I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 292 Reverie
The Minister of Revenue Shi Jie stepped forward and said, "In the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign, 28,000 dan of grain has been transported to the capital. Please store it in the warehouse."

Zhu Houxuan said: "Give him the storage!"

All the state affairs were discussed by the bigwigs, and Zhu Houxuan only had to answer and express his views according to the script.

The petty officials below were like wooden stakes standing there, and all they heard were the results that had been handled by the cabinet.

Thinking that the court meetings would always be like this, Zhu Houxuan also wanted to skip work.

Not long after, the morning court was over and the ministers withdrew to the sound of ritual music.

Zhu Houxuan also walked out of the back hall of the Fengtian Hall. Normally, he should have paid his respects to Empress Dowager Zhang, but his relationship with Empress Dowager Zhang was not very good, and Zhu Houzhao basically never paid his respects to Empress Dowager Zhang when he was in the capital, so Zhu Houxuan thought about it and decided not to bother to go.

Wei Bin led Zhu Houxuan to the Qianqing Palace, where he saw a table piled high with memorials.

He opened a book at random, which talked about the disaster in the vicinity of Shuntian Prefecture. The governor of Shuntian Prefecture requested a reduction in the collection of some summer grain.

There was a piece of paper attached to the memorial, on which was written in ink the detailed opinions of the cabinet on how to deal with the matter. Zhu Houxuan knew that this was the cabinet's draft.

With the development of Ming Dynasty politics, the cabinet's special task was to draft proposals. The objects of the draft proposals were memorials from various departments and they expressed the cabinet's opinions on the memorials. Although the effectiveness of the draft proposals depended on the influence of cabinet ministers on the emperor, after the draft proposals became a system, the emperor had to pay attention to the cabinet's draft proposals.

Zhu Houxuan read the contents of the draft carefully and felt that the handling opinions were quite appropriate and he could not find any fault with them.

Then he flipped through several memorials and saw that the contents of these memorials were also varied. Some were written in a very long-winded manner, going around in circles for a simple matter, while some were written in a simple and direct manner, which was easier to read and save effort.

When he finished reading these memorials, he found that at least half an hour had passed, and there was still a pile of memorials in front of him, and more memorials were constantly being sent to him.

At this rate, it would take him a long time to review all these memorials.

Zhu Houxuan looked up and found that all the eunuchs from the Imperial Household Department were standing in the Qianqing Palace, and he was moved.
"How did the emperor handle memorials before?" Zhu Houxuan asked Wei Bin.

"Your Highness, the Emperor used to review a few books before asking us, the Imperial Household Department, to approve them," Wei Bin said respectfully.

In terms of the nature of its power, "approval" is the highest decision-making power and a way to realize the imperial power. Therefore, when the eunuchs of the Imperial Household Department "approved" on behalf of the emperor, they were exercising the imperial power.

This was actually a way for the Ming Dynasty emperors to be lazy.

From the cabinet's draft to the Silijian's approval, it can be seen that the Ming Dynasty emperor's secretarial system was still very complete, and it could function normally even without an emperor.

"Thank you for your hard work, eunuchs," Zhu Houxuan said with a bow. He suddenly realized that under such a complete cabinet system, he, the regent, was actually dispensable. In this case, it would be better to let the empire run according to the previous trajectory. Direct intervention would also be annoying. This time the regent came too suddenly. Even if he wanted to intervene, he couldn't find a suitable entry point, and he didn't have that much energy, so he chose to directly hand over the memorial to the Silijian for processing.

Several eunuchs in the Imperial Household Department quickly divided the memorials on the table into several parts, sat at the tables around them, and began to review them quickly.
Zhu Houxuan looked at the busy scene in the Qianqing Palace and nodded with satisfaction. He leaned back in his chair comfortably. It was not a difficult job to be the regent.

He sat in the chair and soon his mind wandered. He didn't know why his thoughts drifted to the imperial harem while sitting in the Qianqing Palace...

A strange idea gradually arose in his mind: Compared with being the regent, Zhu Houzhao might need him to supervise the harem more!
There is no other reason, it is because Zhu Houxuan’s fertility is so strong that it surprises many people.

Zhu Houxuan had four women in the eighth year of Zhengde. Princess Zhang Yourong gave birth to his eldest son in the ninth year of Zhengde, concubine Qin Yuelan gave birth to his eldest son in the seventh year of Zhengde, and the other two concubines were brought to the capital by him and gave birth to two daughters for him in the tenth year of Zhengde.

Because the concubines brought to the capital were all pregnant or breastfeeding, Zhu Houxuan had no intention of keeping her in suspense. He could afford to support them anyway, so he took in four more concubines at once. As a result, by the middle of the eleventh year of Zhengde, the three new concubines had all become pregnant one after another. One of them gave birth to a son, and two were expecting to give birth.

So if everything goes well, Zhu Houxuan, who is only 22 years old this year, will have 7 children...

This record directly blinded everyone's eyes. In ancient times, it was rare for someone to have so many children at this age. Anyway, there was no second one in the capital, and none of his children had died yet...

Even Zhu Houzhao was curious and secretly asked Zhu Houxuan for the secret of having a child. Zhu Houxuan naturally told him the truth. He was also curious whether Zhu Houzhao was just unlucky or had real health problems.

In fact, Zhu Houxuan's secret is very simple. He had been strengthening his body by forging iron in the fourth year of Zhengde. Although he was very courageous afterwards, he also paid attention to physical exercise. He was also baptized by modern aesthetics. He was not like the literati in the Ming Dynasty who married teenage girls who were not well developed in Zhu Houxuan's opinion. Zhu Houxuan married mature women who were at least sixteen years old. In addition, as a time traveler, he must have understood the most basic physiological knowledge, so it is not surprising that he had so many children.

As for the problem of infant mortality, the infant mortality rate can be greatly reduced as long as we master some simple modern care techniques and break some bad parenting traditions.

After Zhu Houzhao got the secret from Zhu Houxuan, he moved from the Leopard Room to the harem for a while, but moved back after a few months. As for the rest, Zhu Houxuan did not dare to ask.

If only he could supervise the harem... Zhu Houxuan quickly woke up from his reverie and put the idea behind him.

Although nothing tastes better than dumplings, and nothing is more fun than..., this idea is still too evil...

Zhu Houxuan woke up from his reverie and blamed himself severely in his heart. He decided to take two more concubines when he returned...

At this time, Wei Bin came over with a pile of memorials and said with a smile: "Your Highness, this is the one that has been approved. Please take a look. If there is no problem, I will take it and use the seal..."

In fact, under normal circumstances, Wei Bin would have just used the seal, because Zhu Houzhao would basically not review it. But now Zhu Houxuan is the Prince Regent, and Wei Bin is not familiar with his style of doing things. Anyway, it would not be wrong to ask one more question.

Zhu Houxuan had no interest in the review and was about to refuse, but then he remembered something and took back the words of refusal...

(End of this chapter)