During the entire New Year holiday, the carriages and horses in front of Xu Guangqi did not stop flowing. As a result, Xu Guangqi, who rarely rested at home for a few days, had to hide in Tibet during the holidays to avoid the officials who were eager to visit him and join the Scientific Progressive Party.

Xu Guangqi discussed with a group of new scholars for a long time, and finally decided to use the name of the Royal Academy of Sciences as the name of the new party. The addition of a large number of members of the democratic progressive gentry finally added the word progressive to science to indicate the equal status of both sides within the new party.

Xu Guangqi and other New Party figures were quite welcome to the participation of these gentry, but compared with those who had never played party politics and devoted most of their energy to natural science research, they were in fact unwilling to devote their energies to forming the entire New Party organization.

In the course of presiding over local water conservancy, road repair, relief, and promotion of improved crop varieties in the past year, the gentry of the Democratic and Progressive Gentry Association combined some of the organizational ideas put forward by Chongzhen with the inherent gentry system of the Ming Dynasty, which can be regarded as the initial establishment of an organizational group.

With the experience of setting up local gentry organizations, these gentry naturally became more familiar with how to set up an organization. Although they were unable to put forward the purpose and programmatic documents for the establishment of a political party, they were no worse than Xu Guangqi and others in terms of how to set up an organization to handle practical affairs.

With the participation of these gentry, the formation of the Scientific Progressive Party was naturally greatly accelerated, and although it was not as conspicuous as the New Donglin Party in terms of reputation, it was not weaker than the New Donglin Party in attracting new party members to join.

Xu Guangqi naturally happily handed over the tedious party affairs to these enthusiastic Gyeonggi gentry, and if it were not for Chongzhen's special advice, he would not be willing to interfere with how these gentry recruited party members.

However, although these gentry shared a great deal of the party work for him, he, as the leader of the party that initiated the scientific progressive party, was inevitably consumed with the middle and high officials who wanted to join the new party.

After Xu Guangqi and Qian Qianyi initiated the formation of the party, although they were criticized by a cadre of officials at first. But the emperor turned a deaf ear to all criticism, and finally made the officials of the government and the opposition realize that the political atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty seemed to change somewhat.

As a result, some speculators will want to join the party for political gain. Unlike most of the officials who visited Qian Qianyi, there were many officials with real power in the six ministries who wanted to join the Science and Progressive Party. It's not that they love science, but that Xu Guangqi also has the identity of a minister.

If it was in the past, although these officials wanted to make friends with Xu Guangqi, they also had to take into account the concerns of the emperor and political opponents, and did not dare to deliberately approach the official secretary who was in charge of their own future. But now, in the name of wanting to join the Scientific Progressive Party, they have come to visit Xu Guangqi openly.

These people are not aware of science, but they are also keen on fame and fortune, and after only receiving them for a day or two, Xu Guangqi felt annoyed. If it weren't for the New Year's Festival, he would have entered the palace to complain to Chongzhen.

No, just after the opening of the ninth day of the first month, Chongzhen came out to meet with the cabinet ministers, Xu Guangqi seized the opportunity to ask to see the emperor alone, and wanted to resign from Chongzhen as the leader of the Scientific Progressive Party.

He eagerly explained to the Emperor: "... The ministers are busy with various affairs of the Ministry of Officials, the Academy of Sciences, and Yenching University, how can they still deal with such a cumbersome party affairs problem. What's more, some people don't know anything about the purpose of the party, and they don't care about it, but they just take a fancy to the official hat of the minister's head.

They came to visit the ministers, not to join the party, but to ask the ministers to promote them on the condition of joining the party. If this continues, I am afraid that after the establishment of this party, it will run counter to His Majesty's original intention, and when the time comes, I am afraid that the ministers will be shameless in front of His Majesty..."

Regarding the complaints in Xu Guangqi's words, Zhu Youzhen was also quite helpless, and he had to explain to the old minister in a low voice: "I know that most of the officials that Mr. Xu has seen these days are people who are keen on utilitarianism. The only thing that Mr. never forgets is to sort out the government and use overseas learning to save China's disease.

Most of those officials who come to the door are flies and dogs, and naturally they will not be able to accomplish this ideal with you, sir. However, isn't the disadvantage of my understanding that most of the officials in the DPRK and China are people who are interested in interests, and there are few people who adhere to political ideals?

If you can't change the old habit of prevarication on my Ming officials, naturally I can't change the declining situation of my Ming Dynasty. ”

Zhu Youzhen said while observing Xu Guangqi's face, and found that his expression softened a little, before continuing: "Secondly, can the new school be promoted in Daming, and can the new party spread its political ideas. What matters is not how it will do it in the future, but how it will survive today.

It has been a year since the construction of schools in the capital to promote new learning, but the people who encircled and suppressed the new school in the DPRK and China are still the same and refuse to make the slightest change. One can imagine how huge the opposition to the new learning should be in the places where it has not yet spread.

