Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1708 Post-war Waves ([-]) Choice
General Zhengyi?This word made Liu Xin feel astonished for a while, and then began to shudder.As the secretary-general of Jinghua Secretariat, she keenly discovered that what Gao Wushi was most worried about seems to be happening, or developing rapidly.

If you want to ask who is the person who knows Gao Yushi best in this world, Liu Xin dares to confidently think that it must be herself. Even Huang Zhiting can't compare with her in this point, because only she and Gao Yushi have the same The soul of an era.

In the eyes of ordinary people, Gao Wu has shown many lofty qualities and miraculous mavericks. It is not because he is born a gentleman, but because his knowledge system and vision of the times are far beyond the present.

He knows where the Ming Empire will sail in the original history, and he can basically understand why this huge ship ran aground and why it sank. A miserable sinking.Against such a historical background, as a former young grassroots cadre, he hopes to avoid and change, and is willing to pay some price for it.

Are these costly?That depends on who you compare with.At least according to Liu Xin's understanding, Gao Yushi thinks he can afford the price.Liu Xin remembered that Gao Wushi once told her that compared to the countless martyrs in previous lives who sacrificed their lives to save the nation from peril, the price he has to pay now is not insignificant, but it is indeed not worth it. carry.

The sages are like this, and the younger generations should remember it.

Gao Yushi remembered, so he used actions to change Daming.However, in the Ming Dynasty, where the national system was rigid and bureaucratic thinking was solidified, it was extremely difficult to change.

However, Gao Pragmatic does not approve of violent revolution, and even believes that if social productivity cannot reach a certain threshold, even violent revolution may not be able to build the new system he hopes to see, so the only option left is reform.

What is needed for reform?In addition to objective social needs, first of all, it needs someone to lead, secondly, it needs to be promoted by power, then it needs to be promoted by dividends, and finally it needs sustainable power and battery life.

There must be objective social needs. There were so many problems in all aspects of the Ming Dynasty, which is basically exactly the same as Li Hongzhang's description of the late Qing Dynasty as a broken house with air leaks everywhere.Therefore, the objective reality of social demand for change already exists, and high pragmatism does not need to worry that what it does is building a castle in the air.

The item of "being led" is considered to be pragmatic and lucky for Gao. When he was still young, his uncle Gao Gong was a reformer, and he had almost unconditional support from Emperor Longqing.Therefore, Gao Yushi was able to influence Gao Gong in his early years to strengthen the specific reform ideas he originally wanted to reform, which laid a relatively good social ideological foundation and objective reality foundation for Gao Yushi's subsequent deepening of reforms.

When Gao Yushi gradually rose up in the court and successfully succeeded Yu Yin, the chief assistant of the three generations, the leader was naturally replaced by him.However, due to Gao Pragmatic's age problem, he is actually flawed as a leader. The biggest trouble is that he lacks political qualifications and cannot really join the recognized core decision-making circle of the imperial court.

Becoming Minister of the Household Department allowed Gao Yushi to step into the core decision-making circle, and the reform of the "big household department" further strengthened his real power, but this also brought another trouble: the real power he possessed was in his own position. When the status is insufficient, it appears too powerful, so that people can focus more on him personally.

Gao Yushi usually keeps a low profile as much as possible, and hardly participates in various social activities such as lectures, poetry gatherings, and garden tours that the upper-class literati love in this era. A large reason is that he hopes to expose himself as little as possible.

There are pros and cons to this approach.The advantage is that there is less exposure, and outsiders feel that he is mature and stable at any rate; the disadvantage is that this increases the outside world's speculation about his personal ambitions. Status is more important than reputation.

In any case, the high-practical identity of the reform leader is still firmly established, but the foundation is not particularly solid, and there are always people trying to pull him down.

So, what about power push?First of all, it is necessary to find out who, or who is the most powerful person in Ming Dynasty.

Of course Gao Yushi knows that the people have the most power, but it is a pity that at the moment when the people do not have a sense of ownership, the people themselves do not know what power they have.Even if there were, the ones who really controlled their power were not themselves, but someone else.

The power of the Ming Dynasty is in the hands of the ruling class, and the ruling class has internal subdivisions. These subdivisions are not simply either-or. In fact, they are like drawing several circles, and several circles have their own parts. , also have intersecting parts.

The so-called economic base determines the superstructure, which also applies to the Ming Dynasty.Civil servants and military officials each have their own foundations, and the foundation of civil servants is the local gentry, which can also be said to be private landlords all over the country.

Civil servants can be further subdivided. For example, the landlords in the Jiangnan area are often not only landlords, but also commercial groups, and many of them were originally engaged in overseas smuggling. Dayton operation is now gradually commercialized, forming another type of business group.

