The establishment of organizational structure is the basis of all administration. After the cabinet was enlarged, the already tight office space of Wenyuan Pavilion was obviously not enough. Zhu Yijun expanded and renovated some palace rooms in Xiyuan Nanhai, separated them with palace walls, and named them "Zhengshi Hall" as the new office of the cabinet. Office location.
Wenyuan Pavilion, the original office of the cabinet in the Forbidden City, was vacated and used as the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The attendant's office under the Ministry of Internal Affairs is still in the Yangxin Hall.
With such a change, the space of the cabinet also changed its original purpose, and all civil and military officials could see clearly: Zhang Juzheng, formerly known as the "preparatory advisor" bachelor, actually served as the prime minister. Zhang Taiyue, who moved into the political hall today, has already achieved "according to name and reality". Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Zhang Juzheng is in charge of the power of the previous prime minister.
The institutional confusion of government orders greatly strengthened the authority of the cabinet and gave Zhang Juzheng the legal power to control the government. It can be said that in addition to military power, judicial power and personnel power above the rank of minister, which were personally controlled by the emperor, Zhang Juzheng's power was also at the forefront among the prime ministers of the past dynasties.
Different from the political system of the old Song Dynasty, the Zhengshitang was not merged from Zhongshu Menxia Province, nor was it parallel to the six ministries, but directly managed the nine ministries after the reform. In the government of Prime Minister Zhang Juzheng, he was also in charge of the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Personnel. There are several deputy prime ministers under him, who are in charge of other ministries:
Lu Tiaoyang is in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Education; Wang Guoguang is in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, which was formed by merging the functions of the Du branch, the Post Administration Department, and the former Ministry of Industry and Household Affairs; Zhang Siwei is in charge of the Ministry of Criminal Affairs and the Ministry of Construction and Transportation.
The six ministries were transformed into nine ministries, and while power was dispersed, the original four temples were centralized: Taichang Temple and Honglu Temple were merged into the Ministry of Rites; Guanglu Temple was merged into the Ministry of Internal Affairs; Taipu Temple was merged into Yi Zheng department.
Except for the above changes, the names of Dali Temple and the Metropolitan Procuratorate have not changed, and their functions have been further expanded. They are not under the jurisdiction of the cabinet. They are at the same level as the Nine Ministers and are directly under the emperor's jurisdiction;
The General Affairs Department, which originally belonged to the auxiliary department, was abolished, and its functions were divided into two, with part assigned to the Attendant's Office and part to the Cabinet; the name and functions of the Hanlin Academy remained unchanged, and was under the joint jurisdiction of the emperor and the cabinet; the Imperial College was placed under the Ministry of Education; The names and functions of Renfu and Zhanshifu remain unchanged.
In the entire reform, the most troublesome thing for Zhu Yijun was the six subjects: this powerful gripper of feudal centralization was inconsistent with any order, and would bring about inefficiency in the operation of the court.
Finally, after repeated thinking, Zhu Yijun could not give up the error corrector and pressure reducing valve of the government, so the name of the six subjects remained unchanged and the functions were expanded: Zhu Yijun separated the daily management work of the imperial administrative management system and institutional reform as well as institutional establishment from the Ministry of Personnel , placed in the Sixth Section - the office of the Establishment Committee in later generations.
Facts have proved that the reform of the Sixth Section has become the finishing touch in the transformation of the entire organization - playing a decisive role in the new overlapping functions of various ministries and the confirmation of the list of powers.
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After Zhang Juzheng returned to Beijing, he took over such a new court that had put up a front and gradually began to get along. After several enlarged cabinet meetings attended by ministers from various ministries were presided over by the political hall, Zhang Juzheng, who was determined to take the world as his own responsibility and was able to fulfill his ambition, felt like he could use his fingers like an arm - he no longer had any constraints when giving orders. No need to do a lot of communication and coordination work like before!
Because the imperial court after the reform stipulated the "administrative head responsibility system", which is the saying that "the first level of officialdom crushes everyone to death", the subordinates only need to carry out the orders of the superiors. If the orders of the superiors are only outlines, the subordinates still have some room to play; If your superiors’ orders are detailed – just obey them and carry them out.
If the capabilities of other prime ministers and chief assistants can be regarded as heavy fuel engines on aircraft carriers, Zhang Juzheng is like a nuclear reactor. It used to require a lot of lubricating oil and coolant to work, but now it doesn't. He finally found the most suitable position in the new political system. He only needs to listen to reports, read materials, hold meetings, research, analyze, and think - give orders and everyone will obey!
Now Zhang Juzheng no longer has the restriction of leaving the palace at night and going home to work overtime - he can live in the political hall. Like him, everyone in Zhengshi Hall can break through the restrictions of the palace ban and work unlimited overtime in Zhengshi Hall.
As a result, there are three places in the capital that are brightly lit at night. The first two are Jiaofangsi Hutong and the Daily News Agency, and the new one is the Zhengshi Hall.
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The first important task that Zhang Juzheng implemented in the sixth year of Wanli was to hold a clan meeting in accordance with the emperor's plan at the beginning of the fifth year of Wanli.
For this meeting, the clan government and the emperor have been building momentum for more than half a year, with remarkable results. Moreover, with the assassination of Zhang Wenming in the second half of the year, many thorny clan members were given special attention by the Jin Yiwei, which greatly reduced the resistance to clan reform.
Among them, several princes and county princes who usually spoke nonsense at home and attacked the New Deal and the Reform were included in the list of rectifications, and their homes were confiscated. This time, the clan was completely suppressed.
These clans whose families were expelled from the country were most dissatisfied with the New Deal and the reform. In fact, it was not the emperor's reform edict, but Zhu Yijun's failure to consider the interests of the clan during the salt policy reform. The salt policy reform meant that all their previous income from selling salt was gone. Not to mention, Zhu Yijun actually excluded the clan from purchasing salt works, which made these clans feel angry for a long time.
However, getting angry is just impotent rage. Just as Zhu Yijun and Zhang Juzheng judged when studying the clan issue, after more than two hundred years of waste development, the Ming Dynasty could no longer produce the princes of the Jingnan period. For the central court, if Zhu Yijun was shameless, he could use force to get rid of these burdens.
Of course, there are also Qiancheng of the country such as Zhu Zaiyu and his son among the clan. For capable clans, Zhu Yijun has to reuse them as imperial vassals.
More importantly, Zhu Yijun also wanted to use the clan to promote the development of Ming Dynasty's industrialization as soon as possible.
As of the beginning of the sixth year of Wanli, many production-oriented enterprises of the Ming Dynasty had been born under the cultivation of Tianji Pavilion. However, the wealthy clan held a large amount of capital but did not invest it to make profits, which was a huge financial cost loss - this is also An important reason why Zhang Juzheng decided to use the clan reform to initiate the reform.
Zhang Juzheng led the cabinet and the Ministry of Rites to prepare the clan meeting, which mainly aimed to achieve two goals: first, to make the clan accept the political arrangement of downgrading and ascending the rank. The second is to lure out the money in their hands as start-up capital for the development of industry and commerce in Ming Dynasty.
To achieve these two goals, of course we cannot rely on the consciousness of the clan. After repeated discussions with Zhu Yijun, Zhang Juzheng decided to take a multi-pronged approach. First, he used the eight gangs as bait to divide and disintegrate the clans so that they could not unite to resist; second, he used the internal industrial and commercial groups to divest non-core businesses while , come up with good things to encourage clan investment.
As for the reason for convening the clan meeting, Zhu Yijun said: "The queen had a check-up two years ago and found that she is pregnant. With such a happy event, the clan members can come to the capital and walk around."
