Chastity Layman

The gates of the Liangyi Hall were opened one after another.

The sky is still covered with a sliver of night, and a column of nobles comes from the misty morning light, wearing the cool vigor of summer morning.

Li Shimin walked to the middle throne.

The hall is still very dark, and the hall is full of copper lamps, reflecting the various postures of the officials in the hall.

The emperor stood there and looked around condescendingly before taking his seat to accept the court.

There are nobles and purples shaking in front of my eyes until the sound of the mountain stops.

After the ceremony.

"Officials above the fifth rank, if they are engaged in important military matters, they will report and listen to them in person, and the rest of the routine will be entered later!"

"Everything is going to be played one by one!"

The censor sang loudly.

As a Shuowang meeting held on the first and fifteenth day of the new year, because there are many officials involved, there are more rules. On the contrary, there are few serious discussions. With so many people, it is not easy to keep secrets, and it is too scattered and chaotic. Therefore, a system has been established long ago. At the outer court meeting, except for important military and state affairs, general routines are not presented in the hall, but are presented separately.

The main function of the court meeting is to engage in ceremonies and let the emperor show off his prestige. There are usually a few things at the meeting of the foreign court. The official said goodbye to his majesty, the foreign official went to the palace to thank him, and the newly transferred officials went to the exhibition to thank the king.

When veterans retired, the emperor gave comfort and rewards in person, when Beijing officials were released, the emperor also encouraged them, and when foreign officials were transferred to Beijing, the emperor asked a few words of concern in person.

Other than that, Chang Chao is just a regular meeting, a ceremony.

Only officials of the fifth rank or above are eligible to report to the palace, and the Chen must be of important military affairs, otherwise, if they dare to take something casual and say it at the court meeting, they will be repelled by the censor and recorded.

Even if it is an important matter of soldiers and horses, if there are endless disputes, Shi Yushi will also control the time. When the time comes, he will order the end of the performance and switch to the post after the retreat.

Even if it is an important military affairs, it will require the next battle.

According to the system, there will be guards of honor in the outer court meeting. After the court meeting is over, the guards will retreat, and all officials will withdraw with the guards. When encountering important matters, the emperor can ask the prime minister or important ministers to go to the inner hall to play the battle.

In essence, it is a court meeting, except that compared with the court meeting presided over by the prime minister, the battle under the battle can sometimes be done alone or by multiple people. This kind of battle is usually a special meeting held for a certain fundamental issue, and relevant officials are called to participate.

For this kind of battle, there will be a living man who will be responsible for recording, and there will be a historian to record.

However, this kind of fighting has always been attacked by the prime ministers. The reason is that there is a lack of supervision. The emperor casually summons officials to discuss and make decisions, which is actually depriving the prime minister of his power. On the other hand, the court meetings and court meetings are all supervised by special censors, officials, and admonishing officials.

However, there are only records of living officials and historians, and there is no supervision. Officials who participate in the events under the staff have no rank or official position restrictions, and the meetings are confidential, so they can say a lot of things to the emperor without supervision.

This is easy for some people to take the opportunity to slander and attack political opponents.

Therefore, usually the prime ministers perform their affairs in groups, and it is most taboo for the prime ministers to play against each other face to face, which is easy to carry private goods, and even attack political opponents.

In the past two years, the number of attendees has reached a thousand people on weekdays, and it was even thousands of people during the Shuowang court meeting, and it took most of the day to sing at the palace gate.

After a set of ceremonies are laid out, there is no time to discuss matters.

Even if something happened, ninety-nine percent of the officials would not be able to hear it, and they were not qualified to participate in the discussion. Only officials of the fifth rank or above had the right to speak.

So the Zhenguan Dynasty meeting has become more and more ritualized and less nutritious, and it has to get up in the middle of the night every day, earlier than the chicken, which is purely tossing people.

Especially for the prime ministers, they are even more disgusted with this kind of court meeting. The prime ministers have to deal with a lot of things every day. They have to work together in the political affairs hall and manage the affairs of their own offices.

Not to mention that Li Shimin is a diligent man, he has to hold a court meeting every now and then, and from time to time he has to work under the stick, which makes the prime ministers get up early and work in the dark every day, which is miserable.

