Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 203: The dispute among cabinet members, the emperor’s monopoly of power and reform!

Zhu Houcong did not say it explicitly, but asked Mao Ji: "What does the Prime Minister think?"

Mao Ji was not clear about this either.

But he knew that the answer the emperor would prefer to hear was that he did not believe that the Donglai gold mine was exhausted.

Because he knew that his Majesty had great ambitions, so he would definitely need a lot of money.

But His Majesty loves the people very much, and the much needed money can only be used to develop new areas that have not become people's private property.

in this way……

His Majesty certainly does not want Donglai's mineral resources to be exhausted.

But Mao Ji didn't want to just flatter the emperor without paying attention to the local situation.

Therefore, Mao Ji had no choice but to say, "Your Majesty, I think it would be better to send a reliable person to Donglai to investigate! We can't just listen to the local governor's one-sided words!"

"Who should I send?"

Zhu Houcong asked.

Mao Ji suggested: "Xia Yan, the governor of Zhejiang! Zhejiang is not far from Donglai, so it can save a lot of time."

"That's fine! It's certainly not appropriate to send local officials from Fujian for this kind of thing."

Zhu Houcong agreed.

"Come Yuan!"

then.

Zhu Houcong repeated the name in his mind.

He decided to write the name down in his little notebook.

Because he was 100% sure that the inspector was deceiving him!

Moreover, they deceived him without regard for the interests of the country and the people, and wanted to turn the mine that he had found with his own money into a private mine for the coastal tycoons.

This is simply stealing and selling government property!

It’s tolerable, it’s unbearable!

Zhu Houcong asked himself that since he had no clear evidence now, it was not easy for him to say openly that he came from the future and knew the mineral resources of the Jingua Gold Mine better than anyone else.

otherwise.

He really wanted to send the Jinyiwei to capture this man and bring him to Beijing.

Strict review and severe punishment!
After all, if this man and the people behind him are not dealt with seriously, won't the development of the large copper mine in Luzon Island and the Iwami Daizen Silver Mine in Japan in the future just be a wedding dress for local powerful families?
I paid the bride price, but the one who entered the bridal chamber was someone else. I feel like I’ve lost out just thinking about it.

Zhu Houcong now only wants to see whether Xia Yan will lie.

If Xia Yan also lied, he would not rule out putting Xia Yan on the kill list in advance.

After Mao Ji returned to the cabinet, Fei Hong and others came to ask: "Prime Minister, what does Your Majesty say about the Donglai incident?"

"Your Majesty naturally agreed with our opinion and asked Xia Yan to check it out."

Mao Ji replied.

Fei Hong felt relieved after hearing this, and he clapped his hands and laughed, "Your Majesty is indeed wise and intelligent, and it is not so easy for you to be deceived by local people!"

"Having said that, I still have to remind Xia Yan that if he deceives the court, he will not end well."

Yang Yiqing said at this time.

Shi Yan nodded: "He is my student, I will write a letter to remind him."

When the Minister of Personnel Lin Jun saw the cabinet's approval of the Fujian Provincial Censor Lai Yuan, his face darkened. He hurried to the cabinet and asked Mao Ji and others:

"My fellow ministers, why don't you trust the memorials from the inspector? Why do you send ministers to investigate? If you employ someone, trust him. If you don't trust him, don't employ him. So why don't you trust the governor?"

"Besides, sending ministers to Donglai will cost a lot."

After Lin Jun said this, Mao Ji, Fei Hong, and Yang Yiqing all had complicated expressions.

Yang Yiqing said first: "But there is no reason to believe it."

Fei Hong followed up and said, "Yes, the gold mine in Donglai is related to the financial income of the court and also to the reform. We must be cautious."

"Lai Yuan was chosen by my bank to be the Imperial Censor. If the cabinet doesn't trust him, then they don't trust me!"

Lin Jun said in a deep voice.

"Otsuka Zai!"

Mao Ji called out at this time, and then said to Lin Jun: "This is not a question of belief or not, but the Donglai gold mine and the accompanying copper mine are the financial income that Your Majesty has always attached great importance to. We can't be careless!"

"That's right!"

"If our cabinet chooses to trust the Ministry of Personnel, then His Majesty will not trust our cabinet!"

Yang Yiqing then said.

After hearing this, Lin Jun sneered: "You gentlemen have really changed now."

