Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 132 Tea House Listening to News (Part [-])
The Zhaoji Tea House in the capital is a long-established shop that has been in business for more than [-] years in the capital. After two generations of father and son, it is the best-selling tea house near Xuanwumen.Zhaoji Tea House is located in the west of Dashi Yongfang, with Xiangfang in the south, Yanshan Zuowei Yamen and Hanfan Temple in the north, Dali Temple in the northwest, and Wanggong Factory in the southwest. It can be described as an excellent location.

This day was exactly the day after Gao Wushi officially returned to the capital.

Liu Xian and his son, who lived in Cheng'en Temple next to Wang Gongchang, had breakfast that day, and then came to Zhaoji Teahouse to "listen to the news" after being introduced by the monk who knew guests in the temple.

The so-called listening to the newspaper, "listening" refers to the tea drinkers listening to the tea doctor reading the newspaper, and "newspaper" refers to the imperial palace newspaper. "Tingbao" is a unique characteristic project of Zhaoji Tea House in the capital. It was launched on a trial basis in the last years of Jiajing, and became famous because of Hai Ruishang's scolding of the emperor.

People in the capital, probably because they lived at the feet of the emperor, have always liked to discuss government affairs, even in later generations.

The Ming court seems to be very open to all kinds of folk discussions. No matter how absurd and bizarre it is, as long as it does not reach the level of "deliberately inciting the people and intending to rebel", the court will completely let it go.

Dibao has existed since ancient times. It is an ancient official newspaper and belongs to the news media in the original sense. It is said that it originated in Han Dynasty, originated in Tang Dynasty, developed in Song Dynasty, and flourished in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The Mansion Newspaper of the Ming Dynasty took recording current affairs news as its duty, and it was the main carrier for the imperial court to issue government orders and release political information, and it was also an important channel for officials from all sides to understand the court's movements.Through the Dibao, not only can the state affairs be communicated, and the central and local information can be communicated, but also the Ming court can use it to control the publication and dissemination of official public opinion.

The Di Bao of the Ming Dynasty was edited and distributed mainly through three institutions: the General Administration Department, the Sixth Division, and Titang.

Among them, the General Administration Department is a central administrative agency that communicates between the inner court and the outer court, and between the emperor and his subjects.Except for a very small number of official chapters collected by eunuchs and Honglu Temple officials, most of them were handed in by the Secretary of the General Administration. "All the six subjects received inscriptions from various yamen every day, copied them into books one by one, and sent them to the cabinet every five days for compilation."

The six subjects are the abbreviations of the six subjects of official, household, ritual, pong, punishment and engineering.Each of the six departments is set up in the affairs center to assist the emperor in handling government affairs and supervise the operation of various ministries. It is somewhat similar to the internal discipline inspection departments of various ministries and commissions in later generations, but because it is directly under the emperor in theory, it has greater power.One of the important responsibilities of the officials of the Six Sections is to go to Huiji Gate every day to receive imperial seals or edicts, which will be issued by the cabinet to the Six Sections for each department to transcribe and edit into a book every day, called "Six Section Lunyin Booklet". For the reference of various departments, this is also the blueprint of the Di Bao.

Titang officials are officials sent by the governors and generals of various provinces to the capital to process documents and copy and distribute residence newspapers.After they copied the papers from the six subjects, they were screened and copied, and the post station dispatched postmen to relay them every five days to the governors and chief secretaries in turn to read them.Then the officials stationed in the provincial capitals of the prefectures, prefectures, and counties hired scribes to "take what they needed" to extract the relevant content of the mansion newspaper, and then passed it to the local governments at all levels through post stations.

In the process of copying and publishing of Dibao.The Beijing officials sent scribes to the General Administration Department to copy the biography every day, so they could know the political affairs of the world earlier; while the local officials needed to rely on post stations and hired postmen to report the mansions to the governors, chief secretaries, government, prefecture, and county yamen. .Since the residence newspapers are passed on layer by layer, and it takes time to pass them through post stations, local officials cannot have a sneak peek like the Beijing officials, and the time to receive the residence newspapers also varies.In general, those who are close to the capital and the provincial government will receive the report from the residence earlier, and vice versa, it will be later. In remote places such as Sichuan, Shaanxi, Liaodong, Yunnan and Guizhou, officials often only learn about the new government policies after several months.

In fact, in the early years, a mere tea house would not have been reported by the imperial court. It was because in the last years of Jiajing, the emperor was superstitious about Taoism and only wanted to live forever.

In the early years, the Ming court realized that "the mansion newspaper is a matter of state affairs", so in addition to limiting the transmission time of the mansion newspaper, there were also strict restrictions on the transcription of the mansion newspaper, "the mansion newspaper is not allowed to be copied unless it is ordered."

Especially before Chenghua, the control over the biography and copying of the Dibao was still very strict, but later it became looser and looser. In fact, the situation has become uncontrollable.There was even a situation where "copying Dibao and recording prevailed", and even some information had been spread in the newspaper room before it appeared in the Dibao. Those who live in the house are dead", "Recently, they have reported to the mansion, and some have issued notes before staying in the middle school".

In addition, some influential literati and celebrities can also circulate the Dibao at will, but it has little to do with this book, so I won’t give many examples here.

In this unaccompanied capital, Liu Xian and his son have to find something to do for themselves, they can't just stay in the temple to grow fat, anyway, in the end, they have to wait for Gao Pragmatic's implementation before deciding what to do. So today I listened to the recommendation of the Zhike monk and came to Zhaoji Teahouse to listen to the news. After all, it is always good to know more about the dynamics of the court.

Liu Xian is no better than Qi Jiguang, both of them often try to make money, but after Qi Jiguang made money, he invested it in the army, and although Liu Xian also invested a lot of money in his own army, he still I remember to keep a small part for myself, so compared to Qi Jiguang, he can be regarded as a rich eunuch.

Liu Xian and his son, who were not very short of money, ordered a small private room on the second floor of Zhaoji Tea House, waiting to hear Dr. Cha read the mansion newspaper.Originally, if it was just a dry reading, it would not be very interesting, but Zhaoji Tea House thought about what the guests thought, and in addition to reading, it would also provide a little analysis and comment, which attracted many idlers in Beijing to flock to it.

Of course, there may be some troubles if you criticize the Dibao wantonly, and this is what the teahouse needs to control by itself.Fortunately, Emperor Longqing was a benevolent king, so at least so far, the owner of Zhaoji Tea House has not been invited to any yamen to drink tea. Compared with the "don't talk about state affairs" in the Qing Dynasty-well, it's nothing For example.

Not long after Liu Xian and his son sat down, they just picked up the teacup, and before they started drinking, they heard Dr. Tea, who was sitting like a storyteller behind a long red cloth table in the lobby, slap the gavel and said loudly : "The first thing reported in the mansion yesterday: Governor Shuntian reported to the cabinet that Liu Xian, the former commander-in-chief of Langshan, borrowed hundreds of members of the Gao family to go out to suppress the bandits in Bailixia. The bandits in Bailixia were photographed in Tianwei. Hands up!"

(End of this chapter)