The two commercial groups will naturally form competition, and the northern commercial group was originally inferior to the southern commercial group, but now because of the existence of Jinghua, it suppresses the southern commercial group, which of course will cause the southern commercial group to resist.

This, in fact, is the root cause of such a fierce struggle between the School of Reality and the School of Mind: ideas may be debatable, but interests must not be compromised.

Civilian groups are like this, so why not military ministers and nobles?There are also two types of generals groups, one is the Xunchen Group, they rely on the shadow of their ancestors and they have a lot of benefits - such as a huge military base, countless military households, etc.; the other is the military merit group, they Relying on their own efforts to improve their official ranks, and mastered a core force that theoretically only obeys them, that is, armed servants.

The former has hereditary status and economic strength, and the latter has the force that the court must rely on. Together, they form the generals group, which theoretically stands on the opposite side of the civil official group.

However, due to well-known reasons, it is actually very difficult for them to really oppose the civil official group. On the contrary, they have to move closer to the civil official group and choose a certain faction in the civil official group as their backer.

The reason for this has been said many times in the previous article: the Dudufu of the Five Armies, which represented the interests of the generals group, was completely castrated after the Civil Engineering Change.As a result, the group of military generals with five limbs could not find or promote their own spokespersons, so naturally they could not fight for their own interests, so they had to find their own mothers and hug the thighs of a certain group of civil servants one after another.

But at this time, a very strange question arises: the emperor is supposed to be the arbiter of the civil and military groups. When the civil and military forces are not equal, shouldn't he restrain the strong and help the weak?
This issue is very complicated, but when a regime enters a stable period, the civilian group will definitely be stronger than the military general group. This is the most common trend throughout the ages, otherwise it will become corrupt.

Because of Emperor Taizu's "Nation Without Conquest" principle, the Ming Dynasty essentially opposed the Communist Party from an institutional perspective, that is, it limited the upper limit of the generals group.The result of this is that the power of the civil servant group is unrestricted, and the military general group will be suspected if it rebounds a little. With the addition of a debuff of civil engineering changes, the decline of the military general group has become a general trend.

Under such circumstances, as long as the emperor does not feel the great danger brought by the decline of the generals group to his rule, he will naturally not have the motivation to stand up for the generals group—after all, in the eyes of the emperor, the civil service system of the Ming Dynasty is not enough to threaten He, so the power expansion of the civilian group is better than the power expansion of the generals group.

However, Gao Yushi needed strength to support his reforms, and the first to win over was the group of military generals who were most likely to be won over by him.The military generals group originally needed strong civil support, and high pragmatism could not only provide political support, but also make them rich. Naturally, they hit it off right away, but this immediately laid a hidden danger for the future.

As for the bonus, it is naturally necessary. Any leader who wants to successfully control the power under his name has a prerequisite: the basic premise is that you can protect their interests, and the further thing is that you can bring them greater benefits .

The honorable military officials and generals in charge of the army have been able to worship Gao Yushi for 20 years, obviously not because they were inspired by Gao Yushi's personality, but because Gao Yushi can not only protect their interests, but also bring them greater benefits. Benefit.

Xungui Group joined the Maritime Trade Alliance. With the help of Gao Pragmatism, it not only got rid of the chaos in the Beijing camp, but also lost its combat responsibilities and concentrated on making money with the production and construction corps. It can also make a lot of money in maritime trade activities. Naturally, it will fully support All acts of high pragmatism—except maybe rebellion.

Because of the highly pragmatic military reforms, the Meritorious Generals Group obtained more military pay while reequipping their own troops, especially their servants, with stronger armaments, which obviously made a huge profit.The former makes them more attractive in the army (maybe they can get a commission), and the latter makes them more powerful and gain more military exploits, and then improve their status.Therefore, the military generals group also obediently obeyed Gao Pragmatism.

Li Rusong is obviously not in the same trench as Gao Yushi because of his father's relationship, but he is still able to execute Gao Yushi's military orders. Isn't it because Gao Yushi can guarantee him new military exploits?

Finally, regarding the continuous motivation, this point is still uncertain. To some extent, it is best for Gao Pragmatism to continue to be in power, so that the practical reform will become inertial. When more people enjoy the reform dividend, the reform will be rolling. forward.At that time, the reform will enter a virtuous circle, and it will not be so important whether Gao Yushi himself is in charge. Gao Yushi will be considered to have completed the mission of history.

But this is still a matter of the future, and it doesn't matter so much now.

The trouble now is that it has not yet developed into a virtuous circle, and the hidden dangers before have begun to emerge.Narita Kai mentioned that Gao Yushi "the current situation is like what it was like before Japan was going to conquer the barbarians", which may be just an unintentional statement, but it was nothing more than a thunderbolt to Liu Xin's ears.

