Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 146
In the early morning of the next day, before dawn, many eunuchs and maids in the Forbidden City, the center of the Great Ming Dynasty, were already busy.Today is not the same as in the past, the busiest place in the palace is actually the Wenhua Palace which is a bit deserted on weekdays.

The Wenhua Hall was built in the 18th year of Yongle, and it is located to the east of the Xiehe Gate of the Outer Dynasty, facing the Wuying Hall from east to west.Because it is located in the east of the Forbidden City, it was once the place where the prince was in charge.The five elements say that the east belongs to wood, and the color is green, which means growth, so the roof of the palace used by the prince is covered with green glazed tiles.

In the early days, the Wenhua Hall was the emperor's permanent residence. During the Tianshun and Chenghua dynasties, before the crown prince practiced Zuo, he first served in the Wenhua Hall.Later, because most of the princes were young, they could not actually participate in political affairs, especially when it came to Emperor Jiajing. The emperor who expected to live forever refused to canonize the prince at all. Therefore, the building was changed to a yellow glazed tile roof.In the 15th year of Jiajing, the Shengji Hall was built at the back of the hall.

Generally speaking, the Wenhua Palace is the palace where the emperor listened to the lectures of the Hanlin scholars, the prince went to school, and supervised the country. It was also the palace where the emperor occasionally visited the imperial court.

The main hall of Wenhua Hall is I-shaped.The front hall is the Wenhua Hall, facing south, five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with yellow glazed tiles on the top of the mountain.In the Ming Dynasty, there are six doors with three crosses and six bowls of water chestnut, and the second and upper rooms are sill windows, each with four windows with three crosses and six bowls of water chestnut, and one window for each of the east and west gables.Out of the platform in front of the hall, there is a corridor leading directly to Wenhuamen.The back hall is called the Lord's Hall of Respect, and its regulations are similar to those of the Wenhua Hall, but the depth is slightly shallower.The front and rear halls are connected by corridors.The East and West supporting halls are Benren Hall and Jiyi Hall.

In Ming Dynasty, there was a post of "Scholar of Wenhua Palace". Theoretically, the duty is to tutor the crown prince in his studies. Of course, this is a false job. The scholar of Wenhua Palace is one of the elders of the pavilion. Of course, he will not directly teach the crown prince. .

By the way, in the Ming Dynasty, the senior scholars of the Ming Dynasty usually had the senior scholars of the Zhongji Hall (Hua Gai Dian) as the first assistant, and the Jianji Dian (Jinshen Dian) as the second assistant. , Wuying Hall, Wenyuan Pavilion, and Dong Pavilion are sorted and moved from high to low.

The whole northeast of the Xiehe Gate in the Donghua Gate is a building complex with the Wenhua Hall as the main body. The building is magnificent, but the appearance of the hall is simple.There is no plaque in the Wenhua Hall, and there are Jingyi Hall, Gongmo Room, and Jiuwuzhai in the East and West Halls.

Because the Wenhua Hall is close to the cabinet, the office of the auxiliary ministers, if the emperor is diligent in governing, he will often think about government affairs in the Wenhua Hall.For example, Renzong once posted the list of important officials on the west wall of Fengtianmen, and when Yingzong came to Wenhua Hall, he posted the names of central and local civil and military officials. The same is true for Xiaozong.But when he came to Longqing, although the emperor still followed suit, he had very little time to come to Wenhua Palace—after all, in Longqing's view, he only needed to use the right ministers, and the general situation of the world was basically under his control. As an emperor, you don't need to care about everything.

The small hall at the back of Wenhua Hall is called Jade Restaurant, and in the northwest there is a simple wooden hut called Shengjianju.The reason why it is a simple wooden hut is that whenever the country encounters a major disaster, the emperor must build a province here.However, the symbolic meaning of this place is much higher than the actual meaning. In history, it was almost during the reign of Chongzhen. Because of the continuous border chaos and domestic wars, the Emperor Chongzhen came to the province many times to practice penance, and wanted to eliminate the war chaos by reflecting on his own mistakes. Before him, the house was almost built for nothing.Therefore, Gao Yushi always believed that Chongzhen was an emperor who was unable to turn the tide, but really had the heart to govern.

