Chapter 284: Chief Baikui (12) The first fire: establishing the crown prince
Now that the big picture is clear, we need to consider how to carry out specific affairs in an orderly manner. Just like if you want to win a war, you must first clarify the strategy, and then determine the tactics.
What is certain now is that he will be a very pragmatic and important minister of the court within a period of time. The only person with the power to restrict him is the emperor, but the emperor will not restrict him unless it is absolutely necessary. After all, the emperor has just demonstrated his power again
The great friendship between the emperor and his ministers and Gao Pragmatism cannot be slapped in the face immediately.
From this perspective, as the new chief assistant, Gao Pragmatic now is the best time to burn the new official's three fires.
As for crises, of course there are.
First of all, because the emperor refused to add more cabinet members, the cabinet was downsized from the original six to four. Although Gao Pragmatic became the first assistant, in fact, of the two cabinet elders who resigned, one belonged to the neutral school and the other belonged to the practical school——
Each one comes from the mind school.
In other words, the proportion of cabinet elders from the Xin School in the cabinet has increased, while the proportion of cabinet elders from the Real School has decreased. Now, if the votes of the four cabinet members are really calculated based on their headcount, the Real School and the Xin School have actually become
2:2 flat.
Of course, as the powerful first assistant, Gao Pragmatic, this kind of vote counting is unlikely to be effective - he will not initiate a call for "everyone to vote by show of hands" at all.
In addition, although Zhao Zhigao is the elder of the Xin School, because he had to surrender to Gao Pingshi in order to save his son, he already has a criminal record of "surrendering to the enemy and rebelling" within the Xin School, and now he may have to follow him more often.
High pragmatism, at least, is unlikely to compete with high pragmatism. In this way, high pragmatism's dominant position becomes more obvious.
This was not over yet. Shen Guanyi was too busy to take care of himself due to the medicated diet case, and had to temporarily surrender to Gao pragmatism, and then "self-assigned" to visit Mount Tai, stay in Nanjing, and make preliminary preparations for the emperor to enshrine Mount Tai and pay homage to Xiaoling Mausoleum.
As a result, Gao Jingshi was in the cabinet and at the center of the entire court, and for a time he completely lost the level of control, and could be said to be "the sole power of the prime minister." This has two positive and negative effects:
He has great power and can implement almost any policy he wants to implement at this time; he is extremely dangerous, and he is fully responsible for the implementation of any policy and bears all the consequences.
At the same time, there is another potential risk, which is the "Shen Hou" issue just mentioned.
Today, Gao Jingshi has been deeply bound to the queen, the emperor's legitimate son, and his mother, forming a community of interests similar to the "Marquis Shen-Queen Shen-Yijiu" during the period of King You of Zhou. At this moment, the attitude of "King You of Zhou" is the most critical.
.
If King You feels that there is no problem with this structure, and the power of Marquis Shen is greater, it will not affect my status as the Emperor of Zhou anyway, then everything will remain as usual, the world will be safe and peaceful, and the world will be peaceful.
If King You feels that this structure is very problematic, the power of Shenhou has become too great to be restricted. Not only will I, the king of Zhou, have to accommodate him in everything this week, but it will also affect the structure of my court a hundred years later. Even the crown prince will be controlled by Shen.
Controlled by Hou, then whether I, the King of Zhou, need to live, actually depends on what Hou Shen thinks... If so, the trouble will be big.
The biggest threat to the King of Zhou himself in the "Marquis of Shen-Queen of Shen-Yijiu" model is that it is a powerful alliance. They are even strong enough to eliminate the King of Zhou at any time without worrying about any political backlash.
Think about it, Marquis Shen is powerful and has deep roots in the court. He also has military power and can mobilize large armies to march into the capital at any time to ensure that the center of the court cannot escape his control;
Empress Shen was the woman with the highest status in the harem and was the enemy of King Zhou. Once King Zhou died suddenly, Empress Shen had the legitimacy to act on behalf of the emperor, and her decree was equivalent to the imperial edict for a while;
As the eldest son of Empress Shen, Yijiu had no real power as the crown prince, but he had the most orthodox name and the most distinguished status, and could play the most critical role at certain moments - such as the sudden death of King Zhou, as long as Yijiu
After announcing that everything was the same, others had no right to make irresponsible remarks. Then Yijiu succeeded to the throne, and the Shen Group completely controlled the affairs of the Zhou Dynasty.
In Chinese history, it is an unspoken rule or even an explicit rule that important ministers are not allowed to associate with the prince. The reason is this: you are already an important minister with great power. If you can still control the prince, then you can kill the emperor directly.
, if the crown prince succeeds to the throne, won’t there be no more constraints after that?
Not only the prince, but theoretically all the princes who have the right of inheritance, even the right of succession, should not be friends with important officials of the court, because once the real power in the hands of you, an important official, is combined with the prince's right of inheritance, the emperor himself will immediately be in a different position.
A dangerous position that can be replaced.
If you were the emperor, you wouldn’t agree!
However, the current situation is not that bad yet. The Ming Dynasty has its own political inertia and the various systems of the Ming Dynasty restrict each other. The emperor is not worried that the chief minister who does not have real power in the government will take risks and kill him.
The swaddled baby succeeds to the throne.
The key is that there is currently no serious conflict between the emperor and Gao Pragmatic. Gao Pragmatic does not seem to have the need to push himself into this dead end. He has even made it clear what he wants in the future - Southern Xinjiang.
.
