Chapter 19 Patrol
The supervisory censor is at the same level as the county magistrate, and both are seventh-grade officials. But compared to the prestige of a county, the actual status is very different.
Not to mention the common official rule of the Ming Dynasty, which respected Beijing officials, although the supervisory censor was of low rank, he had great real power - "to rectify official evil in hundreds of departments at home and abroad, either to impeach in person, or to impeach under seal." , brushing papers in the two capitals, inspecting the capital camp, supervising Linxiang, general examinations and martial arts examinations, inspecting Guanglu, inspecting the warehouse, inspecting the inner treasury, the imperial city, and the five cities, taking turns to listen to the drum. External inspection, Qing army, The admiral supervises schools, tea horses, water patrols, customs patrols, transportation, printing horses, and farming. When the teacher is in charge, he supervises military discipline and merit!" In short, there is no one in the world that they cannot scold, and there is no matter that they cannot control! Especially when they go out on patrol in August every year, they are known as "inspecting hunting on behalf of the emperor": "big things are reported, small things are decided, and everyone from the prefect to the prefect is under his orders"!
The prefect is of the fourth grade!
Fourth grade? Haha, be good and be obedient!
Understand?
Not to mention the fourth-grade officers, even the first-, second- and third-grade officials, please be honest with me, otherwise you will not negotiate with me! Even if it's just trying to make excuses and calling you a bloody bastard, you still have to happily continue it!
No one can stop the monitoring of the censor's memorial: not only can he go directly to the emperor without taking the ordinary route of the chief minister, but he also has the exclusive power to "report on rumors" - he can report to the emperor anytime and anywhere if he hears gossip. It’s a small report, and you don’t need to be responsible for its authenticity!
This is a good job that all officials want to fawn over.
But Yang Mingzhen, who believes that "the holy family is prosperous", does not accept this trick.
If a fledgling scholar hits a wall early, it may not be a bad thing; on the contrary, if he gets lucky by accident, it is easy to go astray. This is the case with Yang Mingzhen.
The Metropolitan Procuratorate, commonly known as the Yushitai, has thirteen supervisory censors with a total staff of 110 people. Twenty-one censors will be selected from among them to patrol various places on behalf of the emperor in August every year: two from North Zhili, three from South Zhili, and one each from Xuanda, Liaodong, Gansu, and the thirteen provinces. It is somewhat similar to today's Central Inspection Team, but has greater power. Each inspector must recommend two candidates for the emperor to choose from - the chosen one can be said to have reached the sky in one step: the person he reports to is no longer the headquarters of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, but the Holy Emperor himself!
This year, Yang Mingzhen was ordered by Emperor Daozong to patrol Henan Road without any surprise. There is a saying among the people that there is an "eight governors patrol", but it is actually deceived by movies and TV shows. It is nonsense, there is no such official at all. Many of the provinces of the Ming Dynasty were divided into eight prefectures, but some were not enough and some were more. The words "Eight Prefectural Patrols" are catchy and majestic when pronounced, and they are adopted by idiotic movies and TV dramas, and then they are doubly misleading.
Yang Xun was so confident that he mounted a black donkey and rushed to Henan. The patrol magistrate has great power and high status, but the position is low. He is of the same rank as the county magistrate. The standard of his mount can only be a donkey - it cannot exceed the standard. The treatment is the same regardless of the level in ancient and modern times. This is called a country with Confucian culture and etiquette! Classmate Xiao Yang also carved a seal of "Xiao Xuan" for himself and hung it on his waist.
Everyone knows that this young man inspired himself with the allusion of "strength order" to achieve success. During the Guangwu period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Xuan was appointed as the order of Luoyang. Princess Huyang's family members killed someone, and Dong Xuan wanted to enforce the law impartially. That guy was also scared, and Princess Huyang protected her and kept this guy with her at all times. What could a county magistrate do? Unexpectedly, Dong Xuan openly stopped the princess's carriage on the street, dragged the bullying slave out of the car and killed her in the street. The princess ran to Liu Xiu and complained, but Liu Xiu threatened to kill Dong Xuan to vent her anger on the princess. Dong Xuan made an impassioned speech: "Your Majesty wants to be the master of ZTE, but you allow slaves to kill good people. How can you regulate the world? Please commit suicide!" After saying this, he hit the Ying (pillar) with his head, and his face was covered with blood. Liu Xiu hurriedly asked Xiaohuangmen to hold him back, and said to smooth things over: "You should apologize to the princess." Dong Xuan refused, and Xiaohuangmen pressed hard. Dong Xuan refused to surrender with both hands on the ground. Emperor Guangwu, who was talented and resourceful, laughed loudly. So he was given the name "Strength Order"!
BTW, I foolishly thought that in the Battle of Kunyang, when the Han Dynasty was revived, he personally commanded three thousand tigers and wolves to counterattack a hundred thousand soldiers. He killed General Wang Mang in formation and chased him for fifty miles to the north. The enemy corpses were so congested that the Yellow River stopped flowing. It can be called a "great talent and great strategy". But many people use these four words for Emperor Wu Liu Che - Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty. They are just one word different. The former ruined the Wenjing family, halved the household registration in the world, and invented the sue system (mobilizing all officials and people) Tell each other, the one who informs will be rewarded with half of the property confiscated, and those who do not report the knowledge are guilty of the same crime), force their sons to kill their wives, and worry all day long that others will use witchcraft to murder them... Such a thing is worthy of these four A word? I bother!
