Chapter 1301 Untitled
Ye Mingsheng had already started thinking about Cui Shao serving as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet when he established the Yijing Court. As of today, he has been thinking about it for several years, but unfortunately, Ye Mingsheng still feels very conflicted about this issue and has not made a final decision!

Putting aside other factors and just talking about whether Cui Shao is qualified to be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, Ye Mingsheng believes that Cui Shao is simply too qualified. Whether in terms of ability, qualifications, merits, character, or reputation, Cui Shao has no problems. Who else but him can be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet?

But it is precisely because Cui Shao is so suitable for the position of Prime Minister of the Cabinet that Ye Mingsheng is always so entangled and hesitant!

As an emperor, Ye Mingsheng had also heard some rumors within the court, such as Wen Liaoyang and Wu Jinjun. Although Ye Mingsheng did not like these words, he had to admit that they were true!

His Daqian's civil and military teams do rely mainly on these two groups of people, but the specific situations on the civil and military sides are different!

Although each of the military generals had made outstanding contributions, had made many military exploits, and had made great contributions to the establishment of the Daqian Dynasty, no one's prestige could be matched by others!
Although Yuan Song made great contributions in capturing Yunbing, Guanzhong and Yongliang, He Jingyun also took over Jiangnan, Huainan and other southern territories. The prestige of Yuan Song and He Jingyun in the army can be said to be equal, and neither is much stronger than the other. This gives Ye Mingsheng the opportunity to check and balance them...
But the situation on the civil service side was completely different. Although Ye Mingsheng successively supported Gu Sansi and Li Jian to take positions, one of them serving as the Minister of Personnel and the other as the Minister of Justice, on the surface it seemed that they were on an equal footing with Cui Shao, but in fact it was not the case at all!

Ye Mingsheng knew very well that although Gu Sansi and Li Jian were both very powerful people in the court, their prestige combined was not even half of Cui Shao's!
Although Cui Shao has been very humble and restrained in recent years in order to avoid giving the impression that he is more powerful than his master, Ye Mingsheng can still clearly feel Cui Shao's status and prestige in the court, as well as the political energy he represents!

It was for this reason that when the Yijing court was established, Ye Mingsheng did not let Cui Shao serve as the highest-ranking Minister of Personnel, but instead let Cui Shao take charge of the Ministry of Revenue. When making this decision, Ye Mingsheng knew that this decision would definitely cause some turmoil in the court.

In fact, the turmoil happened just as Ye Mingsheng expected, but what Ye Mingsheng did not expect was that the matter continued to ferment and seemed to be out of control, so after careful consideration, Ye Mingsheng privately found Cui Shao and made two ZZ promises!

The two ZZ promises were: first, after Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne, he would confer the title of Duke to Cui Shao, and the title of Duke would be inherited by the Cui family's descendants forever and ever, and they would live and die together with the country!

The second point is that after Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne and became emperor, he appointed Cui Shaolai as the chief minister of the cabinet to lead all officials...

Because of this, after Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne and became emperor, he quickly conferred the title of Duke of Rong on Cui Shao!
Although he fulfilled his promise to confer the title of Duke on Cui Shao, Ye Mingsheng had been slow to fulfill his promise to make him the Prime Minister of the Cabinet. From this point of view, Ye Mingsheng knew that he was sorry for breaking his promise to Cui Shao, so he could understand that his third uncle had some emotions.

However, Ye Mingsheng really hasn’t thought about the matter of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet yet!

Since Ye Mingsheng started his rebellion, he has been using Cui Shao while guarding against him. A large part of the internal guards' energy is focused on keeping an eye on Cui's men.

Before Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne, the inner guards handed Ye Mingsheng the latest list of Cui faction members, which recorded who the inner guards believed to be members of Cui faction.

There are a total of 117 people on the list, all of whom are G members above the seventh rank. The internal guards divided these people into three levels. The first level is the core members of Cui’s faction, which includes a total of seven people including Cui Shao, Zhu Xiaowen and others. The second level is the backbone with a total of 31 people, and the rest are peripheral members with a total of 69 people!

At that time, Ye Mingsheng looked at the familiar names and official titles on the list, and he was shocked!

