After the national meeting was held, Chongzhen, who was sitting on the throne, did not speak, and the officials attending the meeting also tested each other from the beginning, and soon turned into a fierce confrontation between the two camps.

In fact, since the public opinion of the salt case was set off, the officials who were frustrated after the implementation of the new policy have targeted Huang Liji, the first assistant.

Most of these frustrated officials were mainly science and road officials, followed by some officials from the household department and the Ministry of rites. These household officials were transferred out of their positions of real power because they were incompetent, and now they can only do paperwork such as sorting out archives and compiling departmental journals. The officials of the Ministry of Rites are not angry that the implementation of the new policy has caused the Ministry of Rites to lose the income of the Department of Rites, and the officials of the Ministry of Rites, who were already hard-working, now have even less income.

When these frustrated officials got the support of the Jiangnan gentry and set off public opinion pressure in the capital, they originally thought that Huang Liji had no choice but to abdicate his position and make way for Xian under this public opinion pressure.

But unexpectedly, Huang Liji did not follow the unspoken rules of the Ming officialdom in the past, and was obviously impeached by so many officials, but he never submitted his resignation to the emperor.

Under such circumstances, the salt introduction case itself has lost everyone's attention, and the departure and retention of the first assistant Huang Liji and the abolition of the new policy are the focus of debate at this national meeting.

Although Ni Yuanlu and others tried their best to restrain the party members who were good friends, they hoped that everyone would focus their firepower on Huang Liji and not involve them in the New Deal. Although the new policy was presided over by Huang Liji, officials with some knowledge in the capital know very well that behind the new policy is Chongzhen.

In order to protect the new policy, the emperor may consider giving up the first assistant Huang Liji, who was referred to by Qianfu. But once Chongzhen realizes that the purpose of these officials is to overturn the New Deal, then things will change unpredictably.

There are three fires for new officials to take office, not to mention a new emperor. Although there are many anachronisms in the New Deal, Ni Yuanlu and others also believe that the New Deal is not useless. At the very least, some of the measures taken by the new policy are very beneficial in terms of strengthening the management of local officials by the six central ministries.

Even the Donglin Party members hope that when they are in power, they can fulfill the orders issued by the central government, and local officials can follow them, rather than doing things perfunctorily. In the past, there was a very bad atmosphere in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, and for the policies issued by the central government, the local governments mostly implemented them selectively, and of course they chose to implement them in their own favor.

If the policy was not favorable to the local officials and gentry, then the policy would be shelved from the common people below. This method of deceiving superiors and subordinates is most likely to be the ban on the sea in the southeastern coastal areas.

The local gentry and wealthy families took advantage of the imperial court's policy of banning the sea to guard against the Japanese invaders, forbade ordinary merchants and ordinary people from participating in overseas trade, and started their own exclusive trade of smuggling overseas, thus achieving astonishing monopoly benefits.

The Donglin Party itself is dominated by Jiangnan gentry, so how can they not be clear about the key to it. When they served as local officials at the local level, they were naturally reluctant to issue any policies from the imperial court and interfere with their power to govern the local government.

But once they entered the center and became the heads of the Ming Dynasty, they immediately changed their position, hoping that local officials would act according to the orders of the central government, instead of creating an independent kingdom. From Su Changqing's point of view, this is a typical performance of the butt deciding the head.

Although the governance ability of the Donglin Party is low, it can be seen from the results of their governance in the late Wanli period to the end of the Apocalypse that the time when the Donglin Party was in power during this period was the time when Nurhachi established the foundation of the country.

However, Gu Xiancheng, the founder of the Donglin Party, whose purpose in founding the Donglin Party was to promote practical learning, advocate "bowing and doing", oppose empty talk, and aim to save the hearts of the people of the Ming Dynasty. So, in essence, the Donglin Party was a bureaucratic group that supported certain reforms in the Ming Dynasty's government.

It's just that the Donglin Party did not set the goal of reform, and there was a lack of reform leaders like Zhang Juzheng in the party, coupled with the rise of the Later Jin, the focus of the government had to give way from internal reform to military construction. After the Ming army lost most of Liaodong in successive defeats in the war with the Houjin, they fell into a fierce party struggle with the Donglin Party in North Korea and Central Africa, and no longer had the energy to study the issue of reform.

In fact, as far as the Donglin Party is concerned, most of them have an overt or implicit relationship with the officials who supported Zhang Juzheng's implementation of the Wanli New Deal, which is why Zhang Juzheng was able to be quickly rehabilitated after the Wanli Dynasty.

The gentry who supported the Donglin Party at the beginning were also the first to feel that the Ming Dynasty was in danger of overthrowing, as the vested interests of the Ming Dynasty, of course, they did not want the Ming Dynasty to overthrow, thereby harming their own interests.

It's just that they haven't yet found the direction of reform, and they have already fallen into an incompatible party struggle with the non-Donglin party members in the DPRK. In the end, the most outstanding elites in the Donglin Party were completely consumed in the meaningless party struggle, and only the wise and inactive people were left.

By the time Chongzhen ascended the throne, although there were still rising stars such as Ni Yuanlu and Huang Daozhou in the Donglin Party, the Donglin Party had already put the main goal on overturning the case for the Donglin Party, rather than presiding over the internal affairs reform of the Ming Dynasty.

