At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

Guo Peng made Shangshutai official, making it completely out of the jurisdiction of the Shaofu, and set up the cabinet as the emperor's confidential secretarial department, directly under the emperor.

The establishment of the Yushitai and the Staff Office remained unchanged, and Guo Hong and Xi Zhong were still the heads of the Yushitai and the Staff Office. They were awarded titles one after another, and their deputy Qiao Rui and Guo Jia also received titles.

Yushitai is still responsible for monitoring officials' dereliction of duty and violations of the law, and advocates impeachment.

The general staff discussed military plans with the emperor, and were ordered by the emperor to go out to assist the army in combat.

Wang Can, the chief assistant of the cabinet, was reassigned. The candidate for the new cabinet chief assistant was Cao Cao, the former prime minister of the state of Wei. Guo Peng asked Cao Cao to be the first assistant of the cabinet.

The original Kingdom of Wei restored the administrative unit of Jizhou because of the establishment of the Wei Empire, and Guo Peng transferred Han Hao, the former prefect of Hongnong County, as the governor of Jizhou.

But Shangshutai has changed a lot.

Cheng Yu is still the Minister of Shangshu, the original Zuo Pushe Chen Ji died of illness after voluntarily resigning from office, and only Tian Feng was left as a servant. Guo Peng never added an official, nor did he add another servant. They are Cheng Yu and Tian Feng.

These two people still serve as before, but outside of these two, Guo Peng has made a big change.

He directly made a big change to the entire Shangshutai, which was completely changed beyond recognition. Most people would be confused when they saw it, not knowing how this division came about.

On the basis of the Six Departments of Li Hu Li Bing and Criminal Industry, according to his ideas, eight departments were drawn up: the Ministry of Officials, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Punishment, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Taking Cheng Yu as the order of ministers, he is in charge of the entire ministerial platform, and also in charge of the minister of officials, who is in charge of the promotion and promotion of rewards and punishments for officials across the country.

Taking Tian Feng as the Minister of Shangshu, assisting Cheng Yu in charge of Shangshutai, and concurrently in charge of Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, he is in charge of urban construction, water conservancy construction, transportation construction, etc. across the country.

Wang Can, the former chief assistant of the cabinet, was transferred to be Minister of the Ministry of Finance, in charge of tax statistics, expenditures and treasury construction nationwide.

The former Henan Yin Zaoyi was transferred to be Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in charge of nationwide household registration statistics, field mu measurement, and agricultural system construction, etc.

Xinpi, the former Shangshutai official, was appointed as the Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to replace Da Honglu to take over the diplomatic affairs. Under the order of Guo Peng, he re-collected all the information about the Western Regions.

Cui Yan, the former prefect of Wei County, was transferred to serve as Minister of Rites, in charge of all the rituals of the central court and the construction of the ritual system for annual festival activities, and restructured the new Wei rituals on the basis of Han rituals.

Dong Zhao, the former governor of Hedong County, was transferred to serve as Minister of the Ministry of War. He was in charge of the storage of military materials and logistics transportation. He did not directly participate in the military. The staff department directly participated in the military.

Guo Yi, the former prefect of Taiyuan County, was transferred to serve as Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment, in charge of law enforcement. At the same time, he was the core department for the formulation of the new "Wei Law", replacing part of the powers of Tingwei, and standing side by side with the three divisions of Sili Xiaowei and Yushitai.

Because the two legal departments of Yushitai and the Ministry of Punishment are headed by Guo Shi, Guo Peng appointed Guoyuan to the position of Lieutenant Sili, who has a relatively heavy authority, in order to look good.

Guoyuan is also a veteran. He was one of the disciples recommended by Zheng Xuan, a master of Confucian classics, in Guo Peng's Qingzhou period. He has served in various local positions, from county magistrate to county guard to central secretary. His resume is very beautiful and his knowledge is solid. , impartial and selfless, Guo Peng handed over the position of Captain Sili to Guoyuan.

In addition, according to the previous agreement, Guo Peng asked Xun You to be Henan Yin and take charge of the construction work in the capital area, which can be regarded as an explanation for his efforts.

