Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2275 Economy and Party Struggle () Journey to the West Case

Just when Gao pragmatic thought that everything was turning according to his baton, an event completely beyond his expectation suddenly appeared in front of Gao Yuanfu, who had not yet returned to the cabinet to take care of the matter.

Zhan Shi, the young master of Zhan Shifu, and Han Xu, the lecturer of the East Palace, said that in the process of preparing preschool reading materials for the prince, he discovered that the "Journey to the West" with newly engraved official inscriptions printed by Jinling Shide Hall ten years ago had "hidden He was suspected of "shooting the imperial court, damaging famous religions, demoting and criticizing the late emperor, and satirizing famous ministers", and requested the imperial court to send personnel to investigate.

This news was quickly passed to Gao Jingshi - but this was not because such an incident was a big event in itself and Yuan Fu must be informed immediately, but because of two points: First, Han Xu was Gao Jingshi's "nephew" Secondly, among the persons involved in this case is the Gao family.

Han Xu was the son of Han Ji, who was born in Gao Gongmen, so Han Ji called Gao pragmatic "Brother Shi" (as mentioned above, although "Brother Shi" is called brother, he may not necessarily be the older one), so Han Xu called Gao Pragmatic "Uncle Shi". . Of course, to put it simply, Han Ji and Gao Jingshi were brothers in the same school, so Han Xu was naturally the disciple of Gao Jingshi's son and nephew.

Han Xu was a Jinshi in the 20th year of Wanli, and his results were very good. He was ranked eleventh among the top two Jinshi in Renchenke. Precisely because he did well in the exam, he did not become an official. Instead, he passed the Shujishi Hall selection the same year he was admitted and became an editor of the Hanlin Academy two years later.

Han Xu's official career was naturally smooth because he was born in a prosperous family and did well in the exams. After working as an editor for only two years, Han Xu was promoted to Zuo Yude of Zhan Shifu according to the normal promotion path of a Hanlin academic officer. After only three years, he was promoted to Zhan Shi, the young master of Zhan Shifu.

What is the position of Young Master Zhan Shi of Zhan Shifu? In theory, Zhanshifu is the teaching institution of the East Palace. In fact, it is the most important place for the rotation and promotion of Hanlin academic officials besides the Hanlin Academy itself. The highest official position in Zhan Shi's Mansion is Zhan Shi, and the second-ranking official is Shao Zhan Shi.

Therefore, it can also be said that Shao Zhanshi is actually "Executive Deputy Zhanshi".

As the changing yamen of the Hanlin Academy, Zhan Shifu usually has an average status and can be regarded as a Qingshui yamen. However, this does not mean that Zhan Shifu's status is very low. In fact, Zhan Shifu's political status is still good, and he is one of the "Little Nine Qings".

For Shao Zhan Shi, who has the best chance of succeeding him if Zhan Shi becomes vacant, his status is certainly not bad. Considering that Han Xu has very little qualifications and has only been in the official position for about ten years, it is obviously no problem to say that he is doing well.

Even more fortunately, the dispute over the country, which had been tangled for twenty years but had not been settled before, suddenly became settled recently as the Empress gave birth to a dragon son, Akika Yanagishi - the country was settled!

I won’t talk about other influences at the moment, just talk about Zhan Shifu, which is really a great surprise - after all, you are a teaching institution in the East Palace, and of course you are useless when there is no Prince in the East Palace. Now, now that there is a prince in the East Palace, it is natural for you to do something serious, right?

So Zhan Shifu quickly took action and began to prepare a study plan for the Prince of the East Palace based on Gao's pragmatic requirements. Since it is a matter of high pragmatism, it will definitely not copy the past, so first of all, there is an additional "preschool education" here.

Gao Pragmatic explained to the emperor that preschool education does not start with reading classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics, but rather follows the common folk practice of first doing something like "Three Hundred Thousand" (Three Character Classics, Hundred Family Surnames, and Thousand Character Classics). Read it, and at the same time, in order to cultivate His Highness the Crown Prince's interest in reading, tell him some entertaining and educational stories.

The former is easy to say "three hundred thousand", and these are not the only three books. There are more than a dozen books in total, including Gao Pragmatic's own "Longwen Whip Shadow" and "Xinzheng Duiyun", none of which are long, but Very "basic".

The latter is more troublesome. Although China has such a long history, there are enough stories that can be used to "educate and entertain", but in the past it was relatively rare to compile them, and being pragmatic has other requirements, such as easy-to-understand language. This requires Zhan Shifu to do it himself - whether you look for old classics or compile a new collection yourself, in short, you must meet the time of His Highness the Crown Prince. To put it simply, these preschool education must start at the age of three at the latest, and by then your Zhan Shifu must come up with teaching materials.

Because this matter is of great importance - how can national education not be important - Zhan Shifu's status has soared recently, and he has suddenly become busy and began to comprehensively search for "teaching materials" that may be suitable.

