On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, powder-like snowflakes flew down, and the towering palace was once again covered with white clothes. The willow trees turned into bloated silver bars, and the palace walls were like giant snakes with white backs, stretching into the gray smoke far away.

The Zichen Hall of Daming Palace is the closest palace to the inner palace. The emperor's imperial study room is usually arranged here. The current emperor's Li family's imperial study room is located in the side hall of the Zichen Hall, consisting of five or six rooms of all sizes. In addition to normal books and classics, Hanlin scholars who are for the emperor to consult, small eunuchs who run errands, personal guards with high martial arts skills, etc. These are all personnel stationed in the imperial study room.

Li Shi, the owner of the imperial study room, is the supreme ruler of the Tang Empire today. He has everything that a normal emperor should do, including palaces, queens, concubines, dragon robes, pomp, etc., but with the exception of power, yes! He has never tasted the taste of power since he ascended the throne. The Tang Dynasty was controlled by the seven major families, especially the right prime minister Cui Yuan. Under his burly and fat figure, Li Shi seemed to be a candle that was about to be extinguished.

So for the Li family, the Imperial Study Room was just a decoration, and he rarely came here to deal with court affairs. However, today is the first day of the first lunar month of the 16th year of Qingzhi, and he unexpectedly appeared in the Imperial Study Room.

The imperial study room was warmed by a carbon pot, and the air was a little dry. Li Shi's pale face showed a morbid redness. He was about the early forties and was the second son of the late emperor Suzong. He was weak and his long-term indulgence always made him look exhausted.

There are dozens of memorials just delivered today on the wide red sandalwood table, mostly written by locals for this year's warm winter. The abnormal climate will inevitably have an impact on the harvest for the coming year.

Li sighed, and the memorials were just for him to see these notes. There was already a review by the subordinate Pei Jun and the final review of the Secretariat Cui Yuan. It had been approved by various departments for execution, and the one for him to see was just a copy.

At this time, the confidant eunuch Ma Yingjun walked in quickly and he whispered: "Your Majesty! Prime Minister Cui has arrived, see you outside."

Ma Yingjun was the third-ranked eunuch around the late emperor Suzong, second only to Yu Chaoen and Li Fuguo. He was once the confidant of Empress Zhang. Sixteen years ago, Emperor Suzong of Tang, Li Heng, was critically ill. Empress Zhang pseudo-ordered the prince to enter the palace and took the opportunity to launch a palace coup. It was Ma Yingjun who contacted the support of the general of the Yulin Army, Li Baoyu, and killed Li Fuguo and Prince Li Yu in one fell swoop. With the support of Cui Yuan and Pei Zunqing and other important officials, he supported the Li clan of the Yue King ascended the throne.

Unfortunately, man's calculations are not as good as God's calculations. The Uighurs' betrayal of the faith shattered the Li ambitions and also made Ma Yingjun's support shatter. Now he is just an eunuch supervisor.

"Let him come in!" Li Shi waved tiredly. The place where he came to the Imperial Study today was Cui Yuan's request.

After a moment, Cui Yuan walked into the imperial study with a smile, knelt down and kowtowed heavily to Li Shi, "The old minister Cui Yuan wished Your Majesty a happy New Year, wishing Your Majesty everything goes well, and working hard to govern, so that our Tang Dynasty will become stronger and stronger."

Li Shi stood up suddenly, but sat down slowly.

Li Shi didn't take Cui Yuan's New Year's speech to heart, but he knelt down and kowtowed, but wiped out Li Shi's fatigue. In his memory, Cui Yuan had never kneeled down. What's going on today?

He raised his hand gently and smiled, "The Prime Minister is not given a favor and is given a seat!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Cui Yuan sat down slowly, and he glanced at the memorial on the table. It was almost an hour since Li Shi entered the imperial study. He had only read less than one copy. Cui Yuan couldn't help but sneer secretly. What else could he do if an emperor who didn't even care about farming?

"Your Majesty, the old minister came on the first day of the Lunar New Year. There are two main things I want to discuss with Your Majesty."

"It's okay to say it."

Cui Yuan pondered for a moment and said, "First, the climate in the north this year is abnormal, and the locust plague is very likely to occur tomorrow spring. In order to prevent disasters as soon as possible, please agree to the old minister to transfer three million stone rice from Jianghuai into Taicang (i.e. the national grain warehouse)."

The Li family yawned and said lazily: "The Prime Minister will do this! There is no need to report to me, what is the other matter?"

Cui Yuan smiled slightly, "The second thing is that the war in Longyou has been completed, but the soldiers in the army have not yet received the reward. Seeing that it is the New Year, the old minister heard that there is already complaints in the army and said that there is no rice at home to cook. I am very uneasy. Although the Khan of Dengli retreated north, Pan Heng is still in the Yinshan area. Once the morale is low, there may be endless troubles. So the old minister drafted a list of rewards, asking Your Majesty to take a look. If there is no objection, please issue an edict today."

As he said that, he took out a note from his arms and handed it to Li Shi with both hands.

