Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Han Yu received a lot of praise for easily solving three difficult cases.

The Donglin Party members who had praised Han Yu before started to praise him again. After Zhu Youjian ascended the throne, he emphasized the importance of speaking to the ministers about the laws of morality and punished the eunuchs for their rebellion. They did not dare to praise him openly in the court. However, the newspaper houses and newspaper offices in the capital received relevant manuscripts.

The newspaper industry, which was supervised by the Jinyiwei, was undoubtedly aware of this. This made Zhu Youjian notice that after the publication of newspapers such as Qian Qianyi's Datong Daily and Zhang Pu's Ming Pao, civil officials and scholars had become increasingly aware of the power of newspapers and public opinion and began to pay attention to this industry.

His instructions on this matter were: strictly follow the "Great Ming Law".

The laws of the ministers are not only for officials, but also for scholars and common people. For common people who dare to violate them, they will be warned for the first time, corrected by labor for the second time, and tried according to the law for the third time.

Ask each newspaper office to write back to the contributors and warn them.

After receiving warnings from the newspaper office, those scholars who submitted articles quickly understood the pros and cons.

Because if the trial is carried out according to the law, it is stipulated in the "Imperial Ming Dynasty Ancestor's Instructions" that "the person must be interrogated and the cause must be made clear before execution." No one would do such a beheading crime even if they were paid.

Because of this warning, students who came to Beijing to take the joint examination of the University Hall were more careful when submitting articles to newspapers. They still submitted articles criticizing officials, but in articles praising officials, they mostly concealed their names and only praised the government offices they worked for.

The newspaper offices, which had previously paid little attention to the matter, also conducted self-examination and rectification, and tried to reduce the appearance of officials' names in reports involving political affairs.

The entire newspaper industry is becoming more and more standardized.

After Han Yu realized this, he became even more cautious and did not get complacent about handling the three cases. Instead, he worked diligently to judge the traitors.

After entering the cabinet, he discovered that the power of the cabinet was not hollowed out by the emperor and the nine ministers as the outside world said. In fact, the cabinet ministers under the prime minister had more power.

When he was the chief minister of the cabinet, the chief minister was the only one who wrote and voted in the cabinet. Wei Guangwei wanted to share this power, so he asked Wei Zhongxian to convey his order to the cabinet ministers to work together.

Han Yu was very frightened by this, and he wrote a petition to protest and asked for retirement, thus resigning from his position as Prime Minister.

It can be said that he resigned just to keep the power of the first assistant. He was unwilling to serve as a non-first assistant minister because he knew that these ministers did not have much real power.

But this time when he entered the cabinet, he found that the power of the Prime Minister to draft proposals had changed. There were now at least two draft proposals attached to various memorials. Although one of them had to be drafted or agreed to by the Prime Minister, the other cabinet ministers were not without power.

As the second-ranked cabinet minister, he had great power. If he had enough energy, he could theoretically write drafts for all memorials.

Whether or not the emperor adopted their proposals was another matter, but the right to independently draft them was real. Even Huang Liji, the Prime Minister, could not deprive them of the power to write drafts for memorials.

In particular, the emperor assigned tasks to cabinet ministers, and they had to write drafts of memorials in relevant areas.

This made Han Yu sigh in his heart. If he had known this earlier, he would have taken office earlier. With his own ability, he could have made the emperor adopt more of his proposals and sideline Huang Liji, the prime minister.

At the same time, he also felt a little contempt for Huang Liji, the Prime Minister, thinking that he had easily given up the power that successive Prime Ministers had fought for.

Huang Liji agreed to this easily even though he had to resign to protest against the sharing of the power of the Prime Minister. The outside world didn't even know that in addition to the power of the Prime Minister, the Grand Secretary also had independent power of voting.

It is no wonder that these university scholars did not fight fiercely against the expansion of the power of the Nine Ministers. Because they were too busy reviewing memorials to pay homage to the emperor, how could they care about the expansion of the power of the Nine Ministers?

After Han Yu entered the cabinet, the emperor assigned him the task of examining cases. All memorials from the three judicial departments had to be reviewed by him and he had to write a draft. There were no requirements for memorials from other areas, but if he had the energy, he could also write a draft. Just like the memorials from the three judicial departments, other university scholars could also review them and even write a draft.

After all, the emperor required that each memorial must have at least two drafts, but there was no upper limit. In theory, all cabinet ministers could view the memorials sent to the cabinet and write drafts.

Moreover, one of these drafts must be drafted or approved by the Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister is too busy, he will usually entrust a trusted university scholar to help him write the draft, and then stamp it with his seal to indicate his approval.

Therefore, the power of the Prime Minister is still very large, and he can win over or exclude someone through the secondary distribution of memorials.

According to Han Yu's observation, Huang Liji's favorite Grand Secretary to entrust with drafting bills was Li Guopu. He was originally ranked fourth in the cabinet, but later he was promoted to third after Zhang Ruitu was removed. When the second assistant Shi Fenglai might pose a threat to the first assistant, Huang Liji promoted him as a fellow townsman from Northern Zhili.

Now Han Yu has entered the cabinet and ranks second in the cabinet as the second assistant. Huang Liji's target of suppression naturally includes him.

Logically, Han Yu should have joined forces with Shi Fenglai to fight against the alliance of Huang Liji and Li Guopu. But he knew that this was impossible.

Because he was the second assistant, squeezing out Shi Fenglai's position. In the future, he might even be ahead of Shi Fenglai and take over the position of the first assistant.

It would be great if Shi Fenglai didn’t hate him to death, how could they possibly form an alliance?

Therefore, the only people Han Yu could win over were Zheng Yiwei and Xu Guangqi, who later entered the cabinet.

However, these two people were neutral people chosen by the emperor, and they ignored the solicitation of the Eunuch Party and the Donglin Party.

Han Yu had no choice but to lie low, finish the tasks at hand, and wait for the opportunity.

However, before the opportunity came, Han Yu discovered something that shocked him. That was the Anti-Rebellion and Disaster Relief Committee, which was usurping the power of the Cabinet.

Memorials concerning the suppression of rebellions and disaster relief must not only be reviewed by the cabinet, but also sent to this committee for advice on how to deal with them.

Most of the time, the emperor would respect the opinions of the Anti-Rebellion and Disaster Relief Committee. The power of the cabinet was being further stripped away.

This committee included two grand secretaries, Huang Liji and Xu Guangqi, and three chancellors, Yuan Keli, Yang Jingchen and Bi Ziyan.

Even if the emperor did not appoint a director for this committee, Yuan Keli undoubtedly had the dominant power given his ability and qualifications, as well as the emperor's recognition of him.

It is no wonder that some people say that Yuan Keli is actually the Prime Minister and has the power of the Prime Minister.

He does have such power in matters of suppressing rebellions and providing disaster relief.

This cross-departmental organization made Han Yu feel uneasy, because it meant that the six ministries could completely bypass the cabinet.

So he thought of the Privy Council rumored in the capital and thought it would be better to separate the military affairs and separate Yuan Keli, the Minister of War, from government affairs.

In the future, even if Yuan Keli became the Privy Councilor and was called the Privy Assistant, he could not be allowed to interfere in government affairs and seize the power of the cabinet. (End of this chapter)