Da Ming Tai Shi

Chapter 241 A Completely One-sided Cabinet Meeting

When Chen Yunfu arrived at the cabinet, he happened to be on the tail end of the budget declaration, and all the central yamen put forward their own new year budgets.

It is no longer the Ministry of Industry, but the Ministry of Officials, which takes up the bulk, with a total of 120 million taels.

In other words, if the imperial court does not have enough cash, it will use nearly 400 million shi of grain.

"Why is the budget of the Ministry of Officials so high this year?"

Switching seamlessly, Chen Yunfu, who was still a young man in the Jinshen Palace before, frowned at this moment, his aura as the chief minister of the cabinet immediately overwhelmed the audience, and Tian Shigong, Minister of the Ministry of Officials, bit the bullet and reported.

"The main expenditure of the Ministry of Officials is the procuratorate that is held every three years this year. The Ministry of Officials will send a lot of manpower to the provinces and governments, and the expenses for food and accommodation will naturally be indispensable.

In the past few years, the expenditure was less, because the imperial court has no more officials, and in the past few years, it has been replenished one after another, and the salary expenditure is also a large sum. "

Chen Yunfu understood that it was the official salary colliding with the three public funds.

Of course, the three public funds in the Ming Dynasty refer to official travel, official entertainment and even official gifts.

The matter of cutting Sangong's expenses only went around in Chen Yunfu's mind before being discarded.

One is that Chen Yunfu is unwilling and will not suddenly increase the weight at the serious cabinet meeting, which is not in compliance with the rules and is too frivolous. Two, the three public funds cannot be cut now, at least not now.

If you want a horse to run, you have to feed the horse.

"The number of cores has been checked."

Chen Yunfu asked a question, and Hu Sizong immediately sent the budget declaration records of each yamen to him for review.

Total budget: 9408 million taels.

It accounts for about [-]% of the national treasury revenue this year, not including military expenditures.

The military expenditures in the early Ming Dynasty were all offset by grain, supplemented by some precious banknotes and silk cloth, which seemed to cost nothing, but in fact it was quite a lot.

The bulk of the national treasury's annual expenditure is on this military expenditure.

"Master, do you have any comments?"

Seeing that Chen Yunfu had been silent for a long time, Shao Zhi called out, and Chen Yunfu raised his head.

"I don't have any comments from this assistant, do you have any comments?"

Seeing that no one spoke, Chen Yunfu nodded and said, "Okay, let's vote."

This time, except for Xu Huizu's abstention, which has remained unchanged for thousands of years, the 17 people present unanimously approved the imperial government's fiscal expenditure budget for the first year of Yongle.

"Okay, the next item on the agenda is the appointment of personnel in the yamen of Zhongzhi."

Chen Yunfu held the pen in his hand, scanned it around and said: "The test characters on the headers of the ministers can be removed."

There were smiles on the faces of all the people present.

In the past, when there was no cabinet, it was a process to do the examination of ministers. Generally, within three months or half a year, the Ministry of Officials would officially appoint official documents.

Now that there is a cabinet, the major appointments involving the six ministers are naturally clarified in official documents issued by the cabinet.

"In addition, Mr. Qi Ge is the second assistant of the cabinet, and he is in charge of many departments. This assistant believes that the Ministry of War should not allow Mr. Qi Ge to concurrently serve as the Minister. Zhang Zhong, the left servant, can take over."

As soon as these words came out, the first person who was dumbfounded was Qi De.

What does this mean, poaching corners in front of oneself?

Looking back, Zhang Zhong was really excited.

"Master, this."

Chen Yunfu didn't even give Qi De a chance to express his opinion on this matter, and directly entered the voting process.

Undoubtedly, this time the vote gained more than a dozen votes.

Especially Zhang Zhong, this is a promotion for him, and whether he can still refuse, he raises his hand higher than anyone else.

Xu Ben didn't want to raise his hand at first, but when he looked at Qi De, his disappointment with the latter was beyond words, so he simply raised his hand.

The gap between the two is really too big.

"Continuing the agenda, let the Ministry of Officials introduce the current situation of the chief officials of the two departments of each province and the Zhili prefectures regarding the appointment of the chief ministers and inspectors of each province. Bensuke is not very familiar with local personnel affairs, so I will not express my personal opinion on this agenda item, and fully respect the collective decision-making of the cabinet office.”

If you want the horse to run, you have to feed the horse!

This is a master.

Xu Ben kept feeling in his heart, and then he sincerely admired him.

This agenda item was obviously given up by Chen Yunfu to everyone in the cabinet on purpose. In other words, Chen Yunfu would not even want a candidate for a provincial official like the governor of a province!
The pattern is about to open.

As the chief assistant of the cabinet, Chen Yunfu only needs to firmly control the cabinet office meeting in his own hands. Chen Yunfu doesn't care who the chief officials at the local, provincial and government levels are.

It doesn't matter if it's his own party members, Tian Shigong's party members, even Qi De's or Xu Ben's, so what?

As long as the cabinet is in Chen Yunfu's hands for a day, Chen Yunfu can remove the chief officials at any time if he wants to change places.

There is absolutely no need for him to hurry up and go off in person to compete with the cabinet members for this little political dividend, that would be too self-deprecating.

Anyone who is eligible to participate in the cabinet office meeting, and whoever wants to place his party members and cronies in the local government, must actively approach Chen Yunfu.

This was the main signal that Chen Yunfu wanted to send out.

Chen Yunfu was playing to show power, while Qi De was only thinking of grabbing benefits, the two were not on the same level at all.

Except for one Liaodong Economic and Strategic Envoy who was not discussed at this office meeting, a group of people began to surround the left and right political envoys of various provinces and left and right to participate in politics;

You say yours is good, I say mine is good, no one can expect to convince anyone.

At the end of the quarrel, everyone found a point of integration and began to focus on Chen Yunfu in unison.

"Has the discussion come to fruition?"

With a smile on his face, Chen Yunfu listened with his ears, looked with his eyes, and thought in his heart. Of course, he knew that these people in front of him had already carved up all the political cakes in the process of mutual concessions, compromises and interactions. Asking such a question is pure nonsense. Everyone steps up.

"The result has come. After careful consideration by the princes, a group of practical and capable officials have been selected."

Shao Zhi accepted the words, and then waved to Hu Sizong, who hurried over to hand over a list.

Chen Yunfu didn't even look at it, just said.

"Then everyone, please vote on this list of personnel appointments. Benfu abstains from this resolution and respects the decisions of all colleagues."

So, except for Chen Yunfu and Xu Huizu, the other 16 people raised their hands.

The personnel appointment was successfully passed, and Chen Yunfu nodded in satisfaction.

"That's right. Benfu, the chief minister of the cabinet, must also respect and obey the collective decision-making of the cabinet office meeting. Therefore, the cabinet has never been anyone's word. In the future, Benfu will not want to hear such words again."

Everyone agrees.

"Young master's words are very true, such a speechless aphasia is indeed inappropriate."

Only Qi De bowed his head and remained silent.

(End of this chapter)