Chapter 280: Two Decisions

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 The elders soon realized that they were too naive.

On top of the throne, Cheng Jing paused briefly and then continued reading.

"...From now on, the status of the harem will be re-established. Under the queen, there will be the first imperial concubine, the second imperial concubine, the fourth imperial concubine, and the ninth imperial concubine. There is no restriction on talent and talents. Their ranks are regarded as the same as the crown prince, prince's concubine, and prince's son.

The concubine and the county princess..."

"...restart the draft, and select women from good families from all over the country for eight years to enrich the harem and extend the imperial heirs. Except for the wedding draft, five to ten people will be selected in the other drafts depending on the situation. Those who are not selected will each be rewarded.

Restore the family members and let them get married. If the emperor is over forty, if any heirs grow up, the selection will be stopped..."

If the abolition of the funeral just now made the elders feel a little surprised, there was no special reaction.

So this new harem code is a disaster.

It turns out that the emperor didn't want to limit the number of harem at all, but wanted to expand it?!

Even at the great court meeting, there was still a small discussion among the civil and military ministers, causing a group of Jiuyi censors to quickly scold in low voices and go back and forth to maintain order.

Of course, the Great Court Meeting is a ceremonial ceremony, not a place to discuss government affairs, and there is no ceremonial process for the performance.

Therefore, even if these ministers have opinions, they cannot raise them at this time.

But there is no doubt that the bosses will never tolerate this kind of wasteful spending of money and food, greed for money and lust.

As soon as many censors heard about it, they had already begun to think about how to write a memorial to admonish the emperor after the meeting...

Sitting on the high throne, Zhu Qiyu looked at the reactions below, but he was not too surprised.

In fact, Zhu Qiyu already knew that some ministers would object to this matter.

These civil servants have always been lenient in disciplining themselves and strict in treating others.

It doesn't matter how many concubines they have, but the emperor must be pure-hearted and focus on court affairs, and cannot talk about beauties.

Therefore, except for Wu, he did not discuss this matter with anyone else. He only called the old guy Hu Hui to discuss it.

Hu Laoshangshu is a smart man. He will not go against the emperor as a first-rate person. On the contrary, he also put forward some feasible modification suggestions to the emperor.

For example, the interval between drafts was lengthened and the number of people in each draft was reduced to make it more acceptable to the officials.

After Zhu Qiyu thought about it, he agreed, and the current code was born.

According to this calculation, starting from the emperor's wedding at the age of fifteen, he will be selected every eight years and stop at forty, that is, a total of four selections.

If five to eight people are selected each time, the number of concubines will be controlled at around twenty to thirty people.

Strictly speaking, this number is a little more than normal among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, but in general, it is not too much.

Although the Ming Dynasty had many devoted emperors.

But in fact, except for the unlucky father and son Zhu Youtang and Zhu Houzhao, and the unlucky brothers Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao, the number of concubines of the Emperor of Heaven is basically maintained at around fifteen to twenty.

Even Zhu Qiyu, his eldest nephew, who doted on the Wan family, and Emperor Wanli, who doted on the Zheng family and caused a feud over the country, each had eighteen or nine people in their harems.

As for the emperor with the most concubines, he was undoubtedly the Jiajing Emperor who "devoted himself to Taoism."

He had more than eighty concubines in total!

Zhu Qiyu was speechless when he saw him. With so many concubines, no wonder he wanted to take pills to keep fit...

Usually when there is no draft, most of these concubines come from the contributions of eunuchs and jiafangsi, and then they are the emperor's favored concubines.

So in fact, Taizu's choice of a good family woman as his concubine was just a decoration.

Because the Ming Dynasty only had one draft during the emperor's wedding, so only that one time would be effective.

And more often than not, it is suppressed rather than suppressed.

To put it bluntly, this rule is usually used to restrict the concubine's background from being too high.

But as for how low it is, the bosses don’t care.

No matter you are a prisoner, a commoner, or a prostitute, as long as the emperor likes you, he will accept you.

Therefore, even if it was not for the purpose of enriching the harem, Zhu Qiyu felt that it was necessary to raise the standards for selecting palace concubines.

At least, the women selected in the draft, even if they are not from the families of high-ranking officials, are still clean, healthy, good-looking, well-educated and well-educated, and their quality is far better than that of ordinary palace maids.

However, it is one thing to know how many people there are in the harem, but it is another thing for the ministers to really put it out in the open and select them through a formal draft.

There is nothing they can do about the former.

After all, there are so many maids in the palace, and the emperor is lucky enough to be lucky, so they can't not even give them a position. The established fact has become a fact, and they can't stop them.

But for the latter, their skills of standing on the moral high ground have come into use...

However, after all, this is the official dynasty. Even if you behave slightly inappropriately, you may be punished, not to mention speaking in public and disturbing the rules of the dynasty meeting, which is a serious crime.

Therefore, no matter how dissatisfied these bosses are, they can only hold it in their hearts until the printing is launched in a year.

However, it was not over yet. After reading this article, Cheng Jinglue paused. After the Censor Jiuyi tidied up the team and restored order, he continued reading.

"From now on, the clan's mansion is ordered to open a sect school in the capital. All relatives, princes, and heirs of princes and princes who are ten years old or older must join the clan to study the scriptures, meanings, and ancestral precepts. When they are fifteen years old, the clan's mansion and the Ministry of Rites will preside over the assessment. , and after passing the exam, you will be allowed to return to the fiefdom and be crowned the king."

"Any legitimate son or daughter of a clan below the level of a county king, or a general of the country, or above, who is over 20 years old, is also allowed to enter the ancestral school. The examination is held every three years for a period of nine years. Those who pass the exam are allowed to enter the official position, and the Ministry of Personnel will preside over the conferment of officials."

"Any member of the clan who serves the country as a general or below is also allowed to participate in scientific examinations and become officials in the dynasty."

"Any member of the clan who enters the dynasty as an official, a civilian official, a seal official, a supervisory official, and a field official cannot be appointed, and they cannot be appointed within five hundred miles of the father's ancestral fiefdom. The rest are subject to the selection of the Ministry of Personnel."

This is another bombshell.

The clan problem has been around for a long time, but from the early Ming Dynasty to the late Ming Dynasty, the problems faced were actually different.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the focus was more on curbing the political and military power of the clan, while in the late Ming Dynasty, it began to curb the clan's excessive treatment and legal immunity.

It should be said that since Jianwen ascended the throne until now, the main theme of the court's treatment of vassal kings has been to reduce power.

However, the emperor's edict was completely contrary to the policies followed by generations of previous emperors, and it opened up the power of the clan to enter the dynasty.

You must know that Emperor Taizong spent a lot of effort to eliminate all possibilities for the clan to interfere in the government affairs.

Now that the emperor has been on the throne for less than a year, he is about to change his tune, and this is a change in the direction of the entire clan's policy, which has shocked a group of ministers.

There are still many ministers in the DPRK who have always advocated further strengthening the control of the clan and resolutely prohibiting the clan from participating in court affairs in any form.

This edict directly touched their most sensitive nerves.

Although no one said it directly at the meeting, it was obvious that many ministers' faces became ugly.

At the same time, Zhang Fu, who represented the British government and stood among the military ministers, also saw this scene. His heart was moved and he let out a long breath.

The long edict has finally come to an end.

As Cheng Jing closed the imperial edict in his hand, the ministers had different thoughts and bowed down again under the guidance of the ceremony officer, shouting long live the mountain.

The great dynasty will end here, but starting from this, a turbulent undercurrent is already brewing...


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