There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 386 Turning Back the Clock of History
Late at night, at the imperial palace.

Nie Yu did not rest, but was in his study, deep in thought. On his desk was a sheet of Xuan paper with the following names written on it: Emperor, Female Officials, Secretariat, Cabinet, Various Ministries and Departments, Local Governments.

The female officials have been marked with a cross in vermilion ink. The inner court of the new Han Dynasty is not allowed to interfere in politics; this is an established inner court system.

If Nie Yu didn't want to use eunuchs, then he would use female officials. However, the new dynasty's inner court, composed of female officials, could not be given the power to interfere in the outer court, otherwise, there would definitely be a lot of trouble.

He couldn't control what future rulers would be like; he could only worry about the present.

Although there are many criticisms of the eunuchs in the inner court, without eunuchs acting as intermediaries in the struggle for power, the missing power will not simply disappear; it will only be quickly seized by the outer court.

The struggle between imperial power and ministerial power has always been the same. Even during the Qing Dynasty, the Han Chinese cabinet, which was regarded as slaves by the Qing, still dared to challenge the Manchu nobles.

As long as the imperial power yields, the prime minister will become frantically aggressive, demanding more power, and even coveting the imperial power itself.

Therefore, targeted supplementary adjustments must be made. Referring to the political experience of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Ming dynasty initially saw Zhu Yuanzhang abolish the prime minister system and establish the Three Offices to divide the prime minister's power, before he himself seized absolute power.

This model is useful, but not advisable, because it is too busy. The power of the prime minister is completely controlled by the imperial power, which means that the emperor must become a workaholic.

Working more than ten hours a day is the norm, and sometimes it can be twelve or thirteen hours when things get busy.

Nie Yu had no idea how Zhu Yuanzhang managed to maintain such diligence for over twenty years. You have to understand, this man even had to deal with trivial matters like theft cases in the imperial city, and yet he didn't die from overwork. His health was truly amazing!
Such diligence in governing is something even Nie Yu himself finds difficult to handle, let alone future emperors.

Even if he dissolves the cabinet now, seizes all power, and persists for twenty or thirty years until he dies from overwork, future emperors will surely find ways to shirk their duties and cease governing.

The more opportunities there are for relinquishing power, the more power is relinquished, and the stronger the prime minister's power becomes.

After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, Zhu Di, who succeeded to the throne in the thirty-fifth year of Hongwu, established a makeshift cabinet in order to have time to conquer the northern deserts and seal the wolf's lair. This cabinet was tasked with handling government affairs in addition to his military campaigns.

At this time, although the cabinet had begun to engage in state affairs and frequently participated in confidential matters, it was still subordinate to the emperor's secretariat and had no decision-making power; it could only offer suggestions.

The real opportunity for the Ming Dynasty's cabinet to gain immense power lay in the "Rule of Renxuan," but the aftereffects of the "Rule of Renxuan" were too great for the Ming Dynasty.

Two emperors died young in succession, and the total reign time of all the emperors during a prosperous era did not exceed ten years.

This led to the Ming imperial power remaining in power for the first time for an exceptionally long period, allowing the power of the prime minister, which had been fragmented during the Hongwu era, to launch a counterattack.

During the reign of Emperor Baozong, Yu Qian was forced to take over the military power of the Ming Dynasty after the Tumu Crisis. As a result, the power of the prime minister quickly spiraled out of control.

The Tumu Crisis has been interpreted by later generations as a conspiracy theory, but if it really is a conspiracy theory, it can only mean that the civil officials' concentration of power was ruthless. The ministers of the six ministries were willing to die alongside the military officers and were willing to plunge Beijing into a crisis. It was time for them to take power.

Yu Qian was able to take over the defense of Beijing purely because he was an official of the Ministry of War, and the only surviving highest-ranking official of the Ministry of War. If he didn't take over, who would?
The Ming Dynasty after the Tumu Crisis was characterized by a constant tug-of-war between imperial power and the power of the prime minister.

