After the Hu Weiyong case, Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system, and based on the Zhou Dynasty Liuqing system, the status of the Six Ministries was upgraded. In other words, there was no "middle layer" between the emperor and the Six Ministries, and the Six Ministries began to be directly responsible to the emperor.
As early as Spring and Autumn and Warring States , China began to implement the prime minister system, and the separation of powers between the prime minister and the emperor could check and balance the imperial power to a certain extent, making it difficult for the emperor to have his own way. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister system that had lasted for more than 1,000 years, which had a profound impact on China's political situation for the next 600 years. The most significant impact was undoubtedly the strengthening of autocratic imperial power.
The question is, why did Zhu Yuanzhang abolish the prime minister system? In fact, in addition to his strong desire for power, there are also more realistic and objective reasons of last resort.
To explain this problem, we must first take a look at the top-level system of the Chinese dynasties after the Sui and Tang Dynasties:
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the "three provinces and six ministries system" was implemented, which refers to Zhongshu Province, Menxia Province, Shangshu Province, The six ministries refer to the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Husbandry, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Punishment, and the Ministry of Industry. Among them, Zhongshu Sheng is the highest administrative agency, Zhongshu Ling is the chief executive, usually the first prime minister.
After the Song Dynasty , the three provinces were still in name, but in fact they were mixed into one province, because the Song Dynasty established the Privy Council (responsible for the army), and the Third Division (responsible for Duzhi, Hubu, Salt and Iron, and the chief officer was San (Si envoy), so the prime minister's military and financial rights were deprived, and the system of three provinces and six ministries existed in name only.
After the Yuan Dynasty, Zhongshu was the governor-general of hundreds of officials, and the Privy Council and Yushitai were in charge of the three powers of government, military, and supervision. status becomes more prominent. In the Yuan Dynasty, Zhongshu Sheng was in charge of national government affairs. The highest official was Zhongshu Ling, who was usually held concurrently by the prince, but it was only a false position. Those who really held power were the right and left prime ministers (in the Yuan system, the right was on the right, and the right was above the left).
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty , Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the Zhongshu Order, but still unified the six ministries with the Zhongshu Province, and the chief minister was called the left and right prime minister. As for the Privy Council of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, it was changed by Zhu Yuanzhang to the Metropolitan Governor's Office . As for the Yushitai of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang changed it to the Metropolitan Procuratorate , with Dali Temple , General Affairs Department , Jinyiwei and Zhenfu manage.
It can be seen that each new dynasty inherited the previous dynasty, but also made some changes. Among them, the Ming Dynasty basically continued the Yuan Dynasty system. However, it was precisely because the early Ming Dynasty inherited the traditions of the Yuan Dynasty to a certain extent that Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister.
After Kublai Khan succeeded to the throne, he adopted the Central Plains official system and wrote to the provincial premier about national government affairs. Adopting the Central Plains official system and learning more advanced institutional methods is undoubtedly an improvement, but the problems are also very obvious:
First of all, just as many countries today will have problems such as internal chaos after they are completely Western. The reason is that they lack the adoption of Western systems. The basics have not been learned, and the real essence has not been learned. Kublai Khan adopted the Central Plains official system, but their thinking and cognition were still the same as before, so it was easy for new problems to arise.
Secondly, one of the functions of China's imperial examination system is to break the recommendation system, and the recommendation system can easily form small groups with strong interests. The Yuan Dynasty held imperial examinations intermittently, but it was just that. Han Jinshi were not given much importance. Internal promotions mainly depended on blood, background, recommenders, etc.
As the founding king of the country, Kublai Khan could still control it when he was in power. However, after his death, coupled with the combined effect of many other factors, the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty became more and more powerful, and even took control of the emperor's dethronement and establishment. .
When the third emperor of the Yuan Dynasty passed away, the right prime minister Temudier supported Yuan Yingzong as the emperor. After that, Temudieer took over the power. After Temudie's death, Yuan Yingzong immediately eliminated his influence, reflecting the fierce conflict between imperial power and prime minister power. However, Yuan Yingzong eliminated Temudie's power, which led to Temudie's son and adopted son, the imperial censor Tie Shi, to assassinate Yuan Yingzong, and then supported Yuan Yingzong's uncle Taiding Emperor .
After the death of Emperor Taiding, Prime Minister Zuo supported his son Emperor Tianshun to succeed him in Shangdu, and Prime Minister Yan Timur on the right supported Emperor Taiding's nephew Yuan Wenzong as emperor in Dadu. After that, Yan Timur sent troops to defeat the Zuo Prime Minister, and was appointed by Yuan Wenzong as the Right Prime Minister, the Privy Councilor, and the Taiping King, taking control of military and political power.
