In the end, these excerpts were summarized by the Secretariat. In theory, the Secretariat only sorted out these excerpts and then submitted them to Li Xuan for personal review. It did not have the authority to approve them.
But the reason why the Secretariat has become the most important organization of the Hanlin Academy is because of this authority. This authority can, to a certain extent, determine which excerpts are more important and which ones can be seen first by the Holy Emperor, or even whether they can be seen at all.
Influenced imperial politics.
Because the Holy Emperor Li Xuan was very busy every day, it was impossible for him to carefully review hundreds of excerpts every day.
The excerpts that allowed him to read carefully and give personal instructions were often the most important ones, such as excerpts about high-level personnel changes, military affairs and other major matters, as well as excerpts about disagreements between the imperial study room and the Hanlin Academy.
For the rest of the common excerpts, especially those that the imperial study room and the Hanlin Academy had unanimous opinions on, he would usually read them at a glance and directly approve or understand them.
Sometimes when he was lazy, he wouldn't even bother to read it, and would just say "read" and "got it" at the back of the book.
After all, Li Xuan's time is not enough every day as he gives instructions on hundreds of notes every day and has other messy things to do every day.
Normally, after breakfast in the morning, he would arrive at his office at eight o'clock sharp, meet with the minister on duty in the imperial study room and the traveling minister, and hold a simple morning meeting. If there were no special events, it would usually be half-time.
It can be over in about an hour.
Then Li Xuan will start to review the excerpts, and this review will last until about eleven o'clock.
Then there is the interview with the ministers. Most of these ministers are officials from various places who have returned to Beijing to report on their duties, or to give policy reports before taking office. This interview time often lasts until past twelve o'clock, and sometimes they even directly provide meals for them to eat while eating.
Keep chatting.
After the chat, Li Xuan would take a nap, wake up in the afternoon and continue to review the papers. At intervals, he would meet with ministers. These ministers were usually high-ranking officials, and they usually had temporary meetings to meet him.
Li Xuan looked at the time. Sometimes he would see him, but sometimes he would be too lazy to see him.
In the evening, Li Xuan would summon the chiefs of each section of the Hanlin Academy for a daily meeting. Because it was often close to get off work at this time, Li Xuan always told them to talk when they had something to say and to shut up when they had nothing to do. Most of these regular meetings were held for half an hour. End within.
After the regular meeting of the Hanlin Academy, Li Xuan's daily work for the day is basically over. In the evening, if Li Xuan is diligent, he will work overtime and continue to review the excerpts.
However, even a self-proclaimed diligent person like Li Xuan cannot bear to do this every day, so he usually does not work overtime at night, or spend time with his family, or enjoy dancing, even if he is in a daze in the office, he is not willing to do so.
The review and approval process continues.
This is daily life. In addition, regular court meetings are held on the first, tenth, and twentieth day of every month. The number of courtiers participating in this regular court meeting is much larger than the number of people attending the daily morning meeting in the imperial study room.
In the morning meeting in the imperial study room, the participants are limited to the ministers on duty and the ministers on duty. The number of people is usually only about seven or eight, and no more than a dozen people at most.
As for the regular court meetings, the participants have only one characteristic, and that is the heads of each department!
On the civilian side, there are ministers of various ministries, censors of the Supervisory Yuan, judges of the Supreme Court, and heads of other directly affiliated agencies. On the military side, there are mainly heads of departments of the Privy Council and the Naval Command, and the three chiefs of staff of the Guards.
There are about forty people in total.
However, such a court meeting is still just a small meeting. After all, it is a regular court meeting once every ten days. It is mainly used to discuss matters, and the discussions are all important and controversial matters.
Therefore, it is often easy for heated arguments to break out in such regular court meetings, and it is normal for them to last all morning.
However, this kind of routine court meeting is still very different from a formal court meeting, otherwise it would not be called "routine".
Traditional court gatherings are often formal court gatherings attended by many people. Hundreds of people can participate casually, and the participants are not limited to high-ranking officials, but also include clans, nobles and the like.
This kind of large court gathering attended by hundreds or even thousands of people actually only happens rarely a year.
This kind of great court meeting is said to be the emperor's meeting with ministers to discuss matters, but let alone the Tang Dynasty, even in other traditional dynasties, it has become a ritual. In the great court meeting with hundreds or even thousands of people participating
Isn’t it nonsense to discuss national affairs?
Everyone gets up early in the morning to get ready, and they have to stand for at least a morning, let alone sit. Even making a slightly larger movement will be impeached and impolite. In this kind of situation, even a minister with weak physical strength can't stand it.
.
Even Li Xuan himself suffered a lot in such a big court meeting!
He would get up at around five o'clock in the morning. You should know that usually, he would get up at seven o'clock even for the morning meeting, and usually go to the front hall to work at eight o'clock.
You have to get up before five o'clock in the morning, wash yourself up under the service of a group of people, put on your dragon robe, have a simple breakfast, then run to pay your respects to Queen Mother Bai, and then arrive on time at about seven o'clock
The main hall!
