Wanli Youming

Chapter 138 Different Choices of Cabinet Ministers

Chapter 138 Different Choices of Cabinet Ministers

In fact, there are many people who can replace Zhang Juzheng.

Such as high arch.

But it is a pity that Gao Gong is already seriously ill, and according to his family, there is not much time left, so he asked Enzhi to return home.

Of course Zhu Yijun was right.

And it stands to reason that Gao Gong should have died of illness in the sixth year of Wanli in history.

It's just that in this life, Gao Gong felt relieved a lot about Zhang Juzheng's cooperation with Feng Bao to overthrow him in the past, especially when he was able to regain the emperor's approval, but he failed to stay in the position of chief assistant for a few more years. Regret in my heart, so he still inevitably contracted a serious illness due to old age in the seventh year of Wanli.

Of course, birth, old age, sickness and death are inevitable.

What's more, the medical conditions in this era are not as good as those of later generations. A veteran like Gao Gong has a bad temper. Even if he is treated by the famous doctor Li Shizhen, it is still difficult for him to live longer than in history.

It's just that Zhu Yijun's previous worries became more prominent at this moment.

That is to say, Ming Dynasty has really entered the era of shortage of good assistants.

Once Gao Gong left, Zhang Juzheng was the only minister who could be called a reformer in the entire Ming Empire.

If we look at the development of the original history.

The chief assistant after Zhang Juzheng, apart from Shen Shixing who could suppress the officials, make repairs, and manage the relationship between the monarch and his ministers, they really didn't make any big achievements.

But Zhu Yijun felt that the chief assistants behind Zhang Juzheng were not good in history, and it cannot be completely blamed on the fact that Daming did not have outstanding talents to serve as chief assistants after Zhang Juzheng.

Because whether the first assistant is good or not depends more on the environment at the time and the emperor's ability to recognize and employ people.

After all, no one knew that people like Xiao He and Li Shanchang could be good ministers before they rose to power.

"Let's wait and see what happens. It's just about Mr. Xu's contact with the Xu family. As soon as there is any situation, report it to me."

Zhu Yijun first gave Zhang Jing an order.

"Yes!"

Zhang Jing agreed and withdrew.

"Report to the Emperor, Master Shen has sent a secret note."

After Zhang Jing left, Zhang Hong reported new political affairs.

It turned out that after Zhu Yijun gave Zhang Juzheng and Yin Zheng the privilege of secret concerts, he also granted the privileges of secret concerts to the cabinet ministers Ma Ziqiang, Shen Shixing, and Qi Jiguang who were patrolling the local area, and Yu Dayou who went to Zhejiang to serve as the chief military officer to prepare for the Japanese.

It is Zhang Hong who manages these secret performances.

Zhang Hong will arrange for people to wait at the gate of Qianqing every day, and ministers who have the privilege of secret memorials can send their trusted servants or Wu Bian to directly enter the gate of Qianqing with secret memorials. The inner eunuch who was in charge of notifying the news of "there is a secret performance" at Qianqing Gate ran to the Rites Supervisor and informed Zhang Hong to accept it.

The whole process is equivalent to only letting the secret notes go through the hands of the person who sent the secret notes by the minister and Zhang Hong, without passing through the Secretary of General Administration and the cabinet, and not assigning the six subjects.

The emperor can also learn more secrets from foreign ministers, and can also communicate more privately with some officials.

It's just that Zhu Yijun didn't expect that Shen Shixing would be the first person besides Yin Zhengmao to give him a secret performance.

Zhu Yijun took it and saw that Zhang Hong still had a secret note in his hand, so he asked, "Who else has it?"

"It belongs to Marquis Qi of Jizhou."

Zhang Hong took out Qi Jiguang's secret memorial book, held it above his head, and got up.

Zhu Yijun also took it, and went to the study, took the key that only he knew the corresponding logo, and opened the secret notebook of Shen Shixing and Qi Jiguang.

Shen Shixing's secret report was mainly reported to Zhu Yijun. Zhang Juzheng wanted him to carry out a thorough investigation on the three things of "salts into acres", "levying business taxes", and "officials and gentry pay food and errands together" after he inspected the area. The matter of deliberation also shows that he hopes that if the imperial court continues to reform, it will implement "officials and gentry pay food and errands together", that is, abolish the right of privileges and exemptions for powerful officials and gentry.

Zhu Yijun laughed after watching Shen Shixing's secret performance.

He understood why Zhang Hong insisted on continuing to trust the scholar-bureaucrats, instead of abandoning the scholar-bureaucrats just because Zhang Juzheng made peace with Xu Jie, and began to reuse eunuchs. Obviously, he had already guessed through Shen Shixing's secret report that these scholar-bureaucrats were really not of one mind. A civil servant with a keen sense of smell would know to express his loyalty to the emperor.

