I am not a deposed emperor of Han Dynasty

Liu He used thunderous momentum to carry out drastic reforms in the central court of the Han Dynasty.

After the day's major court meeting, the edict on the major restructuring of the court, together with the "Government Office Meeting", were sent to various counties via post.

Under the relay of one postman after another, the news of the restructuring will spread to every corner of the Han Empire within half a month.

This major restructuring of the court had little impact on local counties and vassal states, so the key to success or failure still lies in Chang'an City.

The key to the success or failure of Chang'an City lies in the Shiqu Pavilion of Weiyang Palace.

As long as the cabinet operates smoothly and as long as the cabinet bachelors can understand the "holy will", then the transformation of the court will be half successful.

Every system has flaws, and as long as a caring person looks for them with his heart, he will surely find an opportunity to take advantage of them.

Just like this cabinet system, it looks very strict, but it also has many loopholes in power.

Liu He does not expect that the cabinet system can prevent the situation of "the power of the prime minister evading the power of the monarch", but if it can achieve seven or eight achievements, it will be satisfactory.

Coupled with the supplementation of other systems and the iron-fisted means of maintaining the system, Liu He can more powerfully control the situation and power of the court.

After the implementation of the cabinet system, Liu He did not rush to implement other new policies, but planned to give the court and courtiers time to adapt.

Because only if the cabinet system operates smoothly, Liu He's will can be powerfully implemented from the central court to the local counties, and the reactions of the local counties can reach Chang'an.

If the cabinet is stagnant, it will be almost impossible to transmit government orders and public opinion.

If the cabinet gets in the way, it is more likely that there will be an embarrassing situation where government orders cannot leave the Weiyang Palace.

Humans have the ability to think, while animals do not have the ability to think, but they have one similarity.

That is, they are all afraid of whips.

In the early stage of the restructuring, Liu He had to stare at them with a whip and not let them have any room to lag.

……

In order to supervise the smooth operation of the cabinet, Liu He visited Shiqu Pavilion for the first time on the fifth day after the imperial meeting.

Shiqu Pavilion is located in an independent courtyard in the North Palace of Weiyang Palace, not far from the Greenhouse Palace and only takes half an hour to walk.

Like other government offices, the house where Shiqu Pavilion is located also has three entrances and three exits. The area is really not small - at least twice as big as the house where Menxia Temple was originally located.

The front yard is a side house such as a stable and a guest house.

In the middle courtyard stands the Shiqu Pavilion in the main hall, which is seven stories and dozens of feet high. It is the highest point of Weiyang Palace. The side rooms on both sides are where officials and doctorates correct books.

The main room and four side rooms in the backyard have always been empty, but now they have been vacated and reserved for the cabinet.

Shiqu Pavilion is affiliated to Taixue, and most of the people who come here are Ph.D. officers and Ph.D. disciples.

There were very few specialized subordinate officials. There was only a Shiquge Ling of 20 shi and a Shiqucheng of [-] shi, who led more than [-] minor officials and servants to take charge of daily general affairs.

Five days ago, after Liu He's edict to change the cabinet system came down, Shiqu Pavilion, which had been deserted all year round, became really lively.

For several days, the officials and servants came in and out, sweeping and dusting, and were very busy.

They first cleaned up the backyard completely, and then moved all the "properties" from the Shangshu Office to the cabinet.

The five rooms in the backyard of Shiqu Pavilion each have their own functions and are used very efficiently. None of them is vacant.

The main room is the cabinet room where the cabinet ministers discuss government affairs and vote together.

The room is divided into three parts: left, middle and right: in the middle is a large table for enclosing and discussing affairs, on the right are seven small tables for dividing and approving the red, and on the left is a seat left for the emperor to sit alone.

The east front wing is a storage room, used to store copies of memorials that are less than three months old. After the memorials are opened in the cabinet, they will be copied by the secretary for records.

The east back wing is the warehouse, which stores the four treasures of the study required for the operation of the cabinet, and is also responsible for all the general affairs and chores of the cabinet.

The west front wing is the study room, which has twelve assistants corresponding to the two offices and ministers of Jiuqing - two people in each department, who specialize in copying edicts related to them.

Liu He specifically ordered the west rear wing to be left empty. No one, including Zhang Anshi, knew the emperor's intention. Maybe he would build another room.

Each of the three rooms was managed by an order and a prime minister, with varying numbers of mistresses and assistants under their jurisdiction, as well as seven or eighty servants.

With so many people crammed into the small backyard, it was naturally very lively and very different from before.

In order not to interfere with the editing of books by doctoral officers and doctoral students, a side door was specially opened in the backyard to allow officials and officials to pass.

As for the main entrance - the gate from the middle courtyard to the backyard, only the emperor and the cabinet's bachelors could enter and exit.

When Liu He walked into the courtyard from the main entrance for the first time, he was very satisfied with the busy scene. At least it looked like it was working.

"The humble minister Zhang Anshi led the cabinet academicians to greet the emperor." Zhang Anshi led all the academicians to greet the emperor in front of the main gate.

"My dear friends, please get back on your feet and go into the check-in room to have a look." Liu He said calmly.

"No!" Zhang Anshi and others stood up and followed the emperor into the cabinet room.

The value room is very simple, with only the four treasures of the study. All the furnishings are extremely simple, without any luxury at all.

Seeing this pragmatic scene, Liu He was a little satisfied: as the head of a big man, he certainly didn't want money and food to be wasted.

"My dear friends, there is no need to be formal. Sit down and talk." Liu He sat down at the head of the major case.

"No!" All the bachelors then took their seats with respectful and solemn expressions on their faces.Liu He came to the cabinet today specifically to arrange an administrative matter for the cabinet to see if it could operate smoothly.