For the sake of the future of the new school, we must unite all the forces that can be united to defeat the most stubborn anti-new students. Therefore, I thought that even if some speculators wanted to get involved in the new party formed by him, he should allow them to speculate as long as they did not work against the ideas of the new party.

When those stubborn and conservative forces are defeated and Xinxue is truly accepted in all parts of the Ming Dynasty, then we will clean up these speculators who have infiltrated the party. Accepting them into the party does not mean that we will not defeat them in the future, so this is a question of the order in which things should be done, and it does not mean that we must make compromises with these speculators and change the purpose of the founding of the new party. ”

Chongzhen's persuasion finally made Xu Guangqi eliminate a lot of depression in his heart, but the emperor's proposal to unite all the forces that can be united, first defeat the main enemy, and then eliminate the secondary enemy, made Xu Guangqi always feel a little uncomfortable.

He thought about it for a long time, and then said to Chongzhen with some uncertainty: "But Your Majesty, isn't this a bit of a way to cross the river and tear down the bridge if you accept them first and then defeat them afterwards?" ”

Zhu Youzhen was stunned, and then replied solemnly and earnestly: "When the new party was founded, the ideas and propositions of the founding of the party were announced to the world, and since they already knew what the new party was founded for, when they took the initiative to ask to join in, they must be constrained by the party.

If they do not agree with the party's ideas and propositions and join the party, then it means that they have deceived the party from the beginning and only regarded joining the party as an opportunity to compete for power and gain profits.

If this is the case, what is wrong with the Party taking some clean-up measures against them to ensure that the Party's ideas and propositions are not distorted? Now that we have made the views of the New Party clear and unmistakable, there is no need to worry about what people will say about crossing the river and tearing down the bridge.

Perhaps some people have helped the New Party defeat a common enemy, but that does not mean that they are allies of the New Party. It's just a testament to the fact that we all had a common enemy.

Since the establishment of the new party is to solve the various shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty and to restore the confidence of the people of the world in the imperial court and the Ming Dynasty, it is obvious that personal feelings cannot be regarded as the standard for doing things..."

After Chongzhen's careful persuasion, Xu Guangqi finally retracted the idea of wanting to resign as the leader of the Scientific Democratic Party before he came. However, given Xu Guangqi's age and physical strength, Zhu Youzhen also felt that someone needed to help him and share the day-to-day administrative affairs of the party.

In the end, he suggested that Xu Guangqi should set up a post of secretary general in the party to handle trivial matters within the party instead of him, preferably without public office. First, they can freely travel to and from various places to manage the affairs of the Party; Second, it will also make it impossible for those speculative officials to get their hands on the position.

Of course, for the current chaos in the capital, Zhu Youzhen also felt that it was necessary to rectify one or two. At the subsequent cabinet meeting, he put forward for the first time his views on Xu Guangqi and Qian Qianyi's formation of the party.

Zhu Youzhen told everyone at the meeting that since Wanli, there has been a constant party struggle between the DPRK and China, so it is a fact that there is a party among the officials, not a problem that will happen. Otherwise, several former emperors issued several edicts, demanding that officials in the DPRK and China should not form a party, wouldn't they be talking to the air.

Since it is a fact that there is a party among the officials, the imperial court must face it and solve it, instead of closing its eyes and pretending not to see it, as if there is no such problem.

Chongzhen believes that since ancient times, all dynasties have different opinions on the matter of forming a party, one will say that forming a party is a villain and a friend, and the other will say that forming a party is a gentleman who is not in harmony. All in all, with different positions, the evaluation of party members becomes very different.

The fundamental reason for this is that these parties are not acting openly and honestly enough, and they have not effectively stated what their purpose in forming a party is, which has led to suspicion among the monarchs and ministers and the clumping of their colleagues.

Therefore, with the behavior of Xu Guangqi and Qian Qianyi in forming a party, Chongzhen decided to experiment with opening the party ban. It is necessary to standardize the conduct of political parties in the government and eliminate party disputes in the DPRK and China.

First of all, he would order the Imperial Secretariat to set up a caucus office to manage the affairs of the party. Whether it is Xu Guangqi's Scientific Progressive Party or Qian Qianyi's New Donglin Party, they must report to the office the purpose and political philosophy of the party, the form of the party organization and the list of party members, the source of funds for running the party, and the legal representative of the party.

At the same time, Chongzhen proposed that after the establishment of the party, it must have the ability to restrain the behavior of its members, and officials who join the party must not use the power of the party to crack down on dissidents, seek personal gain, undermine the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and attempt to subvert the imperial family.

Finally, because Chongzhen needed time to observe whether the openly formed political party was suitable for the Ming Dynasty, he did not accept applications for the establishment of a party other than the two parties for five years. Chongzhen once again reiterated that no one should form a party in private, and violators would be removed from their official positions and exiled overseas.