At this time, I found "Journey to the West with Newly Engraved Official Characters" published by Jinling Shidetang in the 20th year of Wanli Period - hereafter referred to as "Journey to the West".

In the original history, this book was recognized by later generations as the original version of "Journey to the West", one of China's four famous masterpieces (of course its historical origin is more complicated, and the origin of the story is much earlier than Journey to the West itself. This book will not go into too much detail here. Retrospective), also known as "Shidetangben" or "Shiben".

Gao Pangshi had not read this book thoroughly before, but he once used some plots in Journey to the West to explain the truth to Gao Yuan. It can be seen that Gao Pragmatic originally not only had no opinion on this book, but even approved of it.

However, this time the problem arose because Han Xu discovered some metaphors in "Journey to the West" during the process of "looking for teaching materials" and determined that they "implyed the imperial court, damaged famous religions, derogatory and insulting the late emperor, and satirized famous ministers."

As soon as Gao Pragmatic saw the article, he knew that something was not good, because in "Journey to the West", there must be "the first emperor who was demoted and assassinated", but the "first emperor" here may not refer to Longqing, but to Jiajing. There may even be more than one emperor in Jiajing.

This kind of derogatory insult is simply obvious. For example, the article used the words of Sun Wukong to ridicule: Why is a Taoist priest in your family the emperor?

Another example is the section of the Wuji Kingdom. The king fell into the water and died. The goblin pretended to be the king for several years, and even almost replaced the king of the Wuji Kingdom. The Ming Dynasty also had an emperor who died soon after falling into the water, and then the imperial line shifted, " "The small sect inherits the large sect".

Moreover, Wu Chengen had a deep resentment towards Jiajing, and there were quite a few similar metaphors and ridicules, not just the above two. This was something Gao Pragmatic knew from his "previous life". Since Gao Qingshi knew it in his previous life, why can’t today’s literati see it? It must be obvious, but the question is - why everything went fine for the past ten years, but something suddenly happened recently, and the person who picked the matter out was Han Xu, one of the young backbones of the Practical School.

In this regard, Gao Pragmatic first wants to say: I did not instigate it. So in other words, this is Han Xu's personal move.

The first thing that can be ruled out is that Han Xu and Wu Chengen have personal grudges - the age difference between the two is too big, the areas of activity are completely unrelated, and the difference in social status is large enough, there is no possibility of any personal grudges.

So, did Han Xu discover the problem simply because of the textbook selection, or did he want to take the opportunity to do something? Before Gao Pinggong understood the situation, he could only think that two possibilities existed.

But now there is a trouble: I am still thanking guests behind closed doors, so it is impossible to call Han Xu over to ask for clarification. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic could only calm down first and see what else Han Xu said. Han Xu here accuses "Journey to the West" of not only alluding to the imperial court and derogating the late emperor, but also for "damaging famous religions" and "satirating famous officials".

"Destroying Famous Religions" Gao Pingshi didn't bother to take a closer look. After all, he didn't feel this way at all when he read "Journey to the West". Even though "Journey to the West" often talks about the unity of the three religions, a closer look reveals that the author actually often ridicules and satirizes both Buddhism and Taoism. Whenever the three religions are mentioned, Confucianism always comes to the fore.

It can be seen that Wu Chengen still most recognizes the Confucian "famous teachings" in his heart - this is not surprising. After all, Wu Chengen is a traditional Chinese scholar, and it is almost impossible for him to "damage the famous teachings." Therefore, this accusation is just due to the trend-if you don't mention it, it will be difficult for everyone to share the same hatred.

Then, the last key is to "satire on famous officials". Gao Pingshi opened it and was stunned: Why is this sentence actually coming to my Gao family?

Han Xu stated in his essay that the "Gaolaozhuang" mentioned in "Shidetangben" refers to the hometown of the Gao family in Xinzheng, "Gaolaozhuang", and the man Gao Cai sent out to find the master to subdue Zhu Bajie was named Gao Cai - —Gao Cai is the younger brother of Xian Wen Zhenggong Gao Gong! Do you still have to argue with this?

Gao Pragmatic was stunned for a long time, and felt that this... seemed to make sense, so he read it carefully.

After a while, after reading the essay, Gao pragmatically summarized Han Xu's general meaning:

First, in "Journey to the West", Zhu Bajie is used to allude to Gao Gong. He "overturned the Bullfighting Palace with one mouth, and ate the Queen Mother's Ganoderma lucidum." Gao Gong fell into a fight with Xu Jie in his early years, and finally "the whole dynasty was overthrown." Correspondence; correspondence between Gaolaozhuang, where Zhu Bajie married into his wife, and Gaolaozhuang, Gao Gong’s hometown.

Especially as mentioned just now, the correspondence between Gao Cai, the family member of the character Gao Laozhuang and Gao Taigong in "Journey to the West", and Gao Cai, the younger brother of Gao Gong in Gao Laozhuang Village in reality. Such overlapping correspondences are really pale to say that they are purely coincidental. , can only be certain.

