When Chongzhen suddenly threw out the question of what the imperial court was to the ministers, Guo Yunhou was still a little surprised, because this was different from the plan they had planned when they discussed with the emperor before.

However, after the emperor went around in a big circle, he returned to the path he had set, which made him finally breathe a sigh of relief. The reason why the household department is willing to stand in front of the public opinion attacking Huang Liji this time is naturally to grasp the greatest benefits of the Lianghuai salt case.

The officials at the top and bottom of the household department are still very interested in being able to occupy a quarter of the equity of the two Huai salt industries in the future at no cost, and can also obtain a large fine from the people involved in the salt introduction case.

Although the household department has the right to manage the salt transportation department in various places, the rank of the salt transportation envoy of the salt transportation department is from the third grade, second only to the household department Shangshu, and the same level as the household department. Therefore, the management power of the household department over the salt transportation departments in various places is not as great as the power of the salt inspection imperial history sent by the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Therefore, although the salt tax is the largest cash income of the household department, the benefits of the household officials in the salt industry are actually not much. This is also why, the household department easily sold the two salt farms in Changlu and Hedong to the Four Seas Trading Company without much objection.

The officials of the Salt Transportation Division are rich in oil, but the tribute they give to the household department will not spoil the market, and there may be other gifts for several household officials and household department officials, but for the entire household department, the existence of the Salt Transportation Division does not exceed that of other local yamen.

If there is an opportunity for the household department to directly manage the local salt administration, the officials at the top and bottom of the household department will naturally not pay attention to what the officials of the local salt transportation department think, after all, no matter how good someone else's son is, it is also someone else's son.

What's more, the new policies implemented since Chongzhen's accession to the throne have made the promotion of household officials show a certain closed tendency. In the past, in order to prevent officials from becoming bigger in a certain department, the mode of mobile promotion was adopted for the appointment of officials in the six ministries.

For example, if you want to be promoted to a squire in the Ministry of Works, you must change departments. After serving as a Beijing official for two consecutive terms, he had to be released as a local official. Although this way of appointing officials has eliminated the mountaineering of various departments, it has also made the central departments show the consequences of being sloppy and uncohesive.

The small groups of individuals connected by the relationship between teachers and protégés are completely above the departmental interests of each department. For a feudal emperor, this was exactly what they wanted. It is better to crack down on a small group of individuals without organization than to deal with a political group that is tightly organized on the basis of the relationship between superiors and subordinates.

The former existed because of their dependence on the imperial power, while the latter used the power of the department against the imperial power. To paraphrase a Taizu's remark, there is no party outside the party, and the emperor thinks; There are no factions in the party, and there are all kinds of strange things. Chongzhen admits that he is not a political master like Taizu, nor does he have the energy and talent like Emperor Hongwu, so he wants to take all political affairs into his own hands.

Therefore, he acquiesced in the existence of the latter in the scattered mass of the Central Six Divisions and the mountaineering doctrine that focused on departmental interests. However, because of the professional and technical knowledge requirements of the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Criminal Affairs, after the implementation of the new policy, there was a certain tendency to be closed.

The requirements of the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs for the knowledge of arithmetic and finance, the requirements of the officials of the Ministry of Industry for the knowledge of science and engineering, and the requirements of the officials of the Ministry of Criminal Affairs for the knowledge of law. Obviously, the accumulation of this professional knowledge is not something that an official who has become a monk halfway through the course can master. As a result, the threshold for officials transferred from outside to these three departments has become higher and higher.

Since after entering the household department, the promotion of one's career is linked to the quality of the work of the household department, so safeguarding the interests of the department has consciously become the common criterion of the household officials. The expansion of the power of the household is the expansion of their personal power. The damage to the interests of the household is the damage to their personal interests.

Therefore, when the Lianghuai salt case broke out, Guo Yunhou blew the wind to his subordinates a little, and the officials of the household department stood together to support the first assistant, they were counting on the maximum benefit of the household department from this big case.

When Chongzhen threw out the argument of the trinity of the monarch, the people, and the society, the officials who were still entangled in whether Han Yiliang should be punished or not, and the officials who were responsible for the two Huaiyan cases, were like being beaten with a stick, and the momentum of the decisive battle accumulated by the two sides after the start of the meeting was suddenly quietly disintegrated.

Since Mencius put forward the idea of people-oriented, he has been revered by later generations of Confucian scholars as a sub-sage, believing that he carried forward and magnified Confucius's idea of benevolent government. However, Mencius's people-oriented thought has not been liked by the emperors of previous dynasties, so the book "Mencius" written by him was listed as one of the four Confucian classics by Zhu Xi in the Southern Song Dynasty, and was officially regarded as an important scripture of Confucian scholarship.

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding monarch of the country who was too controlling, said to Mencius: The king regards his ministers as mustard, and the ministers regard the king as an enemy. and other remarks were greatly dissatisfied, and once wanted to revoke Mencius's sub-holy title, and issued an order to expel Mencius from the Temple of Literature and not to enjoy the Temple of Literature.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang withdrew his order a year later under the persuasion of his ministers, he was still haunted by Mencius's remarks, so he ordered Liu Sanwu, a scholar from Hanlin, and others to abridge Mencius. Liu Sanwu figured out the emperor's meaning, deleted the 85 "problematic" contents of "Mencius", accounting for almost one-third of the book, and compiled the rest of the content into the book "Mencius Verses".