After Lin Jun finished speaking, he bowed and left the cabinet.

"Please stay!"

Mao Ji shouted, but Lin Jun did not stay.

Fei Hong saw this and said, "There will inevitably be rifts between the cabinet and the ministry in the future!"

"This is also the difficulty of our cabinet. If we follow the six ministries, we will become a tool for the six ministries to oppose Your Majesty; if we follow the emperor, we will become a tool to suppress the six ministries."

"But with Lin Putian acting this way, I suspect that the Donglai mine has not been fully mined, but someone wants to take all the profits."

Yang Yiqing spoke at this time.

Mao Ji couldn't help but shudder after hearing this: "Don't talk nonsense, Mr. Lin is not such a person!"

Fei Hong said: "Whether it is true or not, the seizure of government property by the wealthy and powerful cannot happen when we are in power, otherwise, I am afraid we will be cursed for eternity!"

"But if we offend the coastal nobles, I'm afraid our reputation won't be very good."

Mao Ji said.

"It doesn't matter if he has offended someone or not, as long as he has a clear conscience, so no matter what, our cabinet must find out whether Donglai Minerals will be banned this time!"

Yang Yiqing replied.

Shi Yan and Fei Hong both nodded.

……

……

"Mr. Lin!"

After leaving the cabinet, Lin Jun met the Minister of Works Zhao Huang at Qianbu Gallery.

Zhao Huang asked Lin Jun: "Did you go to the cabinet to ask?"

Lin Jun nodded.

"Why bother asking?"

Zhao Huang smiled and said, "What else can the cabinet do now except to cater to the emperor's wishes?" Lin Jun said, "During the Xiao Temple, Wang Sanyuan (Wang Shu), Ma Junzhou (Ma Wensheng), Liu Huarong (Liu Daxia) and others were the six ministers. They were not afraid of the power of the cabinet and dared to make direct criticisms to the emperor. I, Lin, should follow the example of the sages!"

"Lord Lin is a resolute minister!"

"You should accept Zhao's greeting!"

Zhao Huang couldn't help but bow to Lin Jun.

He supports Lin Jun in doing this.

Because what Lin Jun did was equivalent to fighting for power for the six departments.

As long as the emperor compromised with Lin Jun, the Minister of Personnel, it would mean compromising with the six ministries, which meant that the six ministries could question the cabinet's decisions.

Lin Jun returned the greeting.

When he returned to the Ministry of Personnel, he immediately drafted a memorial, hoping that the emperor would adopt his advice and choose to trust Lai Yuan, the Inspector of Fujian.

of course.

This means that he, as the Minister of Personnel, is formally challenging the Cabinet and forcing the Emperor to make a choice between the Cabinet and the Ministry of Personnel.

If the emperor chose to trust the cabinet, then he, the Minister of Personnel, would have no choice but to resign.

……

……

Zhu Houcong had already received a report from the Embroidered Uniform Guard that Lin Jun had gone to the cabinet that afternoon.

This made Zhu Houcong quite disappointed with Lin Jun.

After all, Zhu Houcong originally wanted to use Lin Jun to better mobilize Fujian officials and gentry to develop Donglai, but Zhu Houcong did not expect that Lin Jun would stop him from sending people to investigate the true situation of Donglai's mineral resources.

In Zhu Houcong's view, Lin Jun even cared only about the interests of his fellow villagers and did not care about the selfishness of the country and the people!
He even suspected that Lai Yuan, the inspector, dared to lie and said that the Donglai mineral resources were almost exhausted because Lin Jun was secretly instigating him.

Because Donglai is closest to Fujian, the Fujian tycoons are the ones who can most easily take over Donglai's mineral resources.

Therefore, this could not help but make Zhu Houcong suspicious.

of course.

Zhu Houcong was just suspicious without any evidence, so he couldn't really put Lin Jun, the Minister of Personnel, in jail and torture him severely.

As he once said to Mao Ji, although he was in power alone, he did not rule in a chaotic manner.

Moreover, based on his understanding of Lin Jun's resume, he also knew that Lin Jun was a man who was upright and dared to speak out, and he would not be too selfish.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong did not defend himself, but only wrote two words in reply to Lin Jun's memorial:

Disobey!

This means that between the Cabinet and the Ministry of Personnel, the emperor chose to support the Cabinet.

