However, the court discussions have been fruitless. The reason is that although the courtiers do not want the chief minister of the cabinet and the privy councilors to be military ministers, they do not want the power of the chief minister of the cabinet to be reduced again. Not to mention that the power of decision-making on military affairs will be taken away by the privy councilors. The powers of supervision and trial, as well as the power of proposing the formulation of corresponding laws and policies, will also be separated.
This will undoubtedly mean that even if a civil servant becomes the chief assistant again in the future, he will not be the same as the previous chief assistant. When he is trusted by the emperor, he will be no different from a deputy emperor.
Compared to the further decentralization of power, which would only benefit the imperial power but not the person who would become the head of the officials in the future, the fact that both rulers were military ministers was nothing.
After all, although the two rulers were both military ministers, the scope of their power was different, and it was impossible to really cause chaos in the government. To say so was just to deliberately frighten the emperor.
"Compared to decentralizing power and letting their own people check and balance each other, they would rather accept a military minister as the prime minister."
"As expected, they would rather believe you, the military minister, than me!"
Zhu Yijun complained to Huang Xun after hearing that the court discussions had been fruitless.
Huang Xun smiled and replied: "In my humble opinion, it's not that they would rather trust the military ministers than your majesty, but they actually fear the emperor more than they fear the military ministers!"
"Your Majesty is wise and wise, and he has the people of all corners of the country in his heart, so that evil cannot be revealed, evil cannot be hidden, and good cannot be concealed."
"Therefore, if we really want to decentralize power, even if there are courtiers who only serve the people of the world as chief ministers, they will not be able to control His Majesty with hundreds of officials. Once the emperor really wants to benefit the people and the soldiers first, but not the soldiers, There’s really nothing they can do.”
"To put it bluntly, Your Majesty loves the people so much and has the image of a holy king. Therefore, all bureaucrats in the world who have selfish motives will not think that the Emperor is too independent."
After Huang Xun said this, Zhu Yijun pretended not to understand and asked:
"According to what you said, they don't want me to be too sage?"
"This is my humble opinion. Your Majesty, please listen to it."
Huang Xun replied.
Zhu Yijun said: "What you said still makes sense, but this person sometimes pretends to be confused."
Huang Xun said yes and smiled awkwardly.
Zhu Yijun next went to the Imperial Service Department and asked Qi Jiguang: "Why has there been no result yet on the court's proposal to separate the three consuls?"
"Back to Your Majesty, the courtiers are very divided."
Qi Jiguang replied.
After hearing this, Zhu Yijun asked: "Why are there such differences?"
"It's all because the Japanese Tokugawa clan established their own shogunate and recognized the Japanese puppet emperor as their master, thus causing chaos in Tsunasa!"
Qi Jiguang replied.
Zhu Yijun asked: "What does this have to do with the Japanese people?"
Huang Xun, Wang Xijue and others also looked at Qi Jiguang at this time, and they all looked suspicious.
Qi Jiguang replied: "Your Majesty, internal affairs are often sluggish because of the lack of access to external affairs. The Tokugawa family's chaos has not yet been resolved. Many courtiers advocate centralizing power to deal with external troubles first and then sorting out internal affairs. This is why There’s a lot of disagreement.”
"You are absolutely right."
"Then let's put this matter aside for now and continue to deal with the Tokugawa clan."
Zhu Yijun nodded.
Qi Jiguang raised his hand and said yes.
Therefore, in confusion, the Ming Dynasty continued to maintain the status quo, with Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang in charge of the Cabinet and Privy Council.
"Your Majesty is so clever!"
And because of this.
Six Section Gallery.
After there were rumors that the court was suspending the establishment of an additional governor, and the status quo was still maintained, with Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang in charge of the cabinet and the Privy Council respectively, Zhang Zhenguan also praised Xu Ziwei and other officials on this day during Hu Kezuo's affair.
and.
After Zhang Zhenguan praised him, he elaborated:
"Your Majesty actually came up with such a good strategy, adding a new governor! It is obvious that your Majesty has already dealt with the fact that the rulers are all military ministers, and has already come up with good strategies to prevent powerful ministers from harming the country."
"Yes! In this way, it seems that the previous message I gave to Your Majesty, asking Your Majesty to guard against the tendency of military ministers in power to cause chaos in government, is quite contemptuous of Your Majesty, and also quite self-righteous. This time, I may have made Your Majesty laugh, and It doesn’t make a good impression on me.”
Xu Ziwei agreed at this time, and looked very depressed.
Bang!
In the middle of the matter, Hou Qingyuan from the engineering department suddenly slapped the table and stood up. He opened his eyes and said, "It's a shame that there are so many cunning and selfish people in the court, so the court discussion on this matter has never been successful and can only be suspended!"
Zhang Zhenguan smiled bitterly and said: "It has always happened that scholars are not united as one, but in any case, I think it is better not to show up in front of the emperor easily in the future. Your Majesty is a sage like Yao and Shun. He is not interested in remonstrance and obstruction." The holy king, you must be very careful! Don’t make your majesty laugh."
"That's right, at least I will make His Majesty laugh this time. I can only take the initiative to apply for external transfer during the official annual meeting and make some achievements, so as not to let His Majesty think that I am really a person who is just seeking fame and reputation without having any ideas. .”
Xu Ziwei then echoed.
Hou Qingyuan nodded and said "Yes", and said: "You have to accept the Holy Will, understand the Holy Will, and understand the Holy Will. No matter what, if he becomes the Prime Minister, Ning Yuanhou will not be considered a mediocre person to take the lead."
