Guangzong Yaoming

Chapter 203 Beijing has changed, what about Nanjing?

To welcome two new grand secretaries... no, the imperial edicts of "Prime Minister" and "Prime Minister" were sent to Zhejiang and Henan.

The specific details have yet to be perfected in the future, but nearly half a month after Shen Yikuan resigned and Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi passed away, when the court and the public were still discussing whether to add cabinet members and how many to add, the Ming Dynasty's court suddenly underwent such a huge change.

Although the one house and four courtyards were still led by the title of Grand Secretary, they were already prime ministers in reality.

Privately, the new titles of these five positions reflected the inner desires of officials, as well as the emperor's boldness in slightly loosening the power of the prime minister.

Taizu once said that anyone who dared to talk about appointing a prime minister would be beheaded.

But now everyone has begun to call the Grand Secretary of the Imperial Study the Book Minister. The Grand Secretary of the Jinxian Academy and the Grand Secretary of the Privy Council are respectively the Minister of Literature and the Minister of Martial Arts, while the Grand Secretary of the Shizheng Academy and the Grand Secretary of the Jiancha Academy are respectively the Assistant Minister and the Minister of the Court.

Among the Nine Ministers, Tian Le became the Prime Minister. According to the unspoken rules of the past, he was not qualified because he was not from the Hanlin Academy.

But now the rules have been directly broken by the emperor, and those who are above the third rank and not from the Hanlin Academy are all excited.

Naturally, this matter would not be welcomed by everyone. Except for the former Ministry of Rites, the heads of other ministries suddenly had a new boss.

How can there be few disputes regarding the hierarchy and scope of authority?

Zhu Changluo's solution was also very simple: in fact, it was nothing more than the relationship between general coordination and division of labor. The heads of the government offices directly under the one house and four courtyards all served as "assistants to the prime minister's office", and internal affairs were actually discussed by several people.

The assistant officials were not yes-men. Although the prime minister could give his own opinions on the memorials as in the past, and even request how some things should be done, if the affairs within the offices of the assistant officials were not signed by the assistant officials, the memorials with drafted opinions could not be presented to the emperor.

The structure of the court suddenly changed to a central government where the emperor and the five ministers discussed military and national strategies, and the central government was then implemented to the local level through discussions among the ministers and assistants within the one room and five courtyards.

In essence, the changes from the past are not that big, but the status and position are very different.

Not to mention that the emperor intended to rebuild the Forbidden City, set up an outer court, and rule together with his ministers.

When the news reached Changyuan County, Daming Prefecture, it was already June.

Li Hualong entered the last month of his mourning period. According to previous decrees, he should set off for Beijing to meet the emperor next month.

During this period of time, Li Hualong had acted like a "soft bone worm" and cleared out all the land and people that had been donated to his family. He would not touch the bad luck of exempting as many of his family members as possible. After asking about the big and small things that had happened before, he also asked all the clan members to "surrender" to the county and returned more than 3,000 taels of "stolen goods".

In reality, how could there be just this little “stolen goods”?

Daming Prefecture still belonged to Northern Zhili after all. The number of cases of officials and gentry harming the people found this year was too high to count. After the imperial edict came down to reduce the number of cases of preferential treatment, various places had actually been handling cases in the name of promoting the decree.

No matter where it is, as long as the local officials still have some ambition to control the place, or simply out of selfish desires, then this is an opportunity for a major reshuffle.

He supported the gentry who were friendly to him as the village head, and under the pretext of implementing the decree, he conducted a thorough investigation of those gentry families who were resistant or even just hesitant. It was not uncommon for their families to be ruined.

Because Li Hualong's clan members were the first to respond and only returned more than 3,000 taels of "stolen goods", they were not only exempted from punishment but also allowed the clan elder to be appointed as a village head. At this time, they naturally admired Li Hualong's foresight.

"Could it be that Yu Tian's Draft of the Memorial to the Emperor on the Concession of Liaodong is a statement that he does not want to go to Nanjing and intends to return to Liaodong?"

The person who came to visit Li Hualong's home was a professor from the provincial school who happened to be in Changyuan to take the examination for the Imperial College students.

Now the rank of the school officials in prefectures, states and counties has been determined or improved, and Wu Shi, who was promoted to the top school official in Daming Prefecture, was Li Hualong's former mentor. At that time, Wu Shi was only a teacher in Changyuan County School.

