Zhao Bing originally expected Ying Jieyan to raise objections to preserve the position of the imperial tutor, but he did not expect that his Majesty ascended the throne as the emperor, and felt that he was responsible for the important education of the young master, so he had long wanted to submit a memorial to hold a lecture. The meaning of the Ge was very clear, but he agreed very much, and both of them agreed, and whoever objected, so he agreed unanimously to wait for the court to return to the court to submit an imperial decree to hold a lecture.

I originally thought that it was raining and there was nothing wrong, so Zhao Bing wanted to invite everyone to have a meal to bring closer feelings. But when he heard that this matter was completely uninterested, he left with a angrily hands, which made everyone confused. The unreasonable little emperor was angry. However, he knew that after entering and leaving the palace after entering Qiongzhou, the ban on entering and leaving the palace was not as convenient as before. The lectures on the imperial court almost became the only opportunity for these Confucian ministers to approach themselves and exert influence.

Zhao Bing knew that Confucian ministers attached great importance to the imperial lectures. In addition to being familiar with them, they also believed that the ultimate goal of the imperial lecture system was to revolutionize the king's heart, correct the king's heart, and cultivate virtues. In addition, the imperial lecture system was still a political system, just like the censor system, prime minister system, banishing system, and historian system in history, it was a constraint on imperial power, emphasizing that the Taoist system was higher than the political system, and the way of heaven was used to restrict the infinite expansion of imperial power; in addition, the imperial lecture system was also a traditional etiquette system, but it had profound ideological and cultural roots behind it, and this root was Neo-Confucianism. They could be said to be the system of the Song Dynasty that shared weal and woe and flourished.

In the past few days, Zhao Bing has worked hard to understand and learn the political system of the Song Dynasty from all aspects, and analyzed it based on what he learned in his previous life. The scholars and officials of the Song Dynasty not only produced treacherous but also produced talents, and they played a very big game of chess. In order to enable Confucian theory to always occupy a dominant position, they also influenced the rulers or future rulers through various means, and in disguise "brainwashed" them to maintain the political system of governing the world with Confucianism.

As a science student, Zhao Bing's understanding of Confucianism in his previous life was not only a brief introduction to Confucius in the textbook, as well as burning books and burying Confucianism, and a few classical Chinese articles. Of course, there is no prejudice or annoyance. In that era, the propaganda was more about governing the country according to law, and everyone was equal before the law, so he could not comment on whether his theory of governing the country was beneficial to the country and the people or was harmful.

After the Song Dynasty, Zhao Bing realized that although Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism were established together and did not exclude other external religions, Confucianism was the dominant one. In addition to the idea of ​​governing the country, it also exerted an ubiquitous influence on people's daily lives and even restricted imperial power. He knew that the situation that led to the Song Dynasty's Confucian dominance was caused by Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, but he expressed his understanding of this. Although his choice was helpless, it was wise.

In history, since the pre-Qin period, after thousands of years of massacres and purges, power has gradually been concentrated in the hands of the monarchs and emperors, making them more than legal restrictions. Zhao Bing thought that after Zhao Kuangyin became emperor, he must have realized that power was a double-edged sword, and the difference was how to use it. If the monarchs and emperors were wise and kind, the whole country would enjoy happiness; if they were foolish and cruel, the whole society would suffer together.

How to restrict the monarchs and emperors in the system so as not to go further on the wrong path? Each dynasty has its own different approaches. Zhao Kuangyin's approach is to let civil officials participate in the political discussion and guide the gains and losses of the emperor. However, if the emperor is not generous enough to listen to criticism, he takes the life of civil officials in anger, and no one dares to criticize the emperor again. So Zhao Kuangyin made a regulation that he would not kill the censors and scholars. The clever scholars used this "loophole" to integrate Confucianism into the Song Dynasty's governing program.

Since the founding kings of Taizu and Taizong, more than a dozen emperors from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty did not do anything great. This phenomenon is very strange. According to the theory of probability, there should be a monarch who has so many descendants of the Song Dynasty royal family, but there was no such thing as mediocre people. This made Zhao Bing think too much. He felt that it should be related to the environment they were in and the education they received. These monarchs, without exception, were baptized by Confucianism since childhood, and the problem might be here.

