The struggle of the reborn prince

On weekdays, when guests came to the house, they had to cook a few more dishes and buy some good wine, not to mention that the emperor came to eat at his home, what an honor and a matter of face.But when Li Gang's family tried their best to prepare a feast for the emperor, they suddenly left. At this moment, their feelings can be imagined, not only disappointment, but also anxiety.

"Stop talking!" Li Gang couldn't bear the endless complaints from his family, and looked back and shouted.

"It's a great joy for the emperor to visit his courtier's house in person. Why doesn't Mr. Xiang find a way to keep the emperor for a meal, even if he only has a glass of wine and a piece of food, it's a pity..." Mrs. Li looked at the scene in front of her. Zhuo Cai said, this was prepared by her with all her thoughts, everything in the family, and all the forces in the mansion, but how could she be willing to end up with this scene.

"You know that you have violated the emperor's taboo. Your Majesty dares to use the family banquet you prepared to exceed the banquet given by the court meeting on New Year's Day!" Li Gang threw the menu on the table and said, his wife is really honest, just looking at the plate and eating Thirteen lines have been prepared, fifteen cups of wine, seven dishes for food, ten cups of persuasion in the fruit store, ten flavors of persuasion in the kitchen, and ten cups of food for twenty cents. Regardless of the dishes and procedures, they will be given a banquet on New Year's Day this year.

"Ah?! No, the concubine just thought that His Majesty would try her best to make the emperor eat well, and didn't think too much about it!" Li Shi was frightened by her husband's words, and tremblingly said.

"Although your Majesty enjoys the wealth of the world, he hates luxury the most. This year, the Aoshan Mountain and the colorful shed in front of the Xuande Tower have not been built, and the New Year's Day banquet is just a formality, which is much smaller than in previous years. In my house, it is just a family banquet. There are as many as thirteen lines; moreover, the emperor wants to abolish the official rank of monks and Taoists and buy temple property. Before the festival, all the ladies in the palace have not gone to Xiangguo Temple to offer incense, but you are arguing to go. Being seen by the emperor again is really killing you Me!" Li Gang shouted angrily as he spoke.My extravagant 'crime' is confirmed. The Fuzhong was able to make such a big battle in a short period of time without any preparations. It can only be said that this is the case on weekdays, otherwise the materials for killing him would not be complete. Don't say it's done.

"My lord, this concubine just thought that when His Majesty came to the mansion, we would entertain him so that our children and grandchildren could get some shade, but I didn't expect to cause such a big disaster!" Li Gang was already an extremely personable minister, but not many of his sons and grandchildren gave birth to official positions.Mrs. Li thought about asking the children to come forward to pay a visit while the wine was full. Maybe the emperor was happy to eat an official and gave him an imperial order, so he had already asked them to dress up and wait to see him. Unexpectedly, a little selfishness caused disaster. .

"Your Majesty is so shrewd, how can you not see the heart of a woman like you, I didn't expect that I have been careful for more than ten years, but I was ruined by you!" Li Gang waved his hand to stop his wife from continuing, and sighed to the sky.

"Is there a remedy for Mr. Li?" Li Shi said timidly in a panic, she wanted to take advantage of it.Unexpectedly, it was self-defeating and implicated her husband in it.

"Oh, the matter has been done, and we can only resign ourselves to fate!" Li Gang sighed again.Turning around and entering the study, he threw the whole family in the hall and stared at him, thinking it was Fu Lu's arrival.But in the blink of an eye, disasters fell from the sky, casting a layer of haze over the Li family during these happy days...

Li Gang understands very well that the 'mistakes' he has made are all small-scale problems.Even if it is known to outsiders, it will not be a major event, but it happens in a sensitive period, which makes people have to worry.Especially the sudden arrival of the emperor.But suddenly drifted away, he tried hard to recall every word, every movement and demeanor of the emperor after he entered the door, trying to find something out of it.But apart from a few joking sarcasm, it seemed that the emperor did not show any dissatisfaction, but Xiye's words implied something.

Just when Li Gang was puzzled and couldn't figure out what the emperor was doing, there was another news that the emperor not only visited their house these days, but also harmed several other ministers.Xu Jingheng from the left, Chen Gongbo from the right, Zhao Ren from the Privy Council, and the other six ministers all included none of them. Laugh away.

Through the encounters of several families, Li Gang somewhat understood that all this was a prank by the emperor, and he was taking revenge on everyone.That day when the emperor wanted to conquest in person, it was they who resolutely opposed it and united as one to leave the emperor alive.At that time, the expression of the emperor announcing his renunciation of the personal conquest is still vivid, just like the expression of the emperor's wife when he left his house, full of disappointment, resentment and reluctance in his helplessness.Now that I think about it, everyone thought the matter was over, but the emperor couldn't forget it. He wanted to take revenge, so he chose such a naughty method.

Li Gang was in a good mood when he figured out the puzzle that had troubled him for many days, but he felt that something was wrong. It was reasonable for the emperor to harm himself and other people in such a childlike way, but it was not right for Zhao Ren, the Privy Councilor.He was originally a servant next to the emperor, and his relationship with the emperor was both servant and minister, so it was most appropriate to say that he was a retainer.It would be abnormal for the emperor to torment Zhao Ren the way he treated himself and other courtiers. Instead, it would be more appropriate to kick him hard and beat him up.

