Because there were too many controversial topics, the officials and Emperor Deqing spent too much time in disputes and compromises. When the morning session ended, it was already close to noon.
Officials who are qualified to serve in the early dynasty, or are high-ranking officials of third rank or above, or the leader of a certain yamen. Except for Zhao Junchen, an alternative, and Prince Zhu Heyu, the prince, most of them are already 30 years old. They are over forty-five, and they usually take care of themselves, so their energy and physical strength are inevitably a bit weak. They spent the whole morning like this. You can imagine the condition of the officials.
However, when the officials left the Forbidden City, they could not care less about their physical and mental exhaustion and hunger. All of them had serious faces, heavy expressions, and a hint of worry.
Many officials were looking around. After seeing Shen Changmao, their expressions showed obvious dissatisfaction. They no longer had the fear of the past!
As for Shen Changmao at this time, he was walking in a hurry, with his head slightly lowered and his eyes narrowed. As the dignified chief minister of the cabinet and the leader of all officials, he did not dare to look at other officials and just walked quickly to his sedan chair. , and then left in a sedan!
As for those "Shen Party" officials, they were all even more dejected and did not even crowd around Shen Changmao. They all looked low in morale and listless.
It turns out that Shen Changmao suffered a serious setback in the morning meeting. He was easily fooled by the "Prince Party" who has never been good at strategy!
At court that morning, Prince Zhu Heyu suddenly proposed to use "special slips" instead of "court conferences" to decide the replacement candidates for the cabinet. This proposal offended the interests of hundreds of officials, and naturally attracted a backlash from them, but Just when the backlash from the officials was at its fiercest, Prince Zhu Heyu suddenly impeached Shen Changmao, the chief minister of the cabinet, claiming that Shen Changmao took advantage of the vacancy in the cabinet to secretly collude with the officials, take the opportunity to cause trouble, and deliberately frame the ministers of the DPRK and China. A lot of substantive evidence was also produced!
According to the prince, Shen Changmao secretly colluded with the officials of the "Prince Party" in order to frame Huo Zhengyuan of the "Zhao Party" and implicate Zhao Junchen. In the end, in addition to causing trouble for the "Zhao Party", he also involved the Shuntian Prefecture Yin. The position was wrested from the "Zhao Party", and eventually Shen Changmao would hand over the position of Shuntian Fuyin to the "Prince Party" in exchange for the "Prince Party's" full support in cabinet candidates!
After all, the "Prince Party" has great influence in the Metropolitan Procuratorate and plays a key role in deciding cabinet candidates.
Of course, according to Prince Zhu Heyu, the "Prince and Party" were all loyal to the emperor. They were not only dismissive of Shen Changmao's secret conspiracy, but also extremely disgusted, so they ignored Shen Changmao. On the contrary, through Prince Zhu Heyu, Shen Changmao's evil deeds were exposed in the temple, in order to correct the atmosphere of the court.
The officials absolutely do not believe what Prince Zhu Heyu said. After all, although Shen Changmao's methods and vision are not particularly brilliant, they are by no means the temperament of a dull person named "Prince. Party". It has long been known to everyone. , these people pride themselves on being noble and gentlemen. They hate cliques the most, and they are always lax in their words and weak in their work. Even if they are willing to cooperate with you, if your actions are slightly not to their liking, then they will immediately If you fall out, it can be said that you will succeed more than you will lose. Cooperating with them secretly will definitely cause a lot of harm and no benefit.
This point has long been agreed upon by officials, so how could Shen Changmao not know?
If he hadn't been beguiled by others and received certain promises and hints, Shen Changmao would never have taken the initiative to contact the "Prince Party" officials!
Obviously, Shen Changmao was plotted by the "Prince.Party"! The "Prince.Party" first gave Shen Changmao some hints, making Shen Changmao think that he could unite with the "Prince.Party" and gain great benefits. The profit was huge, so Shen Changmao couldn't help but do it! But just when Shen Changmao took action, the "Prince Party" suddenly turned against them, and also made public the evidence that Shen Changmao secretly connected them. Let Shen Changmao be speechless!
The most important thing is that Shen Changmao may have been deceived by the past gentlemanly behavior of the "Prince. Party". During this period, he did not leave any relevant evidence that the "Prince. Party" deceived him. Instead, he gave up his handle. He gave it to the other party, so he naturally fell into a passive situation of being beaten!
However, it was just that Shen Changmao was plotted against by the "Prince's Party", that's it, the officials would just hide aside and watch the joke.