He has suppressed Cui's people in these years. Liu Zhengyue, the second-in-command of Cui's faction, was executed by him. Another important member, Xiao Lingyu, retired at the height of his career, and Ye Mingsheng did not keep him. However, there are still so many people from Cui's faction, spread across the six ministries of the court, as well as the provincial governments and the provincial procuratorates below...
So Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but think about a question. Cui Shao had not yet become the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, but his Cui faction was already like this. If he let Cui Shao become the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, wouldn't the Cui faction be even stronger?

Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng felt a little scared!

However, Ye Mingsheng was not afraid of Cui Shao's conspiracy to usurp the throne. After all, as the old saying goes, it takes a scholar ten years to succeed in a rebellion!
Cui Shao is also a smart man. He knows where Ye Mingsheng's red line is, so he has never had any private contact with those people in the army.

What Ye Mingsheng was really afraid of was that if Cui Shao really became the Prime Minister and the Cui faction continued to grow stronger, then one day he would not be able to resist raising his butcher knife and set up a prison to kill the entire Cui family!
In addition to rumors like Wen Liaoyang and Wu Jinjun, there are actually other rumors within the court, such as Ye and Cui sharing the world. However, compared with Wen Liaoyang and Wu Jinjun, this rumor is much more sensitive, so it is not widely circulated. However, this rumor was still heard by Ye Mingsheng!
Ye Mingsheng had mixed feelings about this rumor. He was well aware that the phenomenon of foreign relatives interfering in government affairs was quite obvious. However, as the founding emperor, he had a high prestige in both the court and the army, so he covered up this phenomenon. However, this phenomenon could not continue to develop. After all, judging from history, foreign relatives interfering in government affairs could easily lead to major political problems and cause a dynasty to decline!
And Ye Mingsheng has been doing this all the time, for example, supporting Gu Sansi and Li Jian, letting them handle the government affairs together with Cui Shao during his southern tour. If it weren't for Ye Mingsheng's order, Gu Sansi and Li Jian would never be able to be compared with Cui Shao, and the government affairs would definitely be decided by Cui Shao alone...

Allowing Cui Shao to serve as the chief minister of the cabinet would undoubtedly push Cui Shao's prestige in the court to a new height. It would also inevitably allow Cui's faction to continue to grow stronger, and the phenomenon of foreign relatives interfering in politics in the Daqian Dynasty would become more prominent. In this way, many of Ye Mingsheng's past efforts to check and balance Cui Shao would basically be declared a failure!
Although Cui Shao has always been low-key and rational, the huge ZZ energy of Cui's faction cannot be ignored. This problem must always be solved!

From a personal emotional point of view, Ye Mingsheng really didn't want to hurt the Cui family. After all, he had Cui family blood in his veins, and his mother, Ye Cui, also had many concerns about her natal family.

In addition, Ye Mingsheng was also very grateful to Cui Shao and the Cui family for their contributions to the founding of the Daqian Dynasty. At the beginning of the business, the Cui family took out a lot of money to support himself, and countless children of the Cui family also joined the Fengwu Army and made outstanding contributions.

In the process of fighting for hegemony over the world, if Cui Shao had not worked tirelessly to mobilize resources from all sides to provide logistical guarantees, raise military pay and rations, recruit soldiers and organize laborers, produce clothes, bedding and weapons, etc., the Fengwu Army would never have been able to unify the world so quickly!

In Ye Mingsheng's mind, even though He Jingyun, Yuan Song and others had conquered countless cities and made great military achievements, he always believed that Cui Shao, who was hiding behind the scenes, was the greatest contributor to the Fengwu Army's conquest of the world!
Wars are fought with logistical supplies. If Cui Shao hadn't been behind the scenes planning and organizing all kinds of logistical support and transporting all kinds of supplies to the front lines, He Jingyun and Yuan Song would not have been able to win battles one after another even if they had great abilities...

So Ye Mingsheng was really grateful to Cui Shao in his heart, and thanked him for all his efforts for the Daqian Dynasty!
Ye Mingsheng hoped that he and Cui Shao would be able to have a good beginning and a good end, and create a good story of monarch and minister that would go down in history. Therefore, Ye Mingsheng's idea all along was to use political means to resolve the hidden dangers brought by Cui's people, rather than using simpler and cruder methods!

Although Ye Mingsheng's idea is very good, unfortunately Cui Shao now seems unable to understand Ye Mingsheng's good intentions. He is still somewhat resentful that Ye Mingsheng did not fulfill his promise to make him the prime minister of the cabinet!

