There are no two days in heaven, and no two masters in man.
Managing the entire Ming Dynasty and the cabinet of tens of thousands of bureaucrats, he is naturally the unquestioned leader.
This is the authority that the cabinet has gradually established over the course of more than 200 years since its establishment.
If the power of officials and ministries is too strong, there will be a risk of overstepping the authority, thus breaking the entire bureaucracy and causing turmoil.
Party government is inevitable.
As we all know, party strife played an important part in the demise of the Qianming Dynasty.
Zhu Yixi naturally thought of these and felt fearful.
"Then let's set up another one!"
The emperor could no longer stand the bloatedness of the six departments.
As early as the 29th year of Hongwu, the Ministry of Personnel was designated as the Four Puritan Official Divisions, namely the Wenxuan Division, the Enemies Verification Division, the Merit Examination Division, and the Honors Examination Division.
He is in charge of the selection of civil servants across the country, examinations, the administration of honors, and the return of military attachés to the Ministry of War.
Except for the cabinet bachelors and the Ministry of Personnel, who are recommended by the court or by special orders, all internal and external officials are selected by the Ministry of Personnel in conjunction with other senior officials or selected by themselves.
As for the official staff, such as clerks in the six chambers, doormen, servants, footmen, catchers, jailers, couriers, grain cadres, etc., they are all appointed and dismissed by the chief officer of the Yamen, and their salaries are very small.
Since the imperial court did not participate in the inspection, appointment and dismissal of subordinate officials, these subordinate officials did not worry about their own futures and were even more emboldened to do bad things.
They are either taking advantage of legal loopholes, or they are using money to make false claims, talking nonsense, and playing with the law.
Guo Songtao, an official in the late Qing Dynasty, once said bluntly that the Qing Dynasty "shared the world with subordinate officials."
In the Shaowu Dynasty, all these subordinate officials were changed from cold status and humble status to civilian status, and there was also a formal establishment.
But just like in the past, the appointment and dismissal of subordinate staff are all subject to the preference of the chief official.
Thinking of this, the emperor stood up and said:
"According to the words of the Ministry of Officials, there are as many as fifty or sixty to more than a hundred officials in each county, including magistrates, county magistrates, governors, edicts, instructions, inspections, and historians. Since a certain person compiled the official books, more than 100 officials were added.
There must be two to three hundred people eating the county government’s meals among the three elders!”
"I'm afraid it won't stop."
Zhao Shu said truthfully: "However, the harm caused by subordinate officials has been widely known to the government and the public. Although the local burden is heavier, a few hundred people are barely enough to govern a county with ten thousand households."
"If we ignore these people, wouldn't we be allowing the magistrate to become powerful?"
"If the staff were under the control of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, they would be too busy if the staff were expanded several times!"
Zhu Yixi raised her head and showed a smile: "The Ministry of Personnel manages officials, and the Ministry of War manages soldiers. We need to set up another one to manage these officials."
"There are more than a hundred thousand officials in the world?" Zhang Shenyan exclaimed: "Your Majesty, I'm afraid one is not enough. I'm afraid we need three or four."
Zhu Yixi glared at him: "Nonsense, how is this inappropriate?"
"My intention is to give these high-level officials to the new ministry."
During the local reforms, there were six offices in the county, six offices in the government, and six offices in the province. Especially the six offices in the county, which were the ninth grade, were incorporated into the imperial court in one fell swoop and officially entered the stream.
And from the ninth rank, they are indispensable leaders such as head catchers and gangsters.
According to Zhu Yixi's intention, the three elders must also enter the ninth grade.
"These officials who enter the ranks below the seventh rank can be managed by the government office, and the official status is registered in the new ministry."
"What about the six offices of the government office?"
"Aren't these six places set as the sixth rank? (The prefect is the fourth rank) and should be selected by the Ministry of Personnel."
As for the six provincial officials such as the chief envoy and others, they are subordinate to the fourth rank and are officials who have made the transition to the prefecture.
Of course, from the emperor's perspective, the main function of this new department was to select and take care of lower-level officials such as the three elders.
To put it bluntly, you can only have the qualifications to select people, but cannot accurately place jobs, because this requires the cooperation of the local government.
This is precisely difficult. They don't have the energy to communicate with local governments. After all, there are 2,000 counties in the country.
Those retired soldiers who have expired will be placed in each county by the new ministry, and then properly placed by each county government.
As long as it complies with their resettlement regulations, the rest is irrelevant.
After saying this, the three members of the cabinet were suddenly stunned.
"Your Majesty, I wonder what the name of this new department is?"
Zhao Shu was quite enthusiastic.
The weakening of the Ministry of Personnel means the strengthening of the Cabinet. At the same time, the establishment of this new Ministry means that the power of the imperial court is greatly increased.
This is beneficial to the cabinet.
"Name?" Zhu Yixi hesitated for a moment, then said resolutely: "Organization Department."
"The Central Committee has established a new Organization Department, and the six local officials will remain unchanged for the time being."
The three of them looked at the emperor eagerly, their thoughts changing.
Although this organization department, which can arrange officials below the seventh rank, does not seem to have much power, to a certain extent, it is also a kind of power.
Especially for scholars, candidates, and officials, it has a decisive influence.
"The new Minister of Organization Department, I'll think about it again."
The emperor showed a trace of confusion.
There are hundreds of thousands of civil servants across the country, and just the selection process for recommending officials is enough to give people a headache.
The expressions of Zhao Shu and others did not change, and they began to think about how to win this position.
Due to the emperor's reforms, the power of personnel in the civil service was equally divided among the three. Although the chief assistant had more say, he had no decision-making power.
Once the organization department is obtained, it is equivalent to indirectly determining the personnel rights.
As we all know, personnel is the lifeblood of bureaucrats.
"Your Majesty, although there are some county magistrates in the provincial examination, most of them are also officials, so what?" Zhang Shenyan suddenly thought of something and said directly.
"I just remembered it when you said that."
Zhu Yixi suddenly realized: "Then the provincial examination will be supervised and handled by the Organization Department!"
"I don't know, who is in charge of this organization department?" Yan Chongxin cautiously showed a look of expectancy.
Zhu Yixi was stunned, and then realized that it was a matter of decentralization of powers within the cabinet.
"I just remembered, the previous administration department didn't draw a clear range, right?"
The emperor glanced at the three of them thoughtfully and showed a confident smile:
"That's all, let's wait until the Minister of Organization Department has made arrangements, and we will make arrangements together to save ourselves the trouble."
"Your Majesty is Holy Ming."
The three people had different thoughts and bowed in unison.
As the saying goes, there is no sect within a sect, and there are all kinds of strange things.
Since the emperor restricted the examiners of the imperial examinations, there were no veterans of the three major cabinets to preside over them, so their factions were still composed of senior officials.
Not to mention Zhao Shu, he is the most senior and the leader of the shogunate faction in the DPRK, that is, the bureaucrats from Hanzhong to Huguang.
Since Zhang Shenyan was from the Donglin Party, he was naturally favored by those old ministers, and he effectively accepted the old ministers of the Chongzhen Dynasty, making Emperor Shaowu quickly accepted by the bureaucrats.
Yan Chongxin, on the other hand, has insufficient qualifications and can only win over some centrists. He favors left and right, does not benefit, and does not help anyone.
It is precisely because of this that Zhu Yixi can occasionally be lazy and have such trust in the cabinet.
Because of this, there is no intention to rebuild the Supervisor of Ceremonies.