At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Page 433

When Cao Rui was the emperor, he was very troubled because he could not interfere with the government affairs of Shangshutai, or even enter Shangshutai to execute documents, but he was helpless, which shows the weakness of Cao Wei's imperial power.

Therefore, when Guo Peng was unable to use the imperial examination system to cut off the foundation of the source of scholars' power, he had to divide the power of Shangshutai, weaken the authority of Shangshuling and Shangshupushe, and weaken their role little by little.

Then find a way to re-centralize power in your own hands.

In this way, the buds were snuffed out in the cradle before the birth of a new national gentry.

The power is divided into eight departments, each with a head, and Cheng Yu and Tian Feng are required to specialize in one department to consume their energy so that they cannot exercise the power wholeheartedly.

Not to mention, Guo Peng set up a cabinet outside Shangshutai in order to further check and balance Shangshutai.

Shangshutai was originally the secretarial department set up by Emperor Han to divide the power of the three officials and nine ministers, and it belonged to the Shaofu and the inner court department in terms of establishment, which has a similar meaning to the birth of the cabinet.

Therefore, Guo Peng set up a cabinet very early. He deliberately made cabinet officials become his trusted ministers to help him handle government affairs, and they could only be appointed by him, and they could not enter the cabinet through any other means.

Then, the chief assistant of the cabinet also does not have the power to summon subordinate officials. This is very important, and it was specifically determined by Guo Peng.

The cabinet is his private consulting department. Although it is also a formal official office, the chief assistant is not qualified to enlist subordinate officials, so the first assistant of the cabinet can only exist under Guo Peng, and the whole cabinet is like this. An important prerequisite for manipulating the cabinet against Shangshutai.

And because the chief minister of the cabinet is a close minister of Guo Peng, the closest to Guo Peng, facing the Shangshutai with Guo Peng's back, he may be transferred to an important department with real power as a crony at any time to become a big boss, so the chief minister of the cabinet In Shang Shutai's view, the advantages and power he possessed cannot be underestimated.

The power of the chief minister of the cabinet comes from Guo Peng, not from himself and his blood.

Because of this fact, coupled with Guo Peng's various preferential treatment for cabinet members, some scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the existence of the cabinet.

They think that the cabinet is a group of "lucky ministers", including Wang Can, the former chief minister of the cabinet, who was appreciated by Guo Peng for his mathematics.

Initial political disputes have already begun to emerge.

Although Guo Peng could not shake the foundation of literati politics in the traditional sense, he made some innovations. In the eyes of literati, although they were dissatisfied, they still had to admit it even if they pinched their noses. Who made Guo Peng have high prestige and power?

Representatives can also be divided into strong and weak.

Although Guo Peng can't raise the cabinet to the same level as Shangshutai in name for the time being, at least he can give the cabinet an important position in practice.

It is the power of inferiority in the traditional sense.

This is the same as the initial positioning of Shangshutai. Guo Peng wants to make Shangshutai have a sense of crisis, so as to fight the cabinet and attract firepower.

Let the connection between Shangshutai and Guo Peng be inseparable from the cabinet no matter what, let the cabinet actually become a thug of the imperial power, and in a sense form a check and balance on the unprecedentedly powerful Shangshutai.

It is also necessary to further promote Guo Peng's supremacy as the emperor.

It is inconvenient for the emperor to personally tear up his courtiers to fight for power, which is very unreasonable and will lose the sense of mystery.

Not only that, Guo Peng will gradually start to work within the cabinet, including more powerful children from poor families, and excluding the children of scholars. In the near future, the cabinet and Shangshutai will become the base camps of fighting skills between poor families and noble families respectively.

This is one of the means to win over poor families and attack scholars.

At the same time, the power of Shangshutai is divided, and the responsibilities are subdivided. Each department has a minister and two ministers, so that the rudiments of the Liucao Shangshu, which have not yet formed rules, are directly promoted into mature ministers. Each has its own authority.

The supreme Shangshuling will naturally still exist at the moment, but in the future, Guo Peng will gradually take the power of the Shangshuling away, make the Shangshuling a nameless, and actually separate the Shangshutai from the various ministries.

Guo Peng will gradually, bit by bit, directly issue orders to these administrative departments instead of ministerial orders, and gradually let the eight ministers actually connect directly with the emperor through the cabinet, so that there is no unified head, so as to weaken the power of scholars.

Slowly, Shang Shuling, the actual prime minister, was emptied, the power of the prime minister was abolished, and the power of the prime minister and the imperial power were combined into one, all in his own hands.

Although Cheng Yu and Tian Feng are close friends of Mr. Guo, Mr. Guo is now the emperor, the emperor, not the people.

In order to consolidate the imperial power, the prime minister actually held by these two people is his greatest enemy. He can still control the prime minister when he is there, but once he is gone, his descendants may face Cao Rui's embarrassment.