It can be said that the fundamental reason for the disagreement between the two eunuchs Zhang Hong and Zhang Jing in the matter of Xu Jie's reconciliation with Zhang Juzheng lies in the information gap between the two.

It stands to reason that Zhang Juzheng handed over matters to Shen Shixing and Ma Ziqiang, and Shen Shixing and Ma Ziqiang could explain them to him, the emperor, or not.

But now, Shen Shixing reported to him, the emperor.

But Ma Ziqiang did not.

This undoubtedly shows that Shen Shixing is already suspecting that Zhang Juzheng's intention to continue to restructure the imperial court is not only the intention, but also the emperor's intention.

Therefore, Shen Shixing directly explained to him, the emperor.

After all, civil servants all over the world are passed through various examinations, just like thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge, and those who can become cabinet ministers come from many imperial schools, and successfully resolve various political crises without harming their own interests in the end. Those who can enter the cabinet are fine.

Therefore, Xu Jie was not the only one who doubted whether the emperor would play an important role in these events because of many incidents, and then began to think about seeking peace with Zhang Juzheng and jointly suppress the emperor.

At least, what Zhu Yijun can now be sure of is that Shen Shixing should have already doubted whether he, the emperor, has the intention of continuing to reform the system, so he decided to report to him the things Zhang Juzheng entrusted to him and report his attitude to himself.

After hiding behind the scenes for a long time, it is inevitable that some clues will be suspected.

To Zhu Yijun's delight, this not only reflects Shen Shihang's intelligence, but also reflects Shen Shihang's attitude.

That is to say, Shen Shixing regards himself as the emperor as the leader, and did not report to Zhang Juzheng alone. Can be a puppet, complete some etiquette work, and the attitude of the big government should be controlled by civil servants.

Because since Shen Shixing could guess that he, the emperor, might have the intention to continue reforming the system, then Ma Ziqiang might guess it too.

But now Ma Ziqiang did not report to himself.

The reason can only be that Ma Ziqiang hopes to leave the decision on whether to continue the restructuring to Zhang Juzheng and other civil officials, rather than the emperor to decide this matter, so as not to damage himself. The state model for fulfilling the ceremonial requirements and the work of succession by offspring.

In Zhu Yijun's view, Shen Shixing may do this because he cares more about his own power, and cares more about whether he can rely on the emperor's support to become the chief assistant in the future, rather than the interests of the entire civil government.

Of course, Shen Shixing may do this out of public interest, or it may be that it really does not advocate a false emperor, but believes that the emperor should return the power.

He thinks that Shen Shixing may think that the next Chief Assistant can no longer be like Zhang Juzheng, who almost controls a lot of power as the "Executive Deputy Emperor", such as the appointment of ministers and governors and important policy decisions.

After all, not everyone has the status of emperor teacher and minister Gu Ming, and not everyone has the opportunity of Zhang Juzheng, that is, when he was the chief assistant, the emperor was still young.

But now, the Son of Heaven is an adult, and restricting the power of the monarch will only lead to chaos and have more serious consequences.

After all, the emperor will not sit still, but will seize power by reusing eunuchs and even military officials.

Because the lessons of history are not far away.

In Zhu Yijun's view, Shen Shixing may really just think that what the new chief assistant should do is not to exercise power on behalf of the emperor, but to manage the relationship between the emperor and his ministers. Instead of killing ministers for the New Deal or even killing officials of a department for cleaning up the door, there should be no more situations.

Shen Shixing may think that what the new chief assistant should do is to allow tens of thousands of civil servants in the world to pass the chief minister's Xie Li, and to be able to more cooperatively implement the emperor's will, instead of forming a party to form a power minister. Under the request of the emperor, to complete a certain reform, and even had to take various drastic measures to severely crack down on officials who refused to obey the power and insisted that the power should be owned by the emperor.

After all Neo Confucianism is still the dominant thought today.

Therefore, among the officials loyal to the imperial court, most of them still insist that it is normal for the imperial court to hold great power only with the father-in-law. Whether it is the appearance of powerful eunuchs or powerful ministers, it is abnormal, and it is no different from the dictatorship of foreign relatives and the dictatorship of the harem. .

The biggest problem with Zhang Juzheng's implementation of reforms in front of Zhu Yijun is that he has become a de facto minister of power, and he is not tolerated by many Confucianism ministers in the world. What's more, what Zhang Juzheng did did harm the interests of the world's officials, gentry and powerful people.

(End of this chapter)