I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 379 Your Majesty, are you crazy?

The king and his ministers argued for a long time, but could not convince each other.

Gradually, Zhu Houzhao also began to get impatient. "I want to reward the King of Jing, but you can't think of a way to reward him. When I want to give him a favor, you won't let me. Now I want to change the King of Jing's title but you won't let me. Am I really the emperor of the Ming Dynasty?"

All the ministers present knelt down.
Liang Chu stiffened his neck and said, "Your Majesty is of course the Emperor of Ming. If Your Majesty wants to change the title of King of Jing, that's fine, as long as you don't change it to King of Wu, I agree with you."

Zhu Houzhao also got angry and said without thinking: "This is what you said, then can we change it to Prince of Yan?"

The Qianqing Palace suddenly became so quiet that one could hear a pin drop, and everyone looked at Zhu Houzhao in shock.
Liang Chu felt his vision go dark and his heart ached, so Yang Yiqing quickly held him up.

"Your Majesty, are you crazy?" Liang Chu said, panting.

Zhu Houzhao also realized that he had spoken out of turn, and said with an embarrassed expression: "I just spoke out of turn. If what happened just now is spread outside, I will punish you severely!"

Everyone nodded and breathed a sigh of relief.

Zhu Houzhao adjusted his mood and continued, "I have made up my mind. It is useless for you to dissuade me. I will issue an order to the clan office and announce it to the world to change the title of King Jing to King Wu."

"You can't stop me." Zhu Houzhao said meaningfully, then turned and left.

The people present were very familiar with the system and process, and they immediately understood what Zhu Houzhao meant.
They really couldn't stop Zhu Houzhao.
Now the Ming Dynasty has a complete and mature decision-making process. The emperor's imperial edicts must go through the cabinet. If the cabinet believes that the edict has problems, it has the right to seal it back. Even if the emperor bypasses the cabinet, the six ministries or local governments will seal and return the edicts that have not been approved by the cabinet and refuse to execute them.

After all, we are all civil servants. The bigwigs in the cabinet have their reasons for returning the imperial edict. If they didn't nod, how can you, a lower-level official, execute the imperial edict? Do you want to save your reputation and future?

This set of procedures is actually quite sound, but there is a loophole in the clan affairs office that is not a loophole.

Although the Zongrenfu was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites after Yongle, it was in charge of the royal family after all and its status was still very high. It had its own independent office, which was close to Chang'an Avenue and opposite Chengtian Gate. Its location was one street ahead of the Ministry of Rites.

The most important thing is that the officials of the Clan Court are generally relatives of the emperor or officials with honors. After all, it is more appropriate for the emperor to use his own relatives to manage the clan, and he can also find something for his relatives to do. For example, the current Clan Court Order is Cui Yuan, the imperial concubine's commander.

This is exactly where the problem lies. The promotion of officials by royal family and officials with honors is completely different from that of civil officials. In a word, the favor comes from above, and it all depends on how close they are to the emperor. Civil officials have very limited influence on them.

For example, the current imperial concubine's son-in-law Cui Yuan, although he has read the books of sages, he has no official title and is completely different from the civil servants.

If Zhu Houzhao bypassed the cabinet and issued an imperial edict to the Imperial Clan Court at this time, would the Imperial Clan Court Minister Cui Yuan execute the edict? The answer is that he would most likely execute it, because as a close official, he had no concerns like the civil officials, and he had no reason or confidence to resist the imperial edict.

If Cui Yuan, the clan leader, accepted the imperial edict, then the edict could be executed in the clan office, and Zhu Houxuan could be directly renamed the King of Wu, which would be a done deal.
The reason why this is a loophole that is not a loophole is that the designer of this process would never have thought that there would be an emperor in the future who would do something like Zhu Houzhao.
Everyone who had figured it out was very anxious, and when they saw Zhu Houzhao was about to leave, they became even more anxious.
"Your Majesty, don't do that." Mao Ji was so anxious that he grabbed Zhu Houzhao's sleeve.
"Let go!" Zhu Houzhao said in a deep voice. "Your Majesty, don't do that." Mao Ji held on tighter.
Mao Ji was an old minister, and Zhu Houzhao couldn't get rid of him.

Just as the two were in a stalemate, Wang Qiong, who was standing by, suddenly had an idea. He hesitated for a moment and said, "Your Majesty, I think it is a good idea to make the eldest son of King Jing a prince. I agree with this plan!"

Wang Qiong's words surprised the ministers present. Some people who were not on good terms with Wang Qiong started to rebuke him, "Wang Qiong, you are so bold to speak so arrogantly!"

Zhu Houzhao's eyes flashed with a gleam of light, and he stopped walking towards the back hall, and said with interest: "Wang Qing, please tell me in detail."

Everyone's eyes fell on Wang Qiong, and Wang Qiong said calmly: "The Imperial Ming Ancestor Instructions states that the emperor's sons can be given the title of prince, and the sons of princes can be given the title of county prince, but it does not say that the sons of princes cannot be given the title of prince."

Wang Qiong's words made everyone present ponder. If you look at the words carefully, Wang Qiong's words still make some sense, but everyone present understood that Wang Qiong was misinterpreting Zhu Yuanzhang's meaning.

Minister of Rites Li Xunxue wanted to rebuke Wang Qiong immediately, but when he saw Zhu Houzhao nodding his head while listening, he swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth.
Everyone present noticed the change in Zhu Houzhao's attitude. They were all smart people and naturally understood what this meant.
"Choose the lesser of two evils," Yang Yiqing said to Liang Chu in a very low voice.

Liang Chu kept weighing the pros and cons in his mind, and realized that this was the only way to do it under the current circumstances.
Compared with the political impact brought about by Zhu Houxuan's retitle as King of Wu, the political impact brought about by Zhu Houxuan's son being made a prince was much smaller and more controllable.

If the son of King Jing could make Zhu Houzhao give up the idea of ​​changing Zhu Houxuan to King Wu, it would be a good choice.
Thinking of this, Liang Chu suddenly felt that Wang Qiong's interpretation of "Huang Ming Zu Xun" just now made some sense, and it should be able to stop the people from talking nonsense.
Now that I think about it, Wang Qiong is not misinterpreting it. It is true that Taizu did not make it clear in "Huang Ming Zuxun"
But we can't blame Taizu. Taizu probably didn't expect that there would be an emperor like Zhu Houzhao in the future.
As he thought about it, the balance in Liang Chu's heart changed.
So he sighed deeply and said, "Your Majesty, the King of Jing has indeed made great contributions to the country, and I, an old minister, also agree that the King of Jing's eldest son should be made a prince."

The Prime Minister had spoken, and the others followed suit.
Zhu Houzhao smiled with satisfaction and said, "Wouldn't it be better if you all had done this a long time ago?"

No one responded to Zhu Houzhao
Zhu Houzhao didn't care about the attitude of the crowd, but said to himself: "I feel that this is not enough to reward the King of Jing for his contribution!"

Zhu Houzhao's words immediately broke the defense of everyone present.
A prince has been created through imperial grace, isn’t that enough?

"Your Majesty, how do you want to reward His Royal Highness the Prince of Jing?" Liang Chu was no longer in the mood to beat around the bush and asked directly.

"I want to give King Jing a more honorific title..." Zhu Houzhao answered very straightforwardly.

Your Majesty, are you crazy?

This thought popped up in everyone's mind...

(End of this chapter)