The Ming Dynasty was a peak of monarchy, and the operation of the entire country was entirely in the emperor's thoughts.

As early as the reign of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to consolidate the imperial power, the Secretariat and the Prime Minister were abolished. The emperor personally served as prime minister, intending to avoid the fact that the prime minister's family was dominant in all dynasties, the power of the prime minister was greater than that of the imperial power, and the power of the court fell.

By the time of Zhu Di, the Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, this warlike emperor was leading troops all year round, and it was difficult for him to spend his energy reading memorials every day and dealing with national affairs. If he met a long-winded minister, he would write 10,000 or 20,000 words in a memorial, and only a few hundred words in the middle were the key, the emperor would have worked even harder. When Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, he encountered such ministers who liked hydrology, and he would directly ask the Jinyiwei to beat the minister up!

Like the white-collar workers in later generations, they only had to work one job every day until the early morning before they could get off work. The emperor had to deal with more than a dozen military affairs matters a day, which may involve the food problems of dozens or millions of people. How could the emperor be busy with one head and two hands?

In order to reduce the emperor's work pressure and assist himself in handling national affairs, the emperor's secretariat, the cabinet, was born.

Zhu Di was a powerful emperor with heavy troops, so the power of the cabinet was not very important. He was really just a secretary institution of the emperor.

When the fifth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty, because the country entered a period of peaceful development, the emperor was inevitably lazy and was unwilling to sit in front of the dragon case every day to criticize and correct memorials. Instead, he was willing to do some fun things, such as the famous "Xuande Furnace" in later generations, which was produced by Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty. An emperor personally designed an incense burning stove, which shows how idle it is.

When the emperor was idle, the ministers were about to start to be busy! So Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty handed over some of the memorials to the cabinet ministers for instructions.

After reading the memorial, the cabinet minister wrote the handling opinions on a note, then posted them on the front of the memorial, and handed them to the emperor for imperial approval. This is called a ticket draft.

The emperor only needs to read the handling opinions on the note of the ticket, and then use a red pen to make instructions on the ticket, stamp it immediately, and the work has become much easier.

However, even with the votes, the emperor still couldn't stand it and the emperor still felt too tired.

It is really uncomfortable to review a large number of memorials every day. Those who become emperors should enjoy life. Just like the great leaders of later generations, they have a cup of wolfberry tea every day, play with their mobile phones and read the news. The day passes, and they are too lazy to write a few words.

The most important thing is that after the cabinet has the right to vote, it is actually executing the work of the prime minister. After all, the cabinet ministers can write their wishes on the votes to directly influence the emperor's ideas, causing their power to begin to expand in the court.

In order to suppress the increasingly expanding power of the cabinet and to relieve his work pressure, the emperor asked the Silijian to take over his work and put the votes on the red.

In this way, the emperor only needs to pick up the most important memorials every day to read, give his opinions, and leave the rest to the eunuch to handle. This is really much easier.

The emperor appointed a trusted eunuch to write red characters on the memorial with a brush, which is to write red. The eunuch who represents the emperor holding a brush is the eunuch of Bingbi. There are usually four to five eunuchs of Bingbi, and they have very high academic attainments. Among them, the first one is the chief Bingbi.

The chief eunuch Bingbi also serves as the admiral of the East Factory, known as the factory man, helping the emperor supervise the world. He is the most common negative character in TV series.

The memorial is stamped after the red seal is placed on it. The eunuch who is responsible for keeping the emperor's seal is the eunuch. The eunuch who is in charge of the seal is the leader of the eunuch, and he has the highest status among eunuchs and is generally the eunuch who is most trusted by the emperor.

Because the eunuch is the emperor's slave, he is useless after leaving the emperor and is a person that the emperor trusts very much, so he is also the best candidate for the emperor to check and balance the cabinet.

Especially the eunuch who is responsible for keeping the emperor's jade seal, the most powerful among eunuchs, so he is also called the inner minister. His status in the court is the same as that in the cabinet chief.

If there is a conflict between the eunuch in charge of seals and the cabinet and refuses to cooperate with stamping, then many government affairs reviewed by the cabinet will be backlogged, seriously affecting the operation of the country.

In this regard, the rights of the Silijian are greater than those of the cabinet.

It’s okay for the emperor to be diligent, but the eunuchs can’t do too much in political affairs. If they meet a lazy emperor, even if they are too lazy to read memorials, they will hand them all over to the Silijian for processing, which will lead to the infinite expansion of the power of the Silijian and their authority is close to the emperor.

