In terms of truth alone, you can't say that Huang Zongxi's words are unreasonable.

After all, there can't always be a virtuous monarch, but virtuous ministers emerge in an endless stream.

And the meaning of Huang Zongxi's words is also very easy to understand, that is, in his opinion, His Majesty the current Emperor is certainly a virtuous Son of Heaven, but who can guarantee that His Majesty the Emperor will succeed to the throne a hundred years later, the Son of Heaven can also be so virtuous?

What happens once you meet a dull and stupid monarch?

His idea was that if there was a virtuous prime minister, all these problems would be solved.

Because the succession to the throne of the Ming Dynasty adopted the primogeniture inheritance system, it has always been a succession of the eldest and not the virtuous.

However, the choice of the prime minister, as has been done since ancient times, has been to select and appoint talents.

As long as there is a virtuous prime minister, no matter whether the Son of Heaven is smart or not, capable or not, the current good situation and everything at present can continue.

Huang Zongxi's current ideas are actually very conservative, far less shocking than the set of doctrines he put forward later.

In the original history, although this Huang Zongxi had a teacher like Liu Zongzhou, and he studied hard for more than ten years, he had been repeatedly unsuccessful, until Chongzhen was fifteen years old, and finally passed the examination after failing again and again.

Then, Huang Zongxi, who finally won the promotion, went to Beijing to participate in the last examination of the Chongzhen Dynasty with great interest, and the result was that he fell to Sun Mountain again.

Next, the Ming Dynasty fell apart with Li Zicheng's entry into Beijing and Emperor Chongzhen's suicide, and Huang Zongxi had no chance to be admitted to the Jinshi examination.

The reason why he later wrote a large number of works attacking the imperial examination system, attacking the Bagu scholars, and writing a large number of works attacking the absolute monarchy system and advocating that the world is for the public is inseparable from his life experience.

He prides himself on his talent, but he has repeatedly failed to succeed, so it is natural to doubt the rationality of the imperial examination system.

Similarly, he prides himself on his ability to govern the country and secure the country, but he has never been selected as an official in the Chongzhen Dynasty, so as to embark on a career in office, and he will of course question the monarchy of the Ming Dynasty.

Huang Zongxi was full of economy but tried repeatedly in his life, his life was bumpy, his fate was ill-fated, and he wasted many years, but he also forced him to become a great thinker full of complaints.

In the face of a figure like Huang Zongxi, what other good way can Emperor Chongzhen have?

In the original history, when Emperor Chongzhen had just succeeded to the throne, he once admired Huang Zongxi, the son of Huang Zunsu, the backbone of the Donglin Party.

Huang Zongxi's father, Huang Zunsu, was arrested and imprisoned in the prison of the Criminal Department because of the eunuchs in the Apocalypse, and was tortured to death by various tortures during his imprisonment.

When Emperor Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, eradicated the eunuch group and rehabilitated Huang Zunsu and others, Huang Zongxi rushed to Beijing when he heard the news and personally assassinated his father-killing enemy.

After Emperor Chongzhen learned of this situation, not only did he not punish him for murder, but also gave Huang Zongxi a comment of "the lonely son of a loyal minister".

Emperor Chongzhen personally gave this comment is a very high evaluation.

If nothing happens, Huang Zongxi should be able to go very smoothly on the next road, such as successfully passing the entrance examination and getting a high grade.

Surprisingly, none of this has materialized.

As for the reason behind it, whether it was because of the belittlement of his teacher Liu Zongzhou, or because of his own deviant words and deeds, only God knows.

In this life, there is no intersection between Emperor Chongzhen and Huang Zongxi as in history.

Because in this life, when Emperor Chongzhen purged the eunuch clique, his methods were more ruthless and more resolute.

By the time Huang Zongxi heard the news and rushed to Beijing, the eunuchs who framed his father Huang Zunsu had been executed by Jinyiwei.

After that, Huang Zongxi, who failed to kill the enemy himself, did not return to his hometown in Zhejiang, but went to his father's old friend Liu Zongzhou, and since then he has worshiped under Liu Zongzhou's door, and has been eating, living and studying at Liu Zongzhou's house.

Later, after the recommendation of Liu Zongzhou, the Zhengqing of Dali Temple, Huang Zongxi successfully entered the Guozijian by virtue of his identity as the son of Huang Zunsu and the fame he already had, and became a shadow prison student, and since then he has embarked on a completely different life path from the original history.

