It's early winter, and the new snow has fallen. Gao Pragmatic has been back in Beijing for several months, and Meng Guzhe has been in the Secretariat for just over two months. The situation between North Korea and China is stable, and everything seems to be in order.
Faced with such a smooth situation, it stands to reason that Gao Pingshi, the chief minister of the cabinet, should breathe a sigh of relief. However, the situation is exactly the opposite. Gao Pingshi is now facing a series of major difficulties, some of which may even lead to national-level crises if he is not careful.
That kind of.
First of all, the first major crisis is that the emperor has been ill since he returned to Beijing. Apart from making a public appearance and meeting with ministers on the day of his return to Beijing, he has never attended a court meeting since the first imperial court, nor has he ever attended a court meeting.
Appear in public again.
In the first two months, at least the important ministers at the nine ministers' level, headed by Gao Jingshi, could occasionally ask for an audience. Although the emperor often leaned on the imperial cave to receive him, his face generally looked as usual, but he was a little depressed.
After the third month, the number of people who could ask to see the emperor was further reduced. Only the four ministers of the cabinet and the minister of official affairs could still be allowed. At this time, the emperor's face seemed to have become much thinner, and there was still a slight trace of facial hair.
Sallow and sluggish, and even less energetic than the previous two months.
It is said that when Chen Yubi, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, once paid a visit, he was complaining that a group of officials submitted for approval by the Ministry of Personnel and the Cabinet had not yet been approved by the Supervisor of Rites, but there was actually a slight snoring coming from the emperor's side.
At this time, the outer court had to become anxious. Although the country was now settled, the crown prince was still unable to walk steadily. The emperor in his prime suddenly showed a look of being seriously ill and it was difficult to get out of it, which inevitably made people uneasy.
However, this is the time when everyone least dares to talk nonsense. When colleagues meet each other, they can only express their inner worries with their eyes. When they open their mouths, they say something like "the saints and auspicious people have their own destiny" and "my emperor is in the prime of his life."
Such nonsense. However, the more it was like this, the more uneasy it became, so much so that the entire officialdom of the capital felt a bit depressed.
As the first and most important minister, Gao Pangshi naturally had to be anxious. He wanted to ask famous doctors from his own medical department to treat the emperor, but unexpectedly, he was explicitly rejected by the emperor himself.
Of course, the emperor's words were tactful: "The emperor's longevity is determined by destiny. I have received many favors from heaven in this life. How dare I be dissatisfied? I just do my best in Rixin and don't worry about my health."
If he wants to say this, Gao Pragmatic has nothing to do. The problem is that even if he puts aside his worries about the emperor's dragon body, Gao Pragmatic still has to worry about the sharp decline in the emperor's ability to handle government affairs. It is now difficult for a lot of important memorials to be approved in time.
It happened that the emperor was really ill, and Gao Pragmatic couldn't help but urge him to avoid being criticized by the world.
The emperor seemed to be thinking much slower than usual at the moment. It took almost half an hour after Gao Pragmatic resigned with a troubled expression before he realized what Gao Pragmatic was worried about. Fortunately, although the emperor's reaction was slow, his IQ was still the same.
In the afternoon of the same day, an oral edict was issued, asking the Chief of Ceremonies to convey the following to the Sixth Section and the General Affairs Department:
"I am ill, and all political affairs have been entrusted to the cabinet. If there is no approval in the cabinet vote for three days, it will be regarded as approved. I appreciate this."
The emperor delegated power to the cabinet. This had happened before in the history of the Ming Dynasty. However, it was the first time that there was a clear system like "any cabinet ticket that has not been approved for three days will be deemed approved."
Once.
This means that the sick emperor actually basically gave up administrative power, retaining only the final veto power.
Of course, the final veto power is of great significance, but how is the administrative power itself not of great significance? Judging from the current situation, especially considering that Gao Pragmatic is both the head of the civil service and at the top of the hierarchy, what is the probability that he will control the administrative power?
Overruled by the ailing emperor?
