Song Gexing

Chapter 189 Court Debate and Appeasement

"I do intend to separate the civil and military systems, but the abolition of the palace as mentioned by Wang Qing is not within the scope of consideration, because the original intention of establishing the Fifth Army Governor's Palace is not to establish another Privy Council, but to expand the three Yamen."

After Zhao Fang finished speaking, he paused and looked at the ministers present before continuing: "As for the restoration of the three provinces, it is actually not necessary. This system was first established in the Sui Dynasty, but was not fully inherited by the subsequent Tang Dynasty. This shows that the three provinces are indeed flawed. Please don’t forget that the Sui Dynasty was built on the ruins of the Jin Dynasty. The system of the Southern and Northern Dynasties was chaotic. The Sui Dynasty that just inherited it should be immature in formulating this system. That’s why the Tang Dynasty revised the system. From my point of view, the Sui Dynasty was immature. The Sui Dynasty established this system with the need to appease the aristocratic families, but in the Song Dynasty, there are no thousand-year-old aristocratic families anymore, so to formulate a new system, we should summarize the advantages and disadvantages of all systems since the Qin and Han Dynasties, so as to achieve longer-lasting peace and stability."

After finishing speaking, he concluded: "It is necessary to amend the system. Nothing is static, but decisions cannot be made hastily. Therefore, this change will start with the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion. The rest of the people will think about it individually after they go back. After summarizing, everyone will discuss it again." .”

After everyone looked at each other, they agreed to the decision and started to discuss the details of setting up the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion again.

The news spread that day. This time it was not a leak, but that after Zhao Fang and the ministers put it together, they did not decide everything immediately and let the courtiers make suggestions.

That night, the Political Affairs Hall received hundreds of memorials, of which only three made suggestions, and the rest criticized the New Deal.

Zhao Fang didn't respond, but pressed the memorial and chose to wait and see. In the next few days, there were more people, and gradually more people made suggestions.

It wasn't until the next court meeting that Zhao Fang responded: "I asked you to make suggestions, not to object. From the third year of Qingli to the present, the revised system has been revised for more than ten years. Don't you understand that the Song Dynasty must reform, and It is not a one-time change, but a gradual and continuous change. Forget it this time. Next time, if there are people who don’t ask indiscriminately and oppose the New Deal as soon as they see it, then I will invite you to go home. What the court wants is to do practical things Officials, not officials who can only talk about it."

You Zhengyan, Wu Zhi, protested on the spot: "I don't agree with what your Majesty said, so why don't you object? The person who spoke is not guilty, so there is no reason to question the official who is guilty!"

Zhao Fang waved his hand to ask him to retreat and said solemnly: "I don't want to ban speech. What I prohibit is speech that is opposed for the sake of opposition. If you want to object, just give a reason for your objection. It must be a meaningful reason, not like a shrew. , unreasonable abuse.”

Yu Jing, the admonishment officer, came out and said: "Your Majesty's words are wrong! What Yan Guan does is just talk. Does Your Majesty want Yan Guan to investigate the inappropriateness after the implementation of the new policy before he has the right to speak?"

Zhao Fang couldn't help but have a headache. The ancient government regulations stipulated that if you heard something, you didn't care about everything. As long as they don't like it, they can scold you.

I'm afraid I really can't change this. This is not a matter of freedom of speech, but a deeper matter to prevent the monarch from being a coward.

Don't the emperors of all dynasties know that rumors and reports are actually nonsense? There is nothing in the world that can be said casually without investigation.

But why is this stipulated, and it is announced to the world to let the officials speak freely, this is not only a matter for the emperor to flaunt the Mingjun.

This is to leave a clean stream in the dynasty and to warn future generations that any emperor who retaliates against his officials is a cowardly tyrant.

Allowing emperors from generation to generation to maintain their bottom line also allowed scholar-bureaucrats to maintain their moral bottom line, because even emperors can be criticized, so how can there be exceptions for other people who do bad things?