"Could it be that the Song Dynasty is going to repeat the old story of the rivalry between the emperor and his ministers?" Li Gang suddenly thought that the emperor's move to 'revenge' them was to prevent the emperor's personal conquest. They have done too much, and they passively resisted with inaction, making government orders difficult to get out of the capital.From the emperor's point of view, Xiangquan has the ability to contain the imperial power and break the balance of power in the court. This is something that every emperor does not want to see...

Since the founding of the Song Dynasty, the power of the prime minister has been strengthened because the Taizu ruled the world with scholars, and the scholar-bureaucrats of the Song Dynasty carried it forward, gradually making it a golden rule to restrict the imperial power.In the textbooks, it is instilled in the scholars: the world is not the world of the emperor alone, so the emperor cannot be dictatorial about the affairs of the world.Prime Minister Du Fan once gave a good explanation on this: "Everything that is abolished or seized, (the emperor) discusses whether it is acceptable or not with the prime minister, and then implements it after seeing it."If it is not right, give and give up can be refuted, and Taiwan and remonstrance can be discussed.Take the world as the world, not take yourself as the world, even though it will be difficult for all ages.

Under this atmosphere, Song Xue cultivated the management concept of intellectuals in Song Dynasty.The scholar-bureaucrat class in the Song Dynasty had a subjective understanding of who to give to others, whether it was the safety of the country at the top or the benefit of the people at the bottom, and integrated this subjective understanding into their own contributions to the economy.In terms of political rights and interests, intellectuals seem to have won a certain right to speak and obtained some things they pursued.But they were unwilling to be reduced to affairs officers, so they had to compete with the emperor for power and restrict the growth of the imperial power.

The overall consciousness of the scholar-bureaucrats in the Song Dynasty is also reflected in their understanding of cronies. The "clique" has existed since ancient times. Confucius said: Gentlemen are a group of people but not the party;Therefore, the monarchs and ministers who take the traditional Confucian thought as the guide to governing the country only believe that the concept of "a villain has a party, but a gentleman has no party" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

After entering the Song Dynasty, with the improvement of the status of scholars, the tradition of denigrating cronies has changed, and some scholars put forward a new view that "a gentleman also has a party".He did not deny all crony parties, but analyzed them, pointing out that there is a difference between a "gentleman's party" and a "villain's party".The emergence of this theory is a change in the view of cronyism among scholars in the Song Dynasty. Ouyang Xiu even blatantly advocated the rationality of cronyism, and differentiated it by "advocating Taoism" and "shangli".

With the deepening of this kind of thinking, in the eyes of scholar-bureaucrats, as long as a wise monarch can distinguish between the party of gentlemen and the party of villains, and has the skills of slaves, then he can create an ideal political structure.Therefore, the scholar-officials in the Song Dynasty openly divided parties under the banner of "comrade" and fought for power in the court to realize their political views.As a result, party struggle became a tool for the various factions in the DPRK to fight each other, which not only hindered social reform, but also caused a century-long struggle in the political arena of the Great Song Dynasty.

Having said that, the relationship between scholars and state power is always superficial.Their mentality and behavior ultimately depend on the actual political ecology, especially the state of state power.Only when the power of the prime minister restrains the imperial power can the scholars realize their ambitions, but which emperor is willing to hand over the power in his hands, so the court is full of open and secret struggles between the scholars and the emperor, and party struggles have become a tool for the emperor to control power .He can gain the right to speak in the court by supporting or suppressing another party, so as to achieve the purpose of consolidating the imperial power...

In this dynasty, the scholar group had already declined after the Jingkang Change, and the disdainful performance of some scholars in the Jurchen invasion was also chilling, which enabled the emperor to carry out a large-scale purge of the scholar group, ending the century-old Party struggles, and re-established a new political structure with equal emphasis on civil and military affairs by solving redundant officials and improving the status of military personnel.Compared with before, the power of phase has been greatly weakened, and the right to speak has been reduced.

In the following ten years, through continuous wars and a series of national policy adjustments, the emperor enabled the Song Dynasty to quickly get rid of the post-war decline, quickly recover its vitality, and re-emerge as a powerful country in the East.A political pattern of civil and military control was also formed in the DPRK and China, and imperial power became an important weight to balance the power between civil and military forces.And the emperor's Wenzhiwugong also won him a high reputation in the ruling and opposition parties, and no one can challenge his authority.

The education of the scholar group made them unwilling to be reduced to a supporting role, and became a political group again after the initial chaos.But they know that they are not the opponents of the emperor who formed an alliance with the warriors, so they can only fight against the imperial power by temporarily forming an alliance with the warriors, and jointly extinguishing the "surrender disturbance" can be said to be their joint attempt, so this time the civil and military forces are overwhelmingly opposed to the emperor Personal conquest can be regarded as a joint challenge to the imperial power... (to be continued...)