Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1768, it's not easy to be the emperor

Emperor Hongzhi nodded slightly while watching.

Compared with the previous ministers, Liu Jin is more comfortable with it, and he is more planning and forward-looking in his work.

If Liu Jian was the chief assistant of the cabinet, then he would basically not think about doing any infrastructure construction at all. At the top of the sky, he would build river embankments to prevent the Yellow River from flooding or something.

There is no way to say that from the perspective and level of the long-term development of the entire country, make full use of the current favorable situation of Ming Dynasty to plan the development of the entire country.

Their ideology is still the same as before, the idea of ​​governing the country by the emperor, governing by doing nothing, benevolence and morality, and governing the country with filial piety. They are just empty talk. As for how to govern a country, they are It is difficult to come up with a good way and method.

Just like before, knowing that the treasury is empty, they still can't come up with a good way to solve this problem, because in their thinking, in addition to taxing more, it is saving money, and taxation is in their impression Among them, the people are often struggling to live. As for throttling, that is also the emperor's throttling, and it has nothing to do with them as courtiers.

Therefore, if there is a problem, they can't solve it, or they can't think of a way to solve the problem from a higher level and a longer-term perspective.

What they can do is ancestral system, ancestral system, or just like stereotyped essays, looking for the way to govern the country in the Four Books and Five Classics.

Liu Jin is different. He can always think of good ways to solve the immediate problems, and he can think and solve problems from the perspective of long-term development and the interests of the entire Ming Dynasty.

Liu Jin never persuaded Emperor Hongzhi to be diligent and frugal, and even Liu Jin thought that Emperor Hongzhi should pay attention to rest, so the early court was postponed, and he only worked five days a week, and he had to take more vacations on holidays.

Not only the Son of Heaven, but the entire Ming Dynasty should be like this. Everyone should pay attention to rest and combine work and rest, so there is the Daming Code of Rest and Mu.

At the same time, Liu Jin also knows that there are many things about the emperor, so the cabinet sent back all the memorials such as flattery and greetings during the hearing of the memorials, and relegated such officials to remote areas to become officials, saying hello and flattering every day. , You are not tired, the emperor is tired.

There are also those who show off their talents. They have to write thousands of words for things that can be done in a hundred words. They are long and smelly, like a lazy woman's foot wrap.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, Ru Taisu, a chief official of the Ministry of Criminal Affairs, gave Zhu Yuanzhang a memorial. Zhu Yuanzhang asked people to read this memorial. After reading it for three hours, it was less than half of it. The key is that you haven’t gotten to the point. Or is it your Wencai number?

This kind of officials must also be reprimanded, demoted as they should, scolded as they should, wasting the time of cabinet ministers and the emperor, isn't this a waste of the precious wealth of the entire Ming Dynasty?

Therefore, after Liu Jin entered the cabinet, the number of memorials from the court decreased at a terrible rate. In the past, Emperor Hongzhi had to approve thousands of memorials a day, and sometimes even several thousand.

These memorials are basically rubbish. Officials flattered and greeted each other, reported each other and made small reports, impeached officials, told Emperor Hongzhi to be thrifty, reminded Emperor Hongzhi to take concubines, and wrote poems for the emperor to appreciate. Those who have been promoted, and some who have nothing to do, have to come to the emperor to check in. For example, some officials really have nothing to say, so they write that there are women in their jurisdiction who are not ignorant of money, and there are centenarians and so on.

This point may be relatively better in the Ming Dynasty, because the literati in the Ming Dynasty sometimes pay attention to the character of character, and some flattering memorials really cannot be written too much, otherwise they will be laughed at by other officials.

But it was different during the Qing Dynasty, especially in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties, there were so many flattering memorials that Emperor Yongzheng had to read more than 7000 memorials every day at most, and the number of words for review exceeded the starting point The best readers ever.

In our opinion, something as important as memorials must be designed for major national affairs, and the discussion should also be about major affairs such as military affairs and government affairs.

But in fact, the memorials often turned into flattery, greetings, reporting and reporting each other, and it became a way for officials to check in with the emperor.

There are a lot of smart people, and they pay attention to writing memorials and so on every day, and they have a sense of presence with the emperor. When there is any opportunity, they will naturally think of themselves, so that promotion and fortune will be faster.

The result is that the emperor is exhausted.

Being an emperor is far from being as comfortable as everyone imagined, and the pressure from all aspects is actually very great.