Secondly, Han Xu believes that "Journey to the West" has other more surprising second-level metaphors. He believed that in this layer of metaphors, Wu Cheng'en used Tang Monk as a metaphor for Wanli, Sun Wukong as a metaphor for high pragmatism, Zhu Bajie as a metaphor for military officials, Monk Sha as a metaphor for Chen Ju or eunuchs, and White Dragon Horse as a metaphor for the pragmatic school.

This one shocked Gao Pragmatic.

Although Han Xu was careful in his choice of words, the general meaning is that the Tang monk is used as a metaphor for the Wanli Emperor in the book because the author believes that the emperor Zhu Yijun, like the Tang monk, is not only useless except for the identity of "the reincarnation of the golden cicada", but also In the early stage, there was no clear self-understanding, so there was a move to belittle "Monkey King" for going to Guangxi.

It was not until later that it was discovered that it was difficult to move west without "Sun Wukong", so he had to welcome "Sun Wukong" back and start reusing it. Even so, there were still some discord between the two from time to time, and they still refused to delegate power unless absolutely necessary.

This corresponds to two things: first, Gao Jingshi was not asked to come forward in the Yunnan-Burma War, and he was only responsible for raising war funds; second, Gao Jingshi was not in charge of the War against Japan at the beginning, and it was not until later that he could no longer win. , only then did Gao Pragmatic take action in person.

Of course, Han Xu also said that although this is not the truth, it is the most true because it is not the truth. The reason is that the people have no idea how the highest level of the imperial court operates, nor do they know the "closeness of the relationship between emperor and minister" between the emperor and Yuan Fu. The public can only see this is how things develop, so they can only make unreasonable associations with it.

I mentioned "Tang Monk", but in fact "Sun Wukong" only said most of it, but Han Xu had something to add. Sun Wukong has many extraordinary actions, such as "making havoc in the Heavenly Palace", which is a metaphor for Gao Pragmatism's willingness to make reforms at every turn, and many of these reforms are simply contrary to Tiangang in the eyes of many people, and are simply unimaginable for ordinary people.

Another example is birth. Sun Wukong has an extraordinary birth, which corresponds to Gao Pragmatism. He inherits the mantle of Gao Gong and is regarded as the natural successor leader of the Practical School. Sun Wukong has an extremely powerful master, Bodhi Patriarch, who corresponds to Gao Pragmatism's mentor Guo Puguang, who has a virtuous name and disciples. All over the world...and so on and so forth.

As for his relationship with Wanli, Han Xu also said something more harsh: he accused "Shidetangben" of implying that the so-called "Wanli ZTE" is the same as "Going to the West". It seems that Tang Monk is the core of the team, but in fact the real core is Sun Wukong. The upcoming "Zen Ceremony" is like the canonization of the Buddha after the sutra collection is completed. Not only can Tang Monk be canonized as a Buddha, Sun Wukong must also be a Buddha...

As for Zhu Bajie, Sha Monk, and White Dragon Horse, the reason why Zhu Bajie is a warrior is because, just like Zhu Bajie, he and Sun Wukong should not have a harmonious relationship (civil and martial arts), but because Sun Wukong is too strong, Zhu Bajie ends up Seeing that they could "achieve positive results" by following Sun Wukong, they gave in and resigned themselves to their fate from then on. However, occasionally they would jump out and cause trouble, such as secretly selling cannons to Japan.

Why is Sha Monk considered to be a metaphor for Chen Ju, or the eunuch group headed by him? Because the eunuch group was once very powerful, but after seeing that Sun Wukong was even more powerful, they knew they were powerless to compete. From then on, they became good boys. For thirty years, they could only say one sentence: Senior brother is right.

As for the White Dragon Horse, it's even worse. As a political force completely controlled by Gao Pragmatic, the Practical School is so powerful that it can only act as a "mount" in a completely subordinate position. It even seems to have no ideas of its own. According to the advice of senior brother Ordered to carry Tang Monk forward.

Gao Pangshi was surprised and even a little worried when he saw this, but he knew that Han Xu was not a fool. Since he made such a dangerous accusation, his purpose could never be just for a Jinling Shidetang or the author of "Journey to the West" Wu Chengen.

Han Xu must have a bigger goal!

Sure enough, Gao Jingshi discovered an anomaly in the last paragraph of the essay: "It is known that the Jinling Shidetang edition was edited by Zhou Di, Jing Di and others before publication, and it received funding from various dignitaries after publication. I don't know why. "

That’s it, that’s it!

What are "Zhou Di" and "Jing Di"? They are Prince Zhou’s Mansion and Prince Jing’s Mansion.
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PS: At 3 o'clock in the morning this morning, my wife received the news that her uncle had passed away. It seems that this Qingming Festival will be very busy.