Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 121 Instigating Juzheng (Part [-])
Xu Jie's situation can't be described in just one sentence.He's totally in trouble right now.

Zhang Ju's face was as gloomy as water, and he carefully reviewed the political situation of the past two months in his mind.Then he discovered that Gao Gong seemed to really want to turn against Xu Jie's old politics recently.

What's more frightening is that Zhang Juzheng knew very well: Gao Gong really wanted to oppose Xu Jie's old politics from the bottom of his heart.

This matter must start from the specific situation of the year: on December 45, Jiajing [-], Emperor Jiajing died.That night, Xu Jie summoned Zhang Juzheng, his favorite student, and hurriedly produced a copy of the "Last Edict" in the tone of Jiajing's self-report.In the morning of the next day, it was presented to the new emperor Yu Wang, who proclaimed it to the world.However, this matter was not discussed with other colleagues in the cabinet. It was only instructed by Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng took the knife, completely excluding other auxiliary ministers, which caused another intensification of conflicts in the cabinet.

The cabinet colleagues who have been completely transparent must not be calm!

Although Li Chunfang, who was the only follower of Xu Jie, did not dare to express any opinions, Gao Gong and Guo Pu, the elders of the pavilion, were outraged.Guo Pu said excitedly on the spot: "Grand Xu is slandering the late emperor under the guise of a will, and his heart can be punished!"

Gao Gong immediately agreed, saying: "The late emperor was the lord of England. Could it be that what he did in the past 45 years was all wrong? Now the emperor is the son of the late emperor. He ascended the throne at the age of 30, and he is not the young lord. It is a crime to force the general and the late emperor to do so." To show the world, where will the dignity of the emperor be placed? Furthermore, the first emperor wanted to stop the Zha Zhan, who suggested that he rebuild the Zihuang Palace? Those civil engineering projects, every foot and every foot, belonged to their Xu family The father and son planned it all by themselves, so can we blame the late emperor now? Before the late emperor was alive, he blindly flattered him, and when the late emperor died, he wantonly slandered and insulted him, which is really disgusting." Said and looked at Guo Pu and burst into tears.

In fact, if Gao Gong's remarks are all from his heart, then I'm afraid it may not be so.Logically speaking, he didn't have that deep affection for Emperor Jiajing, and he wouldn't really feel sad for his reputation being damaged after his death.In fact, he was mainly worried that King Yu, the new emperor, might be held hostage by Xu Jie and be wronged. After all, his relationship with Emperor Longqing was far from being comparable to others.

However, from a fundamental point of view, these remarks are actually mainly aimed at Xu Jie.Because Xu Jie actually used the opportunity of the change of generations to cleverly blame all the bad governance of the previous dynasty on the dead, so as to clean up his own previous disgraceful actions, not only that, but also greatly bought people's hearts.But when he was doing this, he deliberately excluded his cabinet colleagues including Gao Gong himself. This kind of undisguised contempt and suppression was what really made Gao Gong resentful.

Because Gao Gong positioned himself as the number one loyal minister of Emperor Longqing, he thought that Xu Jie's actions were not only selfish, but also deliberately suppressing and contemptuous of the majesty of the new emperor. Where can this new gentleman have face?

Of course, the contradiction between Xu and Gao was not limited to this point. Here are two more examples: Gao Gong once again had a political disagreement with Xu Jie during the military reward ceremony after the new emperor ascended the throne.Originally, when the new emperor ascended the throne, rewarding the military was not an ancestral system, but a practice that began in the first year of Zhengtong.When Emperor Jiajing came to the throne, because the treasury was rich, he doubled the original reward.

When Longqing ascended the throne, Xu Jie planned to follow the standard when Jiajing ascended the throne. Gao Gong immediately objected, saying: "The current state treasury is empty and cannot afford the consumption. Why not act according to the orthodox standard, then you can save half of the money." The money, as long as 200 million is enough."

And Xu Jie directly rejected Gao Gong's suggestion.Because Xu Jie knows that for the people below, the more rewards are always the better, no matter what the reason is to reduce the rewards, it will offend people.With Xu Jie's shrewdness, of course he would not do such a stupid thing that is harmful to himself, after all, he does not need Xu Ge to spend the money for the reward.As a result, Gao Gong fought hard but failed. In the end, the reward was issued following the standard of Jiajing's ascension to the throne, and the Ministry of Households was struggling for it.

For another example, in a court meeting, all the officials were arguing over whether to propose a minister, and the two sides quarreled so much that they almost staged a full-scale martial arts.Xu Jie saw that the situation was difficult to control, and he was unwilling to offend either party, so he planned to push the problem to the emperor, and let the emperor decide whether the minister would stay or not.