Cao Rui couldn't even intervene in the administration of Shangshutai. Facing the resistance of the scholars, he was powerless and could only stare blankly.

Guo Wei cannot repeat the mistakes of Cao Wei.

But one cabinet is obviously not enough, and right now, there are many scholars in the cabinet, even outstanding scholars, such as Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi.

Guo Peng wants to use them, but their own class attributes doom them to be Guo Peng's enemies.

Therefore, it is not enough to rely solely on the cabinet. At most, it will form party struggles and it will be difficult to bring about positive effects.

So other help is needed.

Yushitai counts as one.

Because the Guo family is a special legal family, the main positions of Yushitai have basically been monopolized by the Guo family and their relatives.

Doctor Yushi and Yushi Zhongcheng, as supervisory officials, were defined by Guo Peng as positions that rely on the emperor's back and face the ministers, and have the power of supervision. Their main duty is to supervise the officials of Shangshutai.

See if they are corrupt or dereliction of duty.

The advantage of Guo Peng's complete control of Yushitai is that it is convenient for Guo Peng to launch political purges at any time in the name of anti-corruption.

In the eyes of future generations, Guo Peng will definitely become the first emperor to fight corruption on a large scale and frequently since Qin Shihuang.

The staff desk is also an institution established by Guo Peng, and it was also built by Guo Peng to split the power of scholars.

Xi Zhong and Guo Jia are the No. [-] and No. [-] heads of the staff desk, who are responsible for the planning and strategic design of marches and expeditions, and do not participate in administration.

There is only one Guo Peng between the staff desk and the army. Although the staff desk itself is used by Guo Peng to isolate traditional scholars and the army, the staff used by the staff desk itself are basically scholars.

I'm not worried at the moment, but in the long run, Guo Peng decided to establish a military academy at the same time in order to prevent the military that he currently firmly controls from being infiltrated by scholars.

He is currently planning.

Chapter 778 Qi Guo's autocratic heart

For this military academy, it is naturally used to escort the seizure of power.

Since he was escorting the seizure of power, he naturally planned to use the emperor as the principal.

Build this military academy into an important institution that specializes in cultivating military talents loyal to the royal family, and then use a large number of military academy talents to enter the staff office and monopolize the positions of the staff office, so as to gradually establish a tradition that all staff office officials graduate from the military academy.

Moreover, military academies do not enroll external students, they only enroll in the army, and provide specialized training for those soldiers who have made contributions and are interested in conducting staff work within the army.

It doesn't matter if you don't know how to read or write, and it doesn't matter if you are born in Li or Shu. After entering the military academy, you can learn, and you can learn anything.

In this way, it can be regarded as indirectly opening up an upward channel for Li Shu, and fundamentally isolating the connection between scholars and the army, ensuring the emperor's control over the army.

For an autocratic emperor, the army is the real red line, more important than his power, because strong enough force is the foundation of all rule, and force is the foundation. If the emperor cannot directly control the army, it will be extremely dangerous.

Fortunately, the Wei army has been under the strict control of Guo Peng since the establishment of the army in the era of Colonel Hu Karasuma.

The military discipline is strict, the military regulations are very strict, and various rules and regulations are thoroughly implemented. Anyone who tries to challenge will end badly, no matter who it is.

In this way, Guo Peng has a very strong control over the army.

Scholars can't interfere with what he wants to do to the army. If he wants to do these things, as long as he is targeting the army, the scholars can't do anything about him.

Can't move your lifeblood or move the army?

Don't think about moving the army in my hands, you know!

This point, I believe everyone is tacit understanding.

And judging from the tradition of the Eastern Han scholars discriminating against and suppressing soldiers, Guo was not worried that they would have any power in the army.

These days, all the outstanding soldiers are trying their best to transform into scholars, such as the Sima family in Hanoi, Sima Yi's family. Apart from this, I have never heard of scholars transforming into soldiers.

By the time they realize that they want to transform, it is probably too late, and the military academy has already been established.

The specific structure of the central government was almost established by Guo Peng. He reused the cabinet, divided the ministerial office, and monopolized the staff office and imperial history office.

Set the tone.

In the local area, Guo Peng did not go to war. The local area is still a five-level system of states, counties, counties, and villages. Among them, the governor of the state and the prefect of the county still have the qualifications to recruit subordinate officials, which Guo Peng cannot shake for the time being.

It doesn't matter to the governor of the state, after all, after being deprived of military power and financial power by someone Guo, the governor of the state who only has administrative power can't make any troubles. Big hidden danger.

The power of the local government to establish a government office was established on the basis of the Eastern Han Dynasty sharing the world with the powerful, and Guo Peng was forced to inherit this rule.

Because of the inaction and weak small government of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Guo Peng had to wipe their ass for them.

