Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1079 [Court Affairs]

Luoyang, Dongxi Garden.

Zhu Ming took the royal family members to the royal gardens to escape the summer heat, and also brought a radio and a radio operator.

Although it is said to be a summer escape, it is actually still necessary to work.

Li Hanzhang came to Dongxi Garden to meet the emperor at the imperial order. He sat in the pavilion in the middle of the lake waiting. What caught his eye were the green lotus swaying in the wind and the flower buds that had just revealed their pointed corners.

He already knew what happened in his hometown, but he didn't know the details.

Ever since his brother went back to divide the family and moved his household registration, Li Hanzhang has had no contact with his family.

Many Chinese words have their origins, but we become accustomed to them simply because we have used them for so long.

Just like Zhu Ming’s first reign title “Fuxing Zhonghua”, people at that time did not think it was vulgar, and abbreviating it to “Fuxing” or “Xinghua” had other meanings.

The same goes for "Sun". People hundreds of years later will definitely think of it as an ordinary name.

Then why isn’t the spoken word for the moon “Taiyin”?

And it became more and more popular. In the Ming Dynasty it was called "Yueming", and in the Qing Dynasty it was called "Yueyue".

The derivation of the noun from "月明" to "月" is the normal trend of popularization and colloquialism.

The evolution of the spoken name for the sun, from vulgar to elegant, actually goes against the laws of language development.

Because the three words "日", "入" and "直" have the same pronunciations, vulgar words such as "直娘贼" and "入娘的" can be directly replaced by the word "日".

Even when cursing someone, it is simply simplified to one word: Fuck!

Therefore, the colloquial words "日" and "日头" of the Song and Yuan dynasties were gradually replaced by the more elegant "太阳" in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

If you pointed at the sky and said "sun" in the Song Dynasty, it was no different from pointing at the night sky and shouting "taiyin". It was an elegant way of speaking but not down to earth. Because people usually shouted "sun", and even in poetry, it often used "sun".

We are accustomed to the term "division of family", but this term also has its origins.

The emperor established a country, the princes established their own families, and together they formed a country.

"Jia" specifically refers to the fiefdom of scholar-officials, which can also be called a fiefdom.

The descendants of the princes multiplied too much and their previous fiefdoms could no longer support them, so they had to split up and find other ways out.

Those who stayed in the original place were called the main sons, and those who separated from the family were called the branch sons.

According to Zhou Li, "branches do not offer sacrifices", which means that branches that have separated from the family do not have the right to offer sacrifices to their ancestors.

After the collapse of rituals and music, some branches began to take over.

Later, branches were also able to offer sacrifices to their ancestors, but they usually still strictly abided by the Zhou rituals: each branch would open a separate hall, and the one who opened the hall would be the ancestor of the branch, and future generations would no longer offer sacrifices to the distant ancestor of the main clan.

Li Hanzhang's "family division" behavior was a true "family division" rather than simply changing a household registration book - the family division in common parlance should be called "dividing the property and dividing the household", and the sacrifices remained unchanged.

Generally speaking, migration does not involve direct family division, as this would be considered an "unfilial" act of forgetting one's roots. Usually, it is three or four generations after migration that the family is formally divided and the ancestors are worshipped separately.

Among the large families in Jiangxi that were forcibly relocated to Hunan by Wei Liangchen, none of them have split up their family line so far; all of them are normal households with the right to offer remote sacrifices to their ancestors.

Li Hanzhang was more ruthless and cut ties directly because he expected something bad to happen in his hometown.

Modern people naturally think it’s nothing, and even think that he is taking advantage of a loophole.

But from the perspective of the ancients, Li Hanzhang has betrayed his ancestors, and he is currently in a state of "no ancestors to worship."

He could not offer sacrifices to his ancestors remotely using formal rituals, and could only return to his hometown as a branch disciple to participate in the main clan's ancestral worship activities.

Moreover, his descendants born after the division of the family were not qualified to enter the Chuzhou Li Ancestral Hall. At most, they could be included in the appendix when the family tree was continued.

If such behavior happened in the Han, Tang and Song dynasties, the person would be impeached by the censor and directly dismissed from office and never employed again!
Can you expect a man without ancestors or fathers to be loyal to the king?
No one would believe such a thing. Li Hanzhang did not deliberately publicize it, but only reported it to the emperor and informed the Ministry of Personnel. Of course, the Chuzhou Li family also kept it secret, and they also wanted to take advantage of the prime minister.

