Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1448 Changes
Political issues are the most complicated issues in the world. They cannot be separated from the background of the times, nor can they be separated from people's identities, and they also interact with any other issues.

If Li Rusong's personality was placed in the early Ming Dynasty, it would not be conspicuous, because at that time, generals headed by the Huaixi Military Group could overwhelm civil officials and show off their might without being questioned.

If Li Rusong was not the second-generation official of the general family, but the second-generation (or N-generation) civil servant and official like Gao Yushi, his attitude in the world would not have too much consequence. There are fewer people supporting him.

The bad thing is that he was born as a general, and he offended civil servants at every turn. Relying on the emperor's favor, he played himself as a lone minister for life.This kind of situation happened in this kind of period, it is really hard to save the gods.

With such a background of high pragmatism, he dared to use the ancestral system to carry out reforms, and he did not dare to easily change the so-called tradition of using civil affairs to control military affairs. The reason is actually very simple: any regime in a stable ruling period must be a civil regime.

The period when military generals are in a political advantage over civil servants is usually either because of the prestige of "conquering the world" at the beginning of the founding of the country, or when the country is in chaos and relying on the strength of "turning the tide". The situation in which the group controls the country.

If there is, it means that chaos will break out.

In fact, although the financial system of the Ming Dynasty was extremely bad, its political system was very advanced and reasonable, and it could even be said to be the best system in ancient Chinese history.

As we all know, the most critical part of something like a political system is checks and balances. If any kind of power is in an unrestricted state, it will lead to a complete loss of control of the country, no matter who this power belongs to—the emperor, civil servants, or generals.

Later generations mentioned the issue of the Ming Dynasty system. The supreme power of the central government rests with the emperor, the role of the cabinet is only an advisor, and the power of the six ministries is relatively weak.But in fact, this is only the original intention of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang to create this system, and in fact it was only really implemented in the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, only the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties had political systems that were very close to the later Qing dynasty.After Renxuan, because the thought of governing the country by civil servants began to grow stronger at that time, the specific administrative power was transferred to the cabinet and the six ministries, and the emperor's administrative power began to shrink gradually.

It must be admitted that such an evolution is not the emperor's original intention, but it is in line with the demands of officials at all levels after a country is stabilized, not caused by problems such as the emperor's stupidity.

Will the second Emperor Renxuan of the Ming Dynasty be more stupid than most emperors of the Qing Dynasty?Obviously impossible, but in the case of the Qing Dynasty, even if the emperor was fatuous, the officials would not dare to make such a request.

Why?The officials of this imperial court regard themselves as the emperor's slaves, so how dare they ask the emperor for administrative power step by step?

This transfer was basically completed in the Jingtai and Tianshun dynasties, which was caused by two reasons at the same time.

First of all, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty dared to speak directly to the emperor, and dared to restrain the emperor with etiquette and morality, which formed a constraint on the emperor, so they were able to win more and more power.However, it is impossible for the emperor to manage the government affairs of the whole country by himself, so he needs to rely on the cabinet and six ministers to help him specifically implement administrative power.

This is not caused by the emperor's stupidity, but the emperor's need to rely on ministers as his own staff to seek truth from facts.Of course, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty could not manage state affairs alone, but they were different from the Ming Dynasty. They themselves were a minority, and it was much easier to unite the minority to suppress the majority—because there were fewer people who needed dividends.

They cling to his power and don't trust Han ministers, and the only ones who want to fight for power in the Tartar Qing court are Han ministers-"This is a disorderly order, and Guangdong does not follow the edict" can only be Han officials like Li Hongzhang Only then can I tell.All those who participated in the "Southeast Mutual Insurance" were Hanchens. Even if Manchen agreed to Dongnan Mutual Insurance, he did not dare to join in the open. This is a clear proof.

However, the Ming Dynasty was a "majority" dynasty, and it was impossible for the emperor to have a small group of hardcore royalists who could be civilized and military. Therefore, the power of civil servants was further expanded.For example, in Jingtai, Emperor Jingtai relied on Qian; in Tianshun, Emperor Yingzong relied on Li Xian.

After arriving in Hongzhi, the situation became more and more difficult for the emperor to control.The emperor has become a source and symbol of power, but they have no way to do anything freely.

For example, when Zhengde wanted to tour the south, all the ministers who had greatly increased their sense of power opposed it.And such as Jiajing's great ceremony discussion, Wanli's national struggle, etc., are all conflicts between imperial power and civil power.

