Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 336

In the past, scholars were the most excited and nervous every year of the contest, but this year's national examination is really not good news for scholars, because this exam cancels the old practice of stereotyped talent selection.

In addition, in previous exams, in order to prevent candidates from cheating, the supervision of the test questions was very strict, but this time the test questions were published in advance.

Hearing this news, those scholars couldn't believe their ears. Isn't this an official hat?
But when they saw the topic, they were immediately dumbfounded, because they had never learned anything in the topic.

At this moment, scholars all over the world were in a rage, and countless scholars came to the local government yamen to seek an explanation from the academic officials.

However, at the Office of Academic Affairs, what the students saw was not an academic officer, but a group of soldiers with steel knives in their hands.

Seeing a group of students coming in anger, the soldiers only said one sentence to the students: If you want to be an official, go home and study the topic. If you want to make trouble, there are countless vacant numbers in the prison waiting for you to move in.

As the saying goes, when a scholar meets a soldier, he can't explain why. In front of the murderous soldier, most of the students shrink back.

However, there is a group of people who are not relentless, and the local government can't explain it, so they go to Beijing.

This group has a unified name: Donglin Party.

Throughout the dynasties, the most taboo thing for the monarchs is that the courtiers form cliques.

But in Daming, cliques continued to be banned repeatedly, and even reached the highest point in all dynasties.

Almost every time traitors are in power, there will be cliques and chaos. When Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, and Wei Zhongxian are in power, there will be a huge eunuch group. When Yan Song and other powerful officials are in power, there will be a huge civil official group.

However, the parties formed by these people belong to cronies and have no political purpose. The purpose of forming parties is to seize power and then use power for personal gain.

However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, a party with political opinions appeared in Daming, and this party was the Donglin Party.

During the Wanli period, Gu Xiancheng, a doctor in the Wenxuan Department of the Ministry of Officials, was stripped of his official position and returned to Wuxi. With the help of the local government, he reorganized Donglin College and promoted Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism.

At that time, some officials and scholars who were morally motivated but were excluded from the imperial court came to hear the news. These people not only gave lectures, but also commented on the government and the courtiers.

The political ideas of these people were supported by many courtiers. These courtiers and Donglin Academy echoed and communicated with each other, and finally formed a political force that cannot be ignored. They were called the Donglin Party by officials with different ideas from Donglin Academy.

It should be said that the Donglin Party did put forward many suggestions that were beneficial to the country when it first emerged. However, as a large number of Donglin Party members became officials in the court, in order to grab more power, these people began to attack dissidents and criticize political opponents.

In particular, the Donglin Party represented the interests of scholar-officials. They opposed the imperial court's collection of commercial taxes, which caused a sharp decline in national fiscal revenue.

Seeing that the Donglin Party is gaining more and more power and the country is getting poorer and poorer, at this time the Eunuch Party headed by Wei Zhongxian began to attack the Donglin Party with the acquiescence of Emperor Tianqi, and once removed the Donglin Party from the power center of the imperial court. get rid of.

After Zhu Youjian ascended the throne, he eradicated the eunuch party, and the Donglin party members raised their heads again. By the ninth year of Chongzhen, the Donglin party members had controlled most of the real power departments.

Without Li Jing, the Ming Dynasty would eventually perish in the hands of these guys who only know nonsense but don't do practical things.

However, Li Jing was born and led his troops to Beijing.After the court meeting, many officials of the court were taken down by Li Jing, most of whom were members of the Donglin Party.

Because Li Jing's foothold was not stable at that time, out of political considerations, Li Jing did not kill these officials. When punishing those corrupt officials, Li Jing did not humiliate the Donglin Party members like Wei Zhongxian did, and even more so. There is no big connection.

This move is obviously much better than Wei Zhongxian's. In the face of iron evidence, the Donglin party members have to bow their heads and plead guilty, and there is no room for defense at all.

Li Jing didn't punish the Donglin party members severely, which made the Donglin party members have an illusion that Li Jing didn't want to do anything to the Donglin party members.Most Donglin Party members believe that as long as the limelight is over, they can make a comeback.

And what Li Jing wanted was their reaction. Before the officials of the court could react, Li Jing seized the opportunity to purge the various ministries, kicked out those useless officials, and completely controlled the power of the court.

After Li Jing fully grasped the situation of the imperial court, he did not attack the Donglin party members.

Li Jing knew that meals had to be eaten bite by bite, and things had to be done one by one. Daming had too many bad policies, and if so many things were done at once, Daming would have to mess up.

The most urgent task is to reorganize the army. We must first master this largest state machine, and then ban the two major spy organizations, Dongchang and Jinyiwei.

After these two things were completed, Li Jing no longer had to worry about the future, and at the same time won the hearts of the people. Even many officials who had been punished by Dongchang and Jinyiwei before applauded Li Jing's move.

At this time, Li Jing began to rectify the administration of officials. By purging the secret service agencies, he obtained a large amount of evidence of crimes committed by illegal officials.

When the rectification of officials is completed, fresh blood will be added, so the new talent selection system will be implemented logically.