However, after all, the emperor was only sick, not dead. As most officials said every day, "My emperor is in his prime." Who knows whether he will suddenly recover one day? By then,
If he looks back and finds that certain things were not handled as he expected, will he have a grudge against Gao Pragmatism and be dissatisfied with the courtiers' obedience to Gao Pragmatism? No one can say for sure.
Therefore, the recent history of the imperial court has seemed very strange. On the one hand, Gao Jingjing obviously seeks stability when handling government affairs. He has single-handedly suppressed any measures that may lead to turmoil. Even Qiu Cao and Dabi of the Imperial Guards have been suppressed by him.
Never been there in person - he used to come in person every year, and the Guards were used to it.
On the other hand, the courtiers did not dare to raise any explosive opinions. They were like eggplants beaten by frost, and they were so depressed that they seemed to have been infected by the emperor. At the same time, they resolutely implemented the resolutions to be formed by the cabinet votes, and on the other hand, they resolutely implemented
On the other hand, they often express some dissatisfaction on the Internet - however, these dissatisfactions are all dispensable content.
For example, due to the recent influx of disaster victims from neighboring prefectures and counties in a county, Shangshu requested the imperial court to exempt 3,200 taels for their resettlement of refugees, and the cabinet approved it after review. As a result, the Metropolitan Procuratorate became "noisy" and came out to complain.
According to their strict calculations, the tax exemption limit should not be 3,200 taels, but only 3,000 taels. Therefore, "the matter is of great importance, please discuss it again with the cabinet."
What nonsense do you think this is? It’s only two hundred taels of silver. If the Ming Dynasty spent more than two hundred taels of silver, the country would be destroyed?
There are so many of these.
In fact, anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is not that everyone is looking for trouble, but that the current situation is really too delicate.
After the renovation of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, the pragmatic school became the dominant one in the court, and Gao Pragmatism reached the peak of both civil and military affairs. No one dared to touch his bad luck anymore.
However, now that the imperial court has become an "offline monarchy", Gao Pragmatic has almost become the "acting emperor", but the emperor himself may come "online" at any time. Civil and military officials do not dare to let Gao Pragmatic think that he dares to challenge his authority.
And they didn't dare to let the emperor who might take back power at any time think that he had surrendered to his ministers and had no authority over the emperor, so he could only act like a schizophrenic.
As a result, everyone in the imperial court was walking on thin ice from top to bottom. If the world was at peace at this time, then it would be fine and we could just wait for this period of time. However, there were a lot of big things happening around, and some things were very urgent.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! This brings us to the second major event: King Shunyi asked for help.
Yes, you read that right. After the Monan War, Gao Pragmatic single-handedly helped him ascend to the throne of King Shunyi, and he had a smooth journey with Hannaji. Two days ago, he urgently went to Shu to ask for help from the imperial court.
When he saw the word "asking for help", Gao Pragmatic thought that the Russians were so awesome that they had called a hundred or two hundred years in advance! But after taking apart the memorial, he realized that Hannaji had not been beaten by the Russians.
, but was beaten by God.
To put it simply, the Monan disaster occurred. It was only September, and the snow had already fallen to the depth of half a person, and it was also accompanied by ice disasters. The hailstorm lasted for several days at a time, and it started again after two or three days.
According to Han Naji's description, the hail knocked down more than 20 roofs of the palace he built in the shape of the Ming Dynasty Palace. It is unimaginable what happened to the folk yurts. It is estimated that it is entirely possible to kill people.
Although the Ming Dynasty's materials have poured into Mongolia in large quantities through the horse trade over the years, the Mongolian people's ability to resist disasters has become stronger, but they never expected that God would go so crazy!
Speaking of Hannaji, in this incident alone, not counting the ice and snow in the winter, the Tumut tribe would have lost at least 300,000 sheep and tens of thousands of horses. And according to their experience, such a situation would occur in late autumn.
An abnormal sign means that the winter conditions will be several times more severe - that means that it is impossible for the Tumut Ministry to take effective precautions, and at least half of the cattle and sheep will be lost, and it may even be more serious.
For the Mongolians, cattle and sheep are just like the fields of the Han people, they are the most basic and important means of production and living. Therefore, the crisis faced by Tumut is as big as the Ming Dynasty's fields have been reduced by half this year.
