Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1176: The Imperial Court’s Affairs (Part [-])
The system of Ting Tui, some people in later generations will regard it as a certain degree of Democracy selection system, but this has been mentioned in the previous article of this book. It doesn't matter.

However, the Ming Dynasty still liked to use the method of election to show the integrity of officials, so the court election, together with the analogy, the ministry, and the edict, constituted the most important part of the bureaucratic election in the Ming Dynasty.

Theoretically speaking, the candidates for Ting Tui are usually Da Jiuqing and the governor, and the participants are cabinet ministers and Da Jiuqing.The results of the votes of the officials promoted by the council are the main basis for the emperor's reference.

This is related to analogy (participants are the Ministry of Officials, who recommend officials below the sixth rank inside and those below the fifth rank outside), Ministry Tuition (participants are the Ministry of Officials, who recommend Xiao Jiuqing, Fang [such as Bing Bei Dao], magistrates, etc.), The combination of edict and push (participants are Jiuqing, Ke Dao, and the selection of cabinet ministers, officials and soldiers, and governors) formed a gradual increase in the expression of public will.

Considering that the election of Ke Dao bureaucrats also referred to the general will, the Ming Dynasty’s elections actually constituted a cycle of expressing the general will, and used it as a way to resist the emperor’s special proposal—the emperor’s refusal to push the results, in fact It is the result of indirect negation of partial inference and analogy, and may affect the rationality of imperial inference.

With such an explanation, you readers may have discovered a problem: Shouldn’t recommending cabinet ministers be called Chi Tui?

Yes, officially it is indeed called Chitui, but later the two tended to be merged into one, and gradually they were all referred to as Tingtui.

There are actually two fundamental reasons for the formation and continuation of this kind of election system, both of which are rooted in the emperor.

One is that the election system is convenient and trouble-free.This is actually very simple. There are so many courtiers in the court. As an emperor, he may not even be able to "know it all", let alone know the basics. Therefore, some positions do not necessarily have to be carefully considered.Let the ministers draw up a few candidates, roughly the same.

This is a bit like people in later generations using computers. When they are too lazy to use their brains or face irrelevant problems, the computer will recommend several options for people. People only need to make a simple choice, which is quite considerate.As far as the emperor is concerned, the candidates recommended may all be similar in his impression, who should he use?
From this point of view, I can also think about another question by the way, that is, why most of the cabinet ministers in the middle and late Ming Dynasty had the experience of "emperor teacher" (here refers to being a Japanese lecturer).

The answer is simple: you have been a Japanese lecturer, and the emperor has a deep impression on you, at least he generally knows what kind of person you are. Compared with other officials who only have a name in the emperor's mind as a symbol, you The advantage is of course countless times greater.

The second fundamental reason why the election system can be formed and continues to this day is that for the emperor, this system did not weaken the emperor's right to appoint and remove personnel.

This is the most important and most misleading aspect of the system.In fact, the court recommendation in the Ming Dynasty was actually just a recommendation process, and the ministers who participated in the discussion and selection did not have the final decision-making power.The key decision-making power is always in the hands of the emperor.

The reason why it is easy to cause misunderstanding is that in the modern society of later generations, democratic countries that practice constitutional monarchy will also do the same thing.For example, the Queen of England, not to mention the prime minister of the United Kingdom, even the prime minister of Australia a few years ago has been elected, but it must be approved by Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom before it can be regarded as officially effective.

Of course, this approach in the UK is basically just a legal formality, and it has never been heard that Her Majesty the Queen, who is "good at doing good", has ever disapproved.

However, it is completely different in Daming, the biggest difference is also two points:

There will not be only one candidate for a court recommendation, usually two or three, and the final decision will be made by the emperor.In other words, even if you are shortlisted and become a candidate, it does not mean that the position is already yours, and you still have competitors.

In contrast to the United Kingdom, you must have never heard of the fact that modern society can propose two or three British prime minister candidates, and then let the Queen choose?Assuming this is the case, do you still think the Queen of England is just a decoration?

The candidates recommended by the court can be rejected or even skipped directly.This article has been mentioned earlier in this book, and here are just a few examples: Zhang Cong was admitted to the cabinet by Zhongzhi during the Jiajing period, and Yin Shidan was also admitted to the cabinet during the Longqing period. These are examples of skipping the court. .

As for the refusal, there are also some. Zhu Yijun did this in the original history: At that time, Gu Xiancheng was the doctor of the Department of Wenxuan of the Ministry of Officials, and was in charge of the promotion and transfer of officials.In the 22nd year of Wanli, the imperial court promoted the cabinet scholars, and the people nominated by Gu Xiancheng were all hated by Zhu Yijun, so he offended the emperor, was stripped of his official status, and dismissed from his post to go home.At that time, the candidate for Ting Tuo was also rejected by the emperor and asked the Ministry of Officials to re-draft.