This is generally the case with administrative enfeoffment, and the transfer of some other officials at the same level is very common and not worthy of attention.

What really deserves attention is the major reform of Shangshutai itself.

This can best reflect the new emperor Guo Peng's thinking on the structure of the new political system, as well as the future emperor's governance strategy.

It is precisely in this aspect that it is difficult for the officials to penetrate for a while, because Guo Peng's structure is different from any previous method, and the degree of subdivision is very high.

I don't blame them either. Under the situation of information asymmetry, it is naturally impossible for them to quickly understand what Guo's intentions are.

Guo's intention is naturally to use the unspoken political rules of the dual monarchy since the Han Dynasty, and try his best to destroy this unspoken rule that is completely unfavorable to the centralized and autocratic monarchy.

This peculiar political rule directly affected the political ecology of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, which Guo could not allow.

The political structure of the Han Dynasty can actually be said to be a hybrid of Qin's political system and Zhou's political system.

The so-called Han inherited the Qin system, rather it is the combination of Qin and Zhou. This can be seen from the fact that Liu Bang sealed the clan kings.

The Qin Dynasty never entrusted the kings, but in the Western Han Dynasty there were princes and kings with real power, which is obviously different from the Qin Dynasty's system.

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the princes and kings gradually lost their power. After the long years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, they finally became the current state of complete lack of power.

Even some of the enfeoffed kings were very poor, such as Lingdi Liu Hong before he became emperor.

After the death of Qin II, Liu Bang had to weigh one or two even if he wanted to inherit the Qin system.

So when Liu Bang saw the lesson that the localities were quickly swept away because of the lack of help from the clan when the Qin Dynasty fell, he began to mutter in his heart.

After the kings with different surnames rebelled one after another, Liu Bang became more sure that foreign ministers could not be trusted, and only his own people were the most trustworthy, so Liu Bang entrusted princes and kings with the surname Liu in the local area and gave them power.

It is necessary to entrust the clan kings to defend the central government, but the system of prefectures and counties is also conducive to the centralization of power, so we combined it and established a parallel system of prefectures and states.

In this regard, Liu Bang believes that the Han Dynasty has been stabilized.

However, after his death, the Lu clan's rebellion and the Seven Kings' rebellion are enough to prove that the idea of ​​wanting both centralization and local guards is too naive.

The two systems with completely different orientations, prefectures and counties and enfeoffment, will inevitably bring disasters.

Outsiders are unreliable, and our own people are also unreliable, so what should we do?

Salad.

As far as Guo knows, all dynasties have been very distressed by this kind of thing, and worried that the emperor will be alone and helpless when there is a rebellion if there is no one of his own to control the place. Central, vying to be emperor.

So with the reincarnation of the dynasty, the political behavior of enfeoffing the clan king and not enforcing the clan king is also reincarnated, which is very interesting.

Their starting point is to protect the world of one family and one surname, but no one will admit from the bottom of their hearts that it is extremely dangerous for the imperial power to be in the hands of a family, and it is inevitable to be seized by others.

When the dynasty has come to an end, it will not change because you have or don't have princes and kings with the same surname.

Are there still few kings surnamed Liu in the world?

Are there still few clansmen in the Han Dynasty?

How many people can stop someone Guo?

Mr. Guo never thought it was necessary to discuss such things. In his opinion, if a dynasty went downhill, it was definitely not a matter of enfeoffment or counties, and there was no need to discuss it at all.

Chapter 776 Five Guo Peng can't allow the birth of the next big family

The structure of the political system of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the monopoly of Confucian scholars on the power of selecting officials made it easy for the Emperor Han to be emptied.

Once this situation is formed, the status of Emperor Han himself will be very dangerous, and the imperial power will be snatched away by others, and it will not be easy to regain it.

After Guo took advantage of this big loophole, he would naturally not leave this loophole to others and let others follow his path. Therefore, he has to make a certain amount of changes in the political system.

This change cannot be achieved overnight, otherwise it will expose his autocratic heart prematurely and arouse the suspicion of the officials.

He wants to change little by little.

