Lu Ming

Chapter 702 The Daily Life of the Northern Trio ([-])
The twilight is deep, the moon is dark and the stars are few.The cold night wind slowly blows across the northern land.

Night Breeze is fair, it will carry the sand and dust outside the Great Wall, and leave it in every place evenly, even the famous Meridian Gate is no exception.

Although it can't stop the cold wind, the legendary land for killing officials "Outside the Meridian Gate" is not in vain. After all, there is a spirit of killing for many years here-the unknown people are not killed here, and the knife is the limit It is a sixth-rank official.

Without the sixth rank, he is not eligible to go to court, let alone be pushed out of the Meridian Gate.

"Damn weather, it's already April and a half, and it's still so cold!"

In the night wind, Feng Jingjie tightened the collar of his round-necked official uniform, shrunk his neck, and put his arms back into the wide sleeves of his robe, returning to his previous appearance of a quail sheltered from the wind.

There is no way, as the sixth-rank prime minister of Zuosi of Honglu Temple, Feng Jingjie is indeed the genuine crane in the army of the last dynasty. The cold wind blows through the hallway.

Fortunately, the time is coming.

Just as Feng Jingjie muttered to himself, there was a slight fluctuation in the line of people who had already lined up in front.At the same time, a row of lamps lit up on the Meridian Gate tower directly in front.

Against the darkness before dawn, the left and right gates under the city tower opened.

The slowly opened Yemen represents the formal opening of the early court procedure.The ancient Ming Empire woke up again at this moment and began to repeat the day-to-day administrative procedures. The slow wheels creaked and dragged along the long river of history with difficulty.

Following the long queue of civil servants, Feng Jingjie walked through the left door step by step with square steps.

Feng Jingjie is not a fat person.He is thin and thin, with a thin face and a goatee under his chin. He has the demeanor of a teacher.

Feng Jingjie is forty-five years old this year, belonging to the best years of a bureaucrat.

However, the age has come, but the position has not arrived.

In such an idle yamen as Honglu Temple, Feng Jingjie only became a Prime Minister of Zuo Si at a very old age, and there were two Shaoqing (deputy bureau) and Siqing (principal bureau) on top of him. It can only be said that his official career was very limited. .

That's it, it's a shortcut.

In fact, Feng Jingjie was not a genuine 985 Jinshi.Before he entered Honglu Temple as a low-level bureaucrat, he was just a supervisor of the son of the state.

Supervising students is a birth defect.In the Ming Dynasty, only during the founding of the country was there a shortage of officials in the imperial court, and supervisors and Jinshi were equally employed for a period of time.After that, the Jinshi army firmly occupied the mainstream official positions.Supervising students and the like can only rely on picking up leaks and working in poor areas with mixed qualifications.

Feng Jingjie is a native of Langfang, Hebei, and he is considered a young man in the suburban area of ​​Beijing.When I was studying in the Imperial College, I married the daughter of a local businessman and took root there.After that, the merchant left, and Feng Jingjie found a job in Honglu Temple.

There is a reason to go to Honglu Temple.Among the many yamen in the capital, Honglu Temple is one of the few places that can be missed.

The fringe yamen, sometimes not valued by the genuine Jinshi, has the opportunity to pick up the leak.

In the Ming Dynasty, among the 33 leaders of Honglu Temple, only [-] were Jinshi.In addition, there are six supervisors, three students, one Sheren, one Li student, and one Confucian student.

For people like Feng Jingjie with low education, Honglu Temple is a good place for the few people with low education who have a chance to get mixed up.

However, 20 years have passed, half his life has been wasted, from a young man to an old man, Feng Jingjie is still two or three steps away from his original goal.

These positions are the natural moat.In fact, this was already the end of Master Feng's career.

"call"

Breathing out a mouthful of slightly white mist, Feng Jingjie's thoughts returned to reality from the memory - the emperor has come out, and he is about to kowtow, so he can't lose his appearance.

Before he knew it, Feng Jingjie had already followed the long queue, passed through the aisle behind the Meridian Gate, passed through the Huangji Gate, passed through the square in front of the hall, and arrived in front of the Jinluan Hall, which was also called the Huangji Hall at this time.

After the queue was in place, everyone present, including bureaucrats, eunuchs, and imperial soldiers, held their breath and waited for about half a cup of tea.The emperor's guard of honor did not come out from the Huangji Hall until the sky became light.

Next, it was Feng Jingjie's familiar procedure: the emperor took his seat, and all the officials bowed three times.The emperor issued an oral order: Discuss the matter without courtesy.

As a veteran background board, in fact, the so-called early court has nothing to do with Feng Jingjie after the ritual-free session.