This matter was exactly what Zhang Anshi mentioned at the court meeting: selecting suitable officials for the vacant official positions in the court.

It turns out that when the Prime Minister or the Grand Sima General still existed, the evaluation of officials was under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Office or the Grand Sima General's Office.

But now this responsibility has been transferred to Guang Luxun.

After Liu He sat down with the academicians, he asked Zhang Anshi to draft an edict and send it to Guang Luxun, asking him to select officials for vacant official positions, with three candidates for each vacancy.

After the edict was drafted, emissaries were immediately sent to Guanglu Temple.

At this point, the first step for Liu He and the cabinet is over.

"Dear dear sirs, it will probably take a few days for Guang Luxun to return from his report. In these few days, I will be in charge of government affairs with you in this room."

"Your Majesty is diligent in his work, which is really a blessing for this man." Naturally, everyone praised him.

So, in the next few days, Liu He stayed in the cabinet, reading while "supervising" Zhang Anshi and others to draft the memorial.

Every day at midnight, the bus driver would deliver hundreds of memorials - [-]% of which were suggestions that did not need to be dealt with, and [-]% of which were memorials that needed to be dealt with.

Then, under the witness of seven cabinet bachelors, the stall orderer took the clerk to open the seal and register it in the book.

Afterwards, the cabinet bachelors would extract the main contents of the memorial to a piece of yellow paper and paste it on the memorial. This step is called "introducing the yellow paper".

Later, under the command of Zhang Anshi, the cabinet bachelors discussed the script: the cabinet bachelors did not have a clear division of labor, but divided the affairs of the government according to their previous official status.

If a cabinet bachelor cannot make a decision on a government issue, it will be handed back to Zhang Anshi, who will convene everyone to discuss it and come to a conclusion before voting.

Finally, the memorial prepared by the vote will be sent to the emperor's case together with the diversion of yellow, and the emperor will approve the red with a red pen - usually only three words will be approved: "approval", "change" and "refute".

All memorials that were approved were first sent to the archives for copying, and then sent to the study room to draft an edict. After being handed over to the emperor for printing, the edict and the memorial were sent back to the official office where the memorial was submitted.

Regardless of whether it is a copy or a draft edict, unless there are omissions or typos, no tampering is allowed, otherwise it will be punished as a correction of the edict.

The refuted memorial was sent directly back to the original government office, indicating that the emperor disagreed with the petition; the revised memorial was returned to Zhang Anshi, indicating that the emperor agreed with the petition but disagreed with the draft.

Every day, the cabinet bachelors spent five or six hours processing the memorials. Even Zhang Anshi and Liu De, courtiers in their prime, could not straighten up when they left the room.

In the past ten years or so, almost the same number of memorials were completed by Huo Guang and several ministers of low rank.

The reason why Huo Guangneng is so efficient is not because his ability exceeds Zhang Anshi and Bingji, but because of other reasons.

On the one hand, this is because Huo Guang has been in charge of the government for more than ten years, and practice makes perfect; on the other hand, because Huo Guang has no control, he can do many things arbitrarily.

Nowadays, after the vote is drafted, there is still supervision by the emperor, and some major matters often need to be discussed, so the speed has naturally slowed down.

The seven cabinet bachelors combined were only slightly faster than Huo Guang.

This is the difference between "people discuss it" and "one person has the final say": the former is slow but safe, the latter is fast but dangerous.

However, after Zhang Anshi and others become proficient, they will process the memorials faster and faster, and the government affairs will not be delayed.

This is also one of the reasons why they can no longer be allowed to serve as foreign court officials. They will no longer have time to take charge of another government office.

This is Liu He's purpose. He wants the cabinet to become a machine - they only think about how to handle government affairs, not how to interfere in government affairs.

Depriving them of the power to submit memorials also serves this purpose: dividing governance and power. This is the only way to inhibit the birth of powerful ministers.

Of course, when Liu He left the cabinet to check rooms every evening, he did not forget to give advice to the exhausted bachelors.

"My dear friends, I can't bear to ask you to manage politics for four hours a day..."

"But among the tens of thousands of courtiers and officials in the Han Dynasty, only seven of you have this honor... This is my trust and recognition of you, and it is also a blessing for you."

"Don't let me betray my trust, let alone the blessing God bestowed upon you."

Under Liu He's "heartfelt" exhortation, the academicians were so flattered that they even said "I will not give up even if I die", and they had almost forgotten the displeasure of being deprived of power.

So, in three days, under Liu He's "supervision and help", the cabinet finally started to operate stumblingly.

However, while the cabinet bachelors were immersed in hard work and satisfaction, Liu He would also feel a little tired and dazed when he walked out of the cabinet duty room every day.
He didn't expect that simply criticizing someone would not be an easy task.

It was hard for him to imagine how those emperors who were so hands-on could approve hundreds or even thousands of memorials alone.

There is still an empty room, and it seems that I still need to find a group of people to approve the awards on my behalf.

But the power of Ping Hong is too great, and Liu He has not yet found a suitable candidate.

At least for this whole year, he can't hand over the approval of red to his ministers.

Because once those who approved of the red vote and those who voted for it merged, the monarchy would be emptied out again.

So, we have to wait a little longer.

While Liu He was "working on paperwork" in the cabinet duty room, Guang Luxun and Gong Sui, who had received the emperor's edict, were also busy all the time.

There are not many officials with more than a thousand stone vacancies in various government offices, and the total number is only 20. However, the actual number of officials involved is not only 20, but hundreds of them!
Therefore, it is not an easy task to select suitable officials. (End of chapter)