According to the original history, since the death of the Apocalypse, the officials in the DPRK and China have been divided into two factions, one faction wants to overturn the case for the Donglin Party and suppress the remnants of the eunuch party. The other faction defended the eunuch party and accused the Donglin party of being the same and different. The officials of the two factions took turns, and the struggle between the DPRK and China never went out.

The struggle between the two sides began with the Chongzhen Dynasty and ended with the Southern Ming Dynasty, and even after these civil officials surrendered to the Manchu Dynasty, a case of the Northern and Southern Party was created in the last years of Shunzhi. The last morale of the Ming Dynasty silently swallowed its last breath in this never-ending party struggle, and the Chinese civilization has entered a dark period of decline for three hundred years.

However, in the current Ming Dynasty, the benefits brought by the New Deal reform have overwhelmed the rights and wrongs that some Donglin Party members want to argue. Chongzhen's attitude of not arguing about the Donglin Party case and quietly rehabilitating made it impossible for the Donglin Party members to take advantage of the opportunity of the Donglin Party case to incite the government and the opposition and set off a liquidation case against the eunuch party members.

Huang Liji's New Deal reform greatly strengthened the power of the northern gentry, and most of the New Deal policies were mainly piloted in Beizhili, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi. It can even be said that Beizhili and Shandong occupy half of the implementation of the new policy.

Because in these two places, the imperial court has the most comprehensive control. In the southern provinces, however, the voice of the imperial court was not as loud as that of the local gentry.

Ni Yuanlu is much more sober than Huang Daozhou and others, and after the implementation of the new policy this year, he immediately saw one thing clearly, if the Donglin Party people do not change their strategy and still learn from the old things in the past, their voices in the court will soon be marginalized.

Although the Donglin Party members have always claimed that the anti-Donglin Party officials headed by Wei Zhongxian are eunuchs, in fact, the bureaucratic eunuch group headed by Wei Zhongxian has the same political goals except for the anti-Donglin Party.

Wei Zhongxian himself did not have any political opinions, and the reason why those bureaucrats and chamberlains gathered under his banner was entirely because of the suppression of non-Donglin Party officials by the Donglin Party in Korea, so they united with Wei Zhongxian, who was deeply trusted by the Apocalypse, to fight back in an attempt to protect themselves.

It's just that everyone didn't expect that the Donglin Party who was engaged in a word in the court in the early years of the Apocalypse would be so vulnerable. The Donglin Party fell, the new emperor ascended the throne, and the so-called leaders of the eunuch party, Wei Zhongxian and Cui Chengxiu, were naturally abandoned by these remnants of the eunuch party.

This is also why, after Chongzhen ascended the throne, he could easily control the Jinyi Guard and the palace guard, and the powerful 9,000-year-old could only obediently obey the emperor's order to go to Zhongdu to guard the mausoleum. The fundamental reason is that the eunuch party is not a party, and this is just a political alliance that has been temporarily united because of the excessive oppression of the Donglin party.

But since Huang Liji implemented the New Deal, these originally loose political forces were quickly reunited by the New Deal. Whether or not to support the new policy has become the standard for the ministry to measure whether lower-level officials can be promoted.

In the past, eunuchs relied on power and ties of kinship to unite their members, but once the leader lost power, such a political group lost the basis for its existence. Those officials who change their courts, as long as they do not form enmity with others, can still be accepted by the victors.

The Donglin Party relied on morality and the teacher-student relationship to unite internally, which seemed illusory, but it was also more solid than power. Without a good reason, it is difficult for a betrayer to be accepted by other groups.

Now Huang Liji's identification of his supporters by whether or not he supports the New Deal reform is obviously much stronger than the empty morality of the Donglin Party. Since we support the reform of the New Deal, we must suppress the old vested interests. The longer the New Deal has been in place, the more labels have been cast on the officials who support it.

In such a situation, no official would easily change the court. If they change course, they will not only lose their place in the reformist group, but they may not be able to find their new place in the old school.

The official position of the members of the eunuch group headed by Wei Zhongxian has risen entirely depending on whether you have a special intimate relationship with Gonggong Wei, or whether you have won the favor of Gonggong Wei.

In the group of Donglin Party members, whether you can become the core of the party members depends on your prestige. If you are just an obscure person, no matter how high your talent is, you will not be faked by the party.

And whether you can be promoted in a group with political opinions depends on whether your actions meet the needs of the group. If it is of great help to promote or realize political ideas, it will naturally attract the attention of group members.

When Huang Liji continued to introduce new policies to win his own supporters, the effect of the implementation of the new policies could also be unsatisfactory. Then the Donglin Party people who are rummaging through old cases on the side all day long look like children who are clamoring for candy all day long. The people may now support the Donglin Party because of sympathy, but if the Donglin Party has no achievements and the New Deal can benefit the people, then at that time, the behavior of the Donglin Party will be disgusting.

What worries Ni Yuanlu even more is that once the New Deal achieves certain results, Huang Liji, the presiding officer of the New Deal, even if there is any black history in the past, the emperor will firmly protect him and avoid the New Deal from giving up halfway.

Therefore, Ni Yuanlu felt that the best way now was to pull Huang Liji off the horse and let the Donglin Party come to power. In that case, the fruits of the New Deal would not only fall into the hands of the Donglin Party, but would also restore trust between the Donglin Party and the Emperor.