What does it mean? It means that next year there will be chaos in the world, and it is inevitable that the land of China will be full of chaos!
Nonsense, if property and food are cut in half, then how many people who can't survive will have to rely on robbing other people's food to feed themselves? This is not going to cause chaos in the world. Do you think you can turn on the console just to play games?
Han Naji was King Shunyi of Tumed. Of course he only mentioned Tumed, but Gao Pragmatic did not dare to consider just one Tumed - there was also the Nenhorqin tribe in Eastern Mongolia, and there was another group in the northeast.
There are a lot of tribes, such as the Hurha tribe, the Varka tribe, the Ubulin tribe, the Xibo tribe... all the way to the Sauron tribe, there are at least dozens of them, large and small.
Not only that, since the Jianzhou Jurchen and Haixi Jurchen tribes were moved south to Korea, Gao Pragmatic has been engaged in "breaking into the Guandong" for several years. He has moved hundreds of thousands of victims from the northern provinces to Liaodong alone, and
Most of these people were not directly placed in "Daming Liaodong".
Instead, it was placed within the scope of a de facto "military control zone". Instead, it was arranged into the territories vacated by the original Jianzhou and Haixi ministries. Relying on a small number of existing buildings, the city and various small and medium-sized forts were rebuilt, and an initial formation was formed.
There were some Han settlements and several important city strongholds.
In other words, Gao Pragmatic not only has to worry about whether the "Zhenzhen" tribes in the Heilongjiang River Basin will no longer care about the reputation of the Ming Dynasty because of the serious disaster, they can only go south to plunder the Ming Dynasty; he also has to worry about the Xinhan area used to "strengthen the border".
The disaster resulted in heavy casualties... It was as big as one head or two.
Although Gao Pragmatic, as a time traveler who knows the seriousness of the Little Ice Age, has set aside special funds for disaster relief since the reform of the "Large Household Department", the disaster within the Ming Dynasty this year has already made him very anxious.
Most of the money set aside for disaster relief has been spent, and some was originally reserved for the winter.
Fortunately, now, not only the provinces under the direct jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty are facing a shortage of disaster relief funds, but also the Mongolian and Jurchen tribes that have surrendered to the surrounding areas are unable to bear the burden and need emergency rescue from the Ming Dynasty...
Ah, I know I have to save you now. Saving you is to protect my Ming Dynasty from harm. But damn, where’s the money? Where’s the supplies? I can’t change it either!
Gao Pragmatic suddenly felt a little regretful. He had moved forward and opened too many fronts!
The achievements of the Ming Dynasty's Western Expedition were indeed outstanding, but the sequelae of the Western Expedition have already appeared. Now Liu Wei is still fighting the rebellion in the Western Regions, while Boshu Ketu and Erdemutu are still leading their troops to continue the Western Expedition.
The Kazakhs have gone there. Even the last report said that they had reached the coast of the Caspian Sea. They also said that they could wipe out the remaining Kazakhs who dared to covet the old land of Oara in one fell swoop...
Gao Wuzhi now really hates that there are no mobile phones in this era, otherwise he would have to call them and tell them to go back to the Qihe area and prepare to fight this year's white disaster!
Communication capabilities are really poor these days. The imperial court's post road system in the Western Regions is still in the road construction stage. Even if Jinghua's flying pigeons are used to deliver messages, only four pigeon stations have been built: one in Yili, one in Hami, and one in Ye'er.
Qiang Yi, Andiyan (Fergana Basin
) One... The Qihe area is not under the direct jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty. It is not at the top of the queue for establishing a pigeon station in Jinghua. Now no one has even been sent to raise pigeons (to build a pigeon station, you must first send people to raise pigeons.
To familiarize the pigeons with the local magnetic field).
Now it’s better. Boshu Ketu was afraid of the high-pragmatism PUA, and now he has entered the mode of "doing the work rather than the past", focusing on achieving great achievements; Erdemutu regarded his teacher Gao Pragmatism as a lifelong role model, and also focused on success.
Expanding territory, I just want to get a compliment from the teacher...
