Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 51 The Ceremony of the Prestige
The ceremony of Tingtui is more solemn, and there is a special ceremony for tingtui. Two candidates, one for the main recommendation and one for the accompanying recommendation, were selected for the emperor to choose.

It seems that the decision-making power lies with the emperor, but in fact the emperor does not have the right to choose. According to the convention, he must use the positive recommendation, and using the accompanying recommendation will be criticized.

One of the charges that Wei Zhongxian was impeached by Yang Lian was that he chose to accompany him. The eunuch party is criticized because many officials were promoted to it.

One of Zhu Youjian's purposes in changing the court meeting system was to change the court ceremony and watch it personally.

Now, Yang Jingchen, the minister of the Ministry of civil affairs, who was specially promoted to supervise and promote, followed Zhu Youjian's instructions and requested to be promoted at the court meeting.

The ministers did not want the emperor to change the existing system at will, but they had insufficient motivation to oppose it. After all, after the eunuch party came to power, although the court elections were still held, they were just a formality most of the time.

As long as people are not selected according to the wishes of the eunuch party, most of the officials who are pushed out by the court will be kept idle with their titles and belts. This makes many officials unwilling to be nominated by the court. When participating in the nomination, they only make promises based on the candidates for ministers drawn up in advance by the Ministry of Personnel.

Now Zhu Youjian wants to change the promotion ceremony to be held at the court meeting. Some people are happy to see this happen, thinking that after being elected in this way, at least they will not be ordered to live in court. The emperor may also go against the convention and directly Choose forward push.

In this way, Yang Jingchen's proposal was easily passed in the court. Next, he followed Zhu Youjian's instructions and made another suggestion:
"There are many affairs in the court meeting. If we follow the previous recommendation method, it may take a long time and delay other things."

"I think it can be changed to counting the votes. The Ministry of Civil Affairs will propose candidates and the votes will be counted on the spot."

This change is reasonable, and some people have raised questions. Guo Yunhou, the Minister of Household Affairs, said:

"What Mr. Yang said is certainly reasonable, but how should the votes be calculated?"

“Wouldn’t it take longer for each candidate to count the votes?”

Yang Jingchen answered his question and said:
"The list of candidates will be submitted to His Majesty for judgment by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. After Your Majesty approves, the ballot papers will be printed."

"You only need to select the person you like on the ballot to complete the nomination."

"During the counting of votes, the minister was selected as the scrutineer on the spot. The counting officer was an official from Honglu Temple, and the votes were counted on the spot."

"If you have any questions, you can give it a try."

With that said, he asked the officials of Honglu Temple to take the printed ballots and distribute them on the spot to the officials who were qualified to nominate the ministers.

These people looked carefully and saw the names of Yuan Keli, Qin Shiwen and others written on it. Each person was given a charcoal pen so that they could directly tick and choose the person they liked.

Listening to Yang Jingchen's explanation, everyone understood how to use it. I feel that doing this is indeed much simpler, and it is not much different from before. This reassured some officials who were worried about the emperor's arbitrary changes to the system, and felt that such changes might not be a bad idea.

After trying to check the names of people, they saw Honglu Temple officials holding the ballot boxes and starting to collect votes one by one. Then Zhu Youjian selected Yang Jingchen and Guo Yunhou as the scrutineers on the spot to supervise the counting of votes by Honglu Temple officials.

A man from Honglu Temple came out of the queue with a shout of praise, took out the ballots from the ballot box, and called the roll under the watchful eyes of the scrutineers. Every time a name is sung, another Honglu Temple official writes the word "正" on a large piece of white paper. Each straight character represents five votes, and it is clear at a glance how many votes each person has.

After Yang Jingchen and Guo Yunhou confirmed the result, it was immediately reported:
"Your Majesty, Yuan Keli and Qin Shiwen received the most votes. The result of the court recommendation is that Yuan Keli is the main recommendation and Qin Shiwen is the supporting recommendation."

"Your Majesty can choose one of the two to serve as the Ordnance Minister of the Ministry of War."

