Now that the big picture is clear, we need to consider how to carry out specific affairs in an orderly manner. Just like if you want to win a war, you must first clarify the strategy, and then determine the tactics.
What is certain now is that he is a pragmatic and pragmatic minister who will be the most important minister of the court within a period of time. The only person with the power to restrict him is the emperor, but the emperor will not restrict him unless it is absolutely necessary. After all, the emperor had just once again demonstrated the great friendship between him and Gao Pragmatic, so he couldn't slap himself right away.
From this perspective, as the new chief assistant, Gao Pragmatic now is the best time to burn the new official's three fires.
As for crises, of course there are.
First of all, because the emperor refused to add more cabinet members, the cabinet was reduced from the original six to four. Although Gao Pragmatic became the first assistant because of this, in fact, of the two cabinet elders who resigned, one belonged to the Neutral School and the other belonged to the Pragmatic School - each was from the Xin School.
In other words, the proportion of cabinet elders from the Heart School in the cabinet has increased, while the proportion of cabinet elders from the Practical School has actually decreased. Now there are four people in the cabinet. If the votes are counted according to the number of people, the real school and the heart school are actually tied at 2:2.
Of course, as the powerful first assistant, Gao Pragmatic, this kind of vote counting is unlikely to be effective - he will not initiate a call for "everyone to vote by show of hands" at all.
In addition, although Zhao Zhigao is the elder of the Xin School, because he had to surrender to Gao Pingshi in order to save his son, he already has a criminal record of "surrendering to the enemy and rebelling" within the Xin School, and now he may have to follow him more often. High pragmatism, at least, is unlikely to oppose high pragmatism. In this way, the superior position of high pragmatism becomes more obvious.
This was not over yet. Shen Guanyi was too busy to take care of himself due to the medicated diet case, and had to temporarily give in to Gao Pragmatism, and then "self-assigned" to visit Mount Tai, stay in Nanjing, and make preliminary preparations for the emperor to enshrine Mount Tai and pay homage to the Xiaoling Mausoleum.
As a result, Gao Jingshi, in the cabinet and at the center of the entire imperial court, completely lost the horizontal constraints for a while, and could be said to be "the sole power of the prime minister." This has two positive and negative effects:
He has great power and can implement almost any policy he wants to implement at this time; he is extremely dangerous, and he is fully responsible for the implementation of any policy and bears all the consequences.
At the same time, there is also a potential risk, which is the "Shen Hou" issue just mentioned.
Today, Gao Pragmatic has been deeply bound to the queen, the emperor's legitimate son, and his mother, forming a community of interests similar to the "Marquis Shen-Queen Shen-Yijiu" during the period of King You of Zhou Dynasty. At this moment, the attitude of "King Zhou You" is the most critical.
If King You feels that there is no problem with this structure, and the power of Marquis Shen is greater, it will not affect my status as the Emperor of Zhou anyway, then everything will remain as usual, the world will be safe and peaceful, and the world will be peaceful.
If King You feels that this structure is very problematic, the power of Shenhou has become too great to be restricted. Not only will I, the king of Zhou, have to accommodate him in everything this week, but it will also affect the structure of my court a hundred years later. Even the crown prince will be controlled by Shen. Hou Control, then whether I, the King of Zhou, need to live, actually depends on what Hou Shen thinks... If so, there will be big trouble.
The biggest threat to the King of Zhou himself in the "Marquis of Shen-Queen of Shen-Yijiu" model is that it is a powerful alliance. They are even strong enough to eliminate the King of Zhou at any time without worrying about any political backlash.
Think about it, Marquis Shen is powerful and has deep roots in the court. He also has military power and can mobilize large armies to march into the capital at any time to ensure that the center of the court cannot escape his control;
Empress Shen was the woman with the highest status in the harem and was the enemy of King Zhou. Once King Zhou died suddenly, Empress Shen had the legitimacy to act on behalf of the emperor, and her decree was equivalent to the imperial edict for a while;
As the eldest son of Empress Shen, Yijiu had no real power as the crown prince, but he had the most orthodox name and the most distinguished status, and could play the most critical role at certain moments - such as the sudden death of King Zhou, as long as Yijiu Declare that everything is the same, and others will have no right to make irresponsible remarks. Then Yijiu succeeded to the throne, and the Shen Group completely controlled the Zhou Dynasty.
In Chinese history, it is an unspoken rule or even an explicit rule that important ministers are not allowed to associate with the prince. The reason is this: you are already a powerful minister, and if you can still control the prince, then you can kill the emperor directly. , if the crown prince succeeds to the throne, will there be no more constraints after that?
Not only the prince, but theoretically all the princes who have the right of inheritance - even the right of succession, should not be friends with important officials of the court, because once the real power in the hands of you, an important official, is combined with the prince's right of inheritance, then the emperor himself will immediately be in a different position. A dangerous position that can be replaced.
If you were the emperor, you wouldn’t agree!
However, the current situation is not that bad yet. The Ming Dynasty has its own political inertia and the various systems of the Ming Dynasty restrict each other. The emperor is not worried that the chief minister who does not have real power in the government will take risks and kill him. The swaddled baby succeeds.
The key is that there is currently no serious conflict between the emperor and Gao Pragmatic. Gao Pragmatic does not seem to have the need to push himself into this dead end. He has even made it clear what he wants in the future - Southern Xinjiang. .
