According to the rules, even if the Empress Dowager was sitting behind the curtain, Jing Jun must be present when handling government affairs.
At first, it was fine, but as Fang Yun's drafts increased and became more and more professional, many things needed to be explained by the Left Prime Minister's Pavilion for the Empress Dowager to understand. After all, even the Left Prime Minister's Pavilion's officials needed Fang Yun to explain.
This explanation took a lot of time. Jing Jun was young and couldn't hold on for long. He often became more and more impatient and even fell asleep while listening.
Finally, the Left Prime Minister's Pavilion suggested that if Jing Jun was unwell, he didn't need to accompany her.
Thus, the Empress Dowager began to handle the drafts and government affairs alone with the officials.
The monarch had too many things to do and had to deal with all kinds of government affairs. Now that there were so many drafts, even a strong man might not be able to handle it, let alone the Empress Dowager.
The Empress Dowager's mind was always tense. She had to guard against Fang Yun and the officials. She had to avoid suspicion to avoid being cursed for messing up government affairs. She also had to take care of government affairs and understand the policies and decrees that were difficult for ordinary scholars to understand. In addition, she had to spend a long time reviewing the drafts of memorials.
Thus, a month later, the Empress Dowager finally fell ill from exhaustion.
Even with the help of the medical scholars, they couldn't cure her. Only a divine item could restore her health.
However, the Imperial family couldn't allow the Empress Dowager to take a divine item.
Divine items were rare and could only be left to the monarch.
When the Empress Dowager fell ill, the memorials piled up like a small mountain in the imperial study and continued to increase.
Thus, the Imperial family began to lobby everywhere, hoping that the Empress Dowager would appoint a regent to handle government affairs.
As a result, the Empress Dowager's spirits were lifted and she forced herself to handle government affairs.
Everyone knew that once a regent was appointed, the Empress Dowager would have no real power and Jing Jun would be a mere figurehead in the future. The Empress Dowager would rather see Fang Yun in power than to appoint a regent.
A few days later, the Empress Dowager asked the cabinet to send a few officials to help her with government affairs. However, all the officials opposed it.
The Empress Dowager lived in the palace and only a few educated eunuchs were of use. However, Jingguo's officials had always been on guard against eunuchs. They would rather watch the Empress Dowager die of exhaustion than allow eunuchs to interfere in government affairs.
If the Empress Dowager used new officials to help her, it would be equivalent to setting up a new small cabinet and taking over the original cabinet. Therefore, not only were the cabinet officials opposed, but the officials of the various ministries and states were also unlikely to agree.
The Empress Dowager had to continue to hold on, so the Imperial Academy of Medicine arranged for two Hanlin doctors to accompany her for a long time to ensure that the Empress Dowager's condition did not worsen. But if it continued, she would not be able to recover.
Jingguo's bureaucracy was too large, and government affairs were extremely complicated. Even when the Empress Dowager was healthy, it was difficult for her to handle all the government affairs, let alone when she was sick.
As a result, more and more government affairs accumulated. The officials' memorials were not approved for a long time, and the officials' resentment grew. Many officials in various places began to publicly criticize the Empress Dowager because the lack of approval affected their achievements and even their promotions.
There were even officials who directly submitted a memorial to request the Empress Dowager to hand over her power. However, Fang Yun suppressed the memorial and did not deal with it.
At first, everyone was still trying to hide the dissatisfaction of the officials. In the end, they could no longer hide it. When the Empress Dowager found out, she was so angry that she vomited blood and fainted.
The news of the Empress Dowager's coma immediately attracted the attention of the whole country. There were even rumors that Fang Yun had poisoned the Empress Dowager.
In the end, the Notre-Dame had to send a great doctor to diagnose the Empress Dowager. The final diagnosis was that she was overworked. If she did not rest well, her life would be in danger.
Although the rumor that Fang Yun had poisoned the Empress Dowager was refuted, many people who opposed Fang Yun on the list began to stir up trouble. They believed that this was a conspiracy by Fang Yun. First, the Empress Dowager would die of exhaustion, and then, as the Left Prime Minister, he would monopolize the power.