At this time, the emperors have become the supreme rulers of the country who have retreated behind the scenes. They do always hold the final decision-making power on everything, but the usual administrative power has almost completely fallen into the hands of the cabinet and the six ministries.

This was not caused by the emperor's stupidity and laziness. Many emperors in the mid-Ming Dynasty fought desperately with their ministers because they wanted power.

The emperor is the source of power, he can give people power, or take it away, and control people's life and death.This is the only place where he can threaten the ministers, but the ministers of the Ming Dynasty are often not so afraid of death.When the emperor replaces a minister, more ministers will often stand up to maintain the collective power.

It's not that individual ministers are really not afraid of death, or that they don't care about their political future, but that they don't dare to violate the overall interests of the civil service group.This is the so-called "no one can betray his own class."

High pragmatism does not dare.As a member of the civil official group, even one of the leaders, he has a strong enough reputation and strength, but he also dare not be sloppy on this point.

His attitude towards military commanders is better than that of most civilian officials, but that is a personal attitude. The outside world will only say that Gao Situ is easy-going, because he does not want to give military commanders the same power as him.

Turning back to the emperor, Zhu Yijun and his grandfather Jiajing were also born as young emperors, and both of them had quite remarkable political skills, but why did the grand ceremony in the Jiajing period end with the emperor's victory, while the national capital in Zhu Yijun's period ended in the emperor's victory? The war ended with the victory of the civil service group?
Did the civil official group become stronger in the Wanli Dynasty than in the Jiajing Dynasty?not necessarily.In fact, the more critical issue here is the emperor's own thinking.

Gao Yushi had read a lot of novels about traveling across the Ming Dynasty and being an emperor, regardless of their rationality, they gave Gao Yushi an interesting thought at the time: the emperor’s own thoughts and their influence on his rule.

Of course, the thought of the traverser emperor is quite different from that of the native emperor.And the traverser is a person who has experienced and profound knowledge of the world, and he is also an ordinary young man at the bottom of society, and he also has a great influence.

For each specific person, his ideological limitations are more serious than his physical limitations.

First of all, he is limited by the times, and few people's thoughts can break through the shackles of the mainstream thoughts of the times; secondly, he is limited by his personal class, his class and way of life, which largely limits his knowledge; Again, he was limited by personal education. Human thoughts are formed after birth, and the indirect experience of education and reading will also seriously affect his thoughts.

For the native emperors of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible for him to break through the limitations of the times and see the trend and direction of historical development.His personal experience of being tied up in the court also made him seriously lack of understanding of the whole society.

Gao Wushi discovered that the few emperors who grew up in the private sector by chance in history were almost all very strong in personal ability.

The last point is that the education received by the aborigine emperor is also the traditional Confucianism, and it is basically impossible for him to break through the shackles of this thinking.

The biggest difference between Jiajing and Wanli is that Jiajing was the son of the vassal prince "Xiaozong inherited Dazong" and entered Beijing as emperor, while Zhu Yijun was a young prince who became a young emperor. He received Confucian education arranged for him by the civil official group.

Zhu Yijun in this life is a little bit luckier, because he has a high-spirited person by his side, giving him some influence of new thinking on the sidelines.However, limited to a highly pragmatic identity, these influences are also limited and restrained.

The limitation of thinking will cause the limitation of its behavior.How can you do something you can't even imagine?A disability in the mind is much more terrifying than a disability in the body, because you don't realize that you are disabled at all!

The civil official group formed all-round constraints on the emperor in terms of moral etiquette, information control, administrative execution, and ideological manipulation.As an emperor, you are superior and seemingly omnipotent, but you are actually a large clay puppet: the information you see is distorted, the matters you decide are executed at high cost and low efficiency, and the changes and adjustments you want to make must be It is in line with the interests of the civil service group, and at the same time conforms to the mainstream awareness of morality and etiquette...

The emperors may seldom summarize these, but the emperors must be aware of some, so in the original history, the emperors preferred to use important ministers they were familiar with and relatively "obedient to greetings".Whether Jiajing uses Yan Song, Longqing uses Gao Gong, or Wanli uses Zhang Juzheng, there is not much difference in this root cause.

Regardless of whether the chief assistant was loyal or traitorous, he was essentially the one who limped the emperor.As for the next thing, it can only depend on the conscience of the chief assistant.