First of all, this is naturally the foundation of the ancestors. The country that the ancestors laid down has been passed on to you. Do you have to manage the country well so that this foundation can be passed on forever.

Just for this alone, most of the emperors have been pressured to become more diligent, and they can't do without diligence, because this is not good for the country handed down from their ancestors.

The second is that the Son of Heaven has concentrated all the power and honor in the world. There are many people in this position. If you are not diligent, will you be easily usurped by others?
And after trying to usurp the throne since ancient times, is it true that you, the former emperor, cannot escape death?By the way, if you implicate the entire royal family and so on, can you be less diligent and less concerned?
Also, if the country is not properly treated, the common people will live in dire straits, and peasant uprisings will occur everywhere, do you have to worry about the change of dynasty again?
It can be said that the internal and external troubles of this country are all on your body, and being an emperor is not so comfortable.

This is still a major national event, and there are all kinds of family affairs that are enough to make you worry.

It's like the concubines in the harem are jealous of each other. You just wanted to rest and rest, but the women in the harem are like wolves and tigers, and they want to squeeze you dry.

He opened his mouth and shut his mouth to ask you to take care of the dragon body, and then he wanted to squeeze you dry. Do you think this dragon body is good?

Also, although the emperor sows seeds every day, you find that you have few heirs, not as good as Zhang San and Li Si of ordinary people. Zhang San and Li Si have only one wife, and they have given birth to more than a dozen children.

There are seventy-two concubines in the three palaces and six courts of the harem, but it turns out that there are only a few sons. The key is that many times, the princes are easy to die. You always feel that there is something wrong. All the time was desperately under the black hands.

When the princes grow up a little bit, you will soon find that they are all vying to be the emperor, the brothers turn against each other, and the ministers stand in their own lines, as if they are all waiting for you to die .

These household chores make you physically and mentally exhausted, and you seem to be in a glorious position, high above you, but who can know that you are actually exhausted long ago.

So it is not easy to be an emperor, and he is very tired.

Emperor Hongzhi knew it well. In the past, these ministers told him to take care of the dragon body every day, but they were the same as those who should submit memorials. They had to come to check in when they had nothing to do. Knowing that they were hardworking, they had to write more words to show off their literary grace. , Brush up on the sense of presence.

Taking care of the dragon body requires more rest and less worry, but they still have no way to solve the big problems that exist in Daming, internal and external troubles, how can they rest and worry less?

In the final analysis, these ministers all talk beautifully, but they actually take very little action. They only think about their own promotion and fortune. How can they care about the emperor's comfort and discomfort, or the country? life and death and so on.

It is Liu Jin who thinks for himself and solves many problems that exist in Ming Dynasty. When the treasury is rich, the army is strong, the country is rich, and the people have food and drink, life is rich, so that he, the emperor, can really relax.

After Lian Zuoshu passed the cabinet and arrived at Emperor Hongzhi, there were only dozens of memorials left every day. Emperor Hongzhi used to read the memorials until late at night every day.

Now, every afternoon, I finish reading it in one or two hours, and the rest of the time is for exercising on my own, or going to see my precious grandchildren with Queen Zhang.

Or you can go to the Beijing Stadium to watch football games, watch plays, listen to music, etc., and you will naturally live a comfortable life, worry less, and your health will be better. Now you have to pull Zhang Zhang every day The queen created a human being with a lot of energy, so this body is good.

In Liu Jin's words, what the emperor and the ministers in the court should think about every day is to think about the long-term development and planning issues at the national level, instead of being busy every day to greet and read memorials, or to listen to the ministers. Where do you report me to each other, and I report you and so on, attacking each other.

These are pure waste of time, waste of life and pointless, and of no use to the country.

The time of the emperor and ministers should be to think about the major affairs of the country, to plan the major affairs of the country, to do major events and long-term plans that are truly beneficial to the world.

Obviously, that's what Liu Jin did and planned.

It has not been too long since I became the chief assistant of the cabinet, and now I have begun to plan the long-term development direction of the entire Ming Dynasty. Ministers need to come to greet each other every day,
What Emperor Hongzhi needed was to think about the future of Ming Dynasty, think about the long-term development and planning of Ming Dynasty.

The same is true of the memorials and plans for infrastructure construction now. The infrastructure plan is formulated based on the situation of the national plan, and at the same time, the balanced development of various parts of Daming is adjusted, the border areas of Daming are consolidated, and planning and deployment are made for the long-term development of Daming.

PS: Do you want to go back to ancient times and be an emperor?

(End of this chapter)