Feng Bao, the chief eunuch of the Bureau of Ceremonies and the governor of the East Factory, has been in a very bad mood these days. He feels that everything has gone towards the worst direction.
First, Gao Gong personally left the court in the name of the chief minister and said that the Chief of Ceremonies, as the center of the inner court, had unshirkable responsibility for the emperor's collapse. He not only failed to take good care of the emperor's dragon body beforehand, but also failed to take care of him afterwards. Make timely responses.
Generally speaking, according to the habits of civil servants, after such a big hat is put on, there will basically be a storm of blows, usually with the purpose of suppressing the prestige of the Chief of Ceremonies and reducing the power of the Chief of Ceremonies.
But this time, things are a little different. After Gao Gong scolded the Supervisor of Ceremonies bloody from top to bottom, he did not propose to reduce the power. Instead, he believed that this was due to the lack of manpower and scattered energy of the Supervisor of Ceremonies, and suggested that the emperor expand the number of Supervisors of Ceremonies. The size of the eunuchs should be determined, and the functions and powers of the major eunuchs should be divided as much as possible.
The most typical example is that the chief eunuch Bingbi has too many concurrent responsibilities and is too heavy. The chief eunuch Bingbi not only has to participate in the approval of the ceremonial eunuch, but also is in charge of the East Factory. Even among the twelve eunuchs of the inner court, he is also in charge of the royal horse eunuch - this is the last position of the inner court to monitor the Beijing camp. The means are enough, and the status is not unimportant.
Why specifically emphasize that this is the last resort for the inner court to monitor the Beijing camp, because the Ming Dynasty's Beijing camp system has been constantly changing.
Of course, in the early years, it goes without saying that the noble military ministers were in charge of the Beijing camp alone, and the three major battalions of the Beijing army were all in the hands of a group of noble military ministers.
Some time after the Civil War, as the power of the nobles and nobles was greatly reduced, civilian officials began to infiltrate the Beijing camp and established the Twelve Regiment Camps, replacing the declining three major camps and becoming the main force of the Beijing camp. At this time, the civil servant group represented by Yu Qian controlled the major forces. Part of the Beijing camp has real power.
Later, after Yu Qian was killed, the imperial camp became the inner court's final say. Especially in the Xianzong Dynasty, the imperial eunuchs and eunuchs supervised the twelve regiments of the camp, which was very majestic.
Later, Emperor Wuzong and Zhengde, although he was also a patron of eunuchs, because he was good at military affairs, he even sent elites from nine sides to the capital and established them as the "Four Outer Families", so he actually became the emperor's personal control. Beijing camp, but this system was troublesome, so that period was relatively chaotic. The Beijing camp order went out in many places, and there were a lot of nonsense things that ruined the situation.
Shizong Jiajing was still quite concerned about the Beijing camp and had always wanted to find a long-term mechanism, but he was unable to pursue it. In the sixth year of Jiajing's reign, the Ming Dynasty began to set up civil servants to oversee the military affairs of the Beijing camp. At that time, upon the recommendation of the court ministers, Li Chengxun was appointed as the Minister of War and the Censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. He was appointed as the Prince Shaobao to supervise the military affairs of the regiment and camp, becoming the first civilian official responsible for supervising the Beijing camp. However, it soon stopped and the previous practice of part-time civilian officials was resumed.
In the 20th year of Jiajing, Liu Tianhe also served as the admiral of the military affairs of the regiment and camp as the Minister of the Ministry of War, and was specifically responsible for the military affairs of the Beijing camp. However, this did not last for less than a year, and the admiral of the military affairs of the regiment and camp became a part-time job of the Ministry of War again.
In the middle and late Jiajing period, the civil service group also tried to strengthen the cooperation between civil and military officials to increase the combat capabilities of the Beijing camp - this was not easy, and there is a reason. The reason is that the Gengxu Rebellion occurred in the 29th year of Jiajing. An Da's army besieged the capital. The capital's soldiers were cowardly and did not dare to fight. They collapsed when encountering the enemy, which fully exposed the corruption of the capital's soldiers.
Therefore, under the advice of Yan Song, the then Chief Assistant, Wang Bangrui, the Minister of Civil Affairs, and others, the Ming court abolished the regiment camp and the east and west official hall systems, and restored the three-camp system. All the guards in Beijing were subordinated to the three camps.
In the management of the Beijing camp, the practice of eunuchs serving as admirals and gunners was also stopped, and a military government agency was established. The chief of the Rong government is called the Governor of Jingying Rongzheng, who is served by a military attaché and gives the seal of defense. The deputy position is called Zanli Military Affairs (later renamed Xianli Rongzheng), and is selected by the Ministry of War or the Supervisory Dean, and is not given the seal of customs defense.