In history, Wei Zhongxian and Liu Jin were all eunuchs in charge of seals. When the emperor was just playing around with nothing, they performed the imperial power on behalf of the court, and the decisions of the court had to be stamped before they could take effect. It was easy to become a cruel official who was arbitrary and controlled the government.

Every dynasty will gradually decline over time. It will not be until the emperor becomes a decoration in the end, and the world will be in chaos and heroes compete. When a new dynasty rises, the imperial power will reach its peak again.

The Ming Dynasty was no exception. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the officials of the six ministries were all cabinet ministers. This means that the cabinet had both the power of senators and administrative power, and its power began to grow bigger and bigger.

After the Tumu Fort Incident, all 200,000 elite troops from the twenty-six guards in the Beijing camp controlled by the emperor were wiped out. Since then, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty lost the greatest support of the army. Without the support of military power, he no longer had the power to make speech and decisions, and the imperial power plummeted.

Although the imperial court later rebuilt the Jing camp, the civil servant group installed a large number of people in the Jing camp, and almost all commanders were from the civil servant group. Although the emperor could mobilize the Jing camp, he did not have his own confidants, which meant he had no command authority.

Since then, the three powers have been integrated into one and all belong to the cabinet. The cabinet has become the prime minister in the factual sense, and even surpassed the prime minister and suppressed the imperial power tightly.

The civil servant group headed by the cabinet began to use the cabinet to speed up the curb of noble royal families, suppress and weaken the authority of military officers, and restrict the autocracy of foreign relatives, almost cutting off all the tentacles of the emperor that could show his power.

This led to the emperor having to rely more on the rank of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The original eunuch organization expanded rapidly, walked out of the palace and gradually became a control of the East Factory. At the same time, there were eunuchs assigned to various places, mines, and taxation guards. They could directly bypass the Ministry of Revenue to collect taxes, and had grown into a bureaucratic organization comparable to the cabinet.

The Silijian has actually become another cabinet, a cabinet that is completely obeyed the emperor.

The situation of love and fight between the cabinet and the Sili Supervisor in the past century has formed in this way.

Silijian is the spokesperson of the emperor, while the cabinet is the spokesperson of the civil servant group. After all, behind this is the battle for political discourse between the imperial power and the civil servant group.

It is said that Emperor Hongzhi was an honest man. He only married one wife in his life and rarely had political conflicts with civil servants. However, his political wisdom was definitely no less than that of Zhu Yuanzhang. After Tumu Fort, the civil servant group stepped up controlling military officers in the local area, and also controlled the distribution of military food and food and money, and seized military power.

Emperor Hongzhi used eunuchs to lay out the country, set up military supervisors in the army, and interfered in military affairs. At the same time, he also strengthened the infiltration of eunuchs in various places in civil affairs, and subtly engaged in political confrontations with civil officials.

The Silijian has achieved great development in the hands of Emperor Hongzhi. In a sense, Emperor Hongzhi cooperated with the cabinet in government affairs, but in fact he was doing political exchanges with the civil servant group. If I don’t make trouble, don’t interfere, I will install eunuchs everywhere!

Emperor Hongzhi strengthened the imperial power in a subtle way and had first-class political operation.

Although Emperor Hongzhi died in a hurry, his political legacy was very rich, leaving Zhu Houzhao with an extremely efficient and relatively honest leadership team.

In the palace, Hongzhi's father left Zhu Houzhao with a team of eunuchs that specifically restricted the civil service group and had strong execution capabilities!

Huai'en, Chen Zhun, Xiao Jing, and Wang Yue of the Inner Court of the Sili Prison are all trustworthy eunuchs personally selected by Emperor Hongzhi. They are in charge of the Imperial Horse Supervisor for Zhu Houzhao to be responsible for the protection of the palace inside and outside. At the same time, there are the East Factory, the Jinyiwei, and the eunuchs guarding all over the country. Every move of the entire Ming Dynasty cannot escape Zhu Houzhao's eyes.

The Imperial Horse Prison is not only used to raise horses, but also the palace's security headquarters, which is specifically responsible for the emperor's safety.

When Emperor Xuande was in power, all the twenty-two guards in the Beijing camp were under his control, but the emperor was still worried and did not sleep well at night. So he selected elite troops from the twenty-two guards, and added four guards, Tengxiang Left Guard, Tengxiang Right Guard, Wuxiang Left Guard, and Wuxiang Right Guard as palace guards, and were directly commanded by the eunuch of the Imperial Horse Supervisor.

So there were twenty-six guards in the Beijing camp.