Zhu Yuanzhang then issued an edict, stipulating that "from now on, within the eighty-five articles, the scholars will not be based on propositions, and the imperial examinations will not be based on scholars, but on the basis of the sages and sages (referring to the "Mencius Verses").

It is precisely because of Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards Mencius that although "Mencius" is one of the books used in the imperial examination, readers all over the world do not dare to discuss the content of "Mencius" more, and it is completely rote memorization according to the standard annotations issued by the imperial court. They feared that they would anger the emperor and ruin their own fame.

But now Chongzhen has distorted the original intention of Emperor Taizu Gao's deletion of Mencius's remarks, and has also elevated Mencius's idea of the importance of the people to the Trinitarian theory, which is no less than a political earthquake for Ming officials. The salt case and the first assistant or something, it doesn't matter at this time.

In the Ming Dynasty, which took the way of Confucius and Mencius as the highest criterion for governing the country, any new ideas put forward in Confucian scholarship would inevitably affect the political structure of the dynasty.

Mencius's people-oriented thought has always been the most advantageous weapon for Ming officials to resist the unrestricted imperial power. After more than 200 years of unremitting propaganda by the Da Ming scholars, the people-oriented ideology has actually laid a very solid foundation in the hearts of the people of the middle and lower classes.

Zhu Yuanzhang tried to imprison the mind of the great Ming scholar by deleting Mencius's remarks. But this policy of imprisoning the mind has obviously proven to be ineffective. Regardless of which dynasty, the temptation for readers is obviously far greater than that of published books, not to mention the forbidden remarks of Yasheng.

This is also the reason why although the Donglin Party members have been repeatedly suppressed, the common people still support the Donglin Party members, believing that they are persecuted righteous men and gentlemen. Because the political propositions of the Donglin Party have always revolved around the idea of putting the people first.

Although the Donglin Party did not really realize its political ideas when they were in power, they were much stronger than the eunuchs who never mentioned any political ideas.

Now Chongzhen has thrown out the Trinitarian theory, not only canceling the antagonistic position between the king and the people, but also packaging himself as the caretaker of the interests of the people, which undoubtedly robs the civil officials of the right to speak to restrict the imperial power.

Except for those eunuch party members who stood on the emperor's side and could no longer change their position, and the household officials who were blinded by interests, officials with a political level above normal all had bad associations with Chongzhen's words.

Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the legal system has been attributed to the emperor, and the Taoist system has been attributed to the scholars, which is also the ideological basis for the balance between the imperial power and the scholarly power. Cheng Zhu Lixue's theory of Taoism is often aimed at "righteous monarchy".

With the end of the Wanli Dynasty and the continuous decline of the Ming Dynasty, the Taoist system preached by the scholars has faintly shown signs of overriding the imperial power. Now Chongzhen suddenly threw out the trinity theory of the monarch, the people, and the society, and in the eyes of those who care, it undoubtedly represents that His Majesty the emperor is shaking the Taoist system controlled by the scholars.

If a monarch is allowed to master the legal system and the Taoist system, then the scholar class that has emerged since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period will lose their ideological independence and truly become the emperor's domestic slave.

Whether it is Liu Zongzhou, Han Yi and other old Donglin Party members, or Ni Yuanlu and other rising stars of the Donglin Party, they are obviously unwilling to let the emperor have the opportunity to get their hands on the right to speak on Taoism.

And the Trinitarian theory thrown out by the emperor is not an argument that they can refute in a hurry. The emergence of an ideological viewpoint always needs to be refined and summarized on the basis of the ideas of predecessors after years of polishing. For example, without the ideological impact of the May Fourth Movement on Chinese intellectuals, there would not have been the prevalence of Bolshevism in China.

The Trinitarian Theory proposed by the emperor is obviously a further improvement on the basis of Mencius's people-oriented thought. The proposition of this viewpoint is obviously in line with the expectations of the middle and lower classes of the Ming Dynasty. Refuting this argument is likely to further exacerbate the split among the Donglin Party, after all, the strongest bond between the Donglin Party members is the academic concept based on people-oriented thought.

So, after Chongzhen threw out the Trinity remarks, the Donglin Party immediately chose to treat it coldly and did not let the emperor continue to play on this point of view. They pinned their hopes on the fact that the Trinity's remarks were just a whim of the emperor today, not premeditated.

Without the solidarity of the Donglin Party, the officials of Kedao would not dare to jump out and continue to attack Han Yiliang and Shoufu for the benefit of the salt merchants. The focus of discussion at the meeting also shifted from the handling of the two Huai salt cases to how to solve the problem of the people in the southeast eating salt.

After Zhu Youzhen looked around at the officials below, he said calmly: "Since the monarchs can't put forward constructive opinions on the problem of salt eating for the people in the southeast, then Mr. Guo, as the head of the household department, what measures do you think the imperial court should take to solve the problem of salt eating for the people in the southeast?" ”