Gao Gong questioned Xu Jie's irresponsible behavior on the spot, and raised an objection: "We cannot set a precedent of 'respectfully invite the Holy Judgment'. In the previous dynasties, when things were indeterminate, please go to the higher court because the first emperor had been in power for a long time and had mastered the national system; now the emperor is on the throne. It’s only been a few days, how can it be possible to know who is worthy and who is not? Let the emperor decide for himself, how should the emperor judge? I’m afraid he can only ask the people around him. If things go on like this, the world’s major events may be hijacked by Xiaoxiao.”

Xu Jie immediately turned dark, thinking that Gao Gong was purely making trouble for no reason, and he had to fight against himself in everything to be happy.With the support of the officials, Xu Jie won again, and finally invited the "superior judge".And the conflict between Gao Gong and Xu Jie became more open, and everyone in the court knew about it.Due to Xu Jie's prestige and influence, and because he did not offend others, and Gao Gong was devoted to defending his emperor's students, public opinion tended to accuse Gao Gong of arrogating power and disrupting the order of the cabinet.

Contradictions like this were almost uninterrupted between Xu and Gao during the nearly one year when Gao Gong entered the cabinet for the first time.It's just that due to the initial instability of the new dynasty, the atmosphere affected by these things has become more and more subtle.Huang Jingfang, who was at the time, commented: "Gao Gong was in charge of resentment, and Xu Jie was in charge of kindness. This is where the rivalry between the two began." This evaluation can be described as pertinent.

Xu Jie's smoothness and Gao Gong's straightforwardness are in stark contrast, and they are both irreconcilable contradictions.The degree of dedication of the two to state affairs is not at the same level at all.Xu Jie takes into account the interests of all parties, and is especially cautious. His primary purpose is to protect himself wisely, and always put himself in an invincible position on the basis of smooth handling of incidents; Enmity.

After all, what Xu Jie cared about was official position and fame, while Gao Gong cared about the great cause of the world.

Later, because of the Jingcha, the Hu Yingjia case broke out. After a lot of fighting, the "full dynasty turned upside down", Gao Gong went to the field in embarrassment, and Xu Jie eventually lost his sacred heart and returned to his hometown.

As for Gao Gong's recovery this time, he first overthrew the "Xi Lu Xian Dynasty Jianyan ministers".In the "Jiajing Legacy" drafted by Xu Jie at the beginning, he rehabilitated the ministers who were dismissed, expelled, imprisoned, and sentenced to death during the 45 years of Jiajing's reign because they dared to speak out. It's easy to say, but it must be a great thing that is extremely popular among officials.

But as soon as Gao Gong returned to Beijing, he immediately overturned this.Gao Gong's reason was that the "crimes" of these courtiers were all determined by the late Emperor Jiajing.Can the case set by the first emperor be overturned?No, because if all these people are rehabilitated, wouldn't it be obvious that the late emperor was wrong?This is worth it!
In a word, your Xu Jie's actions are "harmful to holiness", and at the same time, you commented on Xu Jie's "not serving the emperor with loyalty and filial piety, but acting privately" and "returning to the previous emperor".This move was of course very vicious, in Zhang Juzheng's view, it was an attempt to put Xu Jie to death.Fortunately, Long Qing was quite assertive this time, and he just agreed that the offended officials should not be "recorded without discrimination", and did not directly move Xu Jie.

But even though the decree said so, it actually overturned the "Last Edict", and the redress of the ministers who were convicted of the crimes was brought to an end, and hundreds of families who were expected to see the light of day again fell into the sea of ​​suffering.There is also a person involved here, this person is the father of the great writer Wang Shizhen.The result... In history, Wang Shizhen wrote "Shoufu Zhuan since Jiajing", in which he wantonly slandered and vilified Gao Gong. Wherever Gao Gong had merits, he would either mention it in one stroke, or "do nothing about it", and as long as there was something that was unfavorable to Gao Gong The rumors were clearly recorded and expounded one by one.

Because of Wang Shizhen's historical status in the literary world, this "Shoufu Biography" has become an important material for future generations to study this period of history!This is the reason why Gao Gong's reputation has been bad for so many years in later generations, and it was not slowly overturned by some scholars until almost after the reform and opening up.

Seeing that Zhang Ju's face was sinking like water, Feng Bao even unconsciously revealed a trace of murderous intent. He was secretly proud of himself, and added another knife: "Mr. A little private festival, you are the person involved, you won’t believe it? And according to my investigation, he held a night meeting with the students in Beijing at home a few days ago, and four of them were officials "What do you think he wants to do with his tall beard?"

(End of this chapter)