These two men worked together, thinking that they could take advantage of Kazakhstan's defeat by Burihatu in the south to wipe out the huge Kazakh Khanate in one fell swoop. So much so that even Liu Wei couldn't take the initiative to contact them now, so he could only
We can wait until they take the initiative to report the war situation to the Western Regions.
In this case, it was useless no matter how prestigious Gao Pragmatic was. His orders could not reach the two of them at all, and there was no way to call them back.
Now Gao Pragmatic is really full of anger and has no place to vent his anger. He looks like a nail to everyone he sees - he wants to hammer him on it. But for his current status, he has to pay attention to the "prime minister's demeanor", be gentle and polite in dealing with others, and speak and behave in a way that makes people feel comfortable.
People are like spring breeze... What a mess.
You really can't borrow money, right? Gao Pragmatic locked himself in the first assistant's room and thought about it secretly. But he immediately shook his head, borrowing money was useless. Disaster relief is not a war. The latter can see "expected returns", and the former
What the heck? Even if Gao Pragmatic said: Hey, you bought disaster relief bonds this year, and next year you can use the bonds to get a lot of uncultivated farmland in the disaster area... it's all in vain.
Why? Because those places are bitter and cold places in the eyes of the Han people. If you say you give him a hundred acres in the Northeast, he would rather just have one acre in the Central Plains.
Do you think they don’t understand that even if the yield from one hundred acres in the Northeast is slightly lower, the income from one acre of land in the Central Plains is much higher? No, of course they understand. The problem is that it is difficult for him to realize the income from this one hundred acres of land locally.
So if he couldn't bring it back to the Central Plains, the benefits would be nothing to him.
Why is it so difficult to cash out? The "New Northeast" outside Liaodong is not small, but there are only hundreds of thousands of Han people, and almost all of these Han people have land donated by the court, which is theoretically enough for them to be self-sufficient. So, these Han people can exchange bonds for
How will the harvest be realized from the acquired land?
You said you want to ship it back to the mainland? Are you crazy? After adding the shipping cost, you won’t lose money. You love doing good things so much?
The reason why Jinghua can transport grain from southern Xinjiang and sell it to the northern Ming Dynasty, North Korea, and Japan is because the land in southern Xinjiang is fertile and the climate supports three crops a year. In addition, the local farmers in southern Xinjiang have extremely low usage costs for Jinghua.
Essentially speaking, Jinghua sold grain to the Ming Dynasty because it was completely pragmatic and willing to take the blood of the people from the Southern Territory and infuse it to the Ming Dynasty! The reason why the people from the Southern Territory did not rebel was because Jinghua brought more advanced production methods.
It increased local productivity, forced improvements to the local backward political form, and returned part of the profits originally attributed to local nobles to local farmers.
Therefore, although Jinghua was drawing blood from the natives of the Southern Territories, the natives felt that after Jinghua came, their lives seemed a little better than before... Then why should they rebel?
However, Southern Xinjiang is also at war now and can no longer continue to "increase taxes". Therefore, in the face of Han Naji's letter asking for help, Gao Pragmatism failed to squeeze out much supplies from the Ministry of Household Affairs and could only force it to be sent.
He asked Xuanfu and Datong Town each to transfer 10,000 shi of military rations to Han Naji to maintain the basic food needs of Fengzhoutan.
In addition, he also made a move and spent his own money to buy 30,000 shi of grain, together with some available goods in stock, and gave them to Han Naji in the name of Jinghua, and made it clear that it was a gift without asking for anything in return.
In fact, these things are far from enough for Han Naji's current needs. Gao Pragmatic knows that doing this is a drop in the bucket. He is just maintaining the personal relationship with Han Naji, but there is really no good way now, so he can only do this for now.
What he didn't expect was that a few days later, Han Naji would reply to the letter: one was sent back to Gao Pangshi himself, expressing his gratitude to him for his generosity and benevolence; the other was sent back to the imperial court...
…
In this memorial, Han Naji made an earth-shattering statement: If the imperial court is willing to rescue Tumut, the "Ming Dynasty and the Jin Kingdom" are willing to annex the Ming Dynasty.
As soon as the news came out, the government and the public were shocked.
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