"I have nothing to do, so I sorted out all the memorials submitted by my students during the Liao and Bo periods." Li Hualong respected his former teacher very much. "Why did my teacher say that I don't want to go to Nanjing?"

"This is a place of controversy. You have always been prudent and good at planning for your own future." Wu Xi looked at him meaningfully. "Yu Tian has also heard the news in the capital, right?"

Li Hualong was silent for a moment, then nodded: "The letter came earlier."

"One house, four courtyards, and five ministers assist the emperor in ruling the country." Wu Xi said with deep emotion, "In addition, local school officials select students for the Imperial College, and the censors inspect the gentry. Since the summer of the 28th year of the Wanli reign, Your Majesty has temporarily supervised state affairs and removed the mine supervisor and tax collector. It has only been two short years, and the Ming Dynasty has really changed a lot."

"Yeah." Li Hualong just echoed.

"Yu Tian!" Wu Xin looked at him seriously. "You are outstanding in both literary talent and martial arts. The central government offices in Beijing have undergone major changes, but Nanjing is still in its old system! The two capitals are very different. You can naturally see that Nanjing is not that simple."

Of course Li Hualong could see it.

In the past, the government offices in the two capitals were almost exactly the same, except that Beijing had the emperor and the cabinet, while Nanjing had eunuchs and garrison offices.

Now that the central government office in Beijing has become one department and four courtyards, should these five ministers be in charge of the ministry office in Nanjing?
No one can predict what the future of Nanjing and Nanzhili will be like at this moment.

That's nearly a thousand official positions like in Beijing! It accounts for nearly 10% of the number of officials in the Ming Dynasty after the addition of officials!
"What do you think, Master? Should I ask for a new position when I see you?"

"I am far inferior to you in being an official." Wu Xin laughed, "You have your own ideas on how to make the decision. I came to see you and only have one piece of advice."

Li Hualong solemnly bowed like a student: "Please teach me, Master."

"You have been an official for 28 years. You have been very cautious and have made steady progress. From county magistrate to chief official, to doctor, assistant governor, left councilor, deputy governor, right councilor, junior minister of the imperial court, right minister of government, governor of Liaodong, right assistant minister of the Ministry of War, you have held many official positions in the Ming Dynasty. As a teacher, I have only one piece of advice for you: Your Majesty is so determined to do this, and you are eager to find talents to serve the country."

Li Hualong was silent for a long time after listening to this, then he sighed and thanked him again: "Student will remember this."

That's right, he almost worked his way up from a small county magistrate to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War. If it weren't for his talent, how could the commander-in-chief of the Pingbo Army of more than 200,000 soldiers not have a concurrent title of Shangshu?

Now, the emperor wanted him to go to Nanjing to serve as the Minister of War, which was a real second-rank official.

There was an exact number of second-rank civil officials in the Ming Dynasty.

The six ministers of the ministry, the left and right censors of the Censorate were of the second rank, and there were fourteen of them in the entire Ming Dynasty.

At the local level, there is no fixed number of governors and governors-general with the title of Chief Censor.

The rest are a total of 26 left and right provincial governors of the second rank.

The Ming Dynasty did not have actual civil positions of the first or second rank. The only civil officials held first rank titles such as the Three Dukes, Three Orphans, and Pillars of the State.

Therefore, when it comes to the second rank, in fact, only the former cabinet ministers are higher in actual status than these few dozen civil officials. Now it has set a precedent that no one from the Hanlin Academy can be the "prime minister".

Wu Xin hoped that he would seize the opportunity and be less cautious.

"With Tian Xizhi here, the Beijing Minister of War is not as good as the Nanjing Minister of War." Wu Xin added, "Times have changed. The place where we used to be respected and nurtured is now a place where we can make achievements."

“Students understand.”

Now, Li Hualong also wanted to meet the emperor more and more.

It is impossible to get a clear picture of the current political situation just by looking at the letters. I only noticed that the local people were already "full of resentment", and although there were also many complaints in the officialdom, they were willing to go with the flow.

Li Hualong knew that many local gentry and wealthy families were now beginning to resist "filial piety silver", but local officials also had a way.

The emperor seemed to have understood this point a long time ago, so he first allowed the local governments to retain more and set up reward silver for diligence and honesty and public silver.

But what will happen after the private transactions in the past are turned into open transactions? Perhaps in a few years, local officials will be more difficult to deal with than local gentry.

