This kind of thing is not uncommon in the Song Dynasty, Cai Jing and Wang Hao controlled the government, even if there was a Fangla uprising that swept the south of the Yangtze River, and the Jurchens seized Yanjing and the Song army was defeated, they could conceal such military events. Even after the Jurchens crossed the Yellow River, Emperor Huizong knew that the enemy had already approached the city. Therefore, as long as the emperor does a little thing, he will not tolerate this kind of thing happening.

As far as Zhao Yu knew, Zhu Yuanzhang thought that this was a challenge to the imperial power, and he began to have the intention to redefine the emperor and imperial power, and the relative power was the root cause of these evils. At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the institutions of the dynasty were basically all inherited from the Yuan Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang once criticized: "The world of Hu Yuan, the book of political colleges. Everything must be reported first, and then heard. His king is also faint, which is to cause the people to be incomprehensible, and to find chaos, which is deeply admonishable. ”

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang first abolished the Xingzhongshu Province of the Yuan Dynasty, which was in charge of all local affairs, and at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, it was almost like the feudal towns of the Tang Dynasty that did not obey the central government's jurisdiction, which was like a separation. Therefore, he replaced it with three institutions: the Department of Political Envoys, the Department of Procuratorial Envoys, and the Department of Command Missions. to undertake the administration of the local administration and financial affairs with the Legation Department; Sentencing is administered by the Prosecutor's Division, supervision and justice; All command the envoys to be in charge of military defense.

The three newly established institutions were directly subordinate to the Six Ministries, and were no longer responsible to the Zhongshu Province, and then Lao Zhu directly handed over the daily affairs of the Six Ministries and the Three Divisions to himself, ordering that "the world shall not close the Baizhongshu Province", what does this mean? That is to say, the copy of the piece that was given to the prime minister in the past was exempted, and it was directly given to Zhu Yuanzhang himself in the future to reduce the prime minister's functions in large quantities.

Then Zhu Yuanzhang pointed to the Zhongshu Province of the prime minister's central administrative power, and the prime minister, as the head of the center, became the person who sacrificed the sword. There were four prime ministers in the Ming Dynasty, namely Li Shanchang, Xu Da, Wang Guangyang and Hu Weiyong. In addition to Xu Dada, who has been fighting outside for many years, the other three are still more conscientious, but the knife first cut Hu Weiyong's neck.

Zhao Hao also felt that even if Hu Weiyong had, he was actually not guilty to death, but just a little bit of a bad back. At that time, the position of the prime minister who had been reduced was already in jeopardy, and Lao Zhu, who believed that the prime minister system had destroyed the centralization of power, was bent on abolishing the prime minister, and he happened to be in the phase, and there was an irreconcilable contradiction between the power of the prime minister and the monarchy in Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

That is to say, whether Hu Weiyong or Wang Guangyang are prime ministers, either they are disgusted and killed by him if they don't do things, or they are killed by him who he thinks violates the monarch's power. And Li Shanchang, who used to be prime minister, has returned to his hometown, and he cannot escape the fate of being given death. Later, in order to further centralize power, Jin Yiwei commanded Jiang Yu to denounce the general Lan Yu for rebellion, making Lan Yu also a ghost under his sword.

After finally abolishing the Zhongshu Province and the Prime Minister, Lao Zhu reconstructed the central structure and defined the head of the civil and military officials of the central government. First of all, four auxiliary officers were set up to assist him in giving advice. However, soon the four auxiliary officials were abolished, claiming to follow the official system of the Song Dynasty, and the four auxiliary officials were replaced by university scholars, which is the so-called cabinet system. After completing the expansion of the emperor's power and the end of the prime minister system, Lao Zhu became the head of state and the head of government and the commander-in-chief of the three armed forces, becoming the real first person in the world, and educating his children and grandchildren in the most stern tone that no more "prime ministers" should be allowed.

Speaking of Lao Zhu's cabinet, Zhao Yu still knows a little about it, in fact, the earliest cabinet members existed as low-grade emperor's secretaries, and after abolishing the prime minister of Zhongshu Province, they actually assumed the emperor's political secretary and adviser. This responsibility was later divided into two divisions, with the task of consulting and submitting solutions to the cabinet, and the paperwork of making decisions to the superintendent.

Therefore, the cabinet was not indispensable in the political system of the Ming Dynasty, in essence, it was a link between the civil servants and the emperor, to be precise, it was to make decisions for the emperor, and if the emperor wanted to take back the decision-making power, he naturally could not replace it. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, the power of the first assistant of the cabinet was like a rubber band, the emperor was strong, the first assistant was weak, the emperor was weak, and the first assistant was "replaced".

In this way, the voice of the cabinet can only be the voice of the emperor, and the emperor needs to make decisions on major and minor matters of the country, and the ministers only carry it out, and the power is greatly reduced, and it is difficult to challenge the authority of the emperor. Even Zhang Juzheng, the most powerful first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, did not "perform" the monarch's power in an institutionalized official document, but through the extensive arrangement of "private" in the local area, forming a personal relationship network, in order to truly implement his will, without these own people, his decree would not be able to go out of Beijing.