Then he sat on a tall golden dragon chair, wearing a dragon robe embroidered with gold threads and dragon patterns, which was large but needed help from several people to pass it up. On his head was a luxurious but extremely heavy crown, and then followed a statue of a god
As if, sitting motionless on the dragon throne and accepting the minister's kneeling ceremony!
In the early years, Li Xuan quite enjoyed the feeling of being shouted "Long Live" by thousands or more people at the same time. However, after more than ten years, he has lost this feeling. Sometimes he feels like sitting there
Sitting on the throne, I looked like a puppet, a bit stupid.
However, this kind of great court gathering has been a tradition of the Central Plains dynasty for thousands of years. The Tang Dynasty claims to be the orthodox Central Plains dynasty, and it also pays attention to governing the country with benevolence, filial piety, and Zhou rites, so many of these traditional etiquette are not easily
Give up on changes.
Fortunately, this kind of big court meeting usually only happens once or twice a year, and the impact is not big.
The daily court meetings that deal with government affairs are still small-scale regular court meetings. As for daily work, they are still based on daily morning meetings, regular meetings, and reviewing documents.
It can be seen from this that how important it is to review the excerpts, and the Secretariat, which has the authority to organize the excerpts, actually has very large powers. However, although the real power is great, the restrictions given by Li Xuan are also very large.
First of all, not all officials in the Secretariat have this authority. Only the first-class secretary, the bachelor director, the deputy director, and the accompanying secretaries who actually participate in the work of compiling the documents do not have this authority. The second-class people below,
Third-class secretaries also do not have this authority. There are only a dozen or so first-class secretaries who have this authority.
However, all the first secretaries of the Secretariat, that is, those who have the right to participate in the organization of documents, are basically selected by Li Xuan personally, and they must be lone ministers. Anyone who has contact with ministers outside
, it is basically impossible to become a first-class secretary, and they are strictly monitored by Hantong. If there is any improper behavior, it is basically finished.
However, even so, it is actually difficult to completely guarantee that no problems will occur.
After all, any system has loopholes. All Li Xuan can do is to improve the system as much as possible and strictly control it.
Otherwise, he would have to personally review hundreds of excerpts, which was impossible. Even if he did nothing for a day, he would not be able to review so many excerpts.
It is necessary to give some power to the disadvantage, but the disadvantage must be controlled so that the ministers can restrain each other.
This system has not had any major problems since it was established by Li Xuan. As for whether there will be any problems in the future, it is possible, but Li Xuan doesn't have any good solutions.
Whether it is the cabinet system and the ceremonial supervisor system in the pre-Ming Dynasty, or the Manchu Military Aircraft Department system, there are actually many flaws.
In this world, there can be no truly perfect system without any loopholes.
Today, Li Xuan reviewed the papers as usual. After first dealing with military affairs and some personnel changes, he saw Chen Lifu's paper.
Although Chen Lifu's excerpt only talks about ordinary government affairs, Chen Lifu is a famous person on Li Xuan's side. Basically, all the secretaries in the secretariat know that this person is Jian Zai Di Xin.
, the folds he sends will usually be reviewed by Li Xuan personally.
In addition to Chen Lifu's personal factors, it is also related to the content of this document. This is about the merger of Shanghai County. Shanghai is currently the largest industrial and commercial city in the empire, and its weight is very important. Naturally, this kind of thing is also
It needs to be handled by Li Xuan himself.
In addition, the review opinions of the imperial study room were inconsistent with the review opinions of the Industrial and Commercial Department of the Hanlin Academy. This is also the reason why the first-class secretaries of the Secretariat gave this document to Li Xuan for review first.
The combination of these three aspects puts this book in the top ten in priority among the hundreds of books available today.
Li Xuan picked it up and first read the details on the brochure. In fact, the contents of the brochure were very simple. The focus was nothing more than the merger of Shanghai, Huating and Jiading counties.
The minister on duty in the imperial study room clearly expressed his opposition.
However, the Business Department of Hanlin Academy believes that it has certain merits.
As for Li Xuan himself, after a brief look at it, his first impression was that this Chen Lifu seemed to be building a big Shanghai!
This is reasonable combined with the development of Shanghai in later generations. Shanghai's development path is also a process of expansion, from a single county before to Greater Shanghai, and then to almost the entire Songjiang Prefecture.
However, what the cabinet said is reasonable. In fact, there is no difference between Shanghai in later generations and Songjiang Prefecture today.
Although Shanghai in later generations was just a city, it also had districts underneath it. Today's Songjiang Prefecture also has counties under it, and the difference between counties and districts is not that big.
The key to the development issue of Songjiang Prefecture or Shanghai is not the administrative merger or not, but the connection issue between various regions, or more simply, the issue of interest distribution.
As for this point, if it is after the merger, then it will be handled by the Shanghai County Yamen after the merger, and before the merger, then it will be handled by the current Songjiang Prefecture Yamen.