First, start from the central government, from the Sangong Jiuqing.

The central political system of the Eastern Han Dynasty was summed up with the Sangong Jiuqing as the basic structure, but the actual political power had been completely transferred to the Shangshutai, which was the embryonic form of the Three Provinces and Six Ministries.

There was no prime minister in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the person in charge of Shangshutai would become the de facto prime minister, and often the person in charge of Shangshutai would also have honorary officials such as Taifu and Taiwei to show his high status. , the power is great, but the order of the book is not often placed.

The original intention of Emperor Han was to seize the power of the scholars through the appearance of the Shangshuling, but in the end there was a situation where the Sangong recorded the affairs of the Shangshu.

The Sangong in the Eastern Han Dynasty was very special. Under the dual monarchy system, the Sangong, the governor, and the county guard could open the government and recruit subordinate officials.

The opening of the county guard is a channel used to win over the local nobles and complete the connection between the imperial power and the local governance power.

The opening of the prefectural government is mainly a channel for fulfilling the governor's administrative supervision power and temporary military dispatching power in times of chaos.

The Sangongfu is the channel used by the Yuan family in Runan, the Yang family in Hongnong, and the Xun family in Yingchuan to build a nationwide network of students and officials.

Once the Sangong records the affairs of the minister, he can open the government to recruit subordinate officials, take charge of power, and give power to the world, so that the Sangong, who is a political vase, has actual power. more dignified.

It is precisely because of this that the countermeasure of "removing Sangong in case of disaster" was born.

No matter how strong a scholar is, he must compromise with heaven.

One of Guo Peng’s major political goals after the establishment of the Wei Empire was to completely end the possibility of officials running the government from the central to the local level, and to end the dual monarchy. They opened the government.

But for now, he can't do it.

Although he has the most power, he is not the only one who holds power.

As long as it is not a rebellion, the disciples and old officials must follow the action of the leader and move in step with the leader. This is the most blatant challenge and irony to the imperial power.

The ridiculous thing is that the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty could do nothing about it. They could only sit back and watch such rules become unspoken political rules, rules that everyone agreed that even the emperor could not violate.

A certain Guo's hands and feet were also bound in this way, so when he was a "people", he tried his best to expand the group and power of Guo's old officials, just to become their first and second monarch at this time Monarchs, in every sense earn their allegiance.

But his ultimate goal is not to promote the dual monarchy, but to fundamentally abolish the absurd existence of the dual monarchy, turn the dual monarchy back into a single monarchy, and realize the centralization of power by the emperor.

This strange system has its inevitability, but for Guo Peng, this is unacceptable.

However, in order to abolish the power of summoning officials themselves and end the phenomenon of dual monarchy, it is necessary to abolish the examination examination and establish a separate imperial examination.

If the examination is not abolished and the rules of the imperial examination are not established, he can't do this, and he can't enjoy the power of the monarch alone.

No matter how great his power and prestige are, he cannot fundamentally shake the foundation of scholar politics and cannot abolish the rule of dual monarchy.

This is an important opportunity for someone Guo to realize that he is a representative of an interest group rather than the real master.

So he kept thinking about how to end the existence of the dual monarchy step by step and realize the real absolute monarchy.

But doing so is blatantly infringing on the power of the scholars and poaching the corners of the scholars, which will definitely cause violent turmoil. The world has not yet been unified, and he has not yet secured the throne, so he cannot do this.

But he wants to leave room for himself to do so and lay a little foundation.

Therefore, he decided to virtualize the power of the Sangong and Jiuqing together in fact, and more thoroughly virtualize the power, so that the Sangong and Jiuqing became a real show, only in name, without reality.

First drive away the scholars from the place closest to you, and stop the opening of the government by the scholars at the central level, so that the large Confucian scholars can't rely on the opening of the government to win over students and old officials.

These top gentry clans are too strong and too harmful to the imperial power. Once it becomes a climate, it is almost impossible to eliminate it normally.

The Yuan family in Runan, the Yang family in Hongnong, the Xun family and the Chen family in Yingchuan can be called the four major families of this era.