In order to seize power, the imperial court began to rely heavily on eunuchs and use them to take control of the government. However, the cabinet often could not defeat the eunuchs supported by the emperor, so the imperial court turned to intervening in the Six Ministries.

Over a century of power struggles, the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs gradually came to represent the emperor within the Ming Dynasty's inner court, while the Six Ministries, as an institution subordinate to imperial power, became lackeys of the Grand Secretariat.

The Hanlin Academy... The Hanlin Academy is nothing. They initially joined the cabinet in seizing power, but once the cabinet gained power, they immediately forgot their roots and kicked them aside.

Nie Yu no longer uses eunuchs, partly because he dislikes the eunuch system, and partly because the idea that eunuchs seizing power is completely ineffective.

While eunuchs could indeed suppress the cabinet with the emperor's support, they were not fools, as the Ming Dynasty has already demonstrated.

Any eunuch who helped the emperor seize power would immediately become corrupt and embezzle, using his power to amass wealth. No eunuch was willing to do anything practical for the emperor.

Because serving the emperor inevitably meant taking the blame, just like the commanders of the Embroidered Uniform Guard throughout history, few of them had a good ending (two died peacefully).

Even if the emperor successfully seized power using eunuchs, once the emperor died and a new emperor ascended the throne, the civil officials would immediately launch a counterattack and purge the eunuchs.

Afterwards, he seized the power that the eunuchs had taken from him, further strengthening his own power as prime minister.

The most obvious example is Emperor Chongzhen at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Tianqi seized power through eunuchs. After Emperor Tianqi's death, Emperor Chongzhen immediately purged the eunuch faction, including Wei Zhongxian, at the urging of civil officials, and heavily relied on civil officials.

Later, feeling that civil officials were unreliable, they began to heavily rely on eunuchs. After using eunuchs for a period of time, they switched back to using civil officials.

The eunuchs had become so corrupt that even Emperor Chongzhen himself couldn't stand it anymore.

After the Qing dynasty seized control of the Central Plains, it learned from the lessons of the Ming dynasty and made corresponding adjustments. The Qing dynasty's real inner court agency, the Imperial Household Department (eunuchs), did not manage the outer court and was not allowed to leave Beijing, precisely to prevent eunuchs from causing chaos in the government.

The successive measures taken by the puppet Qing dynasty included first establishing the Imperial Ministers, then the Southern Study, followed by the Imperial Study, and finally the Grand Council under Emperor Yongzheng.

The system was constantly changing, and it was only when it reached the Grand Council that it became truly stable. However, Nie Yu could neither use nor refer to the Grand Council.

Because the Grand Council was similar to the Zhu family's model, both of them held all the power, big and small. They got the power of the prime minister, but the emperor was also extremely busy.

Emperor Yongzheng did indeed die from drug use during his thirteen-year reign, but he was also incredibly busy and had to rely on drugs to maintain his energy. Moreover, the core of the Grand Council of the puppet Qing dynasty lay in its heavy reliance on Manchu officials and bannermen to defeat the civil service.

Nie Yu stared at the various institutions of the Han Dynasty written on the paper, pondered for a long time, picked up the vermilion pen and circled the Secretariat, then circled the Cabinet.

Under the previous system of the Great Han Dynasty, although Nie Yu set up a cabinet, he also upgraded his own secretariat to the Secretariat, placing it above the cabinet so that it could report closely to him.

Then, minor local matters are decided locally, and the decision is reported afterward. Major matters that cannot be decided are reported to the central ministries and departments.

The various ministries and departments of the central government provide their opinions and submit them to the Cabinet. The Cabinet reviews these opinions and then provides its own. Alternatively, it may submit its opinions to the Secretariat, which conducts a final review before submitting them to Nie Yu for a decision on whether to adopt the opinions of the various ministries and departments of the Cabinet.

It's a real problem, but he also holds onto power firmly, and the cabinet is basically his mouthpiece.

Now that the new dynasty has been established, Nie Yu needs to adjust the original power structure. He was able to hold power under the previous structure, but he was just too busy, almost working himself to the bone.

This was when his territory was small; now it has expanded to more than twice its original size, and it will definitely grow even larger in the future. He simply cannot handle the backlog of various government affairs and trivial matters.