This is the main purpose of retraining the Beijing Camp, right?
Now Li Hualong also knew about the major changes in the central government offices.

The central government has changed, so will the local governments not change in the future?

If you can't see it clearly, you should go to Beijing to take a closer look.

Further south, after the imperial edict arrived, Gu Xiancheng and Gao Panlong from the Donglin Academy were "invited" to set off for Beijing, as well as an official and a gentleman from the Jinling Poetry Society.

This official was Cao Xuequan, the left minister of the Nanjing Dali Temple. This gentleman was Zang Maoxun, who had just been forced by Shu Baiqing to "surrender" and return more than 50,000 taels of stolen silver.

The four of them had just arrived in Yangzhou with the messengers from the Ministry of Travellers who had summoned them, and saw a large number of grain ships still remaining there.

"…It's already June 13th, and there are still no grain ships crossing the Huai River?"

After all, this is nothing like the grain ships that have returned from the north, with their bows facing north and the dock being extremely lively.

Facing Gu Xiancheng's question, Gao Panlong snorted coldly and looked at Cao Xuequan: "Aren't you just making up a lot of excuses just to bring more cargo so that the ship doesn't run empty?"

Cao Xuequan was too lazy to pay attention to him.

In Nanjing, he had naturally heard about how some people in the Donglin Academy in Wuxi boasted about the government and officials, and how they looked down on almost all officials in the court.

He didn't know that many people in the Jinling Poetry Society also disliked many of their colleagues.

Zang Maoxun knew why, and said coldly: "I heard that this was ordered by the emperor. Changming Grain Store took advantage of the fact that many gentry wanted to return the stolen goods this year and hired the grain transport troops to the north by lowering the price."

"What? By order?" Gu Xiancheng was stunned for a moment, and then whispered, "How shameful..."

"Brother Jin, how did you know it was an imperial decree?" Cao Xuequan was a little surprised.

Zang Maoxun just snorted coldly and did not answer.

If they had not sold a lot of grain, the Zang family would have had to sell their land and shops to raise enough cash to return the stolen money.

He asked again, how could he not know what was going on here?
"Since Your Majesty wants to summon us in the opposition to hear why we are discussing state affairs so much, we might as well speak frankly and impartially at that time!" Cao Xuequan said again.

Gao Panlong said strangely: "Cao Sizheng, you are the official of destiny."

"...What's the difference between an idle official in Nanjing Dali Temple and someone in the opposition?" Cao Xuequan was indignant.

The four people heard the latest news that night when they stayed at the inn.

One house, four courtyards, five ministers co-governing...

Gu Xiancheng and Gao Panlong looked at each other, both unable to help suppressing their burning feelings.

But the old system of court officials is obviously going to undergo major changes. What a great opportunity!

I don’t know whether Shen Yikuan, who just resigned from the position of Prime Minister, regrets it.

Shen Yikuan was still in the capital because he had to attend the complete funeral of Xu Wenbi.

Now he was saying goodbye to Zhu Changluo. After completing the ceremony, he looked at Zhu Changluo with a complicated look.

"I see that Mr. Shen is still in good health." Zhu Changluo just smiled and said, "After you return home, you can still serve me."

"...I will discipline my clansmen, obey the law and set an example for them."

Zhu Changluo shook his head: "Zhejiang has many problems, and Jiangnan has even more. Shen Qing has returned to Zhejiang, so he should help Xie Tingzan, the Zhejiang student supervisor."

Shen Yiguan's heart sank: "I don't understand..."

"No, Mr. Shen understands." Zhu Changluo just looked at him. "After Mr. Shen, Zhejiang still has Zhu Shaoqin from Shanyin, Shaoxing Prefecture, as the Grand Secretary. Shaoxing's lawyers are all over the world, and Zhejiang merchants are rich. Mr. Shen understands what I want to do, but Mr. Shen's family abides by the law, which is not enough."

"...I understand." Shen Yikuan lowered his head.

"Please, Mr. Shen." Zhu Changluo said to him solemnly, "If Zhejiang can keep peace, I will have another important position for you in the future."

Shen Yikuan raised his head and looked at him again.

When he is in his seventies or eighties, what else can he be used for? Can he be more important than the Prime Minister? Who else can he be the Prime Minister for?
Zhu Changluo just smiled and looked at him.

It is always better to have one pie than no pie. Shen Yi has always been a selfish person and will take the bait.

(End of this chapter)