The most commonly used and most powerful weapon for civil officials to check and balance the emperor is ethics and morality. Ethics and morality are the foundation of our country that respects the heavens and the ancestors. The absolute ideals and concepts that have been rooted in the hearts of everyone in this country—including the emperor himself—for thousands of years.

Civil officials are familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, and have passed the imperial examinations. They are undoubtedly the people who are most familiar with the ethics and morality in this country. willingness to give a reasonable explanation for the matter.

They even taught the emperor ethics and morality since he was a child, so that the emperor could govern the country better indirectly when he grew up.In fact, for the actual operation of the country, the civil service group is the real core. The emperor is just a symbol of traditional power. It also made morality and ethics more important to the emperor.

At such a time, Li Rusong, as the de facto ruled, demanded equal rights with the de facto ruler, how could he succeed?Even under the protection of the emperor, the ruler in name, he will still die—accidental death in battle is also death, look at that Qi Jiguang who has a good relationship with the civil official group, how can he not be surprised? What about dying in battle?

What makes people feel even more chilling is that Zhu Yijun himself is very likely to have insight into the inside story, so he indulged and protected Li Rusong from beginning to end.He knew that no matter how much he protected Li Rusong, he would die sooner or later.And in this process of repeated see-saw, the Li Jiajun, who is too big to lose, will be severely weakened until there is no threat.

This means that the emperor actually acquiesced in the strength of the civil official group, and he had no intention of making any mistakes in terms of whether "using literature to control military affairs" was right or wrong.Perhaps in the thinking formed by the Confucian education received by the emperor, this is correct in itself, and the starting point of his actions is to stabilize the rule.

Gao Yushi left the palace silently all the way, instead of returning to the Ministry of Household Affairs, he sent the guard of honor to the Ministry of War directly.Coincidentally, not only Liang Menglong was present at the Ministry of War today, but also Wu Dui, a scholar in charge of affairs of the Ministry of War.

Wu Dui had originally come to inquire about the Ministry of War's arrangements for rewards and punishments for the Jianzhou War. Seeing Gao Yushi also came at this time, he immediately understood that Gao Yushi must also be concerned about this matter, and together with Liang Menglong invited Gao Yushi came in.The three of them held a small meeting in Liang Menglong's duty room.

As soon as he started to talk about things, Gao Wushi first heard a piece of news. Wu Dui said that Ren Yangxin's impeachment of Li Chengliang and his sons "surrounding Shenjing with arrogance and arrogance cannot be shaken" did not come from "spontaneity", but It was inspired by Shen Li.

This news made Gao Wushi a little bit astonished at first, and asked: "Senior brother, can you be sure?"

"It's not a conclusion, it's a certainty." Wu Dui shook his head and said, "I asked someone to ask Ren Zicheng (Ren Yangxin), and he said it himself."

Gao Wushi immediately understood: Ren Yangxin was from Ruicheng, Shanxi Province, a Jinshi in the second year of Wanli, and his room master was Shen Li.Although he is a theoretical branch of the Jin Party in the Real School, he is obviously influenced by Shen Li, a teacher who is a high-ranking censor in Zuodu.

He himself is the censor of Zhili, and Shen Li, the censor and teacher of Zuodu, asked him to impeach Li Chengliang and his son, so it was naturally difficult for him to refuse.

The question is, why did Shen Li do this - you must know that Gao Yushi, the de facto leader of the practical school, has not publicly expressed his attitude so far.

Wu Dui didn't say it clearly, but Liang Menglong sneered and couldn't help saying: "Duke Xinzhai asked for credit for Li Chengliang several times during his tenure in Liao Fu, and Li Chengliang's defeat now seems to prove that the praises of Duke Xinzhai in the past are false. , this is the first; Mr. Xinzhai is sixty-seven this year, some people can't wait, this is the second."

Gao Wushi glanced at Wu Dui, seeing that Wu Dui was silent, he couldn't help snorting, and said, "If there is any mistake in asking for credit for Li Ningyuan, Mr. Xinzhai, Mr. Wenzheng, Bo Kao, will stand alone in previous years and work hard. Isn't it also a mistake that Lord Zhai is the governor of Liao?"

