After the Great Court Meeting on the 15th day of the first lunar month was over, Luo Zhixue truly entered the working state, and the entire work rhythm returned to normal.

Basically, every day, there is a duty meeting before the emperor, mainly to listen to some important brief reports from the ministers, and then Luo Zhixue gives corresponding instructions according to the specific circumstances of the matter.

b. The ministers present will not be all the counselors and co-organizing ministers, but often only the counselors and co-organizing ministers who are on duty and take over.

This time is also the day when the ministers on duty make handovers.

The counselor ministers and co-organizing ministers who were on duty last night can go home and rest after their morning meeting.

The new ministers on duty and the coordinating ministers will take over the work and start the day's work, which will last until about 8 o'clock in the evening. They will hand over the work to the ministers on duty in the evening shift and then go home to rest.

Therefore, there are not many people participating in the daily morning meeting in front of the imperial family. There are usually two or three ministers on duty and four or six co-organizing ministers.

The total number of people is probably between six and nine.

b After the morning meeting, Luo Zhixue began to process various reports and memorials. These formal reports were mainly submitted by various ministries. After passing through the hands of the responsible minister or co-organizing minister, they were then submitted to Luo Zhixue.
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They are all reports involving major affairs inside and outside the empire, such as changes in legal provisions, major engineering projects, foreign military affairs, major administrative adjustments, the appointment and dismissal of some mid-level and senior officials, and other important matters.

b These reports are usually drafted by each department and are responsible for specific affairs. The Minister of each ministry or the Zuo Shilang who is actually acting in charge of the department gives approval opinions. After approval, this report will be made in triplicate, and one copy will be sent to the person in charge of the affairs.

The review and approval will be carried out by the Minister of Counselor or the Co-organizing Minister.

The second copy was sent to various departments of the Hanlin Academy.

The third copy is sent directly to the archives room for filing.

The minister in charge or the co-organizing minister will review and approve the report after receiving it. The minister in charge will give detailed approval opinions, and then the report will be sent to Luo Zhixue... The approval opinions of the minister in charge are sealed.<

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b However, there will be a lot of report documents sent to Luo Zhixue. At the same time, many of the reports are a thick pile, often containing dozens or even hundreds of pages of reports.

It is impossible for Luo Zhixue to really read every report from beginning to end. At the same time, it is also impossible for Luo Zhixue to not read anything and directly approve or reject a certain matter according to the approval opinions of the minister in charge. Therefore, he only reads

Briefing summary.

Where do these briefing summaries come from? That is the main job of the Hanlin Academy.

The Hanlin Academy has various departments, and each department is specialized in corresponding to a certain department.

The administrative system currently has 31 ministries of different sizes (including the Grand Inspectorate and the Grand Judge) or first-level agencies such as the General Administration and General Administration at the second-grade level.

The military system has twelve departments, including four departments and two directors of the Army, four departments and one headquarters of the Navy, and the Guards Command.

There are nearly forty first-level institutions in the two major civil and military systems.

Each of these more than 40 first-level institutions will have a corresponding department in the Hanlin Academy.

The corresponding departments will review the second report submitted by each department and extract the key points in the report to form a briefing.

Then the report and the briefing are sent to the Hanlin Academy Secretariat, where the first or second secretaries, along with the third secretaries, will review them.

After review, if there is no problem with the briefing, the briefing will be sealed.

In the end, the reports of each department, the approval opinions of the ministers in charge, and the briefing from the Hanlin Academy were sent to the imperial court for Luo Zhixue to make the final review.

Luo Zhixue usually only reads the briefing from the Hanlin Academy and the approval opinions of the minister in charge. If there are no problems in both aspects, he will directly approve or reject according to the approval suggestions of the minister in charge.

Only when there is a conflict between the secretariat's briefing and the approval opinions of the minister in charge, or when the matter is more important, Luo Zhixue will personally read the reports that contain dozens or even hundreds of pages.

b. Processing reports submitted by various departments is part of Luo Zhixue’s daily work, but it does not take the most time.

In fact, it would take Luo Zhixue more time to review and approve memorials in the traditional sense.

However, these memorials that require Luo Zhixue's personal approval are different from memorials in the traditional sense. Only officials of a certain level are allowed to submit memorials.

Beijing officials need to be from the fourth rank to the actual deputy director or above, while for local civil servants, only those from the fifth rank or above are eligible to be promoted to secret offices.

And this kind of secret words are not allowed to be used to talk about other messy things. For example, officials used secret words to greet guests. This happened in the early years, but after being severely punished by Luo Zhixue, it was clearly stipulated that the use of secret words was not allowed.

After doing all this mess, it basically never happened again.

At the same time, it is also required that what is said be meaningful and no nonsense is allowed. If you want to impeach using secret documents, then the officials must be held responsible for the impeachment itself.

b The secret discount system is to provide officials, mainly local officials, with a direct channel to Tianting, and it is also to strengthen local control.

Under special circumstances, Luo Zhixue does not need to issue orders to provinces through the Council of Ministers or even ministries, but can directly issue orders to local officials through secret decrees.

The system of separate management of affairs, the Hanlin Academy briefing system, independent taxation, the local secret system, the complete separation of civil and military affairs, the huge conflict between land and sea, the Guards becoming its own army, etc.

These various systems can actually be simply understood as Luo Zhixue's continuous efforts and attempts to strengthen the imperial power.