So much so that in later generations, some people said that if the Ming Dynasty was not destroyed, the cabinet system might evolve into a modern constitutional monarchy. But Zhao Hao thought that this was basically impossible, or it was a false imagination, because Lao Zhu had already reserved the 'back door'. In the political system of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to civil officials, there are also nobles and factory guards, so the power of civil officials is like a castle by the sea, a wave can smash it to pieces, and the emperor can easily take back power as long as he wants.

Although Zhao Yu came from a modern democratic society, he quickly found that it was difficult to do something without power, especially in the era of feudal society with completely different political concepts and systems. As a result, he involuntarily became involved in a power struggle, and the memories of his previous life also made him choose a way that was conducive to maintaining his power, intentionally or unintentionally.

It goes without saying that the establishment of an armed force that is loyal to oneself is not guaranteed by the barrel of a gun, and participating in the struggle for power is tantamount to inserting a bid and selling one's head. When Zhao Yu first established his own system, although he was still very weak, he established his secret service organization almost at the same time, and its role was not to obtain intelligence from the enemy country at the beginning, but to monitor the important ministers of the court and detect the direction of political winds, so as to gain an advantage in the battle.

After continuous reorganization and expansion, the current bureau has become a secret organization like the Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty. The scope of reconnaissance is not only to monitor the ministers, but mainly in addition to collecting political and economic intelligence of the enemy country, it also involves the economy, people's livelihood and public opinion trends in various parts of the Great Song Dynasty, etc., it can be said that as long as the things that Zhao Yu cares about are among them collected, the tentacles have penetrated into every corner of society.

But unlike Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhao Yu did not use the bureau to carry out bloody suppression of political opponents, but only gave them the power to collect intelligence, but did not give them the power to reconnoiter and deal with them. The armed forces to which they belong are mainly used to eliminate enemies abroad and to defend their own security, and they can only be exercised after obtaining their own authorization. These measures are aimed at preventing them from using their power to act recklessly, so that they will become a new political force in the future and participate in the struggle for power, thus upsetting the existing political ecology and power balance.

In addition, in order to increase his authority and compete for power, Zhao Yu successively set up the Military Aircraft Department and the Imperial Front Office on the grounds of dealing with the war and assisting him in handling public and private affairs, so as to bypass Shangshu Province and the Privy Council to directly issue decrees to the army and various ministries to convey his will. Then he asked the Imperial Front Office to assist him in handling the vast number of movements, so that they could participate in the opinions, so as to reduce his workload.

Although the military aircraft department exists in name only, the brand is still there, and it can be activated at any time when needed. The Imperial Front Office has become a permanent institution, and its power has become more and more powerful, not only in handling daily business such as playing seals, writing edicts, and issuing documents, but also assisting Zhao Yu in formulating national policies, selecting and inspecting officials, and participating in the formulation of battle plans. It can be said that it has already had the rudiments of the Ming Dynasty cabinet, which in some ways replaced the work of the rulers.

Zhao Yu also understands that not to mention the current Wang Yinglin, many officials in the DPRK and the central government also know about the existence of the bureau, even among the people, there are rumors, but they do not understand the way it operates, its organizational composition and the distribution of personnel. Although the Imperial Front Office does not have an official name, it exists on the bright side, and is known to more people, knowing that the people who serve in it are all the emperor's confidants and cronies, and those who are released are also in important official positions, no one doubts that as long as they do not make big mistakes, it is not impossible to be the ruler in the future, so some people call the Imperial Front Office the place where His Majesty reserves talents, and the future of those who can enter is very bright.

However, as this war unfolded, the emperor drove the expedition in person, and it was impossible for all the courtiers to accompany him, and the imperial office assumed their role, and their power was expanding day by day, and they could even make decisions on ordinary affairs on behalf of the emperor. This made the courtiers feel uneasy, most of the people in the Imperial Front Office were only five grades, but they could replace the chief executive, making them feel that His Majesty wanted to further encroach on the power of the prime minister in order to establish the imperial power alone, and even replaced it with the Imperial Front Office.

It is not cranky for the ministers, and even the Confucian clique they represent, to have such a sense of crisis, because they all understand that the current political structure and the military environment they face are relatively very different from those of previous generations. Although the little emperor still obeyed the ancestral system and implemented the policy of 'controlling the military with literature', everyone knew that thanks to the continuous war, the little emperor continued to weaken the power of the scholars, and the military general group he cultivated already had the strength to compete with the Wenchen group.

Now Zhao Yu continues to expand the power of the Imperial Front Office, meddling in government affairs, and even directly issuing edicts to the six ministries to appoint officials and allocate funds without consulting with the ministers of Shangshu Province. He also had a previous conviction of threatening to rule the country with martial arts, and once he got the sweetness from it, he would not stop, and even changed the basic national policy of the scholars to govern the country, and grasped all the power in his own hands......