The rules that Li Jing formulated this time were unexpected for all the literati, including the Donglin party members. They had no idea that Li Jing would dare to change the talent selection system that had been in place for hundreds of years.

After knowing that they had no hope of passing the exam, these students started to make trouble. After they failed to make trouble in the local area, they wanted to go to Beijing to ask Li Jing for an explanation.

It's a pity that the Donglin Party members made a wrong calculation, and Li Jing hated the Donglin Party more than the Eunuch Party.

In fact, it is not corrupt officials that Li Jing hates the most, because although some corrupt officials are greedy for money, they can still do some practical things for the common people. Although Li Jing will not tolerate these people, the punishment is not severe.

What Li Jing hates the most are those officials who eat vegetarian meals in the corpses, occupy the latrines and don't shit, and only know nonsense, but most of the Donglin Party are such people.

It's just that Li Jing knows better than Wei Zhongxian how to deal with the Donglin Party members. Li Jing knows that dealing with these Donglin Party members cannot solve the problem by killing or arresting them. Although the Donglin Party members talk about harming the country, many of them still Those with integrity, the more they kill and fight, the more dissatisfied these people will be.

To subdue this group of people, we have to start from the root and let them change their previous unrealistic ideas.But if you want to change the thinking of these people, you must first cut off their way of being an official.

It is very simple to stop this group of people from becoming officials, that is, to abolish the previous stereotyped selection system, not to test the Four Books and Five Classics, and not to test Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism.

If these things are abolished in the exam, the strengths of the Donglin party members will disappear without a trace. It will be very difficult for these guys who only talk about it to be admitted.

Li Jing knew very well that the ultimate goal of the Donglin party members was to become an official, then seize power, and then implement their unrealistic way of saving the country.If you can't be an official, these people are useless to talk about shit all day long.

If these people want to continue to be officials, they must change their previous thinking and accept Li Jing's system, so that the Donglin Party, a political group, can be fundamentally resolved.

The Donglin party members never expected that Li Jing had already figured out how to deal with them. Instead, they ganged up and ganged up to Beijing to find Li Jing's theory. See.

This person whom Li Jing doesn't like is called Qian Qianyi.

Qian Qianyi, courtesy name Shouzhi, nicknamed Muzhai, was born in Changshu, Jiangsu Province. Together with Wu Weiye and Gong Dingzi, he was known as the Three Great Masters of Jiangzuo. Party leader.

In the first year of Chongzhen, he entered the cabinet for a while, and was dismissed by Zhu Youjian because Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren impeached him for cheating in the imperial examination and forming a party for personal gain.

The reason why Li Jing didn't want to see Qian Qianyi was because he claimed to be clean, but he was also keen on fame. He was completely inconsistent with his appearance. Such a person didn't have the strength of a literati at all.

Li Jing thinks that Qian Qianyi is only suitable for reciting poems and prose, and if he is an official, he can't do anything.

Ordinarily, Li Jing didn't want to see Qian Qianyi so much, so there was absolutely no need to meet this person, but considering Qian Qianyi's status in the Donglin Party and the literary world, Li Jing pondered for a while, and finally agreed to meet him.

The place where Li Jing met Qian Qianyi was very interesting. Li Jing chose to meet Qian Qianyi at the Imperial College, accompanied by Zhu Youjian and a group of courtiers.

This reception specification obviously exceeded Qian Qianyi's expectations, and it also made Qian Qianyi very proud, and felt that his face was full of glory for a while.

Guozijian is located in Andingmen, and it is the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty. It occupies a very large area and the scale of the building is also extremely magnificent.

Guozijian not only attracted domestic students to study, but many foreigners also came here. It was the only school in China that could accept foreign students at that time. At its peak, nearly [-] students studied in Guozijian.

However, in the late Ming Dynasty, due to the lack of state finances, the number of students in Guozijian had been greatly reduced. During the reign of Chongzhen, there were very few students studying in Guozijian, and Guozijian was almost deserted.

Starting from the main entrance of Guozijian, there are Jixian Gate, Taixue Gate, Yilun Hall, Jingyi Pavilion, etc. Among them, Yilun Hall is the main hall, which is the auditorium where the supervisors will give lectures. It was here when the emperor came to Guozijian to give lectures.

In addition, there is only one wall between Guozijian and the Confucian Temple, and there is an interlinked gate (Chijing Gate) inside, so that students can worship Confucius.

Li Jing and others did not summon Qian Qianyi and other students in Yilun Hall, but met them in a square not far from Chijing Gate.

When they came here, Qian Qianyi and others were very surprised. They didn't know why Li Jing met himself and the students here.

Seeing that Qian Qianyi and the others looked puzzled, the soldiers in charge of leading the way smiled and said: "Mr. Qian, the governor is going to sit and discuss with all the students today. Although the Yilun hall is spacious, you can't see the sky. How can a student not see the sun when he talks about scriptures and Taoism?"

Qian Qianyi and the others were eager to see Li Jing at this time, and without thinking too much, they followed the soldiers to the square.

　I wish you all a happy Chinese New Year, and Yan Xifeng wishes you all a happy new year!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)