When Gao Gong was involved, Wu Dui, as a student, did not dare to remain silent, and immediately said: "The first teacher, Mr. Wen Zheng, has always attracted the attention of the world for his ability to employ people. His brother Xinzhai is Liao Fu, and brother Xinzhai is a member of the real army. , recruiting and moving, governing battles, fighting horses, trusting rewards and punishments, so that the barbarians (Chahar) did not dare to invade and Wang Gaofu punished them. So six forts in Kuandian were set up to expand Xinjiang for my court by [-] miles. Wrong, why not?"

Liang Menglong sighed: "That's why some people just can't wait, they can't bear it for two or three years."

Wu Dui also sighed, shook his head, and said, "It's no wonder he couldn't bear it. Rixin took his position as chief minister before, and even though he became the chief constitution, he still couldn't bear it.

And at the beginning of this year, Duke Feng Pan, who was supposed to return to the cabinet, fell ill again, so the situation that the cabinet was able to overwhelm the Xinxue faction in our original plan no longer exists.At this moment, it is not surprising that he thinks that if he takes the initiative, he will have a chance to join the cabinet and get our support. "

It turned out that Zhang Siwei Ding You had very bad luck in the past few years. First, Ding You died because of his father's illness. When Ding You was over, the news that the court summoned him to return to Beijing just arrived. He was still resigning according to the "procedure", but his mother died of illness again.Now the formal resignation has become a real resignation, so Ding You can only continue.

When the old lady's Ding You was about to end, he himself fell ill again.Zhang Siwei was originally in poor health, and in his prime he had resigned due to illness and went back to his hometown to recuperate for several years, but now he gets sick again when he is older.

He even dictated a letter for Zhang Taizheng, who came back to his hometown to visit, to bring to Gao Yushi. In the letter, he told Gao Yushi in a rather pessimistic manner that he might not have the chance to return to the center, but at the same time he praised Gao Yushi. Fan said that Gao Yushi's performance in the past few years was better than he imagined, and encouraged him to continue working hard.

Zhang Siwei also said in the letter that the "Jin Party" itself should not have been independent from other members of the Practical School. Now under the leadership of Gao Pragmatism, it has gradually integrated into it. This is a good trend and should continue.On the contrary, if he returns to Beijing, this trend may be broken. This is not good for the Practical School as a whole, so it will be good for him not to go back.

All these, Zhang Siwei said a lot.

Gao Wushi thought about it carefully, and felt that what uncle said might not be empty words to comfort, but meant something.Although Zhang Siwei has been in Ding You in the past few years, because Jinghua is very well-informed in delivering news, he has always been very clear about the situation between the DPRK and China.

Although the Practical School seemed to be a whole after he left office, it actually formed two factions. Among them, the high pragmatism had the upper hand in strength, while the Xu Guo and Shen Li factions formed due to the existence of Xu Guo, the second assistant. A nominally dominant situation.

Of course Zhang Siwei was dissatisfied with this, so at the beginning he hoped that he could return to the center earlier, but the sky failed, and now it seems that it is a bit difficult.He was naturally on the side of Gao Yushi, and he really believed that only Gao Yushi could take on the important task of the party leader of the Real School, so he dictated this letter and asked Zhang Taizheng to hand it over to Gao Yushi.

Gao Yushi knew that with Zhang Siwei's explanation, he would definitely communicate with other members of the Jin Party. From then on, the Jin Party would accelerate its integration into the entire School of Practicing, and follow the example of Gao Pragmatic.To some extent, this letter can even be regarded as Zhang Siwei's political will.

But I don't know if Xu Guo and Shen Li also noticed something, so Shen Li pushed Ren Yangxin to impeach Li Chengliang and his son--the real target of this move was not Li Chengliang himself, but to attack Zhang Xueyan while attacking the forces of Xin School reputation.

If Zhang Xueyan resigned because of this, and the Heart School did not dare to take the lead because of Li Chengliang, wouldn't the new cabinet candidates have to come from the Real School?Who is the most suitable person in the practical school to join the cabinet now?

Gao Wushi had just assumed the new post of Minister of the Household Department not long ago, and he was too young, so he was definitely not the first choice to join the cabinet, so the first choice would naturally be Zuodu Censor Shen Li.

Xu Guo must also support such a change, because he alone is obviously unable to hold down the high pragmatism by relying on the name of the second assistant. If he supports the high pragmatism Zhang Xueyan's resignation and Shen Li becomes a cabinet minister again, one will ebb and flow. He is very likely to regain the situation.
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(End of this chapter)