Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2327 Fengshan (Twenty-four) Extraordinary Events

The emperor and his entourage arrived in Yanzhou smoothly via Linqing according to the planned schedule. Although there were some economic and livelihood issues in Yanzhou that Gao Youshi needed to introduce to the emperor, and to convince the emperor to support the cabinet's reform measures through his field experience, the situation was different this time, and all other matters had to give way to another matter - the Confucius sacrifice in Qufu.

Yanzhou Prefecture, Ziyang County, is adjacent to Qufu County, and the two places are only 50 miles apart. Because one must go to Qufu to worship Confucius before the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai, Yanzhou has become a bonus and has become dispensable. The emperor and his entourage only stayed in Yanzhou Prefecture for one morning - to be exact, only two hours. After the emperor gave a banquet, he immediately set off for Qufu.

There were even more officials accompanying him this time. In addition to the court officials headed by Gao Youshi and the nobles who accompanied him all the way from the capital, officials from Shandong also formed a large team and joined the group.

Gao Fusi was already very tired, so he planned to take a nap in the carriage while there was still some distance to go. But before he got in the carriage, Chen Ju came to say that the emperor had summoned him. Gao Fusi had no choice but to accompany the emperor.

To be honest, he knew that many people were jealous of him because he was summoned by the emperor to ride on the imperial carriage every day, but there was nothing he could do. If the emperor wanted to summon him, he couldn't disobey his order, right? Moreover, he had to attend to important matters every day. The emperor had to eat vegetarian food for etiquette reasons, so he had to eat vegetarian food with him. Now he suspected that he was malnourished.

This grace... sometimes too much grace may not always be a good thing.

He thought that the emperor summoned him today to ask if there were any livelihood issues in Yanzhou that needed to be resolved, so he had already made preparations in advance to maintain a perfect image as a prime minister. Unexpectedly, the emperor asked him seriously as soon as he saw him: "Rixin, I just met with Huang Kezun, the governor of Shandong, and suddenly remembered an important matter during the meeting. I wonder if the Ministry of Rites has a plan for this matter."

Gao Youshi asked, "I don't know what the emperor is talking about?"

"Since the time of my grandfather Jiajing, the emperor has not personally offered sacrifices to Confucius. Do you know the reason?" Zhu Yijun asked with a serious expression, staring at Gao Youshi.

When he asked this question, Gao Guoshi immediately knew why the emperor summoned him. As Zhu Yijun said, this matter had to start from the Jiajing period. Specifically, it had to start from the ninth year of the Jiajing period, when Zhu Houcong issued the "Sacred Edict Stele".

This "Sacred Edict" mainly talks about canceling Confucius' title of "Great Sage, Teacher, and King of Culture and Propaganda" and changing it to "Great Sage, Teacher".

This change of title was obviously intended to cancel Confucius' title of "King". The question is why did Zhu Houcong want to cancel this title and what was the story behind it? Well, that brings us to the "Great Ritual Debate" that must be mentioned during the Jiajing Dynasty.

To put it bluntly, the "Great Ceremony Debate" was about who Zhu Houcong's father was.

Ah? Why do we need to argue about who the father is? Everyone in the world has only one father. Isn't this something that cannot be changed since birth? Originally, this was the case, but when it comes to politics, the matter becomes complicated.

Zhu Houcong became emperor not by inheriting from his father, but by inheriting from his elder brother, and not from his own brother, but from his cousin. Wuzong had no children, not even a brother, so the throne could only be passed on to his cousin.

However, in an era when patriarchal ideas prevailed and blood ties were highly valued, the matter did not end here.

At that time, Yang Tinghe and others, in order to safeguard their own political interests, believed that the "elder brother succeeds the younger brother" in the "Ancestral Instructions" only referred to the succession relationship between brothers with the same father, and Zhu Houcong was only Wuzong's cousin, so it was a bit against etiquette for him to succeed.

Did they not want Zhu Houcong to be the emperor? No, they just felt that in order to comply with the etiquette, they needed to do one thing to make the whole thing logically self-consistent, that is, let Jiajing recognize Wuzong's father - that is, Jiajing's uncle as his father, and recognize his own father, King Xingxian, as his uncle. In this way, Zhu Houcong would be "the younger brother succeeds the elder brother" in a legitimate way.

What the hell? I'm the emperor now, but I still have to recognize someone else as my father? Bullshit!

The young emperor Zhu Houcong refused to agree and refused to give in. However, Yang Tinghe and other court officials believed that doing so was to establish the rule of law for the world and refused to give in. As a result, the two groups argued over this issue for more than ten years.