How much effort he had spent, and how many years he had been a dog, finally overthrew the Yuan family in Runan and wiped out their clan, leaving only Yuan Si as a mascot.

He also took a huge risk to set fire to Hongnong, at the expense of the Han Emperor Han Central and the entire Hongnong City, the talented clan destroyed the Yang family, killed Yang Xiu, and by the way, the main line of the Zhong family, and Zhong Yao .

He also used his accumulated reputation and strength as a basis to start a political struggle. After some risky operations, he finally killed Xun Yu, dubbed him a traitor, and severely hit the Xun family.

Afterwards, murdering and punishing his heart not only made Chen Ji's wan festival unsafe, but also indirectly forced Chen Ji to death, causing the Chen family to leave Yingchuan, and their reputation plummeted, losing their former appeal.

After more than ten years of unremitting efforts, Guo Peng finally overturned the four major families both mentally and physically.

On this basis, he was able to successfully ascend to the throne of God and establish the Wei Empire.

On such a basis, how could he continue to allow the birth of the next big family?

So apart from Situ asking Cai Yong to do it, he didn't buy Sikong and Taiwei, and it was impossible for Cai Yong to record the affairs of the minister and obtain the qualification and power to open the mansion.

Of course, Cai Yong himself did not have such talent and ideas, so Guo Peng could safely let Cai Yong sit in Situ's place as a mascot, accumulating prestige for Guo Jin to use.

As for the servants who are rare in silver, it is purely to make up for the number, and they can only be servants in order to raise horses.

After making such efforts to create such an advantage, Guo Peng was able to temporarily prevent the emergence of the Sangongfu at the central level, so that Shangshutai would not become a hotbed for the nation's top gentry to build family power.

But the existence of the Wei State Shangshutai is more dangerous than the Han Shangshutai.

Guo Peng made Shangshutai official not only to keep it out of the scope of the Shaofu and prevent scholars from interfering with his inner court, but also to reward and win over some of the poor children headed by Cheng Yu, so the status of Shangshuling has a certain status in the Wei Empire a dramatic improvement.

It can be said that Shangshuling of the Wei Empire jumped up to replace Sangong, and he could become the new de facto prime minister without the title of Sangong.

That is to say, in the current situation, Cheng Yu and Shang Shupu She Tianfeng are jointly in charge of the prime minister.

Although these two are his confidantes, Tian Feng is still related to him, but this is what makes him even more dangerous. He can control Cheng Yu and Tian Feng, but what about the descendants?

Cheng Yu's family has inherited scriptures and has transformed into a noble family, and Tian Feng himself is a scholar.

The expansion of Shangshutai's power is Guo Peng's political promise to them, and it is the fruit of victory that they, a group of poor children and second- and third-rate petty clans, assisted Guo Peng in overthrowing the top clans.

This is what they deserve, it is Guo Peng's promise, and it needs to be fulfilled.

Chapter 777. 780 Liu Cao Wei's mistake, Guo Wei can't repeat it

Guo Peng had the prestige to not allow Shangshuling and Shangshupu Shekaifu to expand his powers, and temporarily put an end to the emergence of a dual monarchy at the central level.

However, it is difficult to avoid that they will make contributions again in the future by relying on such status and power, and then win the title of Sangong, once again master the power of summoning, and develop their family into top gentry families like the Yuan family in Runan and the Yang family in Hongnong.

The Shangshutai itself is the emperor's secretarial institution, and it doesn't have that much honor.

The significance of its initial creation is the same as that of the Ming Dynasty cabinet and the Qing Dynasty Nanshufang Military Aircraft Department. They are all for the purpose of extending and defending the imperial power.

The difference is that because of the existence of the imperial examination system, the power of the cabinet and the Nanshufang Military Aircraft Department will always come from the emperor. The emperor's decision will only strengthen the monarchy and will not threaten the power of the monarch. in this way.

This is not the case with Shangshutai.

The Shangshutai is the Shangshutai of scholars, and the emperors come and go, and they are all their own people. It is difficult to strengthen the imperial power. It is basically dancing in shackles within the rules, and it is impossible to make fundamental changes.