On the surface, the monarch of the Song Dynasty, like other dynasties, was at the top of the pyramid of power, with supreme status and highest secular authority. However, according to the political philosophy of the Song people, the monarch's "superior authority" should be symbolic, rather than a substantive ruling power. This is very different from the Ming and Qing dynasties that later claimed to be "arbitrary". Neo-Confucianist Cheng Yi explained the "Book of Changes" and proposed that the emperor was only the sovereign of the world, and the prime minister was the governor of the world. It showed that the monarch in his ideal was just a symbolic Yuan who was in power and appointed virtuous people. What he yearned for was actually rebuilding a system of virtual kings, and all the "doing of the way" was in the hands of wise men and officials.

Although Zhao Bing only studied for a few days, he could say with certainty that this was not Cheng Yi's idea alone, but a consensus among Neo-Confucians. For example, Fu Bi, a famous official in the Northern Song Dynasty, warned Emperor Shenzong of Song that now, "there are more personal criticisms, and if everything is in full, it is not the way to be a king. If it is seven or eight out of ten, it will accumulate over a month, and it will also lose a lot." Obviously, Fu Bi opposed the monarch's "personal criticism" of government affairs, even if the emperor was wise and wise. The Southern Song Dynasty Neo-Confucians 6 Jiuyuan also said: "The ruler is high above, does not follow his own intentions, does not interfere with villains, does not control him with a mere rope, so that his ministers have no trouble of restraint, and then he can blame him for his success." It also expresses the meaning of the empty king.

As Zhao Bing knows and understands, this political system is more like the modern constitutional monarchy, which is equivalent to emptiing the emperor and losing the power to handle government affairs. In this way, who should govern the country? The Song people believed that it was the prime minister. In Cheng Yi's words, "the world's chaos is the prime minister." The prime minister is the brain of the government, and his power is to assist the emperor, general officials, and to govern the common affairs.

At this time, the fools understood that the political system of the Song Dynasty actually included a dual "separation of two powers": first, the separation of monarchy and prime minister's power. The regime belongs to the monarch and governing power belongs to the prime minister. In the words of the Song people, it is: power belongs to the lord, and the central government has issued a central government, and there is no rule in the world. The monarch's power is to appoint prime ministers, and the prime minister's power is to form a cabinet and govern the world. The monarch and prime minister "have their own professions and cannot invade each other." If the monarch invades the prime minister's power, it is a violation of the system and will be protested by the ministers. In Zhao Bing's understanding of this "system" is the "ancestral family law" produced by the scholars and officials based on the oath of Taizu.

Zhao Bing once tried to find out the specific content of this ancestor's family law from various documents so that you can study it carefully to see if you can find the flaws, but he soon found that it was futile. He secretly scolded these scholars and officials to be too bad. The so-called ancestor's family law is not only complicated, with vague extensions, but also lacks systematic written explanations, which makes you confused and unable to find the basis, but it is everywhere. He hated him just wanted to greet their ancestors with the "grass mud horse".

In the end, Zhao Bing could only simplify the complex and summarize the illusory definition and scope of the ancestral family law. This is the constitutional convention and document of the Song Dynasty, aiming to restrain the behavior of the monarch and regulate the political structure. This is essentially different from the general laws that restrict scholars and people. When the current monarch does behavior that does not conform to Confucian ideals, the literati and official groups often bring out the ancestral laws, forcing the monarch to make concessions, that is, it is aimed at the emperor alone and has nothing to do with others...

"I forgot to hurt after the scar is healed!" Zhao Bing said angrily as he walked.

Now that the ministers are going to submit memorials to hold a lecture, what they want to do, Zhao Bing is certainly a clear-headed heart. At present, he is gradually participating in the government affairs, controlling the army, and ignoring various "rules" has made the scholars and officials unable to see it. But they also know that it is not easy to change themselves or to prevent themselves from approaching the court by taking advantage of their age, and it is also very easy to cause his backlash. It is not something they can stop and accept. Therefore, they want to use softness to overcome hardness, and want to use the family law of their ancestors to tie themselves up, and then use the lecture to gradually tame themselves and become the wise ruler in their minds.

Facts have proved that the way of educating emperors in the Song Dynasty was very failed. The emperors trained were lacking in blood and cowardly, so they were difficult to win in previous foreign wars. They had to spend money to settle them. In the end, they lost a lot and even lost their pants. Zhao Bing felt that if he had not fallen from the sky, the Song Dynasty would have become history now, and it would not be their turn to teach him a lesson. But what is difficult to understand is that these scholars and officials did not reflect on it, summarize lessons, and seek change, but they still tried to cultivate themselves into the perfect wise ruler they ideally so as to safeguard the interests of the group.

"Who made Your Majesty angry?" Ni Liang asked Wang Dedao inexplicably.

"Wen Xiang submitted a memorial to hold a lecture on the sutra, and the officials were angry!" Wang De whispered.

