Guangzong Yaoming

Chapter 256: The Holy Monarch Initiates the Holy Learning

Shen Li felt that his health was fine, and he had a strong sense of mission to make this newly emerging Inspection Office system an indispensable and extremely useful force in the Ming Dynasty court.

During these three years, he only focused on the implementation of two things: the promotion of local water conservancy, road and bridge education affairs, and the supervision of officials and gentry in strictly enforcing preferential treatment and exemption and the monitoring of student status.

Now he gradually felt that there were still obstacles. The main problem was the power and responsibilities of the governor, inspectors, and censors in the local area and in the local government offices.

The headquarters of the Censorate was located south of the Wuying Palace where the Privy Council was located, but Shen Li usually stayed in the warm room of the Chief Censor in the Fengtian Palace.

Among them, there were two fourth-rank officials of the Censorate who served as his direct assistants.

This is the standard configuration for the other four ministers besides the Privy Councilor.

The two current assistant secretaries of the Censorate are both acquaintances.

"One of you has been a local official for many years, and the other has been a student supervisor for more than four years. Tell me, if you want the governor and the supervisor to do a good job of impeachment and supervision in the local area, how should you clarify the powers and responsibilities with the local government?"

One of these two people was Shu Baiqing, the famous magistrate of Changxing at that time, and the other was Xie Tingzan.

Now they are all promoted rapidly, wearing red robes, and going directly to the center.

Although the job of a secretary is just a secretarial one, he is involved in matters of the entire system and serves a prime minister.

Shu Boqing finally reaped the rewards of his risk-taking. Hearing this, he carefully selected his words and said, "Prime Minister, I think this is a dilemma. The governors-general hold great power, and local officials dare not take on responsibilities. If the governors-general only inspect and investigate and then report to the court for action, and local officials complain to the Administrative Council and the Jinxian Court, then the government orders will be more important."

Xie Tingzan said with a straight face: "The case in Zhejiang was suppressed in the second year of Taichang, and also in the third year of Taichang. In the past three years, the Inspection Office was only responsible for supervising the administration of water conservancy, roads and bridges, and strictly enforcing preferential treatment and exemption. In the past three years, the Inspection Office has not attached great importance to impeachment and questioning cases, so the local government offices have naturally only dealt with the Jinxianyuan and the Shizhengyuan."

Shen Li frowned.

Ultimately, it comes down to the question of the positioning of the Inspection Commission.

On the one hand, the governors, provincial governors and provincial inspectors in border towns still have great power, and are in fact equivalent to local military and political leaders; on the other hand, in the hinterland provinces, the powers of the governors, provincial inspectors and censors are being reduced.

In other words, the official statement was that the system had not been reduced, but based on the needs of the court and with the efforts of the Jinxianyuan and the Shizhiyuan, the Jianchayuan system at the local level only played the role of holding the knife but not unsheathing it.

As long as there are no major problems in the administration of water conservancy, roads and bridges and the strict implementation of preferential exemptions, some things can be turned a blind eye.

Shen Li also knew that this was a special period. He had to let the local authorities get familiar with the central government after the major changes, and he had to let the court take a breather and consolidate the results.

But what about the future?

He wanted to solve these problems before retiring, and solving these problems would probably involve the reform of local government offices.

It may even involve the redefinition of the powers of the two central authorities, the Executive Yuan and the Inspection Yuan.

"If I petition to have the Ministry of Justice be managed by the Inspection Office, and the provincial censorates be dismantled, with criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the governors and censors, and military preparations under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, what do you think will happen?"

Shu Baiqing and Xie Tingzan were so shocked that they dared not say anything for a while.

After a long while, Shu Baiqing said hesitantly, "Prime Minister, the three judicial departments are gathered in one court. What will His Majesty think?" Shen Li's brows were still furrowed, but his eyes were firm, "Prepare for a rainy day. After the third year of Taichang, there were new corruptions in the local areas. I don't know how many impeachment petitions have been accumulated in the Censorate. Your Majesty must have a lot of petitions too. That's the problem. We have to find a way."

Xie Tingzan said leisurely: "If the Administrative Council only manages the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works, how can it claim to be governing the country and managing state affairs?"

Shen Li glanced at him and said, "There is no need to talk about the arguments between you officials. I am older, and I dare to think. Your Majesty has studied for three years. Although the theory of the law of knowledge is still being debated in the Taichang Temple, it is indeed thought-provoking. Since change is inevitable, it is nothing more than the difference between quantity and quality. Then, the center of today and the place of tomorrow, at least in your Majesty's mind, do not have to be always the same. "

After listening to this, the two of them thought deeply for a while, and recalled the waves caused by the theory of knowledge thrown into the Taichang Temple by the emperor, which had not yielded any results for a long time.

Three years ago, Zhu Changluo said that if the world could be more peaceful, he would focus on academic research in the next three years.

In the end, he did so, and the results he produced during these three years were the "Investigation of Things" and "Extended Knowledge" theories, which were based on Confucian terms.

This was very familiar content to Zhu Changluo, but very shocking to the scholars of Taichang.

At least, it seems that in the emperor's view, one should not be idealistic, but should adjust to changes and verify after practice.

This is thinking in the field of humanistic philosophy, but it also seems to guide natural philosophy.

At least Zhang Jian and Wang Zheng, uncle and nephew, achieved results. During his three years at the Imperial College, Wang Zheng continued to study the topic he had presented to Zhu Changluo. After Zhu Changluo's guidance and instruction through Zhu Zaiyu, and through the ideas of necessity and chance, essence and phenomenon mentioned by Zhu Changluo when communicating with Zhang Jian, Wang Zheng finally extracted three laws from some of Mozi's optical conclusions, and was able to express them with formulas.

This is a major breakthrough and the main reason why Wang Zheng became the new top scorer this year.

However, these breakthroughs were still minor in the eyes of some great scholars in the Taichang Temple. On the contrary, the emperor's understanding of the nature of the world, how to acquire knowledge, and some thoughts on social laws mentioned in "On the Investigation of Things" and "On the Extension of Knowledge" were truly shocking.

The Ming Dynasty was on the eve of drastic changes, and the debate in the Taichang Temple would inevitably spread to the entire scholar community.

The fact that the emperor had only studied for three years and was already able to demonstrate such proficiency had shocked the entire Taichang Temple.

He seemed to be not constrained by Confucianism at all. What he thought and said was completely new. He was also able to pick out sentences from classics and correspond to the views of many sages.

Could it be that the Holy King also needs to become a saint through learning?

Now Shen Li began to think that the central government offices should still be reformed, although this was due to his thinking on how the Inspection Office could play a greater role.

This can be said to be encouraged by the emperor's academic views - at least the emperor would not think that it is wrong to think in this way, and he would consider whether to do so or not.

But there was no time to discuss the matter.

The resignation letters of Wang Xijue and Zhu Geng were approved by Zhu and reported to the six departments under the supervision of the Inspection Institute.

Shu Baiqing and Xie Tingzan were shocked and couldn't help but look at each other.

Wang Xijue and Zhu Geng had submitted their resignations many times, and everyone knew that the emperor must have considered his successor for a long time.

However, an imperial decree was still issued, asking the Jinxianyuan and Jianchayuan to organize the court recommendation first.

The center is suddenly missing two phases. How many people's official careers will be affected by this?
(End of this chapter)