My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 396 Everything is turned upside down
As time came to the autumn of the second year of Emperor Rong's reign - the year was coming to an end, and the Chang'an court, which had never been idle, became busy again as expected.

Not because of the grand plan;
According to the Han Dynasty's tradition of "a major plan every three years", plus the unconditional major plan in the first year of the new emperor's accession to the throne, Liu Rong's next major plan would be at the end of the next year or the beginning of the year after, that is, in the fourth year of Emperor Rong's new reign.

What really made the Chang'an court busy was the series of reform plans that Liu Rong had drawn up for the departments of the Chang'an court over the past six months.

It has to be said that Liu Rong is very ambitious.

This reform covered all aspects of the central government in Chang'an, including the three dukes and nine ministers in the court, the eight streets and nine alleys of Chang'an, the imperial guards, granaries and treasuries.

Let's take the three highest officials as an example - it seems that the prime minister and the chief censor will not be changed, and only the grand marshal will be replaced by the chief censor.
But in fact, it changed the separation of the three powers of the Han Dynasty from politics, supervision and military to the separation of the three powers of politics, finance and personnel.

In Liu Rong's words, the three officials of the Han Dynasty had already vaguely shown the prototype of the three-province and six-bureau system of later generations.

Among them, the prime minister, as the head of all officials, roughly has the authority of the cabinet minister + the Ministry of Revenue;
The Grand Censor was probably the one who held the power over the finances of the Ministry of Revenue and the cabinet minister.

As for the Chief Censor, he was the prototype of the Ministry of Personnel in later generations.

As for the remaining four ministries, namely, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Punishments, and the Ministry of Rites - the Shaofu is equivalent to the super-high-end Ministry of Works + the quasi-Ministry of War, the Dali (Tingwei) is equivalent to the Ministry of Punishments, and the Fengchang is equivalent to the super-low-end Ministry of Rites.

From this perspective, Liu Rong's reform laid the factual foundation for the transition and development of the Han Dynasty from the system of three dukes and nine ministers to the system of three provinces and six ministries.

This is the level of the three public officials;

It was of great significance, but in the end two of the Three Dukes were still retained.

When it reaches the level of Nine Ministers, it is really a huge shock.

——The Shaofu is split!
——The internal history is split!
These two items alone are enough to make everyone inside and outside the court go bald with exhaustion!

According to the plan initially drawn up by Liu Rong, after the Shaofu was split, the main part would still be retained, still called the Shaofu and still the Nine Ministers;
However, after some key powers were removed, the Shaofu will obviously not be as powerful as it is today.

The most controversial of these is the establishment of the new Nine Ministers: the Chief Duke and the Commandant.

The chief lieutenant, as the name suggests, is in charge of conferring and depriving titles;
But in addition to this basic base, the Lord Commander will also control two other crucial state-level monopoly projects: grain, and salt and iron business!

In addition, Liu Rong secretly hinted that from now on, all kinds of goods produced by the Shaofu would not flow directly into the market, but would have to be passed through the hands of the Lord of the Dukes, which basically determined the future development direction of the Lord of the Dukes.

——The first state-owned enterprise in human feudal history!
It can be predicted that from now on, anything that has anything to do with "official business" or is produced by the government will be included in the job of the Lord Duke.

In other words, the most important power of the Shaofu: the right to sell, was given to the Lord Duke.

This is not over yet.

After the official management rights of grain, salt and iron, the second thing to be separated from the Shaofu was the East and West Weaving Rooms.

As we all know, in the feudal era, the strongest currency was never copper coins or silver ingots;
But cloth.

For most of human history, weaving cloth was equivalent to printing money.

In the past, although the East and West Weaving Rooms were "independent of each other" and focused on the production of cloth for different purposes, they still had at least some connection with their immediate superior, the Shaofu.

——The raw materials needed for weaving in the East and West Weaving Rooms were either purchased from outside by the Shaofu or produced by the Shaofu himself;

Even the weaving equipment was made by the Shaofu and handed over to the East and West Weaving Rooms, who were also responsible for their daily repairs and upkeep.

The cloth produced by the East and West Weaving Rooms was not sent directly to the people who needed it, but was first sent to the Shaofu for storage.

When the medicine is needed, the emperor will issue an edict and the Shaofu will allocate it from the inventory according to the order.

Official robes, court dresses, as well as the clothes and costumes of the women in the palace, the Empress Dowager and the Emperor, had nothing to do with the East and West Weaving Rooms - they were all the business of the Shaofu.

In other words, the weaving rooms in the past were extremely pure production departments.

Just like the military workshops, iron smelting workshops, and the imperial fields in Shanglinyuan under the name of the Shaofu, they were only responsible for production and did not care about anything else.

Where the raw materials came from, when and how they were delivered, what the woven cloth was used for, and where it was supplied first were all entirely the responsibility of the Shaofu, and the East and West Weaving Rooms did not need to worry at all.