Yan Timur was very powerful. He first asked Yuan Wenzong to abdicate to his brother Yuan Mingzong, and then poisoned Yuan Mingzong half a year later and restored Yuan Wenzong. After Yuan Wenzong's death, Yan Timur supported Yuan Mingzong's son Yuan Ningzong as emperor. Yuan Ningzong died a month later, and he prepared to support Yuan Wenzong's son as emperor, but was rejected by Queen Yuan Wenzong. It was not until the death of Yan Timur that this period of confusion in the succession ended, and then Emperor Yuan Shun, the son of Yuan Mingzong, succeeded to the throne.
After Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty succeeded to the throne, he appointed Boyan as the right prime minister and Sadun (Yan Timu's younger brother) as the left prime minister. But not long after, Sadun died of illness, allowing Boyan to take control of the court and abolish Prime Minister Zuo, so he became the only prime minister, the most powerful minister among powerful ministers. Boyan opposed the imperial examination and excluded the Han people. He ordered to ban the Han people from using iron tools, prohibiting the Han people from learning Mongolian, and prohibiting the Han people from serving as government staff at all levels. The most famous thing was to kill all the Han people with the surnames Zhang, Wang, Liu, Li, and Zhao.
Until the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty had always had great power, that is, "all money and grain, soldiers and armor, farming, water transportation, and military affairs were all taken charge of", which seriously threatened the imperial power. On the other hand, the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty held great power, which led to very intense internal conflicts in the Yuan Dynasty, which even developed to the point of fighting each other and deposing the emperor at will. It can be said that at least half of the reasons for the demise of the Yuan Dynasty after a hundred years were related to the chaotic situation caused by the internal struggle for power in the Yuan Dynasty, and the cause of the chaos was related to the prime minister's monopoly on power and the weakening of imperial power.
After Zhu Yuanzhang established his political power, he roughly followed the Yuan Dynasty official system and tradition, letting the Zhongshu Province be responsible for government affairs, and the prime minister had great power. At the time when the regime was new, officials at all levels could only let Li Shanchang , Hu Weiyong and others recommend it. .
As a result, a circle headed by Li Shanchang, Hu Weiyong, Yang Xian and others gradually formed. More importantly, although the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty did not have the power of the prime minister of the Yuan Dynasty, it still exceeded the power of the prime ministers in history. Once this continues, the Ming Dynasty is very likely to fall into a struggle between imperial power and prime minister power, just like the Yuan Dynasty, which will eventually lead to political chaos and even the rapid demise of the country.
Therefore, this was not only related to the struggle for power, but also related to the national destiny of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang could not help but be careless. In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang had already thought of a solution, but he still failed to solve this problem.
In the third year of Hongwu , Yan Li and other Confucian scholars proposed that subjects should not go beyond Zhongshu Province to write to the emperor. In other words, they were silencing Zhu Yuanzhang so that Zhu Yuanzhang could not hear the voices of his subjects below, and all power was returned to Zhongshu Province. Zhu Yuanzhang naturally objected to this. He said, "The Yuan family's existence in the world is due to the prowess of the ancestors, and its demise is due to the appointment of powerful ministers, which deceived the top and bottom. The words of this ceremony cannot be separated from the Yue Zhongshu. This is correct. One of the great disadvantages of the Yuan Dynasty was that the emperor could not observe the affairs of the common people, so the ministers could exercise arbitrary power." Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang could listen to the voices of the subjects below, but he still could not stop the prime minister from monopolizing power.
As the saying goes, if you can't solve the problem, solve the person who created the problem, so Zhu Yuanzhang changed the prime minister, Li Shanchang retired, and successively appointed Xu Da, Hu Weiyong, Wang Guangyang as prime ministers, and later Hu Weiyong became the prime minister Zuo, the head of the hundred officials. However, when Hu Weiyong was in office, he intensified his efforts. Not only did he form his own circle, but he often implemented them directly without Zhu Yuanzhang's private approval, which made Zhu Yuanzhang intolerable.
The "Hu Weiyong Case" created by Zhu Yuanzhang was superficially said to be a major case of rebellion, but in fact it was a dispute between imperial power and prime minister power. As for why there are so many people implicated, the reason is that some of them are party members who follow Hu Weiyong, and some of them support the courtiers who advocate "prime minister power."
When Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, the Prime Minister still had such great power, and he was worried that after his death, the Prime Minister might overturn the Ming Dynasty.Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang did not stop doing anything, and simply abolished the prime minister system and made the six ministries directly responsible to the emperor. Therefore, it is not objective to attribute the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime ministership entirely to his desire to strengthen imperial power.
Reference materials: "History of Ming Dynasty", "History of Yuan Dynasty", etc.