It stands to reason that the princes of the Ming Dynasty must begin to systematically accept the influence of Confucian classics when they were five years old at the earliest and 13 years old at the latest.The prince's lecture ceremony, which is similar to the emperor's lecture ceremony after a feast, was also held in this Wenhua Hall.From then on, the prince's master, selected by the emperor, tutored the prince in the East Wing of Wenhua Hall every day.

When the crown prince is around 14 years old, as usual, he will hold a crown ceremony to mark his adulthood. The place where the crown ceremony is held is also in the Wenhua Palace.

Even when the emperor was seriously ill, the crown prince was sometimes ordered to act as the emperor's court in the Wenhua Palace.For example, when Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty was critically ill, he once "ordered the crown prince to temporarily visit the Wenhua Palace, and all civil and military officials to court the crown prince as usual."

Of course, there is a reason why the Wenhua Palace is so lively today: the emperor will bring the crown prince and the prince's biological mother, the royal concubine Li, to the Yuwenhua Palace, and the children of the five servants in the family, who are recommended by the third-rank civil servants in Beijing, will visit the palace. Under their personal selection, a prince was born to accompany him.

This is actually the first time since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, only Zhu Yuanzhang selected some high-quality students in the Imperial College to be the prince Zhu Biao and others. In fact, it is more about playing the role of a teacher; second, this system gradually became the current Jing Yan Jin Lecture, but the level of selection is even higher, basically selected from the Imperial Academy, which is a serious The teacher of the school is usually called the lecturer on the feast day, and other titles are also added, such as the bachelor of the servant.

But this time, only some "little children" were selected, and they were not required to give lectures to the prince, but simply "accompanied by students", so the age of the selected was limited to "similar to the prince".

Similarity is of course a very inaccurate term, but since the emperor's holy will expresses it in this way, the people below have no choice but to "understand it by themselves".Generally speaking, the age must not exceed the crown prince's three years old, otherwise...even if it is put on folk children, they will not be able to talk together at all.But since the age of the prince is also there, there is no need to consider it if he is three years younger than the prince—you may not be able to speak clearly, why do you want to accompany me?
Coupled with the private news from the father-in-law Li Wei, everyone agreed that the emperor was clearly hinting to the ministers: Don't send too many people to me!
Everyone can understand this point. After all, our Emperor is always impatient with fine details. If there are so many people that the entire Wenhua Palace is filled, one can imagine how bad His Majesty will be in a bad mood.Although the civil servants were not very afraid of the emperor, who was far less domineering than his father, they also had people they feared—for example, Gao Gong.

I don't know where the news came from, saying that Gao Gong had a nephew named Gao Yushi, who was going to another courtyard not long ago when he was robbed by thieves in Baili Gorge.The nephew of Gao Ge's old man calmly and calmly commanded Ding to resist for a long time at the age of a boy. It happened that the former Langshan general Liu Xian and his son led more than [-] famous Ding passing by. With the cooperation of the two, they defeated He killed thieves and thieves several times larger than himself.

This is already remarkable enough, but I don't want it to be even more bizarre in the future: Gao Wushi said to Liu Xian, "I would like to use the strength of the people to help the general in one battle, and eliminate this huge harm for the capital."And Liu Xian is also a bold person with high skills, and he actually complied. He picked up the two or three hundred minzhuang provided by Gao Shishi and went to conquer Baili Gorge.

I don't know whether it was Gao Pragmatic's strategy of praising paintings that was really powerful, or Liu Xianwei's fame shook the world. Anyway, after a period of operations that no one knew the details of, the giant Bandit of Bailixia actually surrendered...

With Liu Yingjie, the governor of Shuntian, Liu Xian became famous in Beijing, and Gao Wushi also became famous immediately - he didn't personally lead the troops to suppress the bandits, but a child of a few years old can do this To the extent, who is so shameless, it's okay to say more?
When it comes to Gao Gong's status in the emperor's mind, everyone has more or less a bottom line in their hearts, and now it's time to see what the selection is going to be like today.

(End of this chapter)