After Emperor Longqing ascended the throne, civilian control of the capital changed from centralized to decentralized. In the fourth year of Longqing's reign, scholar Zhao Zhenji wrote a memorial in which he spoke highly of the harm caused by military officials monopolizing power. After discussion by the Ministry of War, the post of governor-general was abolished, and each of the three battalions was appointed with a chief military officer and a deputy general. Each of the three general soldiers is given a seal of defense and is still selected by the military attache. For the post of Assistant to the Military Government, three civilian officials were selected from the Ministry of War and the Supervisory Yuan, and they were still called admirals.
But in this way, it is equivalent to the Ming Dynasty going to the other extreme to prevent the disadvantages of centralization of power in the Beijing camp. There is a situation where six admirals share the management of the military affairs of the Beijing camp. The powers and responsibilities are too dispersed, and mutual disunity has become a prominent feature of Beijing camp management. dilemma.
"After the establishment of six admirals, each has his own opinion and will not make a decision for ten months when encountering problems."
Of course this didn't work, so when Zhao Zhenji took office, Gao Gong immediately abolished this self-restricting system and restored the governor and the assistant to the military affairs.
Different from the Sejong period, the governor and assistant minister Rongzheng each gave the seal of defense. In the original history, the Rong government system only changed slightly from then on, but overall it was basically followed until the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
Looking back in this way, it is very clear: the power of the Beijing camp was once entirely controlled by the inner court, but now, the inner court has been squeezed out of the core power of the Beijing camp by the civil servant group and the military ministers and nobles. Even the imperial eunuchs are in charge of the eunuchs. , in fact, they are just in name in the Beijing camp, acting as supervisors of the army, and no longer enjoy real power such as command and deployment.
It is precisely because the position of eunuch, the chief eunuch of the royal horse supervisor, although the power is greatly reduced, is still of great significance, so the chief ceremonial supervisor has always been in charge of both writing and writing.
However, Gao Gong is now taking action against Chief Bingbi for "having too many concurrent functions."
Gao Gong's suggestion is that the first task of Chief Bingbi should be to participate in the approval of the Red Army, and he should not be in charge of other affairs too much. His current responsibilities, such as the East Factory and the Royal Horse Supervisor, are best given up. If The emperor was worried that too many divisions would affect the authority of Chief Bingbi in the inner court, so at least one item should be separated and handed over to other eunuchs Bingbi.
This suggestion is actually the core of Gao Gong's essay. Other statements include, "In the past, there were only three or four Bingbi, and each person had to take charge of three to four important institutions of the inner court, so Bingbi should be added. "It's enough to be in charge of two organizations at the same time." In fact, this was done to prevent "cutting off Feng Bao" from appearing too abrupt.
Feng Bao was very dissatisfied with this, that's for sure, but his dissatisfaction was useless. He was a "direct party" in this matter. No matter how thick-skinned he was, he couldn't jump out and say, "We men are not tired, we can do it." .
Feng Bao had no choice but to go to Zhang Juzheng overnight again for advice to see if Mr. Zhang had any solution.
On the way to Zhang University's residence, Feng Bao felt furious at times and frightened at other times.
Needless to say, being cruel, being forced into this situation, not to mention Feng Bao, who seems to be kind-hearted, but in fact looks down upon someone like a hawk, would make even the Clay Bodhisattva angry.
He was frightened and really panicked. Gao Gong's method this time seemed sharp, but it was very measured. It was not at all like his style of doing other things: he didn't directly ask to reduce the power of the entire Supervisor of Ceremonies. ——In other words, he did not touch the power of the inner court as a whole. He only divided this power from three or four people to five or six people.
Even though they are both decentralized, the difference is huge.
The former method directly reduces the power of the Supervisor of Ceremonies. Since the Supervisor of Ceremonies is actually one of the emperor's hands, reducing the power of the Supervisor of Ceremonies is equivalent to reducing the power of the emperor. Even though Gao Gong's trust in Gao Gong is simply indescribable today, Gao Gong's trust is still indescribable. If Gong does this, even if the emperor finally agrees, there will definitely be some dissatisfaction in his heart.
But the latter is not the case. The Chief Eunuch originally had a lot of power, and the big eunuchs in it might each have three points. But after Gao Gong's round of cuts, the big eunuchs were deprived of power, and each of them might only have three powers. There are only two points of power left, but the Secretary of Ceremonies still controls ten points of power, and it has not been reduced at all.
As a result, the eunuchs may be dissatisfied, but the emperor doesn't care - anyway, the power at his hand has not been reduced at all.
Feng Bao panicked here, which meant that it was almost impossible for the emperor himself to be disgusted with this suggestion. Considering the emperor's performance that day, he seemed to be afraid that Gao Gong would continue to ask why he fainted, so there was a high probability that this time it would be You will go along with the flow, agree to Gao Gong's suggestion, and pass the responsibility for your fainting to the Director of Ceremonies - it's because you didn't take good care of him, Mr. Gao has a sharp eye!
At this moment, Feng Bao felt that only Zhang Juzheng might be able to save himself.
