My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 381 Shuffle
After seeing Liu She off, Liu Rong went to the side hall immediately.

On the floor of the side hall were huge pieces of paper the size of quilts, with densely written words on them.

And if just a few words of the content of these words were circulated, it would be enough to cause a violent political earthquake inside and outside the entire court!

——Liu She, you guessed wrong.

What Liu Rong wanted to move was never a position among the Nine Ministers to make room for the future Lord Duke Duwei;

What Liu Rong really wanted to do was to make a large-scale correction and adjustment to the entire system of three dukes and nine ministers of the Han Dynasty.

For example: in name, there were "Three Dukes", but in reality, there were only three permanent officials, namely, the Prime Minister and the Chief Censor. Liu Rong planned to kick the Grand Marshal out of the Three Dukes.

According to Liu Rong's idea, the three highest officials in the Han Dynasty would be the prime minister and the imperial censor.
And: Chief Censor!
In fact, the existing political system of the Han Dynasty can find corresponding references even in the new era in the future.

——As the head of all officials, the prime minister theoretically needs to assist the emperor in governing the country, but in reality, almost everything in the Han Dynasty is led by the Prime Minister's Office and carried out in detail.

In the new era of later generations, there is also such a place called Guowu Garden (blocked word).

The Grand Censor, also known as the "Second Prime Minister", was theoretically responsible for assisting the Prime Minister in handling government affairs. He was also responsible for supervising all officials and was responsible for their review and dispatch.

But in fact, the only significance of the position of Chief Censor is to check and balance the Prime Minister.

The way to check and balance is exactly that seemingly stable statement: assisting the prime minister.

Since he wants to assist, he must definitely intervene in the government affairs of the Prime Minister's Office;
Interfering in specific affairs will naturally take away some targeted rights.

As for the duty of the Grand Censor to "supervise all officials and examine the officials", it was the responsibility of the real person in charge of the Grand Censor's Office: the Chief Censor.

The Chief Censor probably corresponds to the disciplinary inspection department and personnel organization department in later generations.

In Liu Rong's opinion, in the past, the Han Dynasty used the Grand Censor to control the Prime Minister, and let the Deputy Censor-in-Chief to perform the disciplinary inspection function. In fact, it was forcing two departments with completely different responsibilities together.

It is said that the Grand Censor is in charge of the Censorate, but in actual operation, the Grand Censor himself hardly cares about anything related to the Censorate.

Almost all issues concerning discipline inspection and official dispatch are handled by the Chief Censor below.

As for the reason for doing this, Liu Rong could probably understand it.

——The power of the prime minister comes from the right to govern the entire world;
In order to restrain such an extremely powerful person, the opposing Censor must also have enough authority to have the power to restrain the Prime Minister.

In the past, the power that supported the Grand Censor and the Prime Minister to compete with each other and check and balance each other was the power to supervise all officials, as well as the power to arrange personnel and appoint and dismiss them.

yes;
Your Prime Minister is very powerful;
There is nothing in the world that you cannot get involved in;

But the power of official review and personnel transfer in my hands is the lifeline of the outer court led by you!

If you don't take me seriously, I can easily shake your bureaucracy with just a flick of my finger.

To put it bluntly, it means 'incapable of accomplishing anything, but capable of causing trouble' - for me, the Imperial Censor, to want to ruin your position as Prime Minister is simply taking advantage of the situation!

This approach is undoubtedly smart.

However, in actual practice, the power that should have supported the Grand Censor's right to speak was instead controlled by the Chief Censor.

This is obviously unreasonable and abnormal.

Therefore, Liu Rong planned to make the prime minister, the chief censor, and the deputy censor the new three officials of the Han Dynasty.

Among them, the powers of the prime minister remained basically unchanged, and the effectiveness of the State Affairs Garden was still exerted;

However, the key power that originally belonged to the Prime Minister's Office: the national treasury, would be indirectly controlled by the Grand Censor.

——Every expenditure from the Prime Minister’s Treasury needs to be reviewed by the Chief Censor!
In this way, the prime minister who lost the financial power of the national treasury was weakened.

As for the Grand Censor, although he no longer used the power to supervise officials and make personnel arrangements as capital to fight against the Prime Minister, he could still effectively check and balance the Prime Minister by relying on the lifeblood of the Prime Minister's Office in his hands: the financial power of the national treasury.

As for the Chief Censor, he, as usual, was responsible for the heavy burden of official review and personnel arrangements, and with this authority, he became another check and balance force besides the Prime Minister and the Grand Censor.

It is well known that triangles are stable.

Compared with the checks and balances between two parties, Liu Rong is more inclined to the situation where three parties check and balance each other, where they cannot do anything to each other and it is absolutely impossible for two parties to unite.