There is no way around it, since the cabinet’s choices are consistent with the emperor’s.

And in fact.

This is also the significance of the cabinet having certain prime ministerial functions.

If there was no decision-making body like the Cabinet, the memorials from Lai Yuan, the Imperial Censor of Fujian, would have been approved directly by him, the emperor.

In this case, it would be good if he, as an emperor, could really be extremely wise and have a clear understanding of everything in the world.

However, if he is a mediocre emperor, he will easily make wrong decisions, and there will be no smarter people to make decisions for him and avoid making mistakes.

But things are different with the cabinet.

As long as the cabinet ministers are a little afraid of being held accountable later, they have to be cautious in making decisions, and they cannot go too far even if the interests of their own party are involved.

After all, when people all over the world understand the situation in the future, although they will not dare to blame the emperor for the wrong decision, they will dare to blame the cabinet ministers.

same!

If the emperor understood the situation, he would also blame the cabinet ministers.

Therefore, once you enter the cabinet, unless you want to control the emperor and achieve personal dictatorship, you need to be responsible to the emperor and the people of the world, and you cannot just do things according to your own selfish desires.

After seeing the emperor's imperial edict, Lin Jun was stunned for a long time.

After a long while, he sighed with a frown on his face and said to himself, "Your Majesty does not trust the Ministry of Personnel but the Cabinet. In this case, I can only submit a petition to resign!"

So Lin Jun submitted a petition to retire.

For Lin Jun, there are three reasons why he did this.

One is to fight for power for the Ministry of Personnel. As the Minister of Personnel, if he does not fight for power for the Ministry of Personnel, he will not be able to gain a firm foothold in the Ministry.

Second, he wanted to fight for the interests of his fellow villagers. As an official from Fujian, he knew that the memorial submitted by Lai Yuan, the Fujian governor, represented the people of his hometown. If he did not fight for his fellow villagers, he would be letting down his fellow villagers.

Third, it is to give the emperor the opportunity to choose.

Specifically:

If the emperor wants to monopolize power, he should use the technique of checks and balances, allowing the six ministries to check and balance the cabinet, especially the Ministry of Personnel, the head of the six ministries, which can compete with the cabinet. In this case, he should retain the Minister of Personnel.

But the consequence of this is that the emperor has to give up reform and just maintain the status quo.

Because the consequence of the Ministry of Personnel checking and balancing the Cabinet is that the Ministry of Personnel and the Cabinet will undermine each other, and it will be impossible for them to form a joint force to carry out reforms throughout the country.

Just like whether or not to investigate the Donglai mineral matter right now.

Since the cabinet requested an investigation, the Ministry of Personnel had to argue with the cabinet in order to maintain imperial power and advocate not to conduct an investigation.

If the emperor wants to maintain his imperial power, he has to support the Ministry of Personnel and give up the investigation.

However, the consequence of doing so would be that Donglai's mineral resources would be abandoned, allowing local gentry to obtain them and further strengthen local power.

If the emperor wants the country to be strong, he should not use the technique of checks and balances, and should not retain him as the Minister of Personnel, so that the six ministries would not dare to compete with the cabinet.

In this way, Donglai's mineral resources might remain in the hands of the imperial court.

However, the power of the cabinet will grow, and it will be able to control the six ministries, and even powerful ministers will emerge, with the possibility of undermining the emperor.

Therefore, Lin Jun's resignation now depends on how the emperor chooses, whether to choose power or to make the country strong.

Many times, this is indeed the case.

There is a contradiction between the emperor's monopoly of power and the country's strength.

This happened during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song. He wanted to carry out reforms and launched the Qingli New Deal. However, his opponents used the argument of factionalism to force him to abandon the reforms.

Because Song Renzong was still worried about the impact on imperial power, and was afraid that the reformists would really sideline him after becoming the dominant force.

Zhu Houcong now also has to face such a choice.

It seems that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

As the emperor, the largest landowner in the world, it seems that he should have been the biggest supporter of the Conservatives rather than a reformer.

Lin Jun now lets the emperor decide whether he should be loyal to the emperor himself or to the country and the people.

"Your Majesty, the Grand Chancellor has submitted a petition to beg for his remains."

After receiving Lin Jun's resignation letter, Gu Dayong of the Imperial Household Department immediately reported it to Zhu Houcong.

(End of this chapter)