Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 45 The prototype of the cabinet
"Your Majesty, the ancient sages once said, 'Everything will be established if it is forewarned, and if it is not forewarned, it will be abolished.' I believe that the reform of the imperial examinations needs to first formulate a rough regulation for the reform, such as where to focus and where to start to determine the regulations. Adjustments can be made only after there are no major flaws."

Bao Zhao calmed his mind, thought for a moment, and said respectfully.

"It makes sense."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded slightly, then glanced at the ministers and said, "Do you have any other suggestions?"

For a moment, there was silence in the main hall.

"Since you all think that the imperial examination system needs to be reformed, let's discuss a charter first, and then decide on the specific implementation method after the charter is in place."

Zhu Yuanzhang made the final decision on the matter.

Immediately, he set his sights on Zhu Di and said: "King Yan, it is you who proposed the reform of the imperial examination. I will order you to take the lead in this matter and allow you to convene relevant ministers to discuss the reform of the imperial examination. After three days, you must take the initiative. Come up with a practical charter.”

"My son, I accept the order." Zhu Di said respectfully.

"That's all for today."

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his sleeves, stood up and left the emperor's throne, and then coughed violently.

"Retreat!"

The chamberlain on duty shouted loudly at just the right time, deliberately dragging out the ending, which effectively covered up Zhu Yuanzhang's cough.

After the dispersion of the dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang took a chariot back to the Qianqing Palace to rest, while Zhu Di summoned the eunuch who was on duty and asked him to call officials related to the imperial examination reform and go to Wenyuan Pavilion to discuss matters.

After that, Zhu Di led Zhu Gaoxu and went to Wenyuan Pavilion hand in hand.

On the way, Zhu Di said to Zhu Gaoxu: "Xu'er, do you know why we go to Wenyuan Pavilion to discuss matters?"

Zhu Gaoxu really didn't know that his people who inquired about the information did not talk about Wenyuan Pavilion.

Zhu Di explained the whole story.

At that time, after Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system, he had to deal with the extremely heavy and large government affairs across the country. He felt that he was unable to do what he wanted, so he appointed a bachelor of the palace as his attendant advisor to help him handle the numerous government affairs.

Five years ago, Zhu Di entered the East Palace and began to handle state affairs.

At that time, in order to facilitate Zhu Di's proficiency in government affairs, Zhu Yuanzhang selected the best from among officials from the Hanlin Academy and the Imperial College who had no real administrative power to be palace bachelors. He was assigned to the Wenyuan Pavilion in the palace and would sometimes accompany Zhu Di.

These palace bachelors provided Zhu Di with advice on handling political affairs and even participated in the decision-making of some confidential matters.

Because Wenyuan Pavilion is located in the palace, and cabinet ministers often accompany the palace, it is referred to as "cabinet" by many officials.

Three days ago, Zhu Di asked Zhu Yuanzhang to establish a cabinet in order to make the academicians in the palace become high-level courtiers and help him carry out the imperial examination reform and the replacement of old coins with new coins.

Zhu Yuanzhang originally intended to set up an advisory body without decision-making power to serve the emperor, so he naturally agreed to Zhu Di's request and issued a decree.

"Nowadays, the position of cabinet adviser is established, with a rank of [-], to serve the King of Yan and provide advice to the King of Yan in handling political affairs. He is responsible for the seven cabinet ministers: Jie Jin, Huang Huai, Yang Shiqi, Hu Guang, Jin Youzi, Yang Rong, and Hu Yan. When scholars enter the cabinet, they all serve as advisors, and all the advisors are on duty in the Wenyuan Pavilion in the Meridian Gate. The cabinet does not have officials, and it is not allowed to arbitrarily control the departments, and the departments are not allowed to communicate with each other."

No wonder Zhu Gaoxu didn't know about this. It turned out that the imperial court had just established a cabinet a few days ago, and this matter was only a minor matter compared to the reform of the imperial examination and the issuance of new coins.The early emergence of the cabinet and its official establishment as a legal institution of the imperial court were completely beyond Zhu Gaoxu's expectations, but upon careful consideration, it was reasonable.

