Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 13: Zhu Yuanzhang: Is it a waste for us to abolish the prime minister? [Please read more]

Sure enough, Zhu Yuanzhang's expression turned unfriendly and he asked, "Why? Did we do something wrong by abolishing the Prime Minister and the Secretariat?"

Liu Kuan thought about the later history of the Ming Dynasty and said, "It can't be said that it was wrong. It can only be said that Your Majesty put a lot of effort into this matter, but in the end it was wasted."

Wasted?
Zhu Biao was puzzled.

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned deeply, and as he thought of something, he snorted, "Could it be that after the fourth son ascended the throne, he restored the Secretariat and reappointed the Prime Minister?"

Before Zhu Yuanzhang heard that Zhu Di rebelled against Zhu Yunwen and ascended the throne through the Jingnan Campaign, he did not call Zhu Di a rebellious son.

Now that he suspected that Zhu Di had restored the Secretariat and the prime minister, he labeled him a traitor. This shows how much Zhu Yuanzhang cared about this matter.

Liu Kuan said, "Your Majesty abolished the Chancellery and the Secretariat. Besides being dissatisfied with the three Chancellors during the Hongwu era, the main reason is that he wants to return the power of the Chancellery to the imperial power, right?"

"I didn't expect that Mr. Liu also understands the art of being an emperor." Zhu Yuanzhang answered the question irrelevantly, but actually he admitted it.

After all, there was no one else on the city gate tower except Liu Kuan and Zhu Biao, so he was not afraid to say some things.

Zhu Biao is his son.

As for Liu Kuan, he had already thought of making him one of his own.

Liu Kuan didn't know that Zhu Yuanzhang had already set his sights on him, so he continued, "It's obvious that the Prime Minister's Council has divided the imperial power. That's why the emperors after Your Majesty didn't re-establish the Secretariat and the Prime Minister."

"However, the Ming Dynasty's territory is vast, and it will be even larger in the future. I don't know how many military and political affairs I need to deal with every day."

"Even with the six ministries and other departments sharing the responsibilities, Your Majesty and the Crown Prince alone still have to deal with many affairs every day."

"So, in the past year or so since the abolition of the Chancellery and the Secretariat, Your Majesty and Your Highness must have been much more exhausted than before, right?"

Zhu Yuanzhang remained silent, which was considered as his agreement.

Zhu Biao sighed, "It is indeed much busier now than a few years ago when I first started practicing government affairs. I am fine with it, but seeing my father with gray hair and beard still needing to review so many memorials every day, I feel very sorry for him."

Liu Kuan continued, "So Your Highness wants to handle as much government affairs as possible to reduce the burden on Your Majesty?"

Zhu Biao glanced at Liu Kuan in slight surprise and said, "I didn't expect that Master Liu knew my thoughts so well."

Liu Kuan shook his head with a look of emotion and said, "Your Highness, do you know that we later generations often don't say that you died of illness, but rather that you died of overwork."

Karoshi?
Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao didn't understand this new word at first.

Liu Kuan explained, “Excess is as bad as deficiency, and exhaustion is as bad as death. I don’t need to explain it, right?”

Death from overwork?

In other words, exhausted to death?!
When Old Zhu and Little Zhu understood the meaning of "death from overwork", they were both surprised.

Liu Kuan continued, "We later generations believe that everyone's physical potential is limited. If we overwork and overexert ourselves, our lifespan will be shortened."

"The external manifestation is that the body becomes increasingly weak, making it very easy for illness to take advantage of it. And for men, their thirties are the prime of life, and they should be the most energetic and have the strongest resistance to disease."

"In the end, a cold took His Highness's life, and even several imperial physicians were helpless. Doesn't this prove that His Highness's health was extremely weak?"

"Why is Your Highness so frail? There's no record of His Highness indulging in alcohol and sex, only that He devoted His Highness His wholehearted efforts to sharing the responsibilities of the Ming Dynasty."

"That's why we believe His Highness died from overwork—the first crown prince of the Ming Dynasty was actually worked to death. Isn't that ridiculous?"

At the end of his speech, Liu Kuan got a little carried away and couldn't help but say something slightly sarcastic.

Zhu Biao had a strange expression on his face at this time.

