Zhu Yunying was a good emperor. Perhaps not everyone agrees with this, but most people should agree.

For Zhu Yunying, there are many things he needs to do now, and many things need to be developed better.

During the reign of Emperor Xianzong of Ming, Liu Daxia, a court official in charge of imperial carriages, destroyed the records of Zheng He's voyages to the Western Ocean, saying, "Zheng He's voyages cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians died. Even if they obtained treasures, what benefit was there? Even if the old records still exist, they should be destroyed. Why are you still asking about them?"

This is one interpretation, but others disagree, because the Ming Dynasty law strictly prohibited the destruction of official documents. Historically, Liu Daxia only concealed the archives from the conquest of Annam, but there is no record of him destroying the archives from his voyages to the West.

However, Zhu Yunying needs to be wary. While he can change many of Zhu Yuanzhang's timeless policies, there are some things that absolutely cannot be changed. In this matter, Zhu Yunying also exhibits a serious double standard, and it's crucial that he applies double standards.

For example, the throne of the Ming Dynasty was always established by the eldest son of the legitimate wife; this was a policy that had to be followed for generations and could not be changed.

For example, Zhu Yunying received a secret report that his beloved son, Little Zhu, was whipping the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture. Zhu Yunying just nodded slightly, and it seemed that he had no intention of punishing Little Zhu.

Not only will he not punish Xiao Zhu, but he will also remove the prefect of Yingtian Prefecture from his post, and the censors from the Censorate will also be implicated.

According to the ancestral instructions of Emperor Zhu, no matter how far the Crown Prince was traveling or how close he was to the capital, no matter how big or small his mistakes were, no one would send an imperial edict to punish him. Instead, he would be summoned back to receive instructions from the emperor.

Emperor Zhu was naturally paranoid, but his descendants were deceived, leading to incidents like that of Fusu. Such acts of forging imperial edicts to force the death of the crown prince were not uncommon in the past.

This time, Little Zhu whipped the prefect in front of the Yingtian Prefecture government office simply because the prefect was audacious enough to stop the people from beating the petition drum. This was utterly disrespectful to both Old Zhu and Little Zhu; how long had Old Zhu even established the petition drum?

During Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, no official dared to do such a thing. In fact, some officials did dare to obstruct the people's appeals, and their fates were naturally dire. Now that Zhu Yunying has provided some officials with a relatively more lenient environment, some are already thinking of taking advantage of it.

Such a thing was absolutely unacceptable. Zhu Yunying valued civil officials and supported the civil official group. However, Zhu Yunying also consistently restricted civil officials, making the civil official group's expectation of "governing the world together with the scholar-officials" just a pipe dream.

It's really hard to say what will happen in the future, but what Zhu Yunying needs to keep working on is to establish some rules to limit the rapid development of the civil service group. That's what he should be doing.

Disciplining a few officials at will was not a big deal for Zhu Yunying, probably because such things were routine for him; it was the power and duty of an emperor.

As for Zhu Yuanzhang's criticism of officials, some officials might impeach him during tomorrow's morning court session, but there's nothing to worry about.

Instead of trying to impeach the crown prince, those officials should be thinking about how to exonerate themselves. If Emperor Ying Shi gets angry, he won't be easy to deal with.

Zhu Yunying thought it over carefully. He didn't know if Liu Daxia would ever rise to high office, but that didn't stop him from being suspicious of officials like Liu Daxia. Liu Daxia might be a good official and indeed have achievements, but it was clearly not a good thing for him to hide documents based on his limited knowledge.

Just as Zhu Yunying was still pondering some things, Wang Chengen whispered, "Your Majesty, Minister Yan is waiting outside."

Zhu Yunying immediately felt a headache coming on and said irritably, "What is he doing here again? We shouldn't have given him any hope. He hasn't even sorted out his affairs at the Ministry of Works yet, and he's already bothered enough by the Ministry of Revenue. Is he trying to bother us now?!"

Wang Chengen remained silent. Although he was a close attendant of the emperor and enjoyed the emperor's great trust, he was ultimately just a eunuch and was still somewhat inferior to high-ranking officials like Yan Zhenzhi.

Zhu Yunying waved his hand and asked, "Did he say something? Does he have something to say to us?"

Wang Chengen said with a bitter face, "Your Majesty, how dare this servant ask? The matter that Minister Yan requested must be a major matter of the court."

That's not wrong. To prevent eunuchs from interfering in politics, Emperor Zhu made many arrangements. Even though Wang Chengen is currently the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, he doesn't have much real power, and there's no such thing as an "inner prime minister."

In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, the duties of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs could be limited to trivial matters of daily life; other political tasks should not be delegated to them excessively. Zhu Yuanzhang also looked down on eunuchs, believing that most of the eunuchs in the bureaucracy were treacherous individuals.

"Eunuchs are forbidden from interfering in government affairs; those who violate this rule will be executed." This iron plaque hanging at the palace gate was the best warning to the eunuchs. In reality, Wang Chengen was practically illiterate; Emperor Zhu did not allow eunuchs to read and write.

Zhu Yunying could roughly guess what Yan Zhen was thinking. In fact, it wasn't just Zhu Yunying who could guess; Wang Chengen had also been feigning ignorance. The Minister of Works' intentions were as clear as day.

Even knowing Yan Zhenzhi's thoughts and ideas, Zhu Yunying still needed to summon Yan Zhenzhi; the things that needed to be done still had to be done.

Ultimately, Yan Zhenzhi didn't just come to Zhu Yunying to chat for no reason; there must have been something else going on, something that could be considered a real national affair.

Upon seeing Zhu Yunying, Yan Zhenzhi immediately knelt and bowed, saying, "Your subject Yan Zhenzhi, Minister of Works, pays respects to Your Majesty the Emperor."

Zhu Yunying raised his hand and said with a smile, "Rise. This is not the morning court session, so there is no need for such formalities."

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