Guo Peng's prestige did not allow Shang Shu to order monks and scholars to expand the powers of the governors of the prefecture, and temporarily put an end to the emergence of a dual monarchy at the central level.

However, it is difficult to avoid that in the future, they will rely on such status and power to make contributions again, and then win the title of the Three Dukes, once again grasp the power of resummoning, and develop their own family into a top scholar clan like the Runan Yuan clan and the Hongnong Yang clan.

Shang Shutai itself was the emperor's secretarial body, and it did not have that much honor.

The significance of its creation is the same as that of the Ming Dynasty cabinet and the Qing Dynasty South Study Military Machinery Department, all of which were to extend the imperial power, but later developed into a powerful power department.

What is different is that because of the existence of the imperial examination system, the power of the cabinet and the military machinery department of the South Study will always come from the emperor, and the emperor's decision will only strengthen the absolute monarchy, but will not threaten the power of the monarch, as strong as Zhang Juzheng.

This is not the case with Shang Shutai.

Shangshutai is the scholar's Shangshutai, the emperor changed back and forth, and the exchange was their own people, it was difficult to strengthen the imperial power, and they were simply dancing in shackles within the rules, unable to make fundamental changes.

When Cao Rui was the emperor, he was very troubled because he couldn't interfere in the affairs of Shangshutai, and he couldn't even enter Shangshutai to do documents, but he was helpless, which shows the weakness of Cao Wei's imperial power.

Therefore, when Guo Peng was unable to use the imperial examination system to cut off the foundation of the source of power for scholars, he had to divide the power of Shangshutai, weaken the authority of Shangshuling and Shangshu's servants, and weaken their role little by little.

And then find a way to refocus power in your own hands.

In this way, the germination was extinguished in the cradle before the birth of a new national gentry.

The power is divided into eight departments, each with its own head, and Cheng Yu and Tian Feng are required to specialize in one department to make it impossible for them to exercise their power wholeheartedly.

That's not all, in order to further check and balance Shangshutai, Guo Peng also set up a cabinet outside Shangshutai.

Shangshutai was the earliest secretary department established by the Han Emperor in order to divide the power of the three princes and nine secretaries, and it belonged to the Shaofu and the inner court department in terms of establishment, which has similar significance to the birth of the cabinet.

Therefore, Guo Peng set up the cabinet very early, and he intended to let the cabinet officials become his cronies and help him handle government affairs, and he could only appoint them, and he could not enter the cabinet by any other way.

Then, the first assistant of the cabinet does not have the power to summon subordinate officials, which is very important, which is deliberately determined by Guo Peng.

The cabinet is his personal advisory department, although it is also a formal official office, but the first assistant does not have the qualifications to recruit subordinate officials, so the first assistant of the cabinet can only rely on Guo Peng, and the entire cabinet is like this, which will be an important prerequisite for Guo to control the cabinet against Shang Shutai.

And because the first assistant of the cabinet is Guo Peng's close minister, the closest to Guo Peng, with his back to Guo Peng facing Shangshutai, he may be sent to an important real power department as a cronie at any time to be a big man, so the advantages and power of the first assistant of the cabinet cannot be underestimated in the eyes of Shang Shutai.

And the power of the cabinet leader comes from Guo Peng, not from himself and his bloodline.

Because of this fact, coupled with Guo Peng's various preferential treatment of cabinet members, some scholars have already expressed dissatisfaction with the existence of the cabinet.

They believe that the cabinet is full of a group of "fortunate ministers", including the former cabinet chief assistant Wang Cang, who has been appreciated by Guo Peng for his mathematics, and can only bend flattery, without the character of a scholar.

Initial political disputes have already begun to emerge.

Although Guo Peng can't shake the foundation of scholar politics in the traditional sense, he can make some innovations by himself, and in the eyes of the scholars, although he is dissatisfied, he has to admit that he has to pinch his nose, who makes Guo Peng prestige and power?

Representatives, but also the powerful and weak.

Although Guo Peng cannot nominally elevate the cabinet to the same level as Shangshutai for the time being, he can at least make the cabinet have an important position in practice.