Southern Xinjiang? For the emperor, this was not the solid land of the Ming Dynasty in the first place, so he did not feel bad about promising to go out. Even if Southern Xinjiang is in the hands of a Han official in the future, that might not be a bad thing. What's more, in this way, Southern Xinjiang will nominally become the territory of the Ming Dynasty. Isn't this also a kind of territorial expansion?
The emperor was already familiar with the map of the world produced by Jinghua. Although southern Xinjiang and Nanyang were not small in the emperor's opinion, they were somewhat fragmented geographically. They were "not the foundation of the king's business" and could only support the Central Plains.
Therefore, there is now a tacit understanding and a new psychological balance between the emperor and Gao pragmatism.
If you do a good job as my Yuanfu, in the future I will package southern Xinjiang and Nanyang as a reward and give it to you, so that your Gao family will have the largest and richest foundation among the ministers with foreign surnames since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
At least so far, both parties are satisfied with this tacit understanding.
Although there are hidden worries, balance and tacit understanding have been achieved after all, and it is time for Gao Pragmatic to get down to business.
Early the next morning, Chief Assistant Gao Pangshi went to court in person, requesting the emperor to establish the crown prince as soon as possible. He also made it clear that the emperor's legitimate son Chang Hao was the best and only candidate for the crown prince, and asked the emperor to make an early decision.
On the morning of the same day, a large number of dignitaries of third rank or above, as well as Hanlin academic officials and Kedao Yanguan, who were not of high rank but had special status, were also present together with Gao pragmatism.
In the afternoon, Da Zongzheng of the Zongren Mansion (Zongren Ling) and Hou Gongchen, the consort of the eldest princess of Shouyang, petitioned to appoint Zhu Changhao as the crown prince as the "first civil servant". In Beijing, Jingnan's honors are as noble as those in other countries. Dukes, marquises, uncles, etc. came together to invite Chang Hao, the emperor's legitimate son, to be crown prince.
The Chief of Ceremonies quickly sent a message: The emperor's legitimate son is destined to be the emperor, and he is indeed the best candidate for the crown prince. However, because he is still young, it is best to observe for some time before registering him.
This is actually true. After all, the child mortality rate in this era is indeed relatively high. Even the children of the Tian family may not be any better than the children of ordinary families. Those who should die still often die young. As the crown prince of the country, if he dies at a young age, it will be a great loss for the country, and it is a bad thing that is best avoided if possible.
However, this time, Gao Pragmatic obviously did not intend to follow common sense. Early the next morning, Gao pragmatically once again led his ministers to submit their submissions. Moreover, with yesterday's preparation, this time there would not be multiple submissions, but all those who had submitted their submissions in the morning.
Not only that, some people who were hesitant and inactive yesterday, especially officials from the non-distraction school, also joined the ranks this time. Among these people, Zhao Zhigao, the great scholar of Jianji Palace, is undoubtedly the one with the highest status.
The Grand Scholar of Jianji Palace is not a group assistant, but a secondary assistant to Zhenger Ba Jing. Zhao Zhigao's announcement shocked everyone in the court. Officials from the Practical School celebrated each other, believing that this was an admission by the Heart School that they had completely failed in the dispute over the country. Some officials from the School of Heart were confused and did not know what their current attitude was towards the dispute over the country.
Of course, more Xinxue school officials still looked on with cold eyes. While they were disdainful of Zhao Zhigao's act of "surrendering to the enemy and rebelling", they were also discouraged and felt that the situation was indeed irreversible.
The whole dynasty was in turmoil, and the emperor could not remain indifferent. What's more, in fact, Zhu Yijun had already made psychological preparations to canonize Zhu Changhao as the crown prince. What he said yesterday was just out of a psychology that he could not explain himself.
This is like a person who has persisted for a certain belief for twenty years. When it finally comes to an end, he will fall into a kind of confusion, and even think for a moment, "Should I stop holding on to it?"
This is actually a certain instinct of human beings, which almost means some "path dependence". When something you've been doing for a long time is suddenly finished, you don't know what to do next. It might even make you cringe a little bit.
But it was obvious that Gao Pragmatic did not intend to give the emperor a chance to cower, and he did not want him to focus on such a ruinous path.
Although the Ming Dynasty seems to be reviving, there are still many unresolved problems, some of which existed originally, and their roots can be traced back to Zhu Yuanzhang. However, there are also some problems that have emerged after his highly pragmatic reforms. This is not surprising. Reform is never perfect all at once. It is nothing more than discovering problems when they arise and solving them after discovering them. That’s it.
In short, Zhu Yijun may feel that the world is in good shape now, but Gao Pragmatic doesn't feel that way at all. He still has a lot to do, and he doesn't want the emperor to slack off in his affairs there.
It's okay if you want me to be the chief assistant, but you don't have to be idle. We are all kings and ministers, and we have to be busy together.
Perhaps because the courtiers' meeting was grand enough, or perhaps because he felt Gao's pragmatic determination, Zhu Yijun finally conveyed the order through the Supervisor of Ceremonies in the afternoon: The Cabinet, the Ministry of Rites and other departments should immediately prepare for the crown prince's canonization ceremony. , when everything is ready, I will set the date for the canonization.
——
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "I am Liao Zhenxin" for their support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "klauszx" and "SeamChe" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: This chapter is from yesterday. Well, although I have restored time, the plot in my mind is a bit disconnected. Let me connect it.
(End of chapter)