After much deliberation, Nie Yu decided to reorganize the Secretariat, allowing it to coexist with the Cabinet, both under the joint authority of the Emperor.

There's no other way, I really can't think of any good solutions. Using eunuchs to seize power is pointless, as they don't work and won't listen to orders. Using female officials to take power is just plain crazy.

The pseudo-Qing dynasty is completely of no reference value. They were a slave-owning dynasty disguised as a feudal dynasty. By turning everyone into slaves, they didn't need a very complex system.

The Secretariat has always been placed above the Cabinet. The Cabinet will gradually become a mere formality in the new dynasty, and the Secretariat will become a new smaller Cabinet.

Since that's the case, let's demote the Secretary's Office, keep the officials of the Secretary's Office at a low rank, and set a time limit. When the time limit is reached, they must be sent to serve as officials in other places to ensure the mobility of the officials of the Secretary's Office.

Furthermore, the Secretariat should be able to directly connect with the various ministries and departments, enabling communication from local to central ministries and departments, and from central ministries and departments to the Cabinet and Secretariat.

The Cabinet will try its best to adopt the proposed solutions from various ministries and agencies. If it does not adopt them, an internal vote will be held to provide a draft opinion.

The Secretariat would review the draft proposals from the Cabinet and then submit them to the Emperor.

In this way, the conflict between the power of the prime minister and the power of the emperor can be temporarily eased, and the secretariat, the cabinet, and the various ministries will fight each other first.

If we can't solve the shield problem, then we should first shift and divide the shield.

The central ministries and departments hold executive power, the cabinet holds decision-making power, and the secretariat holds final review power.

The three-way power structure is in competition, and during the dynasty's heyday, the cabinet, the secretariat, and the various ministries could not possibly join forces.

Because if the three parties join forces, two of them will inevitably lose power, or at the very least, become lackeys of the party in power.

The Secretariat, the various ministries and departments of the central government, and the Cabinet all have real power and can check and balance each other. How could they possibly be willing to become dogs and lose power?

Moreover, under this system of separation of powers, the emperor could relax a lot, and he could easily skip over memorials from the three parties whose opinions were not significantly different.

If the three parties disagree, or even if the Secretariat or the Cabinet raises explicit objections, then the emperor can make the decision himself.

In this way, the emperor's workload can be reduced by at least half.

As for how long it can last, whether it's decades or centuries, Nie Yu doesn't know, but as long as he's alive, it shouldn't be a big problem.

As a review body, the Secretariat was completely under the suppression of imperial power; the emperor could freely decide the fate of its officials.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the cabinet was initially used by Zhu Di as a secretary and advisor. However, the cabinet officials were all low-ranking officials, and there was not even a proper office.

The Qing dynasty's Grand Council also followed this principle, with no actual appointment of Grand Councilors. If the emperor issued an edict appointing you to the Grand Council, you were a Grand Councilor; if not, you were simply out of luck.

If we had to use an analogy, it would be that the power of the prime minister was divided into three parts, leading to internal competition, while the emperor took away one-third of the prime minister's power as a check and balance to shift the conflict.

However, there are still potential hidden dangers under this system. The three power departments are indeed competing with each other, but after Nie Yu's death, if the emperors of later generations cannot suppress the competition among the three parties, it will lead to endless wrangling among them.

You say yes, I say no. Even for a small matter, the emperor has to personally step in and make the final decision, which increases his workload significantly.

Nie Yu slowly picked up the sheet of Xuan paper; he had ultimately turned back the clock of history.

If eunuchs are not used, then only a department with nominal power can be established to join the struggle for power and achieve a balance of power.

What to do next, whether the tripartite balance of power can be maintained, is beyond his consideration, and he has no way of considering it.

We can't just jump straight to a parliamentary system, can we?

In Europe, parliaments were tools for the bourgeoisie to seize royal power; once a parliament was formed, the first thing it had to do was overthrow the emperor.

(Having never been an official, my political acumen is limited, so this is the best I can do.)
(End of this chapter)