But in the future, the East and West Weaving Rooms will be separated from the Shaofu and go their own way.

Although the raw materials were still obtained from the Shaofu, they were no longer "allocated" but purchased with money;
Although the final product is still taken over by the Shaofu, it is no longer a "delivery", but is still purchased by the Shaofu.

The cloth production department of the past has since become an independent department that is self-reliant, responsible for its own profits and losses, and has an independent financial system.

As for the Shaofu, after losing the right to sell grain, salt, iron, and an unknown number of goods in the future, it also lost the "right to mint coins" to some extent due to the "departure" of the East and West Weaving Rooms.

——Cloth is the hardest currency.

For the Shaofu, losing the East and West Weaving Rooms was no less than losing a money-printing machine or a cash cow.

However, the real right to mint coins was rarely left to the Shaofu by Liu Rong.

From now on, all coins in the world are minted by the Shaofu Mint, and private minting of coins is prohibited!
It is said that the new coin was named Wuzhu.
On the day when the Wuzhu coin is issued, all kinds of miscellaneous coins currently in circulation throughout the country - such as Taizong's four-zhu, Empress Lü's eight-zhu, Taizu's three-zhu (Han half-liang), Qin half-liang, and even the Warring States knife coins and shell coins, will be completely banned.

This is just one of the many huge workloads that the Chang'an court will have to deal with in the coming years.

In addition to minting coins, the Shaofu will also retain a military industry department.

In simple terms, the Shaofu will be streamlined from the original huge and complicated monster to a department responsible for minting coins, making military equipment, and supplying the expenses of the Forbidden City.

The departments that originally belonged to the Shaofu but were about to be dismantled were divided into: the new Nine Ministers, the new independent department "Zhi Shi", and "Taicang" and "Dongyuan" assigned to other departments.

Overall, there is a lot to do.

There are many things that need to be clarified and sorted out...

This is Shaofu.

Looking at the Internal History, it is another difficult problem.

Unlike the Shaofu, which was lucky enough to retain its main body and remain as one of the Nine Ministers after being split up, the splitting of the Neishi was thorough and clean.

The original main body will be split into Zuo Fengling, You Fufeng and Jingzhao Yin.

From the perspective of division of responsibilities, these three departments are more like dividing Guanzhong into three states: east, west and central, and then these three departments perform functions such as governors and provincial governors.

But it is limited to the administrative governance level.

In other aspects such as personnel, finance, and military, these three regions will still maintain their original operating systems and will not become real "states".

As for the subordinate department of the Internal Affairs Bureau, the Zhongwei was separated and renamed Zhijinwu, becoming the new Jiuqing.

The General of the Five Officials was merged into the Ordinary General; the Commandant in Charge of Preventing Thieves was merged into the Dali (Tingwei).

Only the agricultural and civil departments were retained and renamed: Da Nong, who was in charge of agricultural affairs of the world and became one of the new Nine Ministers.

Taicang, which was originally owned by the Shaofu, was merged into Da Nong.

After removing one of the new Nine Ministers from the Shaofu, the Nine Ministers level was still retained. The Neishi even directly removed two of the new Nine Ministers. In fact, it is not difficult to see how huge and complicated these two departments were in the past.

At this point, the dismantling of the Shaofu and Neishi departments was completed.

The original two Nine Ministers: Shaofu and Nei Shi, became the four Nine Ministers: Shaofu, Zhujue Duwei, Zhijinwu, and Da Nong.

With the addition of two new Nine Ministers, naturally some of the old Nine Ministers will be replaced.

In other words, there are only five positions of the Nine Ministers left, for the remaining seven of the old Nine Ministers to compete for.

Among them, Dali (Tingwei) of the law department, Taipu of the horse administration department, Fengchang of the ritual department, Langzhongling of the emperor's close attendants, and Zongzheng of the clan affairs department, all obviously have unquestionable necessity.

Thus, two unlucky guys who were replaced by the Nine Ministers were born.

——Weiwei, and Dianke.

The latter is easy to understand - there is no need for the diplomatic department to exist in the Han Dynasty today.

The clan members and princes within the clan are all related to the clan, so the Zongzheng can completely do the job for them.
As for the outside world, if there were envoys from foreign countries, Fengchang could be responsible for receiving them - this has always been the case in the past.

Specific diplomatic affairs have never been controlled by the Dianke, and in the future there will be no need for such a figurehead group of Nine Ministers to be responsible for presiding over the diplomatic affairs between the Han Dynasty and foreign countries at home and abroad.

Of course;
This department has existed for so many years and, although it has been questioned, it has never been abolished by any generation of emperors. Instead, it has remained to this day at the level of Nine Ministers, which in itself has a certain reason.

To be precise: it is not Dian Ke himself who is rubbish, but the current Han Dynasty, which leaves Dian Ke no room to perform.