So, what is there for Li Hanzhang to be afraid of?

"Greetings to the Emperor, greetings to the Crown Prince!" Li Hanzhang suddenly stood up and bowed.

"sit down."

Zhu Ming also sat down with the prince and said casually: "Your nephew committed suicide."

"It's his own fault." Li Hanzhang said.

He hated Li Xiaojian very much.

Although the two are of different generations, their age difference is not big and they often played together when they were young.

At that time, although Li Xiaojian was not well educated, his character was not bad, and he was also passionate about scolding treacherous officials.

It was not until a few years ago that an elder in the clan wrote a letter to Li Hanzhang to complain and denounce Li Xiaojian for destroying the Li family tradition. Only then did he realize that his nephew and childhood friend had changed.

Others did not know that Li Hanzhang had actually sent people many times to secretly return to his hometown to warn Li Xiaojian to stop, and he also summoned the elders of the clan to discuss how to deal with the matter.

However, Li Xiaojian's lineage is the direct descendant of the Chuzhou Li family, while Li Hanzhang belongs to the side branch of the Li family.

Li Xiaojian agreed on the surface every time and swore to be a good person.

This guy kept donating money and land as family property, and also paid to hire famous teachers to teach the descendants of the Li family. He also supported those members of the Li family who were in difficult financial circumstances.

Gradually, most of the Li clan members in Chuzhou actually thought that Li Xiaojian was a good man, and even elected him as the patriarch of the Li clan!
However, what Li Hanzhang did was to only care about himself and not the family. Faced with complaints from many clan members, Li Hanzhang finally made up his mind to cut ties with the family.

Zhu Ming said, "Your nephew is quite troublesome. The Huainan Provincial Censorate is completely rotten from top to bottom. I'm afraid there are few good people. Even if there are some officials who are not greedy, they must be excluded and unable to do anything. The Military Command is also rotten. At least from the Salt Canal to the Canal, the garrison and the Canal Army there are engaged in smuggling. At least half of the officials at the prefecture and county levels are rotten, and the clerks are probably all corrupt and law-breaking. It is difficult to judge how many officials of the three Huainan offices have committed crimes."

Li Hanzhang was dumbfounded.

When he asked his brother to go back and divide the family property, Li Xiaojian was far less arrogant than he is now. The officialdom of Huainan Province at that time was also much cleaner than it is now, otherwise it would have been exposed in the previous crackdowns.

It's only been a few years?

He actually corrupted the Huainan provincial bureaucracy!
The speed of corruption is not "1+2", but geometric growth. Especially in the past two or three years, as the Shahe Society has continued to grow, many clerks have joined the gang, and even Li Xiaojian could not stop the "black and white integration".

According to Li Xiaojian's original intention, clerks are clerks, gangs are gangs, and the black and white worlds cooperate with each other.

The results of it?
There were always gang members being hired as police officers, and there were always clerks serving as gang members.

There is no distinction between right and wrong anymore, and newly appointed officials can easily be dragged into this mess without knowing what is going on.

The old family had such a big commotion that Li Hanzhang could not escape the blame even if he split up the family. He stood up and bowed properly: "I would like to retire and recuperate."

Zhu Ming said: "Prime Minister, you continue to do your job. All promotions will be revoked and your official rank will be reduced by three levels."

This punishment made Li Hanzhang feel both relieved and disappointed.

Apart from the position of prime minister, all his honorary titles were stripped away, and his official rank became the lowest in the cabinet.

To an outsider, this might seem like a punishment of drinking three cups of wine.

But those who truly enter the officialdom know that every position, whether real or fake, represents glory and power.

This is also a dangerous signal for Li Hanzhang himself.

If you make a mistake again next time, you might lose your job!

Fortunately, he cut ties with the family early on, otherwise the punishment this time would have been the same as Zhai Ruwen's, who would have been forced to retire directly.

After accompanying the emperor and the prince to visit Dongxi Garden for a while, Li Hanzhang bowed and took his leave.

Looking at the still confused prince, Zhu Ming asked, "Don't you understand?"

Zhu Yang bowed and said, "Father, please let me know."

Zhu Ming explained in detail:
"Li Hanzhang used to control the Ministry of Personnel. He entered the cabinet at a young age and served as prime minister for many years. His students and former officials are all over the country, but I have replaced several ministers of the Ministry of Personnel. In addition, during those times when we investigated corruption, there were a lot of changes in officials. The new officials who emerged had serious conflicts with Li Hanzhang's students and former officials."