The prime minister is in charge of government affairs, the chief censor is responsible for financial audits, and the deputy censor is responsible for supervising all officials - the three parties each have their own responsibilities and check and balance each other.

As for the Grand Marshal who was kicked out of the Three Dukes, according to Liu Rong's idea, there was actually no need for him to exist anymore.

——Hundreds of years ago during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, due to the need for frequent wars, the various powers developed the position of Taiwei, a position with abnormal powers.

It was precisely because the position of Taiwei had too much power that the Qin court never appointed Taiwei throughout the Qin Dynasty, whether before or after unification.

During the Han Dynasty, the post of Taiwei was "unbanned", but its disadvantages were undoubtedly greater than its effectiveness.

no way;
As the highest military commander in the country, on par with the prime minister, the Taiwei has almost endless power in the military field!

As long as it has something to do with military affairs, there is nothing that the general cannot handle.

Even matters that have nothing to do with the military can, through the Taiwei's indirect manipulation, eventually be connected to the military and included in the scope of the Taiwei's intervention.

Since the founding of the Han Dynasty, successive Han Dynasty generals - Zhou Bo, Marquis of Jiang, Guan Ying, Marquis of Yingyin, and Zhou Yafu, Marquis of Tiao - were all extremely talented people who posed a huge threat to the stability of the Han regime.

Even Guan Ying, the most honest and upright of the three, once caused Emperor Taizong Xiaowen a lot of headaches.

The reason for this is that the Taiwei was so powerful and held so much authority - especially the military power - that it was impossible for the feudal emperor to overthrow the Taiwei.

If the feudal emperor wanted to remove the military power from the hands of the general, the only measure he could take was to transfer him.

The Grand Marshal, whose rank was ten thousand stones, and the Prime Minister were the highest military and administrative officials of the country.

Not to mention promotion - even if it was a lateral transfer, he could only be transferred from the position of Grand Marshal to the position of Prime Minister.

In fact, all the emperors of the Han Dynasty did the same.

——Emperor Taizong Xiaowen wanted to remove the military power from Zhou Bo and Guan Ying, so he appointed them as prime ministers;

The previous emperor wanted to remove Zhou Yafu's military power, and he also wanted to make him a prime minister, so that the Han Dynasty's Taiwei would be idle again, thus indirectly taking back Zhou Yafu's military power. It was not until last year, during the Han-Xiongnu Hetao-Mayi War, that the Han Dynasty finally had a Taiwei who could remove his military power without the reward of the position of prime minister: Li Ji, Marquis of Quzhou.

But this is not because the Han Taiwei is no longer difficult to deal with nowadays, but simply because of the political stain of Quzhou Hou Li Ji's "selling friends for fame", he cannot serve as prime minister;
The position of Taiwei was increasingly recognized as a position that could not be established permanently, both inside and outside the Han court.

In addition, Li Ji himself was very sensible. He wrote a letter to the emperor requesting retirement as soon as possible after the war, so this matter did not cause too much trouble.

To be honest, the reason why Liu Rong appointed Li Ji as the Grand Marshal before the war was precisely because Liu Rong was sure that Li Ji, the Grand Marshal, would not become a trouble to him like Zhou Bo, Guan Ying, and Zhou Yafu in the previous emperor's time.

In fact, with the development of Chinese civilization to this stage, the existence of the position of Taiwei is no longer necessary.

——When necessary, the Han emperor had countless ways and means, such as the General of Chariots and Cavalry, the General of Relatives of the Emperor, etc., to replace the functions of the Grand Marshal, while at the same time avoiding the political turmoil that would inevitably result from the appointment of the Grand Marshal.

Therefore, Liu Rong not only intended to kick the Taiwei out of the list of the Three Dukes, but also wanted to completely sweep the "Taiwei", a special product of the special era background, into the garbage dump of history.

As for the future, Liu Rong has the positions of Grand Marshal and General to meet the needs of foreign wars.

Compared to the general whose advantages were barely good enough but whose flaws were almost endless, no matter how Liu Rong replaced him, it was unlikely to make things worse...

Furthermore, the system of Three Dukes and Nine Ministers was an administrative system tailor-made for the central court.

Since it is an administrative system, it should not be confused with the military.

——The three dukes and nine ministers in the court should exist purely for the governance of the country;
As for the generals in the army, they should exist in another system, such as the general, the general of chariots and cavalry, the front and rear generals, the left and right generals, the commanders and the colonels.

At the level of the Three Dukes, kicking out the Grand Marshal and replacing him with the Chief Censor are actually considered "minor adjustments".

Liu Rong's real focus was on the Nine Ministers level.