In fact, the establishment of this kind of system is also of practical significance. Those who control the resources and population are the local tyrants. If your government does not cooperate with the tycoons, you will not be able to govern the local area well, so you must distribute power to the locals. The essence of the prefect opening the mansion.

The Kaifu of the prefectural governor is similar, but under the background of the troubled times at the end of the Han Dynasty, Kaifu became a channel for the sheriff and this matter to win over local military talents to participate in the struggle for hegemony, which changed the flavor.

Originally, the opening of the government was to maintain the rule.

Moreover, in such an era of extremely poor traffic and information, the speed of traffic and information dissemination is a major factor limiting the centralization of the monarchy, so Guo Peng has focused on building roads and building post stations to increase the speed of information dissemination since he took control of the place.

Over the years, he built a well-developed transportation network in the Central Plains, and extended it to Hebei, then to Bingzhou and Youzhou, and then to Kansai and Yangzhou through wars.

Enhancing transportation, enhancing the ability and speed of rapid dissemination are important ways to enhance the centralization of power, and through the control of information and intelligence, Guo Peng can clearly feel the increase in power.

The opportunity to break the dual monarchy at the local level in the future lies in the level of transportation construction.

However, this alone is not enough.

In order to further consolidate the imperial power, strengthen the imperial power, and counterbalance the blood superiority of the scholars, Guo Peng also reused eunuchs and spies to engage in eunuch politics and spy politics that the scholars hated and feared the most.

This is inevitable, and Guo Peng has been preparing for it for a long time.

From the moment he decided to be emperor, he knew that he could not do without the help of spies and eunuchs.

Eunuch politics and spy politics both appeared in history to consolidate imperial power. They were notorious because they were hated by scholars, but for the emperor, they were very practical.

In modern times, eunuchs have disappeared due to historical factors.

But spies, which sovereign country does not engage in them?

Eunuchs have no descendants, cast off power, are deformed existences that can only be attached to the emperor, and are special existences under the autocratic monarchy system.

The emperors of all dynasties have examples of using eunuchs to fight civil officials, and eunuchs are generally loyal to the emperor, and they are the most loyal and reliable thugs of the emperor.

The only exception is the eunuchs in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, but this also has its historical factors, and there is also a certain sense of falsehood.

However, the eunuchs in the Tang Dynasty were indeed unprecedentedly strong, mainly because they had mastered the Shence Army of the Central Forbidden Army.

In the case of warlords everywhere, the Emperor Tang did not rely on the magic army controlled by the eunuchs. There was really nothing he could do, but this was also the reason why they played the Tang Dynasty to pieces. The reasons for such a special era of political transition.

Under normal circumstances, the important significance of the existence of eunuchs is to protect and extend imperial power.

The power of eunuchs comes from the imperial power, and the emperor stands behind the eunuchs. The actions of eunuchs are basically ordered by the emperor. The group of eunuchs is one of the biggest supports for the emperor in the face of a large number of civil servants.

Especially for Guo Peng, who is not a real emperor in the true sense, the eunuch's guard obviously has more significance.

The more the scholars scolded, the more they hated, and the more they wanted to kill all the eunuchs, it proved that eunuch politics was right and indispensable from the standpoint of the emperor.

The existence of eunuchs makes scholars feel like a stick in their throats.

The more you hate it, the more I want to use it!

Guo, whose autocratic heart was unprecedentedly strong, decided to imitate the system of the Ming Dynasty, set up eunuch yamen, strengthen the group of eunuchs, and give them the ability to compete with scholars in a certain sense.

Of course, in name, this was done to serve the royal family and to allow the royal family to get better care, so more eunuchs had to be recruited, the responsibilities were subdivided, and the royal family was taken care of in every possible way.

There were twelve eunuchs in the Ming court, four divisions and eight bureaus, a total of 24 yamen, not to mention all of them, some of them must be erected.

The name is better——

Compared with the later autocratic emperors, the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty lived a rough life, and the rough Guo didn't even see it.

He even let scholars serve as internal officials and serve in the inner court with eunuchs.

Are you kidding me?

How can a noble scholar keep company with eunuchs?

And without the service of these eunuchs divided into categories, how can it reflect the specialness of the royal family?

How can it embody the honor of the emperor?

How can it be convenient to do things without compromising the majesty of the emperor?

I am the emperor, and I want to be honored, so I want to use eunuchs to serve myself. I definitely don't want to use eunuchs to kill you, don't get me wrong.

All the scholars can leave the inner court. I will use the eunuchs to do all the things in the inner court. You don't need to worry about it. You can concentrate on studying and studying.

Chapter 779 780 Eight eunuchs and secret agents

When Guo Peng communicated with the officials before proclaiming himself emperor, the officials didn't understand why Guo Peng didn't set up Jiuqing.

Without Jiuqing, how could he serve the royal family?

Guo Peng told them at the time that he had his own arrangements.