also formulated by civil officials, and the right to interpret them is in their hands. What they can do is use this to force the emperor to compromise.

Do you want a good posthumous name? Are you willing to make your best work, but in the end you end up with an infamy among the people? If you don't want to, it's better to work with us.

The civilian clique is still very united, you can kill them, but the next group of people will still oppose you. Of course, you can find your own Zhang Zhang, but if you want to find courtiers who support you and can handle government affairs well, there are really not many, and you still need to rely on them to govern the Ming Dynasty in the end.

It is precisely for this reason that it can sometimes be seen that the supreme emperor still has to compromise with the courtiers, because the courtiers still have a little ability to fight back.

But this kind of resistance is actually very fragile, in fact, it is to "gamble" with the emperor with the lives and futures of the ministers themselves, betting that he will not dare to completely turn his face. If you run into a stunned head, you have to be cool.

When the great rites of later generations were discussed, the hundred officials were ambushed, that is, they met the eighteen-year-old Jiajing Emperor, Zuo Shunmen killed seventeen on the spot, and the outcome of the ministers' blood admonition was that the ministers paid a heavy price, but they failed to change the determination of the Jiajing Emperor.

To put it simply, it depends on the emperor in the final analysis. As long as the emperor is strong enough to be "shameless", the advice of the ministers can be regarded as a deaf ear, and even directly pull the butcher knife.

The emperor himself has the power to break the rules and laws, and he is willing to play with you in the rules, which is great; But the emperor insisted on breaking the rules, and no one could stop him.

It's a pity that Emperor Xuande is not such a person.

Zhu Zhanji sighed helplessly in the deep palace, and the palm that was clenched tightly was slowly released.

He persisted for eight years, and during these eight years, he always used rules to bind the minister and himself. As long as there are no principled mistakes on the part of his courtiers, then he will not punish them.

It is precisely because of this that the officials of the Xuande Dynasty ruled the Qingming Dynasty, the officials dared to admonish, and the soldiers and generals dared to die, because the emperor himself also obeyed the rules and incorporated the Ming Dynasty into an orderly system.

It's a rule he sets himself, and he can't break it.

And he pays a lot of attention to fame, and his personality is quite magnanimous, such an emperor can't do things like Zhu Yuanzhang directly.

In that case, then he can only compromise.

Politics is the art of compromise. It was a lesson his kind father had taught him, and he still understood.

In the middle of the night, when the ministers were already kneeling and staggering at the Taihe Gate, a message finally came out of Ouchi:

"Get up, I agreed."

And when Li Chang was helped out of the palace by the palace people, the corners of his mouth quietly showed a smile.

Emperor Xuande, you have finally given in.

The civil power of the Ming Dynasty, at this moment, officially raised its head.

——

"The Taihemen incident, in the entire history of the Ming Dynasty, has a very important significance, and we can't avoid it when we study the Ming Dynasty."

"Emperor Xuande was coerced by his ministers to stop going to the West, which was the first time that the Ming Emperor compromised with the ministers on major matters, and it also symbolized the complete rise of the power of the ministers."

"Genzi, in fact, is in the Yongle Emperor's. It was he who began to use civilian counselors for military affairs, and it was he who gave the cabinet the power to draft edicts, and the civilian power was gaining momentum from him, but Yongle was strong, so he could hold it down.

But Emperor Xuande's Taihemen incident really made those civil officials see their own strength. Eh, what if the emperor is not happy, he still has to accept our opinion! ”

"We can see that in the original, when Emperor Hongwu and Emperor Yongle ruled, if you didn't obey me, I would cut off your head directly, right, at this time, the emperor was very strong, and the power of Wenchen was very weak."

"But you see, since the Taihemen incident, this situation has never happened again. At most, that is, playing boards. And it was only low-level officials who were beaten, and the emperor did not dare to fight the high-level civil officials. ”

"I think it's more like a deterrent, and the emperor used these low-level officials to tell the heads of these civil bureaucracy: Be honest, don't go too far."

"In the end, he still has to compromise with the civil officials, this is the reality."

"You have to rely on them to rule the world."

"In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the continuous growth of civil and official power came from here. And the noble heads who should have stood with the emperor, because of the large number of family children in their families, gradually began to be ambiguous, which led to the unscrupulousness of civil officials. ”

—From a history lecture.

(End of chapter)