It is the weight of the traditional sense of inferiority.

This is the same as Shang Shutai's positioning at the beginning, Guo Peng wants to make Shang Shutai have a sense of crisis, so as to fight with the cabinet and attract firepower.

Let the connection between Shang Shutai and Guo Peng be inseparable from the cabinet in any case, and let the cabinet actually become the thug of the imperial power, in a sense, form a check and balance on the current unprecedented power of Shang Shutai.

It is also necessary to promote Guo Peng's superiority as an emperor.

It is inconvenient for the emperor to personally tear apart his courtiers to fight for power, which is very uncompelled and will lose his sense of mystery.

Not only that, Guo Peng also has to gradually start in the cabinet, including more of the children of the wealthy and powerful of the poor family, excluding the children of the scholars, and in the near future, let the cabinet and the scholar scholar become the base camp of the cold family and the scholar clan respectively.

This is one of the means to win over the poor and attack the scholars.

At the same time, the power of Shangshutai was divided into one, and the responsibilities were subdivided, and each department placed a Shangshu and two attendants, and the rudiments of the Liucao Shangshu that had not yet formed rules were directly spawned into mature Shangshu, each with its own authority.

The supreme Shangshuling naturally still exists for now, but in the future, Guo Peng will gradually empty the power of Shangshuling, make Shangshuling in name only, and actually cut Shangshutai and various ministries.

Guo Peng would gradually, little by little, directly order these offices instead of Shangshu Orders, and gradually let the Eight Shangshu actually directly connect with the emperor through the cabinet, so that there was no unified head, so as to weaken the power of the scholars.

Slowly, he hollowed out Shang Shuling, the de facto prime minister, abolished the power of the minister, and combined the power of the minister and the imperial power, all in his own hands.

Cheng Yu and Tian Feng are certainly Guo someone's cronies, but Guo is now the emperor, the king, not the people.

In order to consolidate the imperial power, the power that these two people actually held was his worst enemy, and he could still control the power when he was there, but once he was gone, his descendants might face Cao Rui's embarrassment.

Cao Rui couldn't even interfere in the administration of Shangshutai, and in the face of the resistance of the scholars, he couldn't even do anything but stare dryly, which was tantamount to the encroachment of the imperial power by the prime minister, and it was a crisis of imperial power.

Cao Wei's mistake, Guo Wei cannot repeat it.

But a cabinet is obviously not enough, and at present, there are many children of scholars in the cabinet, even excellent children of scholars, such as Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi.

Guo Peng wanted to use them, but their own class attributes doomed them to be Guo Peng's enemies.

Therefore, it is not enough to rely on the cabinet alone, and at most it will form a partisan dispute, which will not be able to bring about a positive impact.

So we need other help.

The Imperial Observatory counts as one.

Because of the particularity of the Guo family as a legal family, the main position of the Yushitai has been basically monopolized by the Guo family and their relatives.

As supervision officials, the Imperial Historian and the Imperial Historian Zhongcheng were defined by Guo Peng as positions facing the ministers with their backs to the emperor, and they had the power to supervise, and their main responsibility was to supervise the officials of Shangshutai.

See if they are corrupt or derelict in their duties.

The advantage of the Yushitai being completely controlled by Guo Peng is that it is convenient for Guo Peng to launch a political purge in the name of anti-corruption at any time.

In the eyes of future generations, Guo Peng will definitely become the first emperor to fight corruption on a large scale and with high frequency since Qin Shi Huang.

The staff station was also an institution set up by Guo Peng, and it was also built by Guo Peng in order to split the power of the scholars.

Xi Zhong and Guo Jia are the No. 1 and No. 2 leaders of the staff station, who are in charge of the planning and strategic design of the march and campaign, and do not participate in the administration.

There is only one Guo Peng between the staff station and the army, and although the staff station itself is used by Guo Peng to separate the traditional soldiers from the army, the people used in the staff station itself are basically scholars.

At present, he is not worried, but in the long run, in order to avoid the infiltration of the army that is currently firmly controlled by himself, Guo Peng decided to establish a military academy at the same time.

He is currently planning.