——The Internal History, the Junior Treasure, the Grand Coachman, the Supreme Court Justice, the Imperial Palace Attorney, the Imperial Guards, the Minister of Rites, the Chief of the Imperial Clan, and the Minister of Guests!
There are only nine positions, and there are at least three freaks among them!

The Nei Shi, known as the 'little prime minister' of Guanzhong, is in charge of the whole world just like the prime minister. There is nothing in Guanzhong that the Nei Shi cannot get involved in!

Administration, taxation, public security and even military affairs;
The tentacles of the Nei Shi extended to every aspect of Guanzhong.

The existence of subordinate departments such as the Lieutenant, the General of the Central Army, and the Commandant for Preventing Thieves made it unsurprising that the tentacles of the Internal History extended to Chang'an and even the Forbidden City!

Considering that the Han Dynasty already had a prime minister who "managed the whole world", the Nei Shi, as the "minor prime minister of Guanzhong", had a considerable overlap in power and responsibilities with the prime minister;

This made Liu Rong inevitably complain in his heart: the position of Nei Shi exists solely as a 'training class for potential prime ministers'.

Should Neishi be abolished?

Liu Rong believes that the existence of Nei Shi still has a certain degree of positive significance.

But the Nei Shi should not exist as a complete entity.

Just like the Prime Minister's Office should not have both administrative and financial powers at the same time, the Internal Secretary should not have all kinds of powers in the Guanzhong region at the same time.

Either the power of the Nei Shi should be split up, and the administrative, military, financial, and public security functions should be separated and each should be responsible for its own affairs;

Or, the Nei Shi could be directly dismembered according to the region, just like Zuo Fufeng, You Fengyi, and Jingzhao Yin in history.

To put it in a phrase that is more familiar to later generations: The Emperor of Han would not allow such a powerful department as the Nei Shi to exist in the Guanzhong base camp!
Therefore, when it comes to the Internal History, Liu Rong tends to copy homework - following the changes in the original historical timeline and dividing the Internal History into three parts.

After all, this approach has been verified by history and is unlikely to go wrong.

In addition to the Nei Shi, the second freak of the Han family is undoubtedly the Shao Fu.

——The power of the Shaofu gave the Han emperor the confidence to overturn the table at any time and start all over again.

But everything has two sides.

The Han emperor who controls the Shaofu can overturn the table and restart it at any time, which means that when the Shaofu is in the hands of another person, it can also become the only weapon to subvert the Han ancestral temple and the country, and even the Chinese civilization!

Liu Rong certainly understood the importance of the Shaofu, and it was impossible for him to allow the Shaofu to be controlled by anyone other than himself.

But historical experience told Liu Rong: As a feudal emperor, you must not have too high expectations for your descendants.

Liu Rong could not guarantee that in a hundred years, there wouldn't be a fool with strange thinking among his descendants;
Therefore, Liu Rong could only nip the danger in the bud and "strangle" the Shaofu, this freak who could poke a hole in the sky at any time, before the Han emperor could still lift the knife.

The first step was to use the Lord-Grand Commandant to snatch the major source of official grain from the Shaofu, and to use the power of official grain, salt, and iron to make the Shaofu, to a certain extent, be controlled by the Lord-Grand Commandant, the new political upstart.

The next step is the same as that of the Internal History: dismemberment.

It is just different from the dismemberment of the Internal History, which simply and crudely divided Guanzhong into three regions according to geographical location, and each was governed by the three parts split out by the Internal History: the dismemberment of the Shaofu is an extremely complicated matter.

Because the Shaofu's powers and responsibilities are so comprehensive, even Liu Rong, a visitor from later generations, was frightened by this ultimate stitched monster.

If you need money, you have money; if you need people, you have people;
It almost controls the most complete and most comprehensive industrial chain of this era, can manufacture almost everything that exists in this era, and controls all production factors from raw materials, production technology, production tools, to production sites, labor, etc.

Large-scale projects such as buildings, roads, and water conservancy;

Production of tools for military, civilian and royal use.

There is really nothing in heaven and on earth that the Shaofu cannot make or take out, and there is nothing that the Shaofu cannot do!

For such a freak, even if Liu Rong was determined to dismember it, he would have trouble finding a suitable incision.

Fortunately, this freak was not a "national treasure" but the private property of the Han emperor.

Dismembering this monster will not lead to strong opposition from the outside court, and the outside court has no position or voice to oppose it.

Therefore, Liu Rong planned to leave this problem to the cunning people in the court to deal with.

——The emperor wanted to abolish his own martial arts and dismember the Shaofu, which was like pie in the sky for the outer court.

Liu Rong was sure that as long as he let the word out, all the "people with lofty ideals" in the world would be able to come up with a plan to dismember the Shaofu.

As for how to perform the final operation, it was Liu Rong who had the final say.

(End of this chapter)