So to sum up, as a system, Ting Tui has greater symbolic significance, and the real final decision-making power is always in the hands of the emperor.

Of course, this is not to say that Ting Tui is not important, on the contrary, Ting Tui is still very important, and it can even be said to be of great significance.

The source of this meaning lies in the gentry's insistence on the general will of the Ming Dynasty - "the emperor cannot take away the princes and officials, and the officials and officials cannot take away the foolish husbands and women".

This kind of thinking keeps the emperor's dictatorship in a morally unacceptable state. Therefore, it is very dangerous for even the most respected emperor in the world to rashly resist the general will.

The political expectation of traditional China is to hope that the emperor will work hard to ask people and make people easy, instead of being self-defeating and power not being transferred.In the Ming Dynasty, when the bureaucratic system was highly systematized, the emperor himself was the most important cog in the bureaucratic system, so he usually had to be positive about the general will reached by the bureaucratic group, because if he denied the will of other cogs, it might lead to The bureaucracy is not functioning well.

In order to maintain the imperial power, to be hostile to the bureaucracy, and to change from a coordinator to an opponent, not to mention the long-term behavior, is an act of digging one’s own grave—because it exposes the essence of a dictator.Even the short-term cost is very high, and it is easy to be resisted or even abandoned by the bureaucratic group-don't forget the trend of officials releasing their seals in the late Wanli period, and the situation of lonely families in the late Chongzhen period.

What Wanli encountered was resistance, which was a kind of "non-violent non-cooperation" between monarchs and ministers caused by the dispute between the country and the country; Chongzhen was even more serious, and it was really abandoned by the bureaucratic group. He was a civil servant, yet he was also abandoned by the generals group.The emperor under the system of the Ming Dynasty has reached that level, and there is no one else, and his death is really unjust.

Of course, the current Wanli has not encountered obvious resistance, so under his decree this time, Ting Tui quickly took action in an orderly manner.

Even if the court recommends cabinet ministers, the Ministry of Officials first delineates the candidates.In an era when some powerful official ministers were in power, this delineated candidate was not easily subject to other interference.

But now, it's different.From Yan Song until now, it is basically a period when the cabinet is strong, and the officials can only follow the instructions of the cabinet.

As for the moment, there is also a little difference, that is, the bureaucracy as a whole is in the state of the real school in power.Of course there are historical reasons for this, the main reason is that Gao Gong was in charge of the Ministry of Officials in the same year as the chief assistant. Since he was in charge of government affairs for eight years, the Ministry of Officials has since been labeled as a high party.

Although today's Tianguan is Yang Wei, a seemingly neutral but actually Jin Party, anyway, after Zhang Siwei and Ding You, the Gao Party and the Jin Party can no longer separate—it's all high-level pragmatism, so officials Of course, the candidates launched by the Ministry will uphold the will of high pragmatism.

It's just that the so-called high-practical will is not his will this time, it's just a product of compromise, and the only thing that can be said is that this compromise is that Shen Shixing made more concessions, and high-practical at least took advantage of it.

However, this election by the Ministry of Officials is quite interesting. Gao Wushi made it clear that he would not give face, or he really carried out what he expressed in the conversation with Shen Shixing: I will take all the face this time!
Therefore, the three candidates recommended by the Ministry of Officials are almost all related to high pragmatism.

The three candidates are Wang Jiaping, Chen Jingbang, and Yu Shenxing.

Wang Jiaping, a native of Shanxi, no matter how he sees it, in the eyes of the outside world, Shanxi natives are naturally Jin Dang;
Although Chen Jingbang is from Fujian, he was No. 44 in the second-class gold list of Yi Chou in Jiajing 7, and the examiner that year was Gao Gong, which means that Gao Gong was Chen Jingbang's teacher.It was for this reason that Chen Jingbang became the first batch of lecturers during the period of Prince Zhu Yijun.In other words, he is both a teacher of Gao Yushi and a senior brother of Gao Yushi... To some extent, he feels like teaching art on behalf of a teacher.

As for Yu Shenxing, he is the master of the high-practical rural examination, and he ordered the high-practical Jieyuan.In addition, they have another origin: Yu Shenxing is actually Zhang Juzheng's student.

After the downfall of Zhang Juzheng, most of the disciples were not very high-ranking, so they were not suppressed by Gao Gong, and Liang Menglong, who climbed the fastest among them, has now become an ally of Gao Pragmatic and directly joined the Pragmatic School, so Yu Shenxing Background is no problem.