After the Tumu Fort, the civil servant group took the opportunity to completely adapt the newly built Beijing camp. In order to facilitate the deployment of personnel, they also deliberately changed the ward system to the regiment camp system. Fortunately, the four guards who defended the palace during the Tumu Fort Incident did not participate in the war, so the emperor had the foundation of four guards and would not be really a commander without a single person.

Later, Emperor Jingtai and Emperor Chenghua selected the backbone officers and soldiers of the Four Guards, and the Imperial Horse Supervisor was responsible for training, and reorganized the Four Guards and Warriors Battalions.

These two battalions are imperial guards at least, and the civil servant group has no chance to intervene in this.

According to the regiment battalion set by civil servants, each battalion can only have 3,100 people.

In other words, no matter how the emperor tried to fight, the imperial guards guarding the palace were killed, there were only 6,200 people.

Want to increase the position? Don’t even dream of it. The cabinet will not be able to pass the threshold. Anyway, the Ministry of Revenue will not allocate money, unless the emperor is willing to pay for the support of the army by himself.

However, when Emperor Hongzhi was in power, he used various political means to expand the two battalions of imperial guards, the Four Guards and Warriors Battalions, to a scale of 40,000 people.

The emperor's rights were greatly stabilized, which is why no matter how Zhengde in later generations made trouble, the civil servant group could only endure it.

In addition to increasing the number of imperial guards in the palace, Emperor Hongzhi also desperately suppressed the rest of the troops of the Jing camp, directly treating the Jing camp as a construction team, randomly dispatching soldiers from the Jing camp to build palaces for the royal relatives, and even directly sent them to the imperial village to farm for the royal family for free. If the river embankment around the capital was broken, the bridge was broken, or something, they would be directly transferred to repair.

Anyway, the soldiers in the Beijing camp were forced to serve as coolies. This led to the soldiers in the Beijing camp fleeing one after another, and their troops shrank sharply. The troops of more than 200,000 were left in the end. There were only more than 60,000 people. There were many years of lack of training and those who could fight were probably less than one-tenth.

During Hongzhi's reign, many ministers in the court repeatedly submitted memorials asking the emperor not to treat the soldiers of the Jingying camp as coolies. In later historical books, "Beijingying occupation" became one of the biggest destructions of Emperor Hongzhi.

The emperor's own control of the imperial guards expanded to 40,000, with refined equipment and sufficient training.

The Beijing camp controlled by the civil servant group shrank to less than 60,000, and it also had to bear heavy labor and had no combat effectiveness at all.

Here we can see how outstanding Emperor Hongzhi’s political wisdom is!

Not only the imperial guards, but also the power of the Jinyiwei expanded to its peak during the reign of Emperor Hongzhi. There were as many as 100,000 intelligence personnel in the process, and tentacles were spread all over every corner of the country!

Emperor Hongzhi's Houhei practiced very solidly, and he left a rich political legacy to his son Zhu Houzhao.

There are the Four Guards and Warriors Battalion guards inside, and the Jinyiwei and the East Factory detective intelligence outside. These forces are controlled by the emperor's confidants. Even if Zhu Houzhao was young, there was no need to worry about the fall of the imperial power.

In the arrangements of Emperor Hongzhi, in addition to the Silijian and the Imperial Horse Prison, there were three major leaders in the imperial court, Liu Jian, Li Dongyang and Xie Qian.

Any of these three cabinet masters can manage a country in an orderly manner, and Emperor Hongzhi left three for Zhu Houzhao!

There are also six ministers:

Liu Daxia, Minister of War

Zeng Jian, Minister of Works

Min Gui, Minister of Justice

Ma Wensheng, Minister of Personnel

Zhang Sheng, Minister of Rites

Korean Minister of Revenue

These six ministers all have strong political skills and are very reliable in doing things.

Of course, all the officials of the court and the officials of the local shepherds and guards can find many remarkable officials, and these people can do many major tasks if they are used well.

With such a rich political legacy, if you are smarter and inherit some of the political wisdom of Hongzhi's father, you may be able to regain the lost imperial power in a few decades.

However, history has also proved that Zhengde has some political acumen, and it continued Hongzhi's political strategy of suppressing civil servants, enhancing the power of imperial guards, and supporting military officers.

However, Zhengde's ability is really limited, and the practice of supporting military officers is too obvious. He directly crossed the cabinet and forced the military personnel to promote the elite troops and transferred the border troops to Beijing. This is undoubtedly challenging the fragile nerves of civil servants.
Chapter completed!