On the one hand, he is too busy with things, but on the other hand, he wakes up in the middle of the night every day, wasting most of the day in this useless court meeting.

So in the early court, the prime ministers were similar to Qin Lang, they all sat there with their eyes closed to refresh their minds, so as not to waste their tongues.

The prime ministers sit opposite each other in front of the incense table at the imperial steps, and behind them are two classes of civil and military classes from the first to the ninth rank.

As usual, I would like to give thanks to the official officials, give a speech to the foreign officials, and face the saints in the Beijing official hall...

By the time these routines were over, the sun had already shone into the temple.

The censor sang loudly, "Let's play something!"

Shangshu Zuopushe and Wei Guogong Fang Xuanling stood up and held up the wat board.

"My minister, please play, the world is peaceful, in case everything is simple, please come to the court once every three days! Shuowang Dynasty, please stop at the fifth rank! And please stop fighting and play!"

Fang Xuanling did not play important military and state affairs, but wanted to change the early court system, changing the daily attendance to once every three days, and changing the Shuowang court meeting from the original ninth rank and above to only the fifth rank and above scattered ranks. Participation of noble officials.

The old house also seems to be tired, holding this kind of court meeting without salt and water all day long, I am tired of being bored, it is too time-consuming and affects the rest, the court meeting does not deal with business at all, just doing nothing.

How can the prime minister have so much time to retreat.

Fang Xuanling also requested that the morning court be controlled within one hour of Mao in the future, so as not to affect the work of various ministries.

Qin Lang silently praised the old house, expressing the feelings of many officials. He would get up at three o'clock in the morning every day, and then wait in front of the palace until five o'clock in the morning. It's all right, it's all right, such a morning court sometimes has to be opened until noon, and they have a lunch in the palace before leaving the palace.

It's been half the day.

Back to their respective yamen, they have to take a lunch break and have business meetings in the afternoon, and it is getting dark soon, so Suoya gets off work, every day, no wonder the office efficiency is low, there are reasons for it.

It would be better if you said that the officials of the court are all people with idle positions and ranks, but they are all officials from the three provinces, six ministries, nine temples, five supervisors, twelve guards and other departments of the imperial court.

Of course the world is not peaceful today, but it is appropriate for Lao Fang to use this as an excuse. You can't just say that the emperor is too painful to drive this morning, so stop driving.

Sitting on the throne, Li Shimin glanced over the prime ministers, and found that none of the prime ministers stood up to object.

"May!"

As a diligent king, Li Shimin is not afraid of getting up early and suffering early, but he also feels that early court is not nutritious.

However, the early dynasty is a tradition of thousands of years since the Qin and Han Dynasties, and it is impossible to change it just by saying it.

"What Fang Xiang said is very reasonable, I think we can change the regular court to every other day." Speaking of this, Li Shimin paused and said, "The Shuo Wang Dynasty on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar new year can be changed to the five and tenth court. .”

The emperor did not fully adopt Fang Xuanling's suggestion, and changed the Chang Shen once every three days to every two days once, and made adjustments to the officials of the Chang Shen, reducing the number of Chang Shen officials to about 300. Officials of the fifth rank and above in the Yamen participated in the court.

The Shuowang Dynasty was also adjusted, from two dynasties in January on the 15th day of the first day to one dynasty every five days, and the specifications of the dynasties on the 15th day of the new year remained unchanged, and officials of rank nine or above still participated. For the rest of the fifth and tenth dynasties meetings in the first four days, officials of the fifth rank and above in Beijing participated.

As for saying that please cancel the next meeting, Li Shimin pretended not to hear it.

For the emperor, this is a good way to balance power and control power. How could the emperor give up easily.

Just like the court meeting, knowing that there is no practical effect in the morning court every day, but in order to maintain the emperor's majesty, court etiquette and other needs, the morning court has to continue, and Shuo Wang's court attendance has even been changed from twice a month to six times a month.

In order to distinguish the two grades of Shuo Wang Chao ginseng, the emperor also asked future officials to attend the Shuo Wang Chao meeting and wear hakama pleats uniformly to go to court. The hakama pleats were originally military uniforms since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and became a kind of official dresses in the Sui Dynasty.

in the hall.