Generally speaking, when it comes to real state affairs, such as the promotion and demotion of the prime minister, such meetings will be held in a small area in the Huangji Hall, and it has nothing to do with him, a sixth-rank sesame official.

As for the rest of the items that are eligible to be moved to the early dynasty, Honglu Temple generally does not have it.Even if there was, it was the Siqing or the least Qing who went to the emperor to play the right thing, and he had nothing to do with Feng Sicheng.

So, when Feng Jingjie got up and stepped back to the rear of the car he was familiar with, he rolled up his sleeves, closed his eyes slightly, looked at his nose with his eyes, watched his heart with his nose, and continued to wander in the sky.

In other words, Master Feng has messed up to the point where he is today, but in fact, internal factors still account for the main factor.As a prison student, he has read a lot of sage books, but he lacks a bit of "smartness" that a prison student should have.

To put it bluntly, Master Feng just couldn't lose face.

Ordinarily, he is not a pedantic old pedant.But when it's time to flatter, the strength is not in place, when it's time to give gifts, it's hard to pick, and when it's time to run an official position, it's always half a beat behind others
After so many years, Mr. Feng, who was somewhat enterprising at the beginning, got lost in the sea of ​​bureaucracy.In the end, Feng Jingjie transformed into a qualified boss, muddling along every day.

However, muddling along also comes at a price.

Zhu Baba, a poor beggar, won the world when he won the world, and his natural syndrome of hating officials and riches broke out.Therefore, Zhu Baba set the most demanding salary quota for the Ming bureaucrats.

With this salary, it is enough for a family to eat and dress.But officials can't do it. Officials have to support staff to have ostentation, socialize, welcome and send off. Ordinary wages are not enough.

As a result, there was a wave of corrupt officials who went on and on, and Zhu Baba couldn't kill them all.

Fortunately, after Zhu Baba, there were not many emperors who were ruthless, and they continued to "follow the good people" one after another, acquiescing to the unspoken rule of officials making extra money to subsidize their families.

Now, after hundreds of years, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, unspoken rules had already developed into clear rules, and there were fixed quotas for all kinds of shares and silver, both inside and outside the system.

Here, Master Feng will pay the price.

Normally, Beijing officials are clean and expensive, with little money but quick promotion.Everyone's basic routine is to go through a hard time and earn qualifications first, and when the qualifications are up, find a way to be a foreigner, then all the hardships of these years will be returned. Three years to clear the magistrate, one hundred thousand snowflakes silver is not it.

But Mr. Feng's skill in drilling and speculation is not good enough, and he has no chance to play outside, and he stays in a Qingshui yamen like Honglu Temple, so life is really hard.

"Oh, the official uniform is going to be dyed again."

While wandering in the sky, the sky is already bright.Standing on the square with the most political atmosphere in the empire, Master Feng didn't pay attention to the match between the monarch and his subjects at all. He lowered his head and looked at his official uniform worriedly.

The cyan sixth-rank official uniform has faded badly.Colorful color blocks even appeared on the hem of the robe.

The clothes had to be re-dyed in the dyeing workshop.

In the Middle Ages, the basic raw materials of the dyeing and weaving industry were vegetable dyes, which were easy to fade.Therefore, people will go to the dyeing workshop to recolor their robes after a period of time.

Master Feng knew that there were new-style tailors in both the West City and the East City that made high-quality gowns for dignitaries. It was said that they used cloth and dyes from the south, which would never fade.

But that kind of luxury tailor shop with glass everywhere and bright lights in broad daylight is not something that Mr. Feng has the courage to step into.

"It still has to be dyed!"

After weighing it over and over again, Master Feng finally decided that he would dye his official uniform on the holiday three days later.

The official uniform is the only thing that Master Feng can hold up to. No matter how tight the money is, he has to deal with it first.

At the moment when he made up his mind, a long and shrill voice came from Dan Bi above: "Back the court."

Even though his mind was still in the dyeing workshop, at this moment, Master Feng's body habitually advanced and retreated with the class, making the gesture of sending the emperor off, which can be described as very familiar.

From now on, the day of a petty bureaucrat in the empire will be officially started. The wave of making background boards in the early dynasty does not count.

Master Feng is the tail of the crane when he goes up, but he is the vanguard when he goes down.However, most of the ministers came back in twos and threes, and the formation quickly became chaotic.

In this way, a large group of officials pulled out the long snake formation and left the imperial city by the same route.

Go out of the Meridian Gate on the front foot, and the staff of the Sixth Division Yamen disappeared on both sides of the back foot: the Sixth Division Yamen is just outside the Meridian Gate.

After leaving the Meridian Gate, walk south along the long brick trail, exit Duanmen, and then Chengtianmen (Tiananmen), and Master Feng will arrive at the station.