"The leaders of the major civil servant factions don't want to stir up trouble, at least they don't want to take the initiative. But the officials in their respective factions will push them along in order to get promoted. They have to fight even if they don't want to, otherwise how can they be the leaders of their factions? This incident is nothing more than turning the secret struggle into an open fight."

"The person who planned this is Zhang Su, the Right Governor of Huainan. He is your grandfather's man..."

"Grandpa?" Zhu Yang was shocked.

Zhu Ming nodded. "When your grandfather abdicated and became the emperor, many people cried and tried to dissuade him, and some of them were sincere in their efforts. Zhang Su is the great-nephew of Zhang Shangying, the former prime minister of the Song Dynasty. He used to be the chief clerk of Xixiang County. He was the first to discover that there was a problem in Daming Township. However, because he was constrained in every way, he did not cause any damage to Daming Township, and instead became friends with your grandfather."

"If your grandfather was still in power, Zhang Su would have been promoted to the central government long ago, at least a left vice minister, only one step away from the minister. But your grandfather abdicated, and he was promoted very slowly. He planned to expose the Huainan case, firstly to drive away the left governor, and take the opportunity to temporarily take over the position and be responsible for the Huainan immigration to gain political achievements; secondly, to help Liang Yi attack Li Hanzhang."

Zhu Yang nodded and said, "Lao Liang is my grandfather's eldest disciple. I heard that he almost became my grandfather's adopted son. He is indeed the leader of this faction. But even if Prime Minister Li is dismissed from his post, there are still two people ahead of him in the cabinet. How come it won't be his turn?"

Zhu Ming smiled and said, "The ministers ahead of Liang Yi are Zhang Tong and Chen Dong. Although Zhang Tong is a scholar, he came from the military and had led troops to fight. Now the Ministry of War and the Privy Council are both controlled by military generals, so it is impossible for Zhang Tong to be the prime minister. Similarly, Chen Dong came from the Supervisory Council, and another minister, Wei Liangchen, also came from the Supervisory Council. The Supervisory Council is too powerful, and even the Left Censor-in-Chief was replaced by me. With two censors in the cabinet, can one of them be the prime minister?"

"If my father appoints or dismisses the prime minister himself, anyone can hold this position," said Zhu Yang.

Zhu Ming shook his head slightly. "Of course it is possible to forcefully appoint a prime minister. This is the emperor's power. But the military power must not be too strong, otherwise it will be difficult for the generals to suppress it. Chen Dong and Wei Liangchen, who were both former censors, have offended too many people. Once they become prime ministers, they will intensify the conflicts between the civil officials."

Zhu Yang said: "Then they will never be able to be prime minister in this life?"

"Of course not," Zhu Ming said, "If one of the positions of Minister of War or Privy Councilor is held by a civilian, Zhang Tong can be the prime minister. If one of Chen Dong and Wei Liangchen dies or retires, the other can be the prime minister."

Zhu Yang thought about it carefully, bowed and said, "Thank you for your teachings, father."

Zhu Ming hadn't said anything else. He suspected that Zhang Tong was also involved!

Zhang Tong was the vice prime minister. Could he have ever thought about going further?

Zhang Tong and Li Bao could barely be considered fellow townsmen, and they had a very good personal relationship. Li Jiang, the general of Huainan, was also Li Bao's confidant.

Is it possible for Zhang Tong and Li Bao to take advantage of the situation and work together to destroy Li Hanzhang and Zhang Guangdao?

After all, Huainan Commander Guo Xiong was Zhang Guangdao's man. If Li Hanzhang and Zhang Guangdao were both taken down, Zhang Tong would be qualified to be prime minister!

Although Zhang Tong entered the cabinet as a representative of the military, Zhang Guangdao, who was in charge of the Ministry of War, was a hindrance to Zhang Tong's promotion to prime minister.

Zhu Ming was not particularly angry about these messy fights.

There are open and covert struggles among primary school students when running for class monitor, let alone the power of the prime minister of such a huge country!

This Huainan corruption case was merely a tentative attack.

Regardless of whether Zhang Tong personally participated or not, he and Zhang Guangdao would definitely become enemies.

No matter how hard you fight, just follow the rules.

Zhu Ming doesn't mind killing anyone who dares to extend the conflicts in the court to the battlefield, even if they are founding heroes!

(End of this chapter)