There is an objection to the change of the court system in the middle of the matter, thinking that the king does not come to the court early, which is a sign of lazy government, and Fang Xuanling, as the prime minister, said that the world is peaceful, this is a treacherous statement, and it is to block the king's eyes and ears .

Li Shimin gave five bolts of silk as a reward to this subordinate, but he still did not change his decision.

The court meeting did not end until noon, and the emperor gave meals as usual.

In normal courts, the emperor gave 100 plates of mutton as an example. Today, the emperor gave 2,000 plates of mutton in the court.

Usually, one hundred plates of mutton use three sheep, and one plate of mutton is actually about one catty.

Today, 60 sheep and 2,000 catties of mutton were used for one meal. It was too extravagant for an official to complain, but Wei Zheng was too lazy to criticize the emperor for this matter. The mutton was paid for by the emperor's internal treasury. I can't control it either.

Besides, I got up in the middle of the night to go to court, and endured for a long time in the hall, and I was really hungry at this time, isn't this fresh and tender mutton delicious?

The three masters, the three masters, the prime minister, the prince, Kaifu Yitong and the three divisions have small stoves.

The lunch of the prime ministers is the same as the usual dine-in, eight dishes, very rich. The prime ministers' Xiaozao ate a sheep alone, and gave them another, which was not among the sixty sheep.

In addition to a sheep, there are ten catties of beef and several tails of fish.

Three meat and two vegetables, and two cold dishes and one soup. The dishes are exquisitely prepared and taste good, which suits Qin Lang's appetite. The Gulouzi that he ate in the morning is almost digested by now.

The Dragon Boat Festival is approaching, and today I have even made horn millet, that is, zongzi. When the leaves are peeled off, the zongzi is as white as jade, so the zongzi is called Xiangjaponica White Jade Tuan.

Today, Li Jing, Yang Gongren, Yuwen Shi and three were added to the prime minister's class. Sun Fujia, who was dismissed as prime minister, was missing. This man was not favored by Ma Zhou. But there is no reunion for the time being.

A total of nine prime ministers dined today, thirty catties of mutton and ten catties of beef, this dish is really rich.

"This sheepskin filigree is very well made!" Li Jing dozed off in the hall, but now he became more energetic, and he used his chopsticks like a spirit.

I was full of praise for the dish of sheepskin filaments made of sheep stomach and tripe, and I ate up the dish on my table in two or three times.

"Taste this Wusheng plate on behalf of the public. It is a colorful cold dish made of sheep, pig, cow, bear, and deer cut into thin slices. Look at the chef's knife skills. The meat slices are as thin as paper. , and it’s very lenient, dipped in this Xun Xun sauce, it’s really a must!”

Qin Lang said to Li Jing with a smile.

Xunpao sauce is a sauce made from fresh fish caught in the Yellow River and freshly slaughtered mutton. The fish and mutton are fresh, and they are really delicious. The name of the dish means fast. This sauce is also made very quickly, using the freshest The ingredients are made with the simplest cooking method, which is very delicious.

Changsun Wuji held a piece of white-cut mutton and said, "I still like today's cold-cut mutton. Slice the mutton's hind leg, boil it in water with seasonings such as shallots, ginger, and tangerine peel until the meat is crispy, and then take it out. Let it marinate, let it cool, put it in an ice tray to freeze, and eat it immediately, it is refreshing and palatable.”

Although tens of thousands of pigs are slaughtered in Chang'an today, the prime ministers rarely eat pork, and mutton is still the king.

"After a court meeting, we're going to use troops against the Western Turks, Sanlang, I want to ask Ying to be in command, do you think it's okay?" Li Jing put down his chopsticks, looked at Qin Lang and said.

Before staying in the courtyard, Li Jing and Yang Gongren were just nominal prime ministers and were not there, so he didn't know that Qin Lang had already proposed to let the eldest grandson Wuji be in command, and he had also obtained the tacit approval of all the prime ministers.

Changsun Wuji heard the words and felt that Leng Xiuyang didn't seem so attractive anymore, "Dai Gong is highly respected, a generation of military gods, but how can you kill a chicken with a butcher's knife? Where are you going?"