As early as the first year of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty (1426), in order to meet the order control needs of the great court meeting and the court officials, sacrifices, etc., the imperial court established Honglu Temple on the east side of Chengtianmen to take charge of the court rituals.

Therefore, it is not the imperial envoy who is in charge of monitoring the etiquette posture of the officials during the court meeting, but the officials of Honglu Temple.

Of course, these tasks have nothing to do with the boss, Mr. Feng, now.The rough work of patrolling and correcting people's etiquette all over the place is what young people should do.After all, Master Feng is also the fourth in command of my Dahonglu Temple, and he has long since stopped doing such troublesome tasks of offending people.

But today, when Master Feng was the first to step out of the Chengtian Gate, he shook his head and sighed deeply——sometimes troubles cannot be avoided.

What caught Master Feng's eyes were two people kneeling by the Jinshui Bridge.

These two were dressed in robes, and at first glance they were officials of the Ming Dynasty.However, if you look closely, this robe is somewhat different from the official uniform of the Ming Dynasty.

Master Feng has been able to hang out in a yamen like Honglu Temple for many years, so he must be unique in business: Master Feng can speak a little Annanese and Siamese, and can communicate with foreigners simply.

In addition, the business he was in charge of was to receive foreigners from Annan and other places, so the identity of the two kneeling by the Jinshui Bridge was ready to be revealed: Annan's envoys who came to petition.

In other words, since last year, the envoys sent by Annan urgently to complain to Emperor Chongzhen have been one after another.

As a result, not long after, the envoys who came before were called back by the envoys who came later.

The reason is very simple: Cao Zongbing and Annan Prime Minister signed a peace agreement, the "Fuyuan Treaty", and everyone is now a loving family again, so the Annan people withdrew the lawsuit.

Originally, this matter was over.Right now, the Ming court, which is running around everywhere, has no spare energy to take care of people in remote areas like Annan who know the inside story, let alone fight against Nantian Yiba Cao XX because of this shit.

Therefore, the people in Annan withdrew the lawsuit themselves, and the court, from the emperor down, was actually happy to see this result.

However, but.

At the beginning of the crisis, the Annan court was able to urgently select officials who were "firm-minded, politically correct, and indomitable" officials.

Here's where things go bad: too firm.

The first envoy sent out was named Ruan Hong.This is the real hard-headed kind, who belongs to the die-hards who usually vigorously promote the Great Annanism.Even after Annan's envoy informed him of the situation and told him to go home, Ruan Hong stubbornly believed that the Annan court was kidnapped by the Cao thief, and all signed treaties were invalid clauses, and the current order is invalid.

Therefore, since Ruan Hong arrived in the capital last year, he stayed at Honglu Temple, arguing every day to sue the emperor.There is only one core appeal: to withdraw the troops surnamed Cao, and return Annan Lishu to a bright future.

A stunned young man like Ruan Hong is naturally not welcome to see him, let alone allow him to face the emperor.

On Ruan Hong's side, since hitting a wall at the beginning, he also changed his strategy and began to fight a protracted war, taking the miserable route.

Now every now and then, whenever the dynasty goes to court or the court disperses, Ruan Hong will bring his bare deputy envoy to appear beside the Jinshui Bridge, kneel down on the ground, lay blood on the ground, cry and complain that the Cao thief abused the people in Annan, and beg the Holy Son of Ming Dynasty Look down, come out and uphold justice.

This kind of performance art still has some effect at first sight.The hundreds of officials in the upper court must discuss it in private afterwards, which is somewhat pressured by public opinion.

However, after a long time, the officials who passed by the Jinshui Bridge turned a blind eye to it and only saw it as a joke.

But this does not include Master Feng.

Civil and military men and women in the whole dynasty can see the jokes of Annan's second-hand guy, but he, Feng Jingjie, cannot. He is taking the blame and can't even run away.

After lamenting a few times about the unfavorable time, Master Feng, with a bitter face, hurriedly walked to Ruan Hong who had already set up a stall, bowed his body, and said in a low voice, "It's almost over, and there are not many people going to court today."

It's different than imagined.In fact, the tributaries who were able to come to Ming Dynasty in this era were all aristocrats and wealthy businessmen in the middle school. Speaking Chinese and writing Chinese characters were basic skills, learned since childhood.

The next moment, the dark-skinned Ambassador Ruan Hong stretched out his hand familiarly to spread out the blood written on the white cloth on the ground, and at the same time replied in fluent Guangzhou Mandarin: "Thank you, Mr. Feng, for reminding me."

Feng Jingjie shook his head helplessly: "Oh, why do you say you are doing this?"

Ruan Hong, who was kneeling on the ground, had a calm expression and warm eyes: "Where righteousness lies. Master Feng, don't you know that Mencius has a saying, even if there are tens of thousands of people, I will go."

(End of this chapter)