Ye Mingsheng could more or less understand Cui Shao by putting himself in his shoes. Apart from his love for calligraphy and painting, Cui Shao did not have very high demands for material things, and had no pursuit of money or beauty!
However, as a traditional official who came from an imperial examination system, Cui Shao still attached great importance to reputation, especially to being a celebrity through the ages. Since ancient times, the highest pursuit of civil officials is nothing more than to become a famous prime minister!

Daqian was derived from Dazhou and inherited the system of Dazhou. It did not establish a separate prime minister, but in fact, the position of the chief minister of the cabinet was equivalent to the prime minister, who was the head of all officials!
Therefore, the position of Prime Minister of the Cabinet was Cui Shao's highest pursuit in his life. Cui Shao was a very introverted person. Although he never said such words as "I want to be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet" or "Who else but me can have the position of Prime Minister of the Cabinet".

However, Ye Mingsheng could feel that Cui Shao attached great importance to the position of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet. He wanted to become the first Prime Minister of the Cabinet of the Daqian Dynasty. He believed that this would allow him to be famous through the ages, and his name, Cui Shao, would be written into history books and praised by future generations. This was what Cui Shao pursued...

It was precisely because Ye Mingsheng realized this that he promised Cui Shao to be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, allowing Cui Shao to accept the position of Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and quell a disturbance within the Yijing court.

And now seeing that Ye Mingsheng was going to break his promise and his lifelong pursuit was going to be in vain, one can imagine how lost and frustrated Cui Shao felt!
As a result, Cui Shao has no motivation in his work now. Before Ye Mingsheng ascended the throne, Cui Shao felt that he could be the prime minister of the new dynasty. He also planned to promote reforms and guide the court and the provincial governors, clerical offices, prefectures and county offices to implement Ye Mingsheng's instructions to solve the problem of redundant staff and improve the administrative efficiency of offices at all levels.

But now that there is no hope, Cui Shao no longer mentions this matter. It seems that everyone should mind their own business and not worry about other people's problems. He only wants to deal with the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue. Other matters have nothing to do with him, Cui Shao!

Although Ye Mingsheng could understand Cui Shao's emotions, the problem was that the reform that Ye Mingsheng was thinking about was faced with many obstacles because it involved the interests of many people. Some of the veterans of the Fengwu Army did not want to accept the reform.
Given Cui Shao’s prestige in the Yijing court and his political power, it would be difficult for Ye Mingsheng to push forward the reforms he wanted if he just “lay down and let things go”. After all, although Ye Mingsheng was the emperor and had a high prestige in the court, this did not mean that Ye Mingsheng could really ignore other people’s opinions…
So seeing Cui Shao like this, Ye Mingsheng felt helpless. He really wanted to have a good talk with Cui Shao and tell him not to just lie down and do nothing. But the problem was that some things were too sensitive, and Ye Mingsheng hadn't figured out how to talk to Cui Shao.

Because of this, Ye Mingsheng was very conflicted, not knowing whether he should let Cui Shao be the prime minister of the cabinet!

It was in this dilemma that Ye Mingsheng finished dealing with the memorial submitted by Cui Shao from the Ministry of Revenue. After finishing his afternoon work, Ye Mingsheng wanted to go to Pei Zhixiu to calm himself. Since becoming the emperor, although he had accomplished a major goal and solved a major issue in his life, Ye Mingsheng did not feel very happy!
On the contrary, it was these endless government affairs and pressures from all aspects that made Ye Mingsheng feel a little tired and breathless. Now he somewhat understood why emperors since ancient times called themselves "I".

Ye Mingsheng sometimes thought about just throwing these bullshit aside and ignoring them. Anyway, even if he ignored these things, the Daqian Dynasty would not collapse. Future generations will have their own blessings, so we should believe in the wisdom of future generations!

Life is but a few short decades. Ye Mingsheng could just eat, drink, have fun and enjoy the fruits of victory. There is no need to make himself so tired and exhausted. Ye Mingsheng really had such thoughts in his mind several times. Especially when the reform could not be implemented and the feeling of powerlessness spread in his heart, Ye Mingsheng really thought about giving up...
However, when he thought of the beautiful visions of the common people for the new dynasty during the southern tour, Ye Mingsheng would feel motivated and grit his teeth to persevere!
(End of this chapter)