He also felt that it was a bit ridiculous that he was exhausted to death.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face looked ugly.

It can be said that compared with all the things Liu Kuan said before, the fact that Zhu Biao died from overwork because he abolished the position of prime minister and the Secretariat was the most difficult for him to accept.

He even suspected that Liu Kuan hated his descendants and said this on purpose.

But reason soon made him reject this idea.

It is a fact that after the prime minister was deposed and the Secretariat was abolished, he and Zhu Biao had to deal with many more matters in the past year.

He also saw that Zhu Biao was busy with state affairs every day.

In the past, he would only feel relieved and happy about this matter - in his opinion, the more state affairs Zhu Biao was involved in now, the more proficient he would become, and after he passed away in the future, Zhu Biao's throne would be more stable and he would be able to govern the Ming Dynasty better.

He never imagined that before he passed away, Zhu Biao would die from overwork due to the numerous state affairs!

This is such a huge irony!
Or was it God's punishment for his dismissal from office?

For a time, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was so stubborn that no one could change his mind, actually suspected that he was wrong to depose the prime minister.

But then he remembered that Liu Kuan did not say that he did anything wrong, but that his efforts were in vain.

So···
"Even so, how can you say that we dismissed the prime minister in vain?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a cold face, retaining his last bit of stubbornness.

Liu Kuan recalled what he knew about Ming history and said, "After Your Majesty abolished the Prime Minister, he felt that the duties of both Emperor and Prime Minister were too much to handle and it was a bit overwhelming."

"So they modeled it after the Song Dynasty and established the position of Grand Secretary to assist in handling government affairs, right?"

Zhu Yuanzhang was puzzled when he heard this. "Where have we ever had a Grand Secretary? However, we did have four assistant officials to assist in handling government affairs."

As he spoke, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but wonder if it would be more appropriate to imitate the Song Dynasty system and establish a system of Grand Secretaries to assist in handling government affairs. Because the system of four assistant officials still made him feel that state affairs were too heavy and needed more people to assist.

But I don't want to give away power anymore...

"What are the four auxiliary officials?" Liu Kuan asked.

After all, he is not a professional historian and does not understand the titles of some ancient official titles.

Zhu Biao kindly explained, "The Four Assistant Officials come from the ancient Zhou Li system, which refers to the four officials of spring, summer, autumn and winter. In the ancient Zhou Li, each official was responsible for assisting the prince in handling state affairs during a quarter."

"The four assistant officials established by my father are different. They are not rotated by season, but by month."

After hearing this, Liu Kuan couldn't help but look at Zhu Yuanzhang with a strange expression.

It was suddenly discovered that a powerful founding monarch was different. He treated the court system as a thing in his hands and could change it at will.

First, there were several Shangshu (Shangshu), and now, imitating the Zhou rituals, four auxiliary officials—the Zhou Dynasty was over a thousand years ago, right? How backward must the system have been back then? How could it possibly be applicable in the Ming Dynasty?

Not to mention, Lao Zhu also changed the rotation to once a month.

Although they are regents and there is no such thing as changing orders every day, but with such frequent rotations, I'm afraid they can't keep up with the times when it comes to handling government affairs, right?

After all, it might take more than a month to send an imperial edict from the capital to the Ming border...
For a moment, Liu Kuan couldn't help but complain about Lao Zhu in his heart, and he also truly felt the limitations of Lao Zhu's cognition due to his poor background (lack of certain knowledge accumulation).

However, since he had never heard of the "Four Auxiliary Officials" system and had only heard of the Grand Secretary, it probably means that the "Four Auxiliary Officials" system existed for a very short time.

Thinking of this, he said, "In later generations, I have only heard that Your Majesty selected talented Confucian scholars to serve as Grand Secretaries to assist in government affairs in order to reduce the burden of state affairs, such as the Grand Secretaries of Huagai Palace and Wuying Palace, and so on."

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang felt more and more that the four auxiliary officials should be replaced by grand secretaries.

But he still wondered, "How could this move make the deposed prime minister useless?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "The Grand Secretary appointed by Your Majesty only has advisory powers, because Your Majesty is not only wise and intelligent but also has rich experience in governing the country. He can make decisive decisions on many state affairs."

