Every minister lowered his head and looked at the plan in his hands carefully, fearing that he would miss any word.
At this time, Li Chen's explanation voice also came out.
"In the plan of this palace, the overall authority of the six ministries remains unchanged. The functions of the six ministries remain unchanged. There are three provinces: Shangshu Province, Zhongshu Province, and Menxia Province. The provincial orders of the three provinces are directly ordered by the king."
"Among them, Zhongshu Sheng is in charge of secrets and issues government orders."
"Menxia Sheng and Zhongshu Sheng are in charge of secret affairs, discuss state affairs together, and are responsible for reviewing imperial edicts."
"The Shangshu Province has the greatest authority, commanding six ministries and twenty-four divisions."
Just the creation of three additional provinces allowed all officials to see the greatness of this reform plan.
This is obviously an attempt to dismantle the entire cabinet and divide its functions into three.
Originally, the cabinet had great powers. Not only could it directly intervene in all the work of the six ministries and twenty-four departments, it also had the power to review the emperor's edicts and court memorials, and to approve and refute them.
Now Li Chen has divided the power of the cabinet among the three provinces. He has also divided the powers of the emperor's decrees, refutational memorials and administrative agencies. They are clearly distinct from each other and do not interfere with each other, but they are also involved in each other.
The emperor's acceptance of the orders of the three provinces means that the personnel power is in his hands. As long as the future emperor does not lose this power, there is no risk of being emptied out.
The Zhongshu Province can be understood as the emperor's secretarial agency, while the Menxia Province is a complement between the Zhongshu Province and the government affairs of the court. As for the Shangshu Province, it is the prototype of the State Privy Council.
After the state affairs pass through six ministries and twenty-four departments, they go to the Zhongshu Province, where they are sorted out by the Shangshu Province. After handling, they are reported to the emperor. The emperor issues decrees, and the Menxia Province and the Zhongshu Province are responsible for the issuance and implementation supervision of the decrees.
This ensures the greatest balance of power, with the three institutions subject only to the emperor.
Of course, there is no perfect system in the world, and any system will have flaws and loopholes.
To put it bluntly, the system of three provinces and six ministries infinitely weakens the power of the prime minister, thereby strengthening the centralization of monarchy. However, there is a hidden danger in that the emperor's control power must be sufficient.
Once the emperor's control is insufficient and the three provinces collude with each other, the hidden dangers will be great enough to completely sideline the emperor and have greater powers than the current cabinet.
But Li Chen can't control so much about future generations. He only needs to be able to control everything when he is in power.
As for what happens in the future, it depends on the abilities of future generations.
Li Chen's eyes fell on Zhao Xuanji. Seeing that the latter was just looking at the content of the reform quietly without expressing any opinions, Li Chen continued: "This is a central restructuring that extends to local governments. Nowadays, the national administrative regions are not divided.
The structure of government agencies at the county level will remain unchanged, but changes will be made at the state, prefectural and provincial levels."
"Take the government as an example. The chief executive is the governor, and he is responsible for the people's livelihood and confidentiality in the area under his jurisdiction. He has a fourth-grade title."
"The largest county official is the magistrate, the prefecture, the largest prefecture is the governor, and the largest province is the governor. The original grade remains unchanged, and a tax desk is set up. Taxation, tax inspection, unified taxation and other tax-related matters were originally managed by the government yamen.
All functions belong to the local tax desk. The tax desk is not under the jurisdiction of local officials, but is directly under the jurisdiction of the immediate superiors. The assessment, promotion, and appointment of tax desk officials are also decided by the central court and issued directly."
Donggong wants to take back its tax rights!
This move is extremely bold.
Everyone knows that the power of taxation is very tricky, and it is one of the important powers that local governments rely on for their survival. However, if this order goes ahead and the tax power is collected nationwide, I am afraid that it will immediately cause resistance from all local officials.
