"Your Majesty, please forgive me for speaking frankly. In fact, I also feel that what the former eldest uncle Guo Gong was worried about is not impossible. It is difficult to control people's desires. If we really don't pay attention to savings, I am afraid that in the future, we will not just eat and eat food appropriately, but will only The deficit is so serious that even the inner court has become financially strapped.”
"During the Shimiao Dynasty, due to annual losses, the inner court also became financially strapped. As a result, during the Shimiao Dynasty, the inner court had far more accidents than before."
The eunuch Tian Yi, the eunuch who was the ceremonial supervisor, Bingbi, replied at this time, and then glanced at Zhu Yijun cautiously.
Huang Xun also followed up and said: "Your Majesty, as Eunuch Tian said, if Yuan Fu is given the name of taking charge of the government, it may be easier for him to live in a state of affairs. And if Yuan Fu cannot control himself for a while, he may even lose all the national money." The royal family has gained money, but the imperial court itself has suffered a very serious deficit, so serious that future generations of kings will have to ask for money from the royal family or other powerful people."
Tian Yi also continued to echo: "Exactly these words, the emperor must think twice!"
Huang Xun went on to say: "Now that the emperor is watching, it's okay, but what if the emperor lasts for thousands of generations? The kings of future generations may not be able to watch."
"What you are thinking about is, if this is the case, then add a term limit."
"From now on, the chief minister shall not serve for more than ten consecutive years. If he does not retire for ten years, he will be regarded as clinging to power and plotting evil, and everyone in the world must punish him!"
"In other words, I will only give Wang Xijue ten years to try out new strategies."
When Zhu Yijun saw that so many people were doubtful and even uneasy about Wang Xijue's governing ideas, even Da Jue in the inner court, he knew that there might be many people in the world who were as uneasy as Guo Zhengyu about allowing the government to run an appropriate deficit.
In order to prevent this uneasy mentality from causing greater turmoil, Zhu Yijun brought up the countermeasures that he had already thought about but deliberately failed to mention and wanted to try these people's countermeasures at this time.
and.
Zhu Yijun also continued: "In order to avoid excessive seriousness of Yin's grain consumption, I will also separate the issuance and operation of currency from the administration of the cabinet, and let the Zhizhi officials draft the decree to establish the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty, the Baoquan Bureau for minting coins, and the Silver Coupon Department for minting silver dollar coupons. , as well as all major government-run banks, are all under the jurisdiction of the Central Bank!"
"The number of subscription bonds the cabinet can issue is determined by the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty. As long as the cabinet raises money, it needs to request an order to have the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty issue it on its behalf and decide how many bonds to issue."
"The Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty can only be served by bureaucrats with military backgrounds and a background in the financial and economics department of the ruling school. The chief officer is Si Yinshi, with the title of Shangshu of the Ministry of Accounts."
After Zhu Yijun said this, Huang Xun and Tian Yi both accepted it and did not persuade the emperor again.
It is impossible for them to really dare to stop the emperor's decision.
But Zhu Yijun also took precautions because of their words. In order to prevent the court from over-indebting, he only gave Wang Xijue a maximum of ten years in power. This was also a peace of mind for the conservative parties in the world, letting them know that they only need to tolerate Wang Xijue for ten years. , without having to worry about having to watch Wang Xijue's cabinet continue to be in debt.
at the same time.
Zhu Yijun's decree can be regarded as independent of the power of issuing bonds and printing currency from the administrative yamen.
As the chief minister, Wang Xijue began to have the power to nominate the ministers and censors of various ministries. However, Wang Xijue was only the chief minister in administration. He could not issue as many bonds as he wanted, but needed to be approved by the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty.
The Chief Bank Officer of the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty was directly responsible to the emperor.
Therefore, this can be regarded as a preventive procedure, and it also gives conservative people a lot of peace of mind.
However, Zhu Yijun began to give the chief minister of the cabinet the right to nominate ministers of various ministries, which can be regarded as increasing the power of the chief minister of the cabinet.
This means that from a system perspective, the chief officials of central government offices such as the Six Ministers of the Ministry of Finance and the left and right censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate must be nominated by the chief assistant before they can be promoted.
In this case, these ministerial officials will directly become the chief minister's own people, at least people who share the same governance philosophy.
This way.
The chief minister no longer has to worry about the constraints of the six departments, especially the constraints of the official department.
The official of Kedao cannot say that the chief assistant is using power for personal gain and deceiving the superiors and concealing the truth from the subordinates.
Because the chief assistant was nominated by the Minister of the Ministry with the legitimate power given by the emperor, rather than instigating the emperor to issue orders through private transactions.
In short, in the past, the chief assistant could only use shady political means to get the ministry to cooperate with him in doing things. Now, the chief assistant can achieve this goal through legal means.
According to the specific operation process of Zhu Yijun's right to nominate the chief minister of the cabinet, if a minister is vacant, the Ministry of Personnel needs to hand over the selected list to the chief minister, who will submit it to the ministers to recommend together, and the chief minister will be promoted in the court. After the list of companions is drawn up, it will be decided by the emperor, or the chief minister instructs the Ministry of Personnel to hand over the list of several people suitable to be ministers to the ministers of the court for recommendation. After the list of chief companions is released in the court, it will be decided by the emperor.
In the past, if there was a vacancy for a minister of the First Ministry, the Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs was responsible for selecting some suitable people, and handed them over to the ministers of the imperial court to recommend them together.
Therefore, Zhu Yijun's reform was equivalent to assigning the power that originally belonged to the Minister of Personnel to the chief minister of the cabinet.
The Minister of Personnel has truly become a subordinate of the chief minister of the cabinet in an institutional way.
Although the Minister of Civil Affairs still has the power to select ministers who can hold an important position, the list of personnel submitted to the court for the entire court to be recommended by the ministers must be screened and then nominated by the chief minister.
After the mid-Wanli period in history, the unclear power of the prime minister led to serious internal strife in the entire bureaucratic group. The main content of the struggle was the power struggle between the cabinet and the staff.
The reason is that in the historical Ming Dynasty, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel was not subordinate to the chief minister of the cabinet. There was no need to shut down the chief minister of the cabinet and only reported to the emperor. This made many times, the six ministers were not subordinate to the cabinet. The first assistant is a person with the same philosophy.
Then, the six ministries would reject the handling opinions of the chief minister of the cabinet and directly submit them to the emperor to ask for other handling opinions. As a result, the chief minister of the cabinet would have no real power when the minister of official affairs was strong.
This also makes the chief minister of the cabinet really act as the emperor's senior adviser and cannot do anything.
As for why the candidates for ministers nominated by the first assistant are recommended by the court, it is naturally to add an extra layer of screening to prevent the first assistant from joining forces with the Ministry of Personnel to only use private individuals, and to let the entire bureaucratic group participate in the selection. At the same time, it also provides supervision for the emperor. functions.
Because the minister who is recommended is not one person, but many ministers participate in the recommendation, they can naturally represent the entire bureaucracy.
And the ministers who have been screened by the bureaucratic group will naturally be more recognized by the bureaucratic group, and can ensure that the entire bureaucratic group is willing to conscientiously implement the reform plan of the minister.
After all, as a centralized country, the Ming Dynasty needed the entire bureaucracy to be consistent from top to bottom in order for policies to be perfectly implemented.
Wang Xijue quickly saw the emperor's decree granting the right to nominate the chief minister and establishing the Central Bank of the Ming Dynasty, and was stunned in place. (End of chapter)