The rewards in the Tang Dynasty should be evaluated by the Ministry of War based on the military performance tables reported by the Sima of each army, and then reported to the Menxia Provincial Preliminary for preliminary review. After discussion within the Secretariat, the opinions will be transferred to the emperor for final approval. Once the emperor approved it, the Secretariat's servants will draft the imperial edict, but the final seal is in the hands of Fu Baolang of the Menxia Provincial Preliminary, which means that the Menxia Provincial Preliminary must be reviewed in the end, in order to prevent the Secretariat from being authoritarian.

This system of power checks and balances was very strict, which was originally good, but after Zhang Jiuling was dismissed from prime minister in the 25th year of Kaiyuan, Li Longji used Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong to gradually destroy this system of power checks and balances, and the left prime minister became a decoration.

After the Anshi Rebellion and the Uighurs Rebellion in China, the aristocratic families gradually gained great power. The seven major families each held some of the power and undermined the imperial power. Especially the right prime minister Cui Yuan, who controlled core power such as the Secretariat, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Justice, and the Censorate and other supervisory institutions. They had more than 200,000 troops in their hands, which was extremely powerful. The Emperor Li was just a puppet, and his orders could not even be released from the Daming Palace.

So today Cui Yuan bypassed the Ministry of War and Menxia Province and handed the book of rewarding military merits to Li Shi, just to use the emperor's intention to block Pei Jun and Wei Yan's mouths.

The Li clan took the booklet and made a brief look, "Add 500,000 yuan in allocated 500,000 yuan in military merits, including 400,000 yuan in Fengxiang Army, 100,000 yuan in Longyou and Shuofang Army," and most of the award-winning quotas were given to Fengxiang Army.

Li Shi turned another page without showing any expression, but was stunned. This was a reward for the meritorious ministers. He was granted the title of Minister of War Wei Yan as the crown prince's tutor and the founding of the three departments of the Ministry of Justice. He promoted the General of Jinwu Guard Cui Qinggong to the Grand Marshal of the Western Expedition, the Secretary of Shang Zuo Pushe, and the Secretary of the Central Secretariat Pingzhangshi.

．

．

．

．

．

Looking further down, Li Shixin suddenly jumped, and the following read: Duan Xiushi, the governor of Fengxiang County, was the Yin of Taiyuan and the governor of Hedong.

Duan Xiushi was a famous royalist party. During the reign of Emperor Suzong, he served as the governor of Hexi and the governor of the four towns of Anxi. Later, due to insufficient troops, the court decided to give up Anxi. Duan Xiushi was transferred back to the court to serve as the Minister of the Secretariat, but was repeatedly excluded by Cui Yuan and demoted to the governor of Fengxiang County.

At this time, the Li Shi had already understood Cui Yuan's true intention, "With the clerk of the Central Secretariat", he wanted to use this Longyou battle to stuff his brother Cui Qinggong into the cabinet, which means that Cui Yuan would add another prime minister to the seven prime ministers of the cabinet. In this way, two Cui, Yang, Wang, and Cui Yuan had already occupied four seats. As long as one of the other four supports him or remains neutral, Cui Yuan will have an advantage in the cabinet, allowing him to be re-elected smoothly.

According to the agreement reached by the seven major families fifteen years ago, adding another cabinet member must unanimously agree to the seven members before nominations. If Cui Yuan operates step by step in the conventional way, it will be approved at the joint cabinet meeting first, so Cui Yuan will push himself out and issue an edict in the name of the emperor to force the addition of a cabinet member.

But it was not this that shocking Li Shi, but Cui Yuan had long seen through his unwilling heart to be lonely, but he was unable to expose it. It was not until this most critical moment that he suddenly pointed out Duan Xiushi, whose real purpose was to warn himself.

After a moment of silence, Li Shi smiled faintly and said, "The Prime Minister is still working hard for state affairs on the first day of the Lunar New Year, I am ashamed!" After that, he picked up the red pen and approved the word "correct" on the memorial, and returned it to Cui Yuan.

"The Empress Dowager was sick the day before yesterday. I still have to go to visit me, so I won't leave the prime minister."

Cui Yuan took over the memorial and bypassed the nomination of the cabinet. Cui Qinggong passed the first level of the cabinet. Another level is that he must pass the third reading in the New Year. This is also the only way for others to obstruct. However, it is easier than the cabinet joint meeting. Only with the consent of more than half of the cabinet members can pass the case.

"I still have to go and handle the rice transfer, so I won't disturb Your Majesty."

Cui Yuan gave a deep gift and slowly left the room with Ma Yingjun's respectful gift.

It was not until his figure disappeared that Li Shi coldly 'hum!'. He pondered for a moment, and immediately wrote a text message to another confidant eunuch Chen Xianfu, and whispered: "Send someone to send this letter to Zhang Ruohao quickly, and do not delay!"

Chen Xianfu took the letter and nodded, "I understand, let's do it now!"

Li Shi rubbed his hands, stood up and ordered: "Set up and go back to the palace!"

．

．

．

．

．

．

．

．
Chapter completed!