Even she, a concubine who just came to Daming from Japan not long ago, can feel the power of Gao Wu in the court. Could it be that the princes in the court can't feel it?Can't the emperor feel it?Obviously impossible, they are not fools, the courtiers and the emperor must be able to feel it.

Now that they can feel this power, how will the courtiers and the emperor react?Liu Xin felt that she couldn't grasp their thoughts.

Generally speaking, courtiers are now divided into three factions, the School of Reality, the School of Mind, and the School of Old Principles, that is, the School of Neutrality.The Practical School must continue to support high pragmatism, after all, this is the representative of their interests; the Heart School must be more opposed to high pragmatism, because high pragmatism as their political opponent is becoming more and more powerful; the trouble lies with the neutral faction.

In the past, the Neutral School was neutral mainly because the Real School and the Xin School both emerged after Jiajing and became the two major factions in charge of the real power of the imperial court, while Neo Confucianism itself showed signs of decline (there is a view in the historian circle that this is the result of the citizenization of the late Ming Dynasty. As a result), we can only "dog" first, and wait for the two factions to fight to see if there is a chance for the fisherman to benefit.

However, with the victory of the Battle of the Yuan Dynasty, the balance of power between the two factions was broken by Gao Pragmatism.If everything is done step by step according to the tradition, high pragmatism will definitely be rewarded next.Once this reward is for Gao Yushi to enter the cabinet, then Gao Yushi's biggest trouble before - lack of qualifications, the problem of being difficult to enter the cabinet and obtain a phase will be solved.

In other words, the next step is for Gao Pragmatism to lead the Practical School to fight against the Heart School.Everyone knows the truth that the lips are dead and the teeth are cold. The school of truth has completely suppressed the school of heart. How can the neutral school of traditional Neo-Confucianism be able to stand alone?Of course it's impossible, they think that Gao Pragmatism will definitely expand the scope of attack, and even take them to clean up together - it's been like this in all dynasties, or it's called party struggle!
With such a judgment, Liu Xin felt nervous.If a faction is strong, can it really suppress all other "non-self"?At the same time, today's emperor has never been a fool, can he allow the Real School to dominate and completely lose checks and balances?

Jiajing dared to allow Yan Song to overwhelm the world because he knew that the source of Yan Song's power was him. As long as he took over the power, Yan Song would be nothing but a rootless weed, and he would not be able to turn the tide.

However, Gao Yushi is not Yan Song, he is not a simple civil servant, he is also "the number one civil servant in the world" - this title will be completely confirmed after the victory of the Yuan Dynasty; And he has a strong military production; he also has armed servants all over the country, especially gathered on the nine sides, theoretically, they can pose a threat of force to the capital.

Isn't such a situation the fulfillment of the prerequisite for the leader of the Japanese samurai to serve as the general who conquered the barbarians?

What is General Zhengyi?It is the head of the shogunate, the person who actually controls the Japanese regime!

Would the Ming emperor be willing to be a puppet mascot like the Japanese emperor?No way.China does not have the so-called traditional theological thinking of the line of ten thousand generations. China has always been a practitioner of the theory of power supremacy that "the princes and generals will have a kindness" and "the son of heaven, the soldier is strong and the horse is strong"!
It doesn't matter whether Gao Yushi has the subjective awareness of threatening the imperial power, because in the eyes of the Chinese, as long as he has enough strength, it is nothing more than a "yellow robe" mutiny at Chenqiao that can change everything.

It was a big victory, how could it be like this?Liu Xin only felt that her head was as big as a bucket.

How to do?
To persuade Gao Yushi to give up his previous ideas and simply go further?Or should I persuade him to take the initiative to decentralize power, and continue to give up military power, or to give up direct influence on military power after giving up direct intervention in factories and guards?

As the secretary-general of Jinghua, Liu Xin became more and more uneasy when she thought about it. The more she thought about it, the more difficult the situation became.

Just when Liu Xin was worried, Gao Mo came in a hurry with an unusually serious face.

Before Liu Xin had time to ask him what happened, Gao Mo, who had always been calm, took the initiative to speak: "Secretary Liu, just now the Department of General Affairs sent an urgent secret report: the master has officially sent to the eunuch, and please resign from Meng Yuan on the grounds that the war is over." Straightforward."

Without waiting for Liu Xin to speak, Gao Mo frowned deeply, and continued: "Besides, the master didn't even go to Guihua City after the two victories, but instead immediately entered the customs from the Dushi Fort, and only brought five hundred family members back. Beijing... the old man calculated the time, the master may have arrived in Yanping Prefecture by now, and he will arrive in Beijing in a few days."

Liu Xin was stunned on the spot, but she knew very well in her heart that Gao Yushi had already made a choice.
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(End of this chapter)