As an emperor, Zhu Houcong could not handle some things personally, so he needed his own confidants. So he found a talent for this matter, that is Zhang Cong. In order to maintain the father-son relationship between Zhu Houcong and his father, Zhang Cong racked his brains and finally found another explanation.

He interpreted the "after the elder brother dies, the younger brother inherits" in "Ancestral Instructions" to mean not just biological brothers, but that according to blood relationship, the five degrees of mourning of clan relatives should be listed in order of closeness, from father and son to biological brothers. Counting farther and farther from biological brothers, one can count cousins, and naturally these cousins ​​will also be included in the inheritance, so this way of inheritance is completely legal.

  Of course, this is not elegant and classy enough. Let's see how Zhang Cong explained it:

"Xiaozong is the elder brother of King Xingxian. As long as King Xian is alive, he will be the emperor. With King Xian, we have the emperor. This is what is called 'the order of family should be established'. It cannot be pushed or avoided."

What this means is: Emperor Xiaozong and Zhu Houcong's father, King Xingxian, are brothers, right? Then if Zhu Houzhao died and Zhu Houcong's father, King Xingxian, was still alive, since King Xingxian was Emperor Xiaozong's brother, then he must be the emperor, right?

But now Zhu Houcong's father is not around, what should he do? Then he can only let Zhu Houcong, the biological son of King Xingxian, inherit the throne that his father "should have".

You see, this logic makes sense, and there is no need to force the nephew to recognize his uncle as his father or force his biological father to be called uncle, right?

It's amazing! Through a throne that "should have been there", the answer that Zhu Houcong wanted was explained.

Through his interpretation of the "Ancestor's Instructions", Zhang Cong maintained the father-son relationship between Emperor Shizong and King Xingxian, and confirmed the outcome of the debate in the form of an imperial edict.

However, although the result came out, the matter was not completely settled. The ideas held by the court officials headed by Yang Tinghe continued to persist in the court and had a strong social foundation. Especially people like Yang Shen, the son of Yang Tinghe, had a very high status in the hearts of non-official literati, and his words and deeds had a strong guiding role. After he was exiled, he was not only not criticized, but his reputation was greatly enhanced, and his articles were published as soon as they were written. His influence should not be underestimated.

Faced with this group of chattering literati, Zhu Houcong would of course think that he needed to find a way to shut these literati up once and for all and put an end to the matter.

Zhu Houcong then thought of a person - Confucius. Thus, the scene mentioned above appeared: Zhu Houcong wanted to change "Dacheng Zhisheng Xianshi Wenxuan Wang" to "Zhisheng Xianshi" and cancel Confucius' title of "King".

In fact, Confucius did not have the title of "king" at the beginning, although during the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han "abolished all schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone" and regarded Confucianism as orthodox. But Confucius' title was "scholar" after all, and it was a bit exaggerated to confer the title of "scholar" as "king". People of that era still believed that treating Confucius' identity normally and respecting his teachings was the greatest respect for Confucius.

But in the Tang Dynasty, this situation changed. In the 27th year of the Kaiyuan reign of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty posthumously conferred the title of King Wenxuan on Confucius. Once this high hat is put on, it is difficult to take it off. Since then, scholars and officials who respect Confucianism have further deified Confucius and worshipped him as the most holy person in their hearts.

Therefore, when Zhu Houcong issued the imperial edict and seized Confucius' "throne", wasn't this just a slap in the face of these "idols" of the literati?

Therefore, as soon as this sacred edict was issued, it aroused opposition from ministers such as Wang Rumei. In response, Emperor Jiajing believed that the ministers were blaming him for not following the rules left by the ancestors and should not cancel Confucius' title of "king", so he launched an army to punish him.

Jiajing was very angry and scolded the ministers for being motivated by personal feelings. They wanted to use this incident to put pressure on the emperor and show the status of scholars to the common people. On the surface, they were respecting Confucius, but in fact they were respecting themselves.

Did Jiajing wrongly accuse the literati and officials by saying this? Not really, because exalting Confucius did bring many benefits to these literati, although they could not see them, they certainly enjoyed them.

In fact, since the Qin Shi Huang, emperors of all dynasties have been trying to strengthen the monarchy and enhance their imperial power. This trend spread to the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang did it more thoroughly - abolishing the prime minister was a symbol of the emperor's monopoly of power.

However, the constraints on the emperor were never as simple as the position or system of the prime minister, but the entire group of civil servants. In the Ming Dynasty, the emperor and the civil servants had always been fighting each other. In order to suppress these civil servants, the eunuch group, which was originally strictly prohibited by Zhu Yuanzhang from interfering in politics, was brought to the fore again.