After this series of systems, the imperial power of the Great Chu Empire was highly centralized. No traditional feudal dynasty could compare with it. Compared with the imperial power of the Great Chu Empire, the imperial power of the pre-Ming Dynasty was not even worthy of holding a shoe.

As long as Luo Zhixue is willing, he can bypass the Senate and take over the entire Gyeonggi organization directly through the Hanlin Academy.

As long as Luo Zhixue is willing, he can bypass the entire Gyeonggi bureaucracy and issue orders directly to local officials.

b Luo Zhixue was able to do this largely not because of his great talent or ability, but simply because he was the founding emperor and had unprecedented prestige and intimidation.

In addition, because he was the founding emperor, all the political structures of the Chu Empire were designed by him with reference to many systems of later generations, without any interference in between.

Just like painting on a piece of white paper, Luo Zhi can paint however he likes, without any interference or opposition from old interest groups.

When vested interest groups were formed, the political structure of the Chu Empire was already very mature.

These interest groups have actually become the defenders of this political system.

For example, Beijing officials are actually very unhappy with the local secret system, because in this way, local officials will bypass various ministries and even counselors and report directly to the emperor.

But the officials in the capital were unhappy, but the local officials welcomed it with raised hands and tried their best to maintain it, because with the local secret system, their opinions could be heard directly by heaven without worrying about being blocked by various ministries or even ministers in charge.

bTaxation independent system... If anyone dares to propose that tax affairs be reintegrated into various ministries and establish a traditional household department or the like, the officials from the tax ministry will thoroughly investigate the official’s tax issues the next day.
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Today, not many officials dare to say that they have no tax problems, even if they don’t have any, but what about their family members?

b. If other officials dare to propose the abolition of the Hanlin Academy’s briefing system, do you really think that the bachelor’s degree in charge of the Hanlin Academy is just a job? He is the Minister of Counselor... In addition, in the officialdom of the Da Chu Empire, many officials in the Hanlin Academy,

It is a very important political force, and the well-known secretarial department is only part of it.

In addition to the secretarial department, there are more than 40 departments in the Hanlin Academy. Usually, those who are selected into the Hanlin Academy are mainly young or middle-aged officials with great prospects.

These people came and went, there were quite a lot of them in total, and many of them later held high positions, thus forming small factions.

Not to mention the final participation system. Anyone who dares to have an opinion on the participation system will be going against the nine most powerful ministers and more than 20 co-organizing ministers in the empire.

All these factors mean that there are already a large number of vested interest groups in the current political structure.

And these people will spontaneously maintain the operation of this political system.

Even though this political system is the most centralized system of imperial power since ancient times.

But they will still insist on persisting because it has their own interests.

u001bThis is also the reason why many dynasties in history found it difficult to carry out reforms and caused a lot of backlash.

This has nothing to do with whether the reform plan is good or not, but because any reform will harm the interests of some vested interest groups, and these people will oppose it.

The current Chu Empire is actually similar. Relying on Luo Zhixue's prestige and deterrence, it is possible to carry out some tinkering reforms and adjustments, but it is very difficult to make big moves, or even to peak the existing political structure.

After Luo Zhixue's death, if the Chu Empire wants to carry out reforms and make changes to its core structure in the future, it will be almost impossible.

u001bNot even if the emperor supports it!

Empire b, after all, is not an empire of an emperor, but also has many ministers and other interest groups.

bOf course, the current political structure of the Chu Empire is still operating quite stably. At least Luo Zhixue is very satisfied with this. It allows him to control real power without being too busy and exhausting himself to death.
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After the imperial morning meeting every day to review and approve reports and secret documents, the next step is to meet with some ministers or hold some small meetings.

bThe working hours for the previous day were almost the same. In the evening, Luo Zhixue went back to the harem after get off work.

However, he does not live in the emperor's exclusive palace three kilometers behind the inner court, that is, the Qianqing Palace. Instead, he lives in Dongyuan to the east of the Qianqing Palace.

Because many of the palaces in the Imperial Palace of the Great Chu Empire were built strictly in accordance with traditional architectural styles. This kind of palace looks majestic, but in fact Luo Zhixue doesn't like it if you really want to live in it.

After all, he is a modern man with a modern aesthetic style!

Therefore, after the main buildings of the palace were built in Chengshun for more than ten years, Luo Zhixue took a look and finally decided to build a new palace in the eastern area of ​​the palace for his daily living.

This is the origin of Dongyuan.

The design of Dongyuan is mainly based on the traditional garden architectural style, and incorporates part of the modern architectural style proposed by Luo Zhixue. The most important feature is that it pays great attention to lighting and some details. The interior decoration looks softer, rather than the solemnity of a traditional palace.

and thick.

In terms of building materials, marble, glass, reinforced concrete are mainly used.

bSince Dongyuan was built in the 22nd year of Chengshun, Luo Zhixue has lived in Dongyuan every day.

As for the Qianqing Palace, it is basically vacant, and people only go there during some special times or ceremonial occasions.

Not only did Luo Zhixue live in a new-style garden palace like Dongyuan, but in fact many concubines also lived in some new-style palaces.

When Luo Zhixue built Dongyuan, he also built many new-style palaces behind Dongyuan.

Therefore, the current imperial palace of the Dachu Empire is actually a combination of tradition and modernity.
To be continued...