Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 722 It’s Not That Others Don’t Work Hard

[As we said before, because of the military achievements of the Mongol Empire, the Mongols at that time always believed that their own system was superior.

This is also one of the reasons why Kublai Khan's imitation of Han law would incur the anger of other khanates.

But even if Kublai Khan imitated Han law, he was of Mongolian descent after all, so the administrative structure of the early Yuan Dynasty underwent drastic changes based on Han law.

For example, the Song Dynasty had two ministries and three departments. Kublai Khan thought that the two-ministry system of the Privy Council and the Secretariat was good, so he put it into use!

However, it would be better for the emperor to coordinate between these two ministries, so that the emperor can have more power. So he added the Censorate in charge of supervision with a stroke of his pen!
The Secretariat was in charge of internal affairs, the Privy Council was in charge of military affairs, and the Censorate was in charge of supervision and was responsible to the emperor. It was basically a variant of the Three Ministries. The Menxia Province and the Shangshu Province were useless and Kublai Khan abolished them with a stroke of his pen.

However, the Secretariat was abolished, but the Six Ministries were still retained and moved under the Secretariat. They still did what they were supposed to do and their responsibilities did not change.

This is actually the reason why our history textbooks spend a considerable amount of space introducing the Three Provinces and Six Ministries. This is because no matter how the system was reformed throughout the dynasties, the six ministries, which were the ones that actually did the work, remained unchanged, and the changes in the Three Provinces often reflected the power of the monarch at that time.

For example, Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister with a wave of his hand and the Hongwu Dynasty was still functioning normally. Let him try it if he abolishes the six ministries with a wave of his hand.

Well, this has gone off topic. Anyway, let’s get back to the Yuan Dynasty.

Once the organization was decided, the next step was to fill it with people. Because these three provinces and six ministries had remained essentially the same, the Han people at the time were more familiar with them. In each department, except for the top leader who was a Mongolian, the second and third leaders, as well as those who ran errands and did odd jobs were basically all Han Confucians.

After this team had been running for a while, Kublai Khan soon discovered the problem. This group of Han Confucians were good at doing things and negotiating, but they were not good at making money, and were simply not able to support the wars he frequently launched.

Fortunately, the Yuan Dynasty at that time emphasized a hodgepodge of various ethnic groups. Although the Han Confucians might not be able to make money, there were many who could. As a result, a Seljuq Turk named Ahama was soon promoted by Kublai Khan.

What Kublai Khan could not have imagined was that his promotion of Ahama would soon trigger racial confrontation within the Yuan Dynasty bureaucracy.

On one side were the native Han Confucianists, and on the other side were the Semites from Western and Central Asia who were conquered by the Mongols. The cultural background, ethnicity, language, diet, and appearance of both sides were completely different. It would be impossible for them to get along with each other.

The quarrel quickly escalated into a physical conflict, and soon evolved into an act that was very typical of the Yuan Dynasty at that time: murder.

In 1282, while Kublai was away from Dadu, someone falsely summoned Ahama on behalf of the Crown Prince Zhenjin. As a result, Ahama was hacked to death by ambushed men on the way. The murderer was soon caught, and he confessed that it had nothing to do with the Crown Prince and it was all a personal act. Kublai had just lost his wife at the time and was too lazy to investigate, so the case was hastily closed.

"Once all the Han people are united, we can use this six-department system, and Kong Ming can have a good rest." Pang Tong said with a smile.

The three provinces and six ministries appeared too frequently, so just based on those scattered names and the duties of officials mentioned from time to time, Kong Ming and his companions had already roughly deduced the responsibilities of the six ministries.

And if it really doesn't work, you can ask His Majesty Erfeng. I'm sure he knows it clearly.

However, Kong Ming believed that institutional matters needed to be tailored to the individual situation, so he had no such plan at all.

Moreover, before this, whether it was Jingzhou, Yizhou, Hanzhong or Guanzhong, the land was small and the population was sparse, so it was most efficient to gather all matters in the Central Department and have two or three people decide on them. If six departments were really set up, the efficiency would probably be greatly reduced.