But unfortunately, Shen Changmao was plotted at the wrong time and in the wrong way!
Just when the officials fiercely opposed Emperor Deqing's change of "Ting Tui" to "Te Jian", Shen Changmao was conspired by the "Prince Party"! Let Shen Changmao implement what he had done before Ting Tui. Shen Changmao was the chief minister of the cabinet and naturally represented the officials. As a result, Prince Zhu Heyu believed that "Tingtui caused chaos in the temple and did more harm than good. It should be changed to There is a basis for the statement of "Special Jane", and if the officials want to insist on the recommendation, they will lose the moral high ground. Even they themselves feel that they are in the wrong, and they will naturally fall into the disadvantage in the end!
In fact, after Emperor Deqing received the memorial from Prince Zhu Heyu at the court this morning, he immediately went into full fire! The cleverness of Emperor Deqing's various methods during this period was even more amazing!
He first handed Prince Zhu Heyu's memorial to Zhao Junchen, letting Zhao Junchen know in detail Shen Changmao's intention to plot against him, and Prince Zhu Heyu's attitude against Shen Changmao, which made Zhao Junchen angry at Shen Changmao's actions. Yu also owed a favor to Prince Zhu Heyu. In this way, Zhao Junchen would naturally not oppose Te Jian together with Shen Changmao!
Then, Emperor Deqing began to make a fuss about this matter and severely criticized Shen Changmao, but it was just criticism without actual punishment. In this way, Shen Changmao first felt wronged and worried that he would oppose Te Jian's words again. Emperor Deqing would seize the opportunity to make things difficult, and then he would become silent!
Then, Emperor Deqing put on a reasonable face and had an in-depth exchange with Zhou Shangjing, saying that the matter of the imperial nomination had left the cabinet vacant and caused chaos in the temple. Too many things had happened in the court recently. Things could no longer be chaotic. Such speech made Zhou Shangjing fall into silence. After all, although Zhou Shangjing was a powerful minister, he still put the overall situation first.
Finally, Emperor Deqing suddenly announced that if "Ting Tui" is changed to "Te Jian", then Emperor Deqing will increase the number of cabinet members as appropriate in view of the repeated changes in cabinet members in recent years. Taking advantage of this cabinet When a vacancy occurs, Emperor Deqing will expand the size of the cabinet and add two to three cabinet ministers at once.
At the same time, Emperor Deqing also made concessions, saying that he would not decide the cabinet candidates at will, but would let the officials recommend their own candidates. Based on the recommendations of the officials, Emperor Deqing first designated several court officials. Minister, and then decide on the candidates for the cabinet ministers from this list!
As a result, in addition to several powerful officials in the court, officials from various factions and neutral officials also fell silent. After all, Emperor Deqing's proposal represented an increase in opportunities to join the cabinet, and also gave them the right to participate. .
As all the officials fell silent, Emperor Deqing finally had the power to decide on cabinet candidates as he wished, making him the final winner of today's morning court!
Under Emperor Deqing's clever methods, although the officials reluctantly accepted the "special simplicity" method, the interests of the officials suffered great losses after all, so after they went to court, they were all in a different mood. heavy.
At the same time, the officials also had a lot of complaints about the "chief culprit" Shen Changmao. They felt that if Shen Changmao hadn't held back today, Emperor Deqing might not have been able to get the decision-making power on cabinet candidates as he wished!
And these grievances mean that Shen Changmao's position as chief assistant is gradually unstable!
It is precisely because of this that Shen Changmao left in a hurry, and the "Shen Party" officials were dejected.
On the other side, while the officials were secretly complaining about Shen Changmao, Zhao Junchen was paying attention to another thing!
…
ps: Regarding the battle for cabinet vacancies, when Shen Changmao was plotted by Zhao Shancai, Chongzi originally designed a very subtle ending to the plot!
But what can I say, the more subtle and complex something is, the more flaws it has!
Halfway through writing, I suddenly discovered that there was a flaw in the plot I had conceived. This flaw turned the originally wonderful idea into a joke. The bug almost scratched my own scalp, and there was no way to fix this flaw!
Then, Chongzi wanted to come up with a new idea to replace the original one, but the new idea was either bland or had flaws. Chongzi was driven crazy for several days, but he still couldn't find a feasible alternative plot.
But putting it off all the time was not an option, so Chongzi decided to use the Chunqiu style of writing to walk through this plot first, and then later use the narration method to slowly complete the plot!