According to the original historical timeline, about twenty years later, the Director of Guests of the Nine Ministers of the Han Dynasty would be renamed as the Grand Herald by Emperor Wu of Han.

So what department does this Da Honglu belong to?

Theoretically, his duties are the same as those of Dianke: to be in charge of foreign affairs at home and abroad.

But this moment, that moment.

The "internal and external foreign states" that the Dianke in the reigns of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing referred to were the vassal kings of Wu and Chu, who were internally disrespectful and had almost unlimited autonomy;
It refers to the extremely powerful, even hopelessly powerful Xiongnu in the north;

It was Zhao Tuo from the south who repeatedly proclaimed himself emperor;
It was the Wei Dynasty of Korea in the Northeast that repeatedly provoked the Han Dynasty.

In such an era, the only thing the Dianke could do was to receive delegations of princes and foreign envoys who came to pay homage to the emperor.

As for managing foreign countries at home and abroad?
Can you control the Huns or the Nanyue?
Can he manage the clan relatives and princes, or can he manage the Korean Peninsula?

But when the trend of the times went back to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, the once least prominent of the Nine Ministers of Han finally stood up.

Huns?
——Be my dog, Sima Huo!
South Vietnam?

——It is a pleasure for us men today to allow you to surrender!
Southwestern Yi?
——Are you talking about Granny Liu who studied Dream of the Red Chamber and the Yelang Kingdom that survived by pretending to be a monkey?

The situation of the clan princes was different from before. Not only had their claws and teeth been cut off by the policy of reducing the power of their fiefdoms, but they were also completely cut off from their roots by the Emperor Wu's favor.

Don't even mention Wei's Korea - they will destroy your country if you disagree with them, without any room for negotiation!

The radically changing internal and external environment transformed the once obscure Dianke into the third freak of the Han Dynasty after Nei Shi and Shao Fu: Da Honglu.

At its peak, the power wielded by the Grand Herald once covered most of the Asian continent, all areas except the Guanzhong region!
In the northern grasslands, all the nomadic peoples taken in as dogs by Huo Qubing were uniformly deployed by the Grand Herald and their daily lives were arranged;

When the Baiyue people in the south sent envoys to Chang'an to pay homage to the Han emperor, the first thing they knelt was never to the Han emperor, but to the Grand Herald.

The princes and clan members were the most miserable - in order to avoid "no descendants" or having a few extra sons to divide the territory, they could only beg and plead for a chance to see the doorman of the Grand Herald's house so as to get some favors in.

The most exaggerated thing is that during the war, even a strong man like Huo Qubing had to pay a visit to the Grand Herald and say to him in a friendly manner: "Thank you for your hard work over the years, old sir.
The war was about to begin;

I wonder if the foreign tribes that the old man has taken care of over the years can give a few tens of thousands of people to the young people, so as to avoid heavy casualties among the soldiers of the Han family...

But all this has not happened yet at this point in time.

The Huns were still powerful;

The Han people have not yet achieved the title of champion marquis who can be treated as dogs by hundreds of thousands of nomadic peoples just by strolling around the grassland.

Dian Ke is still that little transparent person.

Therefore, the first person to be excluded from the ranks of the Nine Ministers was, as expected, the Dianke.

As for Liu Rong, even though he knew that the Dianke had great potential in the future, he simply retained this department, removed it from the list of Nine Ministers, and downgraded it to a quasi-Nine Ministers department with a real two thousand stones, just like the lieutenant in the past.

Even this has triggered a series of discussions, saying that Liu Rong took too much care of Gongsun Kunxie...

In any case, it was not surprising that Dianke was removed from the list of Nine Ministers.

But the other elimination spot is somewhat controversial.

——Weiwei.

Logically speaking, the Weiwei, like the other nine ministers of the Taipu and Zongzheng departments, are all highly professional and critical full-time departments.

Even if one of the old nine ministers is to be abolished to make room for the new nine ministers such as the Chief of Nobles and the Minister of Agriculture, it should be a department like the Chief of the Imperial Clan, which is important but can be compromised.

After all, family members are easier to bully.

Why shouldn't it be Weiwei?
Then, Liu Rong's next move came.

——Starting with the abolition of the "Three Dukes" rank of Taiwei, in addition to the administrative system of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers in the court, a whole set of military and political systems was opened up!

This system, headed by the Grand Commandant, was renamed: Grand Marshal;
It has military positions such as general and general of chariots and cavalry.

The Weiwei, who was originally one of the Nine Ministers, became a military position like the General and the General of Chariots and Cavalry. His rank was still the same as the Middle Two Thousand Stones of the Nine Ministers, and his status was equal to that of the General and slightly higher than that of the General of Chariots and Cavalry.

This also involves the next area that Liu Rong wants to move into after the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers.

——The imperial guard system, and the military and political system...

(End of this chapter)