"However, not all the Ming emperors who came after your majesty, such as Jianwen, Yongle, and even later emperors, had the ability of your majesty."

"In fact, with the exception of two or three emperors like Yongle, most Ming emperors were not even a quarter as capable as Your Majesty in handling state affairs."

"Under these circumstances, the Ming emperor naturally became increasingly dependent on the Grand Secretary, who was originally responsible for his advisory duties, which in turn led to the Grand Secretary's increasing power."

"During the reign of Emperor Jianwen, because he wanted to focus on the war, he brought together the Grand Secretaries to form a team of assistants to handle matters other than the frontline battles."

"After Emperor Yongle ascended the throne, he simply had the Grand Secretaries work in the Wenyuan Pavilion at the Meridian Gate and participate in government affairs. Thus, the group of Grand Secretaries who ascended the throne became known as the Cabinet."

"After that, as the emperor relied more and more on the cabinet, the cabinet's power grew."

"Because the two Ming emperors after Yongle died young, a young emperor ascended the throne, and the three Grand Secretaries also served as regents. As a result, the power of the cabinet finally surpassed that of the six ministries."

Having said this, Liu Kuan deliberately paused.

Zhu Yuanzhang, with a frown on his face, said angrily, "Above the six ministries? Isn't this just the Secretariat? The descendants of the fourth son are so short-lived and foolish!"

When Liu Kuan heard Zhu Yuanzhang scolding Zhu Di like that, he almost couldn't help laughing.

I couldn't help but wonder what Zhu Di's expression would be like here.

Unfortunately, Zhu Di went to Beijing to be a vassal last year and is not in the capital.

After a light cough, Liu Kuan continued, "About one or two hundred years later, the power of the Ming Dynasty cabinet reached its peak, and the most powerful minister in the cabinet was called the Chief Minister."

"The Wanli Emperor ascended the throne at the age of ten. The Prime Minister, Zhang Juzheng, joined forces with the Empress Dowager and the Prime Minister, the head of the inner court eunuchs, to control almost all power in the Ming Dynasty. Even deposing the emperor was possible at that time."

"However, Zhang Juzheng did not depose the emperor. He carefully educated the Wanli Emperor while also diligently reforming the many malpractices of the Ming Dynasty."

"Although after his death, Emperor Wanli exhumed his grave and abolished many of his reforms, the reforms of more than ten years and the remaining new policies still prolonged the life of the Ming Dynasty for several decades."

Hearing this, Zhu Biao could not help but sigh: "Although Zhang Juzheng is a little powerful and has colluded with the inner palace, he can be called a capable minister who can save the world."

Zhu Yuanzhang, however, was concerned about another point and asked, "The chief eunuch in the inner court is called the Minister of Internal Affairs? Does this mean that the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty are also interfering in politics?"

Liu Kuan explained with a smile, "In fact, the emperors after Yongle, mainly Zhu Di's grandson Emperor Xuande, realized that the cabinet had taken away the imperial power."

"But he didn't want to abolish the cabinet, because it was proven that the emperor alone couldn't handle the many state affairs of the Ming Dynasty, and he had to have ministers to share the burden."

"So he placed great emphasis on eunuchs. Emperor Xuande established a special school in the palace to train eunuchs, and gave the Imperial Household Department the power to approve memorials, thus controlling the cabinet's power to draft documents."

"Emperor Xuande also died in his thirties. The Ming Dynasty's God of War, Fortress..." Liu Kuan realized he had slipped up and quickly stopped, smiling awkwardly. "The historical events that followed have little to do with the cabinet, and it would be too long to explain, so I won't go into them for now."

The Ming Dynasty God of War Fortress?

Both Old Zhu and Little Zhu keenly noticed the strange combination of words in Liu Kuan's last words, and felt that there must be something "unbelievable" in it.

However, the two of them were now mostly focused on the cabinet issue, so they were not in a hurry to ask further questions.

Zhu Yuanzhang pondered Liu Kuan's words, finally sighed, and said unwillingly, "If, as you say, the Cabinet is indeed similar to the Secretariat, and the Chief Minister is like the Prime Minister... then is it really for nothing that we abolished the Prime Minister?"

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(End of this chapter)