As a result, among the three candidates, apart from Wang Jiaping, who was really planning to push him up, the latter two were Gao Yushi and Zhu Yijun's former teachers—of course, Wang Jiaping also worked as a lecturer later, but it was not the first batch. .

When this recommendation was sent to the emperor, it didn't mean that the emperor would make up his mind now.

Zhu Yijun was basically satisfied with these three candidates, because they were all his lecturers, so he knew them fairly well.

It's just that Zhu Yijun is a little strange, because according to the general situation, even if Chen Jingbang and Yu Shenxing want to be promoted now, it seems that they are stopped at the first level of Shangshu, and they seem to be a little short of seniority when they are directly promoted to Ge Lao.

He thought about it, and felt that the Ministry of Officials actually meant to promote Wang Jiaping, otherwise he would not be ranked first.

In fact, Zhu Yijun didn't know that Wang Jiaping was not a member of the Jin Party in the true sense. He just thought that since Wang Jiaping was from Shanxi, it would be a good idea to add him to the cabinet. lack.

So the emperor quickly notified the cabinet, and held a meeting with the three ministers listed in the Ministry of Officials newspaper as the candidates for recommendation by the court to see what everyone thought.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were "Big Jiuqing" and "Little Jiuqing".Among them, the "Big Nine Qings" are the six ministers plus the Zuodu Yushi, plus the Dali Temple Minister and the Tongzheng Envoy; Shi, Hanlin Bachelor, Honglu Temple Minister, Guozijian Jijiu, Yuanma Temple Minister and Shang Bao Siqing.

Those who are qualified to push cabinet ministers are cabinet scholars and Da Jiuqing, so Gao Yushi is not eligible to participate, he can only wait for the result of the meeting honestly - although it is basically impossible for accidents.

Those who participated in this meeting were the cabinet seniors Shen Shixing, Xu Guo, Zhang Xueyan, and Wu Dui, the cabinet elders, plus Yang Wei, Minister of Officials, Shen Li, Minister of Households, Xu Xuemo, Minister of Rites, and Liang Menglong, Minister of Military Affairs. Shu Hua, Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, Yang Zhao, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, Zhao Jin, Yushi of Zuodu, Li Shida, Minister of Dali Temple, and Zhang Mengnan, the envoy of the Ministry of Justice, totaled 13 people.

The rest of the people have already mentioned it in the previous article, but Li Shida, the Minister of Dali Temple, did not mention it. Here is an additional sentence: This old man is from Jingyang, Shaanxi, and he is from the same hometown as Wei Xuezeng...End of supplement.

Although the Ting Tue was held in the Datong room where the cabinet is on duty, it is far away from the six ministries (the cabinet is inside the palace, and the six ministries are outside the palace), but Gao Yushi always got the news quickly, and it was less than half an hour after the cabinet Ting Tuo results came out. , High pragmatic will know the result.

Not surprisingly, Wang Jiaping received unanimous praise from the bigwigs present at the meeting, and was "publicly recommended" as the best candidate for the new cabinet minister.

This is really not surprising. Just looking at the factions of the people present at the meeting, they are almost either the School of Reality or the School of Mind. Since the actual power holders of the two factions have reached a gentleman's agreement, what changes can be made in this meeting?
Shen Shixing and Xu Guo jointly sent the result of the court push to the Wenhua Palace to Zhu Yijun who was waiting there earlier. Zhu Yijun was not surprised by the result at all, but asked Shen Shixing and Xu Guo: "I think the result of the court push Yes, but Wang Jiaping is still a bachelor student at the Imperial Academy, if he wants to join the cabinet, he must first be transferred to six departments, how do the two gentlemen think?"

Although Zhu Yijun said that "to enter the cabinet, you must first transfer six departments", in fact, this is just a general term. In fact, before the imperial historians enter the cabinet, there are generally only two places to transfer first, either the Ministry of Officials or the Ministry of Rites. The route of cashing into the cabinet is different.

Shen Shixing had been prepared for a long time, and immediately replied after hearing the words: "You can first serve as the left servant of the Ministry of Officials."

In fact, there is no vacancy for Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Officials, but the addition of an official before joining the cabinet is special, and occasionally does not need a real position.

Zhu Yijun nodded in agreement, and said directly: "Then please Mr. Shen to draft an order on my behalf. Wang Jiaping will be promoted to the position of Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Officials, a bachelor of Jiadong Pavilion, and join the cabinet to participate in the maintenance."
-
Thank you book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Lu Senah" and "Book Friends 20190223180428135" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
(End of this chapter)