If you really want to become a one-spoken party, it will definitely do more harm than good, because no one is immune to making mistakes, and no one can criticize them for making mistakes. Then they can only make more mistakes, and eventually the country will perish.

The helpless Zhao Fang had no choice but to say: "I have not prohibited officials from talking about matters, but other officials have objected without investigation, and do not seek political advice if they are not in their positions. What I ask everyone to make are suggestions, nothing else. All you need to do is put forward your suggestions." You can express your opinions, and you can put forward reasons if you feel it is inappropriate, but if you look at these piles of objections, none of them are meaningful. Isn’t this a waste of the court’s manpower and material resources?”

Yu Jing just stepped down. Of course, the old man would not oppose this reform. He was there at the beginning, and the reason why he defended today is that Zhao Fang's own words involved the officials.

As the current boss of Yan Guan, it would be dereliction of duty if he didn't speak up, and he asked his Yan Guan to obey him however he wanted.After the court meeting, the ministers returned to their posts and started a new round of arguments again, especially since the Ministry of War was now in chaos.

The new government wants to abolish the Ministry of War, and these people are panic-stricken and full of uncertainty about the future.

"Everyone, please take a seat. His Majesty asked me to talk to you. You don't need to worry about the change of positions. The restructuring is not to demote you, but to change your position. You will still do what you are good at."

Wang Gongchen came to the Ministry of War with a glass teapot and greeted everyone with a kind face, making everyone quieter.

They all looked at him, and someone asked: "When the Ministry of War is dismantled, don't the colleagues go to different yamen... Isn't this really about streamlining positions?"

Wang Gongchen smiled and said: "You only saw the abolition of one department, don't you know that two governor's offices were added as well? How could it be possible to streamline the staff? It should be to expand the staff."

"But the Governor's Office of the Fifth Army is a military attache system, and our Ministry of War is a civil servant?"

This is where the officials of the Ministry of War struggled. The Ministry of War was subordinate to the Shangshu Province. The Song Dynasty did not have the functions of the Shangshu Province, but the system still existed.

The prime minister is called Tongzhongshumenxiapingzhangshi, which means that the names of the chief officials of the three provinces are concentrated in one person. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that the Ministry of War in the Song Dynasty was subordinate to the Political Affairs Hall.

But after this change, these officials will be under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, which is what they are unwilling to do.

Wang Gongchen naturally understood this and said with a smile: "Can't you have a longer perspective? The Fifth Army Governor's Mansion is indeed a military attache system, but you are civilian officials and entered the military attache system as civilian officials. In fact, you are making too much, aren't you? Is that so?"

"Earn too much?"

Everyone looked at each other in confusion, not understanding the meaning of these words. Chen Shengzhi, the Minister of War, said with a flash of his eyes: "Jun Kuang is saying that the salary has been increased, right? Yes, the salary of military officers is higher than that of civil servants. This is the ancestral system that has not been changed yet."

Everyone couldn't help but suddenly realized that it was true that military attachés in the Song Dynasty were lower than civilian officials in terms of status, but their salaries at the same level were higher than civilian officials.

This was one of Zhao Kuangyin's methods to appease the military generals after he released his military power over a cup of wine. The salary of the privy envoy was twice that of the counselor's political affairs, and the salary of the chief official of the three yamen was equal to that of the counselor's political affairs.

Compared with the Ming Dynasty, which also valued culture over military affairs, Zhao Song was obviously much more kind, belittling military generals in terms of status, but compensating them financially.

Moreover, the military generals of the Song Dynasty and the senior officials of the three yamen were also able to participate in the discussion of government affairs. Unlike the governors of the Five Army Governor's Office in the Ming Dynasty, they were basically excluded from the court.

Song history records that when Wang Zeng was the prime minister, the commander of the commander in front of the hall came in during the rainstorm. Wang Zeng did not give up his seat to him and was impeached by the censor.

It shows that the high-ranking military officers in the Song Dynasty did not have a low status in the court, but they were just not allowed to take power. There was still no shortage of other treatment that should be given to them.

(End of this chapter)