Southern Xinjiang? For the emperor, this was not the solid territory of the Ming Dynasty in the first place, and he did not feel bad about promising to go out. Even if Southern Xinjiang was in the hands of a Han official in the future, it would not be a bad thing, not to mention that this would bring southern Xinjiang to the Ming Dynasty.
Xinjiang has become the territory of the Ming Dynasty in name. Isn't this also a kind of opening up the territory?
The emperor was already familiar with the map of the world produced by Jinghua. Although southern Xinjiang and Nanyang were not small in the emperor's opinion, they were somewhat fragmented geographically. They were "not the foundation of the king's business" and could only support the Central Plains.
Therefore, there is now a tacit understanding and a new psychological balance between the emperor and Gao pragmatism.
If you do a good job as my Yuanfu, in the future I will package southern Xinjiang and Nanyang as a reward for you, so that your Gao family will have the largest and most fertile foundation among the ministers with foreign surnames since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! At least so far, both parties are satisfied with the tacit understanding.
Although there are hidden worries, balance and tacit understanding have been achieved after all, and it is time for Gao Pragmatic to get down to business.
Early the next morning, Chief Assistant Gao Pangshi went to court in person, requesting the emperor to establish the crown prince as soon as possible, and made it clear that the emperor's legitimate son Chang Hao was the best and only candidate for the crown prince, and asked the emperor to make an early decision.
On the morning of the same day, a large number of dignitaries of third rank or above, as well as Hanlin academic officials and Kedao Yanguan, who were not of high rank but had relatively special status, were also present together with Gao pragmatism.
In the afternoon, the Zongren Mansion Da Zongzheng (Zongren Order), the eldest princess Shouyang's consort, Duwei Hou Gongchen, as the "first civil servant", petitioned to appoint Zhu Changhao as the crown prince. In Beijing, Jingnan's honors are as noble as those in other countries.
Dukes, marquises, uncles, etc. went to the throne together and also asked Chang Hao, the emperor's legitimate son, to be crowned prince.
The Chief of Ceremonies quickly sent a message: The emperor's legitimate son is destined to be the emperor, and he is indeed the best candidate for the crown prince. However, because he is still young, it is best to observe for some time before registering him.
This is actually true. After all, the child mortality rate in this era is indeed relatively high. Even the children of the Tian family may not be any better than the children of ordinary families. Those who should die still often die young. As the crown prince of the country, if he is still young
If the urine is lost prematurely, it is also a great mourning for the country, and it is a bad thing that is best avoided if possible.
However, this time, Gao Pragmatic obviously did not intend to follow common sense. Early the next morning, Gao Pragmatic once again led his ministers to go to the meeting. And with yesterday's foreshadowing, this time there would be no more than one meeting, but all the meetings yesterday.
Everyone who had been neglected submitted their essays in the morning.
Not only that, some people who hesitated and did not make any move yesterday, especially officials from the Fuxin School, also joined the ranks of Shangshu this time. Among these people, Zhao Zhigao, the scholar of Jianji Palace, is undoubtedly the one with the highest status.
.
The Grand Scholar of Jianjidian was not a general assistant, but a secondary assistant to the Eight Classics of Zhenger. Zhao Zhigao's announcement shocked everyone in the court. The officials of the Real School celebrated each other, thinking that this was the recognition of the Xin School's role in the dispute over the country.
The performance of a complete failure; some officials of the Xinxue Sect are very confused and don't know what their current attitude is towards the dispute between the country and the country.
Of course, more Xinxue school officials still looked on with cold eyes, disdainful of Zhao Zhigao's act of "surrendering to the enemy and rebelling", while at the same time feeling discouraged and feeling that the situation was indeed irreversible.
The emperor could not remain indifferent to the turmoil in the dynasty. What's more, in fact, Zhu Yijun had already made psychological preparations to canonize Zhu Changhao as the crown prince. What he said yesterday was just out of a psychology that he could not explain.
This is like a person who has persisted for a certain belief for twenty years. When it finally comes to an end, he will fall into a kind of confusion, and even think for a moment, "Should I stop holding on to it?"
This is actually a certain instinct of human beings, which almost means "path dependence". When something that has been done for a long time is suddenly finished, you don't know what to do next. This may even lead to some kind of
cringe.
But it was obvious that Gao Pragmatic did not intend to give the emperor a chance to cower, and he did not want him to focus on such a ruinous path.
Although the Ming Dynasty seems to be reviving, there are still many problems that have not been solved. Some of them existed originally and their roots can be traced back to Zhu Yuanzhang. However, there are also some problems that have emerged after his highly pragmatic reforms. This is not surprising.
Reform is never perfect all at once. It is nothing more than finding problems when they arise, finding problems and solving them, that's all.
In short, Zhu Yijun may feel that the current situation in the world is great, but Gao Pragmatic doesn't feel that way at all. He still has a lot to do, and he doesn't want the emperor to slack off in politics.
It's okay if you want me to be the chief assistant, but you don't have to be idle. We are all kings and ministers, and we have to be busy together.
Perhaps because the courtiers' meeting was grand enough, or perhaps because he sensed Gao's pragmatic determination, Zhu Yijun finally conveyed the order through the Supervisor of Ceremonies in the afternoon: The Cabinet, the Ministry of Rites and other departments should immediately prepare for the crown prince's canonization ceremony.
, when everything is ready, I will set the date for the canonization.
----------
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "I am Liao Zhenxin" for their reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "klauszx" and "SeamChe" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: This chapter was written yesterday. Well, although I have recovered time, the plot is a bit out of context in my mind, so let me connect it.