Because the officials accepted the reality, they did not re-attack Li Chengliang's appointment as privy envoy.
There are even Kedao Yanguan who really want to make progress and begin to take the initiative to follow Li Chengliang's path and extend an olive branch to the Li family. In the name of upholding public opinion, they actively ask for rewards for the Li Chengliang family or recommend people from the Li family to hold important positions. There are even those who are willing to be Li Chengliang's lackeys or even his slaves' lackeys.
As the saying goes, when a person achieves enlightenment, a chicken or a dog ascends to heaven.
This is a common thing in official circles.
Both civil and military officials are incompatible enemies when they need to fight each other, but when they need to please each other, they can also mix things up nicely.
Many civil servants would often put aside their personal accomplishments and take the initiative to flatter the powerful military attache.
The integrity of bureaucrats is often not directly related to civil and military affairs, but only related to personal choices.
Although the military minister has a group of old subordinates who have fought hard because they have led soldiers, their methods are not as good as those of civilian officials.
Although most civil servants are masters of maneuvering and enduring humiliation, who have passed through the imperial examinations and official circles and passed the examinations and calculations, most of them do not dare to fight hard.
Therefore, the harm of the two deteriorating cannot be said to be greater than the other. Anyway, according to history, some dynasties perished due to the lawlessness of military officials, and there were also dynasties that perished due to the lawlessness of civil servants.
Back to the topic.
Anyway, based on what he learned in later generations, Zhu Yijun understood that the key to whether this society can be prosperous, harmonious and happy depends on whether social wealth continues to increase. Not to mention the quality of bureaucrats, even the quality of the emperor, is not whether the society is good and orderly. determinants.
In the early days of a dynasty, even if the emperor is captured or a child becomes the emperor, even if he has the power to castrate rebellious ministers, it will not affect the people below him to accumulate wealth and reproduce the population.
Therefore, he knew that as an emperor, his most important responsibility was actually to increase social wealth, and the second was to distribute wealth well and balance the forces of all parties.
No matter how popular Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang are now, as long as these two people are still following his will to make the cake bigger, he will allow them to grow.
Unless the cake can no longer be made and he can only do a good job in internal distribution, he will choose to attack someone who goes too far, but at the same time he will support another one.
This kind of thing about how a dynasty no longer obtains wealth through external expansion, but can only carry out internal reforms, has happened often in Chinese history, and there is no shortage of classic cases for reference. It is not difficult for Zhu Yijun to learn, and naturally he will not I worry that there won’t be enough tools in the Emperor’s toolbox by then.
certainly.
Zhu Yijun didn't know if he would use various internal fighting methods in his life.
Because the situation before him is that as long as his Ming Empire continues on the path of scientific and technological development, there are still many places in the world that can be explored, including the nearby Indian plains, Australia further south, and the Americas thousands of miles away. , there are still many resources waiting to be developed.
Zhu Yijun felt that after reversing the inertia of the Ming Dynasty's ruling class who only wanted to eat its own people at home, Ming Dynasty would no longer need to engage in large-scale internal purges in his lifetime.
However, this may be Zhu Yijun's wishful thinking.
In any case, Li Chengliang is now the Privy Councilor.
He himself was in a very happy mood. After thanking Zhu Yijun and accepting the imperial edict, he started working hard in the Privy Council with a face full of enthusiasm, as if he had regained his second youth.
Strictly speaking, Li Chengliang now belongs to the civil service system.
Because he no longer directly leads the troops, but can only act as the center of the town, dispatching troops and generals.
As so many years have passed, many middle- and lower-level officers and schools are not very familiar with him as an old commander. In fact, he is not much different from the historical minister of the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty. At most, he is only recognized by some senior generals above the rank of general and general. He is such a handsome man.
The same goes for Qi Jiguang.
Both of them can be considered as generals and generals.
Now, Qi Jiguang is mainly responsible for military reform, and Li Chengliang, as the privy envoy, has to directly implement the matter of handling Tokugawa Ieyasu's unauthorized establishment of the shogunate.
Li Chengliang did this very seriously and even posted a map of Japan in his bedroom.
At this time, Tokugawa Ieyasu didn't know that the Ming Central Committee was already planning to deal with him.
After Toyotomi Hideyoshi was captured by the Ming army and executed late, Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated other daimyo in Honshu, Japan, became the new overlord of Honshu, and established himself as the new shogun.
However, in order to monopolize trade income and expand his own strength, Tokugawa Ieyasu imposed trade restrictions on his control areas, and only his own shogunate monopolized trade.
But now, because the main demand of the Ming Dynasty market, besides gold and silver and other minerals, has become slaves, so the Japanese exports to the Ming Dynasty are mainly slaves.
This is related to the fact that the Japanese country has been fighting for many years and a large number of people live a difficult life. Especially because the war has caused a large number of men to decrease, leaving a lot of Japanese women. Therefore, the nobles of the Japanese country are very willing to sell many Japanese women directly into slavery instead of marrying them. Married to an ordinary farmer.
Tokugawa Ieyasu was also worried that the establishment of an independent shogunate would dissatisfy the Ming Dynasty, so at the end of the 20th year of Wanli, he specially ordered Masuda Nagamori, the daimyo who had surrendered to him, to say:
"You personally escorted the ship to the Ming Dynasty, brought a lot of money, asked for tribute in the name of tribute envoy, and tried to bribe their monarchs and ministers to make them agree to let us be the shogunate and give up the Ashikaga family as the shogunate."
Masuda Changsheng agreed and set off for Ningbo in the Ming Dynasty a month later.
(End of chapter)