"Hey, I think it's a big deal. Isn't it okay if Your Majesty doesn't want to go?" Ni Liang said indifferently after hearing this.

"You know, they want to put shackles on me and tie my hands and feet!" Zhao Bing turned his face and raised his head and said, "A big carefree man."

"Bind your Majesty? I see who they dares, so my subordinates will chop him first!" Ni Liang said furiously.

"If it could be solved by a knife, I would have long since..."

‘Crack…’

"Children's words are not ripped, God, God, God!" Before Zhao Bing finished speaking, a thunder suddenly sounded above his head, and he cut off a branch from a big tree next to the corridor. He was so scared that he quickly swallowed the lower half of the words and prayed repeatedly. He wondered in his heart that God thought he was wrong.

"Official family, go quickly!" Wang De saw the branches that were thick with his arms hanging down and ignited a flame, and quickly supported His Majesty and left quickly, muttering, "The Pu family must have a monster, even this tree has become a spirit. God is going to chop it!"

"What a mess, let's go!" Zhao Bing frowned, but did not slow down under his feet, for fear that a thunder would strike him. At that time, I didn't know where I had traveled, maybe it was not as good as it is now!

Back at the bedroom, Zhao Bing ordered that today be added, get a chicken, and then stew soft sheep. After a big meal, his mind seemed to be clearer. He climbed the second floor and pushed the window open a crack and looked out. At this moment, heavy rain was pouring into the lake from all over the place, but no water could be seen over the lake shore. He suddenly thought that the Song Dynasty could establish the country for three hundred years. If every emperor was controlled by these scholars and officials, the throne would have been lost early. Taizu would not have considered this when he formulated the policy of governing military affairs with civil and military affairs, nor would he be able to be pickled by these scholars. There must be a balance method to avoid losing power.

"Love and kill each other and complement each other is the way to govern the country. The ancestors are definitely not all confused people, and there must be a way to restrain themselves!" Zhao Bing thought that power is the basis of the existence of the emperor. No one who became a man would easily give up the power. He is a person who never likes to make power. Now he is the emperor to "snatch" the power, isn't he not able to sleep? There must be something he has not understood. I think that Emperor Huizong called him a famous fool, but for Cai Jing, the prime minister at that time, he said he would withdraw and withdraw. He was not worried about chaos at all. Without a check or balance strategy, it would be impossible.

Thinking of the joints, Zhao Bing spread out the paper and wrote several major state institutions on it, including the Emperor, the Secretariat, the Secretariat, the Privy Council, the Sansi, the Censorate, and the Censorate, and connected several lines between them. In fact, most of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Prime Minister, the Privy Councilor and the Sansi Commissioner were not subordinate to each other and were independently responsible to the emperor.

At that time, the Secretariat and the Privy Council were called "Two Prefectures" and were in charge of civil and military affairs; while the Three Divisions were called "Jixian", and were in charge of finance. After the Yuanfeng restructuring, the Three Divisions were abolished, and the financial power was unified under the Ministry of Revenue, which was placed under the control of the prime minister. However, although the prime minister's authority was expanded, it also strengthened the separation of power between the deputy prime minister (sponsored to the political affairs of the prime minister) and the prime minister. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the prime minister or the Privy Council also obtained the power to deal with some military and political affairs, but also allowed the deputy prime minister and the deputy envoy of the Privy Council to participate in the joint efforts. This practice was certainly due to the needs of the war in the Song and Jin Dynasties.

Therefore, on the surface, it is an expansion of the prime minister's power, but in fact it is a measure to ensure that the emperor continues to centralize power under the new situation. From this point of view, it is actually a bit too much to say that the prime ministers of the Song Dynasty are in charge of everything and dominate the major power. Only the three words "supporting the emperor" are accurate. Perhaps this is just the ideal state that the scholars and officials want to achieve, but have never succeeded.

In short, people believe that the separation of the monarchy and ministerial power in the Song Dynasty's political system, and that the monarch and minister "having their own professions and cannot infringe upon each other" is nothing more than to distinguish the nature of power and make the monarch and ministerial each perform their duties. The legitimacy of the so-called political and ministerial power comes from the institutional design of the power belongs to the person. In this case, imperial power and ministerial power are not separated, but subordinate relationships, master-subject relationships, and administrative power belongs to imperial power rather than independent of decision-making power.

But the imperial power will also be subject to the constraints of the prime minister's power. The strength depends on the ability of the emperor of the dynasty. However, the emperor can beat and replace the prime minister through the censors at any time. If this system is operated properly, the emperor's rule can be realized... (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!