But now that the restoration of the Han Dynasty is imminent, if we consider the future of the thirteen states of the Han Dynasty, it is imperative that the power of the six ministries be divided into a central decision-making center.

Cao Cao looked at the two counselors at the top, talking and laughing, and saw Liu Bei laughing heartily, and Yun Chang's eyes were either looking at the screen or at Liu Bei...

Prime Minister Cao felt a bitter taste in his mouth.

So he decided to find some interesting questions:
"Zhang Fei, how long will General Zuo live?" Zhang Fei said lazily and concisely:
"Live longer than you."

After a short silence, Cao Cao whispered to himself:
"I asked you about Yunchang's final moments, but you refused to tell me. This shows that it was not a good end."

"Has General Zuo avenged Yunchang?"

Zhang Fei sighed:
"Of course there is."

Cao Cao nodded:
"That's good."

After a while, Cao Cao suddenly asked:

"Have I ever avenged you?"

Zhang Fei snorted twice, hesitated for a while before saying:

"Of course there is."

Cao Cao stopped talking and just laughed twice in a low voice.

Zhang Fei suddenly wanted to fight Cao thief.

What no one expected was that three years after the Ahama case, an iron-necked censor wrote a memorial to Emperor Yuan:
Your Majesty, you are so old now. Isn't it time to consider abdicating and letting someone else take over?

At that time, Shangwen, the chief official of the Censorate, was the prince's man. He knew that if the memorial was submitted, there would be trouble, so he withheld it. However, the matter was discovered by a man named Dajigui Asan, a Seljuq Turk who was an old friend of Ahama who was hacked to death. So he found a way to get the memorial and submitted it to Kublai Khan.

As expected, Kublai Khan was furious. Although he did not punish the prince, he still called him over and gave him a severe scolding.

In the end, the prince was straightforward. He scolded me, right? Then wouldn't it be over if I died?

In January 1286, Crown Prince Zhenjin, who was highly anticipated by Kublai Khan, died of illness due to worry. This son, who had studied Chinese culture since childhood, should have been the most important link in ensuring the smooth sinicization of the Yuan Dynasty, but now he died suddenly, and Kublai Khan was hit hard.

Some modern analysts have found that the deaths of Zhenjin and Zhu Biao have some similarities. Both princes had a very strong father, and their fathers had too high expectations of them. In addition, both of them had poor physical fitness due to overwork.

Not to mention Zhenjin, who was a prince of Mongolian descent but had extremely weak physical constitution and could die of illness just from being frightened. On the other hand, his father Kublai Khan began to overeat after losing his son at the age of 71, yet he managed to live to be eighty years old.

What about Zhu Biao? According to Tan Qian's "Guoqie" in the late Ming Dynasty, he died of a carbuncle on his back.

Back carbuncle does not seem serious in modern times, it is just a mild infection at best. But in ancient times, there was no knowledge of infectious pathology and no way to specifically treat bacterial infections. Once the best time for treatment is missed, it will indeed be a terminal illness. The most typical example is that the tough man Xu Da died of this disease.

But Zhu Biao's back carbuncle was only the superficial cause. Modern speculation is that the deeper reason was overwork. Starting from the tenth year of Hongwu, all government affairs had to be reviewed by Zhu Biao first. After they were handled, Zhu Yuanzhang would conduct random checks. Originally, this was nothing - until Zhu Yuanzhang killed the prime minister.

From then on, Zhu Biao basically did the work of prime minister and half of the emperor, and in the few years before his death, he had to leave the capital from time to time to Xi'an to investigate the relocation of the capital. To be honest, it can be called a miracle that Zhu Biao could hold on for so long before dying, and the back carbuncle was just a small bomb that set it all off.

To put it bluntly, Zhu Yuanzhang has always been a person who judges others by his own standards. He thinks that "his father was rarely ill, and when he was ill, he made decisions as usual", so others should do the same, but he never considered:
Old Zhu, it’s not that others don’t work hard, it’s just that you are too outrageous. 】

　Sleep, sleep, and get up early
　　
　
(End of this chapter)