Some Jingguo officials were so angry that they scolded those people on the list. They also said that the officials in the capital were now crazy with work. Fang Yun had not returned to the Spring Garden for a month and had been living in the Left Prime Minister's Pavilion. Moreover, Fang Yun's injuries were more serious than the Empress Dowager's. If he really wanted to exhaust the Empress Dowager to death, it would be equivalent to killing a thousand enemies and losing eight hundred of his own men. The gains would not make up for the losses.
Fang Yun was not affected by any comments. After leading the officials to visit the Empress Dowager, he continued to carry out intensive reforms.
In the beginning, Fang Yun only made drafts. Later, he began to make proposals one after another, which was equivalent to ordinary officials submitting their opinions to the court. The contents of these proposals were not directly managed by the Left Prime Minister's Pavilion. They were mainly managed by the Right Prime Minister, the Assistant Prime Minister, and the Civil Minister.
After the Empress Dowager fell into a coma, she spent most of her time sleeping. Occasionally, she would wake up in a daze.
Three days later, the Empress Dowager finally woke up. She sat on the bed and summoned many officials who were close to the Imperial Family.
On this day, the Empress Dowager approved the memorial personally submitted by the Right Prime Minister Cao Dean half a month ago. That memorial was a proposal. It hoped that some government affairs would be decided by the Cabinet without the approval of the Emperor.
In the proposal, it also listed specific matters for the Cabinet to decide by themselves, such as the appointment and dismissal of officials of the fifth rank and below, some laws and regulations with less impact, the reform of the prefectural and county government, the promulgation of regional policies, and so on.
The Cabinet officials were overjoyed.
This meant that the bureaucrats had won another round in the battle for the imperial power.
However, everyone knew that the Empress Dowager and the Imperial Family agreed not because she was seriously ill, but because the memorial had the support of all the officials in the country.
Later, the Cabinet began to sort out its authority. What must be submitted to the Empress Dowager and the Emperor in the future, and what could be handled by the Cabinet itself. This was a huge project. It needed to be sorted out completely and stamped with the imperial seal before it could take effect.
After days of hard work, the Cabinet officials finally made a perfect decree that clearly defined the scope of the Cabinet's self-determination.
After the new memorial was sent to the Empress Dowager, it took three days for the Empress Dowager to approve officially.
Later, more than half of the documents and memorials in the Imperial Study were removed. After that, the number of memorials sent to the Empress Dowager decreased significantly. Even the eunuchs in the palace were free.
When the news of the Jingguo Cabinet's decentralization spread to the list, many officials from various countries scolded the Jingguo officials for being crazy and being traitors.
However, the real high-ranking officials rarely participated in this topic.
This was because the Emperor was also a person. In history, except for a few really smart and energetic Emperors, most of the Emperors were very ordinary. Instead of handing over government affairs to the Emperor, it was better to hand it over to the capable officials who had climbed up from the bottom.
In the wave of opposition from the officials of various countries, the Emperor began to imitate the Jingguo Cabinet, which was rare, and began to decentralize power to Wu Guo's Cabinet and the various ministries.
Many officials were surprised, but some ambitious people came out to support this policy.
In fact, many low-level officials' appointments and removals were originally decided by the Cabinet of the Ministry of Personnel. After the memorial was sent, the Emperor would basically approve it immediately. There were very few objections. However, the convention was not a decree. The real power to appoint and remove officials was still in the hands of the Emperor.
Therefore, the Cabinet and the various ministries' self-determination was the general trend. Fang Yun was just making the established fact into a strict law.
Fang Yun never thought that this decree would be blocked, because it was nothing more than the same as the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Court and the Cabinet's approval. It was a trend that no one, including himself, could stop.
Fang Yun only gave a slight push and sped up this trend.
In fact, Fang Yun's current reform was, to a large extent, changing the hidden rules of Jingguo into a clear legal system. It was not a truly earth-shattering change.
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