In the late Ming Dynasty, rising from the grassland

Chapter 331 Unifying the Civil Service

Early the next morning, Lin Rui arrived at Xiyuan, west of the imperial city.

This can be said to be the most scenic place in the entire imperial city. It not only has a lake, an island, but also a palace courtyard. It was the favorite place for emperors of the Ming Dynasty to play and cool off.

But now the entire Xiyuan has been sealed off. Except for some serving maids, there are only three hundred ladies who are responsible for compiling Confucian classics and various laws day and night.

Others are absolutely prohibited from entering and exiting, so the civil servants still don't know that the emperor has started anew. Not only is he ordering people to compile laws independently, but he is also sorting out ancient and modern classics and famous sayings, intending to tamper with the Confucian way of governing the country.

Although the two groups of people both live in Siwan, they live on two islands separately and do not interfere with each other. On weekdays, these ladies only eat, drink and play, compile and read books, and no one cares about them, so their life is very comfortable.

So when they heard that His Majesty was coming for an inspection, all the ladies were quite nervous. After all, they occasionally went boating on the lake together to relax, so they were suspected of being lazy.

Lin Rui didn't pay much attention to this, because Xiyuan at this time was simply a huge library, and almost all the books that could be found had been obtained. It was estimated that only these lonely and carefree women could Calm down and read a book, be patient.

But let alone checking and reading various classics day and night for more than two years, the amount of knowledge possessed by these three hundred ladies has reached a very terrifying level.

After all, when selecting candidates, priority was given to those with strong memories and outstanding understanding abilities.

Lin Rui was also cruel this time. In order to complete various laws as soon as possible, he lived directly in Xiyuan and carefully read and reviewed the various laws that had been compiled one by one.

If they felt it was unreasonable, they would immediately ask them to revise it, and they would also discuss it with the team responsible for editing from time to time.

As expected, with Lin Rui's participation, the compilation speed of criminal law and civil law was immediately accelerated several times. Zufa no longer caught people blind, and most of the other completed laws and regulations were overthrown and started again.

In fact, most of the laws existed in ancient times. The job of these ladies was just to organize and classify these laws in white-haired texts to make them more understandable.

At the same time, some things that are not in line with Lin Rui's ideas will be deleted, and some imperfect laws will be supplemented and improved in accordance with Lin Rui's ideas.

For example, there is no need for the crime of deceiving the emperor.

In addition to major crimes such as rebellion, treason, and regicide, which will implicate the nine clans, the other biggest crimes are beheading, which will not implicate family members, and there are no ordinary tortures.

Ordinary people are no longer punished for committing crimes. Corporal punishment is basically abolished and replaced by four types: imprisonment, hard labor, exile, and decapitation.

Lin Rui stayed in Xiyuan for more than half a month, causing almost all the three hundred ladies to regard her as the emperor's wife, not to mention working too hard, but the outside world started to stir up trouble.

Because after Hong Chengchou and the Government Affairs Council took the plunge, they no longer had any concerns and unify the government orders by eliminating dissidents. Officials at all levels in all provinces who violated the Government Council's orders would be fired.

It turned out that Hong Chengchou would find various reasons to find excuses for disobedient civil servants in various provinces before he would be dismissed or transferred.

Civil servants who were born as Jinshi of the seventh rank or above would honestly submit a letter to the emperor first, and would only be dismissed after receiving approval.After all, according to the previous rules, all Jinshi are disciples of the emperor, so even a small seventh-grade county magistrate needs to be directly appointed and removed by the emperor, and the chief assistant cannot make the decision without authorization.

Although such benefits allowed the imperial power to expand to every corner of the Ming Dynasty, the drawbacks were also considerable.

Because the governor has no actual binding force on the prefect and county magistrate. For example, if the person behind a magistrate is the chief assistant or the minister, he will not look up to his boss, the prefect, and is not even afraid of the governor.

The reason is that the governor does not have the right to remove the county magistrate directly and needs to submit a letter to the emperor.

When it comes to the court, the father-in-law says the father-in-law is right, and the mother-in-law says the mother-in-law is right, so this is why the Ming Dynasty civil servants like to form cliques.

Because if you don't form a party, you won't be able to hold an official position. No matter how good your performance is at the local level, if any civil official dislikes you and impeaches you, and you don't have an official of third rank or higher in the court to excuse you, in the government The emperor had no idea how he lost his official position or ransacked his house.

So basically nothing can be done in the Ming Dynasty, and no policies can be implemented, because there are too many people holding them back, unless there is a dominant party, such as Zhang Juzheng, who did something.

But today's Hong Chengchou has directly broken this tradition. Any local official who is disobedient regardless of his party will be dismissed directly without even bothering to find a reason.

At first, Hong Chengchou and other officials planned to kill those disobedient officials to scare the monkeys. However, since the Donglin Party members controlled the courts, and all officials who committed crimes must be judged by the courts and supervised by the Metropolitan Procuratorate, they had no choice but to do so. Quick dismissal without giving the two houses a chance to intervene.

This caused local Donglin Party officials to either defect to Hong Chengchou or be dismissed from their posts. This made Shi Kefa, Qian Qianyi and others angry and anxious at the same time.

For a time, the officials of the Government Affairs Council headed by Hong Chengchou were labeled as traitors by the Donglin Party officials who were in charge of the court. The conflict between the two parties was completely intensified and spread directly from the capital to all provinces of Dahua.

"That old dog Hong is simply doing his own evil. He dares to blatantly form cliques for personal gain and eliminate dissidents. I want to see if His Majesty can spare him this time!"

"Yes, that old dog is too arrogant. He dares to do such taboo things. He is really blinded by power."

Qian Qianyi and others were shocked and ecstatic at the same time. Although the Government Affairs Council was now dominated by one family and officials from all over the country had turned to the traitors, everyone knew that Hong Chengchou was finished.

Because even Zhang Juzheng and Wei Zhongxian did not dare to blatantly exclude dissidents on such a large scale. They believed that even a dim-witted emperor would not tolerate the appearance of such a powerful minister. This had seriously threatened the imperial power.

Obviously Qian Qianyi and other Donglin Party members still had the same thinking as before, so they did not write any more letters. Instead, they took all the judges and other officials and a large number of scholars to the palace to see the emperor, preparing to state the case of Hong Chengchou and others in person. Forming cliques and conspiring to rebel.

Yes, in the eyes of Qian Qianyi and others, Hong Chengchou just wanted to usurp the throne.

Because now, except for the hundreds of officials in the courts and the Procuratorate, all civil servants in the world look up to Hong Chengchou, and they already have that strength.

(End of this chapter)