Zhu Youjian nodded slightly, not surprised by this result. His intention to use Yuan Keli was known to everyone, and he even sent out the edict summoning Yuan Keli to Beijing yesterday. Perhaps the ministers wanted to please themselves as the emperor, or perhaps they felt that Yuan Keli was useful, so most of them chose to recommend Yuan Keli. Even the eunuchs, under the persuasion of Xu Yingyuan, a good friend of Wei Zhongxian, chose Yuan Keli. Others chose Qin Shiwen to demonstrate to the emperor Zhu Youjian.

Now that the results are out, Zhu Youjian is satisfied. However, he was not in a hurry to announce the results, but said to everyone:

"Dear ministers, you have also seen this kind of ceremony. Is it fair and just?"

"Will this ceremony be followed in future court meetings?"

Everyone could see how fast and convenient this ceremony was, and the ministers did not have much objection to this. However, some officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology suggested that some officials participating in the nomination may not be familiar with the candidates and should announce them in advance. In the past, when promoting the grand ceremony, a notice was sent out one day in advance.

Zhu Youjian followed suit and immediately accepted the opinion, stipulating that the list of candidates should be announced at least one day in advance, and their resumes should be attached. In order to appease the KTD officials, he also allowed KTD officials to express opinions on the candidates and freeze the candidates as long as there is concrete evidence.

Now everyone was satisfied, and Zhu Youjian's changes to the Tingtui ceremony were successfully passed.

Then, based on the results of the court recommendation just now, Zhu Youjian selected Yuan Ke to be the Minister of Ordnance, Special Supervisor of the Ministry of War, with the title of Second-rank Minister of Administration, and was recalled to the capital to serve.

After this process, everyone recognized the new recommendation ceremony. Zhu Youjian successfully replaced the old rules with his own new rules:
“I don’t understand the previous rules as you do, but I am more familiar with elections than you. 』

"Let's see how I can use my rich experience to defeat people like you. 』

He didn't play any tricks in this nomination ceremony. Zhu Youjian's intention was to replace the previous rules with those he was familiar with. Then use your own knowledge to defeat these courtiers.

In the future, these people will understand what registered voting is, what differential election is, what candidate qualifications are, what expanded suffrage is... After these tricks are used, it will be enough for courtiers to ponder for many years.

Zhu Youjian's pride at successfully changing the ceremony did not last long. Subsequently, many eunuch officials suggested to the emperor to summon Qin Shiwen back to Beijing and add a right minister to the Ministry of War on the grounds that Qin Shiwen was accompanying him.

In order to paralyze the eunuchs and not show his hostility to the eunuchs, Zhu Youjian obeyed the suggestions of these people and summoned Qin Shiwen, the governor of Xuanfu and the right minister of the Ministry of War, to return to the Ministry of War to take charge.

Then, under the auspices of the Eunuch Party, the official department was revised by Yang Suo, the deputy censor of Shi Zhong and the right deputy capital, who was elected as the general envoy of Nanjing. The appointments of the two men were issued together with Yuan Keli's appointment, and they were all members of the eunuch party.

After showing his strength, the eunuch party began to preside over the posthumous title award. With Wei Zhongxian asking the eunuch ministers to come forward, not many people objected this time.

Qi Jiguang was posthumously given the title of Marquis Pinghai, and his descendants became hereditary commanders.

Yu Dayou was posthumously gifted Zhenhaibo, and became a hereditary commander for his descendants.

Magui was posthumously given to Zhenlupp, and his descendants became hereditary commanders.

They all followed Zhu Youjian's request and were posthumously awarded titles like Ning Yuanbo Li Rusong.

Silently watching the operations of Zhou Yingqiu, the Minister of Personnel, Lai Zongdao, the Minister of Rites, and others, although Zhu Youjian achieved his goal of promoting generals, he was not very happy. He just gave Ning Guogong and Anping Bo iron coupons as promised to appease the eunuchs.

(End of this chapter)