Of course, another prerequisite for supporting eunuchs is that the military officials and nobles have become increasingly weaker due to the Tumu Incident and a series of subsequent incidents such as the Battle of the Gate of the Fortress, and are no longer strong enough for the emperor to use to balance the civil officials. This has been mentioned in the previous part of this book, so I will not repeat it here.

In short, for the civil service group, Confucianism is their best weapon to restrict imperial power.

The legitimacy of the Ming Dynasty's rule has always been explained by Confucianism. Therefore, whenever the emperor did something, these civil officials would always criticize him for being "politically correct" with Confucianism. This made many emperors of the Ming Dynasty, except for Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, feel like they were wearing a tight ring. If they didn't want to leave a bad name in history, they had to walk on thin ice all day long - of course, except for Emperor Wuzong who didn't care about his reputation after his death. As long as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was shameless, no one could stop him.

In short, it is understandable why Zhu Houcong argued so fiercely with the civil officials about Confucius' identity and status.

However, in the end, the struggle ended with Zhu Houcong's victory. In addition, Zhang Cong also built the Qisheng Temple to worship fathers such as Shuliang He and Zeng Xi in order to consolidate the "father-son relationship" in the process of promoting the worship of Confucius.

Previously, the order of the seats in the Confucius Temple was that Confucius sat in the middle, the four companions stood on his left and right, and the ten philosophers were arranged in the hall. Their fathers were worshipped in the two wings and were in a subordinate position.

Now it is different. Emperor Jiajing and Zhang Cong said: Father and son are the foundation of human relations. In this case, the Confucius Temple is a place for promoting education. If the father-son relationship is disordered and unethical, it will definitely have a negative effect on educating the people, so it must be corrected.

In the end, the direct result of this measure was to elevate the status of "father" and correct the "wrong" relationship of kinship. This provided a solid theoretical basis for the Great Ceremony Debate, and the father-son relationship between Zhu Houcong and his father was consolidated.

  Well, now there is one last question - what does all of the above have to do with the fact that the emperor did not personally offer sacrifices to Confucius?

Of course it is related. Starting from Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, the emperors had to kneel down and pay respect to Confucius during the Confucius worship ceremony, and later emperors also followed this ritual.

The Jiajing Emperor, who won the "Great Ceremony Debate", was a little obsessed with "Ceremony", or in other words, he was obsessed with the "supreme power of the emperor". This made him extremely sensitive to anything that undermined the emperor's authority and he would definitely oppose it. When he learned that he had to kneel before the shrine of Confucius during the Confucius Sacrifice Ceremony, the matter became very difficult.

Jiajing did not think so complicated at first. He believed that he was the emperor and Confucius was the Great Sage, the King of Culture and Literature. It was obviously inappropriate for the emperor to kneel before a king. However, Jiajing himself was not convenient to publicly express his opposition to this matter. After all, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty before him all recognized Confucius' status and knelt before him.

At this time, Zhang Cong... yes, Zhang Cong, he quickly noticed the emperor's inner dissatisfaction, so he took the lead in reporting to the emperor, saying that Confucius, as the teacher of all scholars, should highlight his status as a teacher, not as a "king". At the same time, the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, should not kneel before anyone or anything except heaven, earth and ancestors.

Jiajing was worried about the upcoming Confucius Memorial Ceremony, so he was naturally delighted to see Zhang Cong's memorial and immediately approved it. Since then, Confucius' title was changed from "Great Sage, Great Sage, and King of Literature and Propaganda" to "Great Sage and Teacher".

As for the ritual system of worshipping Confucius, as I have just mentioned, many changes were made. One of the key changes was that the emperor did not need to personally participate in the ceremony, but sent nobles and important officials to worship on his behalf, thus successfully avoiding the question of whether to kneel or not.

Zhu Yijun now raised this issue, apparently because he suddenly discovered the political hidden danger: no matter what purpose Jiajing had in removing the title of "king" from Confucius, leaving only the title of "great sage and teacher", and later refusing to worship Confucius in person, one thing is clear: the emperor's decision not to worship Confucius in person means the further consolidation of imperial power, which completely overrides the Confucianism relied on by the civil service group and becomes the absolute master of "ritual".

  Now, according to the plan made by the Ministry of Rites, the emperor will go to Qufu to pay homage to Confucius. So Zhu Yijun will of course ask - are you civil servants trying to use me to overturn the aftermath of the Great Rites Debate?
-

Thanks to book friends "云覆月雨", "书友20221205100349569", and "klauszx" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!

PS: My uncle's brain tumor craniotomy was not successful a few days ago, and he has now entered hospice care. The hospital has repeatedly persuaded the family members, and the relevant family members have agreed to remove the tube tomorrow... So I can't guarantee the stability of the updates in the next few days. I would like to explain the situation to all readers in advance, and hope you can forgive me.