And will this very different life path kill the birth of a great thinker?

Will Huang Zongxi, a thinker who has achieved extraordinary achievements through setbacks in history, be forgotten by everyone because of this?

At the beginning, when Emperor Chongzhen learned that this Huang Zongxi was studying in the Guozi Prison, of course he had no bottom in his heart.

However, it didn't take long for Jinyiwei and Dongchang to report the movements in the various Guozi prisons, so that Emperor Chongzhen had to admit the strength of human nature.

Huang Zongxi went to Guozi Prison smoothly, but he still performed very well, needless to say in his studies, and his personality, words and deeds are still very outstanding.

When he learned of this situation, Emperor Chongzhen's heart really couldn't tell what kind of feeling he felt.

On the one hand, he was also glad that such a thinker did not sink and be buried, but on the other hand, he also had a secret headache for such a figure similar to Zhang Pu in Guozijian.

This time, since Emperor Chongzhen learned that the twenty-one-year-old Huang Zongxi had participated in the examination as a prisoner of the country, he had made up his mind to let him pass the exam as soon as possible.

Such a character can no longer be allowed to continue to advocate Qing Yixuan in the Guozi Prison.

Instead, let him get in touch with some practical government affairs as soon as possible, lest he not know that the sky is high and the earth is thick, and he will mess up the hearts of the Shilin people who have finally calmed down at present.

Emperor Chongzhen knew that it was he who had clearly elevated the status of the cabinet before, which caused some scholars in the Guozi Prison to discuss, and also inspired Huang Zongxi's proposal to reset the prime minister.

Regarding Huang Zongxi's proposition, Emperor Chongzhen's heart, in fact, did not completely reject it.

This matter, in the future, may become a direction for the development of the Ming Dynasty's political system.

But he never wanted to see this matter become a hot topic of discussion between the government and the opposition now.

Because it's a bit too early to do this.

All of this will at least wait for the current eldest and second sons of the emperor, as well as the other princes who may be born in the future, to make a final choice.

If there were enough meritocracy among them, the current cabinet would still be the same as it is today.

If none of them can be reassured, then the time will really be to consider resetting the prime minister.

Moreover, the position of prime minister is not necessarily the title of prime minister, at least the prime minister is a good name.

All these issues related to the future of the Ming Dynasty are not unconsidered by the current Emperor Chongzhen.

How could a modern person from later generations not think about the future of the Ming Dynasty?

It's just that for him, the current situation is quite similar to the situation in the early years of the Republic of China three hundred years later, and the importance of the imminent salvation is far greater than the enlightenment.

As for the relationship between the monarch's power and the relative power, as well as the impact of the future monarch's meritocracy on the Ming Dynasty, he knows it in his heart.

But now is far from the time when you need to make a choice.

What he is pursuing now is naturally an autocratic imperial power that can do whatever he wants.

Because in the face of the complex situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, only in this way can we avoid destruction.

Let's say that on the morning of the seventh day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Chongzhen, the palace gate of the Forbidden City was opened, and the result of this spring festival was sent to the palace by President Xu Guangqi and two vice presidents, He Ruzhong and Jia Jichun.

There were 510 tributes admitted to the examination, and their names, origins, places of origin, and rankings were transcribed stroke by stroke on a large thick book.

In April, the weather has warmed up, grass has begun to emerge from the ground, new shoots have been sprouted from the trees, and even the sun has become much brighter, and the temperature has begun to be hot.

Sitting in the spacious and bright East Pavilion Imperial Study of the Qianqing Palace, Emperor Chongzhen first listened carefully to the reports of Xu Guangqi, He Ruzhong, and Jia Jichun on the situation before and after this examination, and then opened the admission list full of names with great interest.

On top of this recital, the names are neatly written in small letters, and the names are followed by various relevant notes.

Emperor Chongzhen flipped through the pages at a glance, wanting to find Huang Zongxi's name first.

However, Emperor Chongzhen opened eighteen folds in a row, and saw that he was about to reach the last page of the fold, but he still did not find Huang Zongxi's name.

Xu Guangqi, He Ruzhong, and Jia Jichun were all a little apprehensive when they saw the emperor doing this.