Although the current cabinet is only an internal body that provides advisors to the emperor and has no administrative or decision-making power, the cabinet is a legal institution established by Zhu Yuanzhang. In the future, if Zhu Di or Zhu Gaoxu wants to reuse the cabinet, they will first occupy the legal basis. They are not afraid of some People then jumped out and objected.

The father and son walked and chatted, and soon they arrived at Wenyuan Pavilion.

"I will see His Highness the King of Yan."

Suddenly, there was a loud shout in his ears. Zhu Gaoxu turned around suddenly and found that Qi Tai, Lian An, Xia Yuanji and other ministers, as well as Yu Xin, Zheng Yi and other ministers, followed them to Wenyuan Pavilion and even resumed their duties as Minister of Taichang Temple. Huang Shi, who was also a Hanlin scholar, was also among the crowd.

"Excuse me, everyone." Zhu Di said with a smile.

After all the ministers got up, Zhu Di took Zhu Gaoxu and walked into the Wenyuan Pavilion first. Then, two cabinet advisers, Xie Jin and Huang Huai, who were on duty in the pavilion, came up to greet him.

"Gentlemen, the purpose of reforming the imperial examination is to cultivate talents for the imperial court. As for how to reform and improve the imperial examination system, Xiao Wang sincerely asks you to speak up and actively provide appropriate suggestions."

After everyone entered the cabinet and took their seats, Zhu Di sat on the main seat and made an opening speech for the meeting.

There are no fools among the officials present. They all know that Zhu Yuanzhang is not going to die soon. The purpose of putting Zhu Di in charge of improving the imperial examination and cultivating scholars is to help Zhu Di win over the hearts of literati in the world.

After all, cultivating literati has been politically correct in all dynasties. It can be said that anyone who opposes the imperial court's improvement of imperial examinations to cultivate talents will be the enemy of scholars in the world!
In China's thousands of years of feudal history, how to unify the minds of the people and make them respect the court from the bottom of their hearts has been the most troublesome problem for those in power.

Restricted by severe punishments and laws, the people of the world will only appear obedient on the surface, but in their hearts they will dare to be angry and dare not speak out.

Therefore, if we want to truly control people's thoughts, we must ultimately rely on education.

For this reason, at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established the national policy of "ruling the country with education first and education with schools as the basis", and then established an extremely complete official education system, including the central Guozixue and the local government schools. School, state school, county school, religious school, social school, etc.

The compulsory education system implemented by Zhu Yuanzhang is similar to the nine-year compulsory education in later generations. For outstanding students selected into the Imperial College, the court will not only provide room and board, but the outstanding ones are more likely to be promoted to officials.

This compulsory education is the first of its kind in history. It can be said that it is a contribution to the present and will benefit the future!

All this seems very good, but the school rules run by the imperial court are very strict, ranging from beatings and corporal punishment to expulsion from school, to being sent to the army. Scholars must be cautious when going to school there.

In short, there are not many officials and people who really support Zhu Yuanzhang's compulsory education. If it were not for being an official, very few people would go to school.

Therefore, in history, nearly a hundred years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, these formal education systems gradually collapsed, and finally private academies emerged, leading to a situation in the late Ming Dynasty where the party fought and the country was defeated.

Zhu Gaoxu was well aware of the loopholes in compulsory education in the early Ming Dynasty. He had mentioned it to Zhu Yuanzhang many times in a subtle way in the past few years. Now Zhu Yuanzhang is willing to reform the imperial examination because he has figured out the link.

Of course, among the ministers present, including the two cabinet advisers on duty, there were still some smart people, such as Xie Jin, Xia Yuanji and others, who believed that the real purpose of Zhu Yuanzhang's proposal to reform the imperial examination was definitely not just to improve the system of cultivating talents. Simple, there must be other plans.

As for what the purpose was, they couldn't figure it out for a while.

Not to mention that they couldn't understand it, even Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di did not think of reforming the imperial examination at that time. In addition to cultivating a large number of talents for the imperial court, it could also achieve another epoch-making initiative!
That is to forcibly separate the identity of literati from officials, and return academics to academics, and politics to politics!

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(End of this chapter)