When Yang Mingzhen arrived in Henan, he lived up to his holy expectations. He started with river engineering and lived and ate on the Yellow River embankment. Not only did he personally calculate every square of earth and stone work, and distribute every grain of grain, he also caught a man who was almost the same as Dong. Xuan Na's play is exactly the same as the typical one.
The river supervisor manages the river, but someone must supervise it. Emperor Daozong sent the eunuch Cao Xiwang of the Royal Horse Supervisor to supervise the river work. Not only did he supervise the project, but the money, food and materials needed for the project were also distributed by the river supervisor. Eunuch Cao was happily listening to the opera and waiting for the cashier in Kaifeng Mansion, and asked his godson Cao Fu to supervise the work on his behalf. This Cao Fu was extremely daring, not to mention corruption and so on. Later, he became more and more dark-hearted and bold, and he actually resold most of the food eaten by the river workers. Mr. Yang, who was riding a donkey to patrol the embankment, found the coolies chewing tree bark and became angry!
The consequences were serious: the adults on horseback and sedan chairs knelt on the ground, and Yang Mingzhen was put on trial in the open air on the embankment. Cao Fu himself was not a eunuch and could not be considered a slave of the Holy Master, so Xiao Yang greeted him without any psychological burden. After going through the execution process, Cao Fu would do whatever he asked.
Xiao Yang couldn't bear to chop him to death and waste living teaching materials. Based on the principle of waste utilization, he decided to stand in a cage and put it on a live exhibition on the embankment - every official had to come to visit, and after reading it, he had to write down his anti-corruption experience, and every coolie You can come over and spit and then kowtow to express your gratitude to the emperor for his great kindness and making decisions for the people... After more than ten days, Cao Fu was left standing alive at the construction site! At the same time, he "just asked" the county magistrate. After returning to Beijing and regaining his life, he went to the magistrate and the river governor to sue Eunuch Cao: "I have deposed more than a hundred people who were corrupt and engraving, and I have not rushed to conquer more than ten things, and I have recruited the refugees." "Issuing village relief loans will make living in many places"...
The Holy Lord Longyan Dayue said: Bu Tianen is so happy to have such a stupid young man to help me with difficult things. How wonderful!
The inspection period of the inspection censor is usually one year, and the inspection places are relatively fixed. Daozong is lazy, but not stupid. He finally caught a trustworthy person, but he still can't control him? In July of the following year, he returned to Beijing and resumed his duties. After commending him in person, he was rewarded with some odds and ends, and was sent directly to patrol the salt road. Classmate Xiao Yang once again fulfilled his mission: he managed to get nearly one million taels of silver for the imperial court! Then, I excitedly went to patrol Liaodong...
Liaodong is an important military area. Yang Mingzhen became familiar with military affairs here, and he was also familiar with the various "flowers" of military leaders, large and small.
Of course, in the past few years, Yang Mingzhen has gained the favor of Emperor Daozong, and at the same time - he has offended almost every colleague he can offend! Eventually he got the nickname "Stubborn Sheep".
The Emperor Sheng was happy. Although Yang Mingzhen's career was smooth sailing, his life had always been difficult. Compared with Hai Rui's extraordinary poverty, it would be better, but after several decades, until he reached the third rank, even his daily meals were not as good as those of a normal seventh rank magistrate (of course not Luo Yonghao). ) are much worse than the others. The children of the family did not receive any benefits - the wife actually had to make some textiles to supplement the family income. She was pregnant and tripped over the spinning wheel. She had a miscarriage and her second son died in infancy.
Daozong knew very clearly in his heart that Yang Mingzhen was stubborn. Even if he had a bad temper and insisted on getting in trouble with him, he would only curse a few times and not really care. Even privately, I am very happy to have guys like Yang Mingzhen and Li Yuting to assist me. Of course, we cannot use today’s concept of equality (well, in theory, relatively) to understand the relationships between characters in that era. In the eyes of the Holy Emperor, all ministers are private “products” that serve himself: you You may like a chair very much, but you will not feel any gratitude for that chair just because it is comfortable! The Holy Emperor knows that the golden mean of "when the water is clear, there will be no fish" is the kingly way. It requires both loyal ministers and those who are "not very strict on self-discipline, always fiercely fighting for private thoughts, but very capable" A capable minister can do great things for himself. The two check and balance each other and are indispensable. Chongzhen of later generations is the most convincing negative teaching material: let the hypocrites of the Donglin Party cover the sky with one hand, and everyone seems to be a moral model. Well, after a few years of "all the righteousness prevailing in the court", the Liehuang himself committed suicide. Hanging on the southeast branch.
When Emperor Daozong controlled Long Bintian and Emperor Zhuangzong succeeded to the throne, Yang Mingzhen's good luck came to an end. As early as when Zhu Qijun* was the crown prince in the East Palace, Yang Mingzhen had participated in the "domineering" affairs of Shao Zhan in Zhan Shifu. Many such small quarrels had been going on for a long time. In addition, he was hated by everyone. How could he let go of this good opportunity for the new king to ascend the throne? ——Of course the new emperor must use his own people. How can we arrange the position if the position is not vacant? Everyone knows this. So everyone scolded the stubborn sheep together: sharing the "worry" for the saint, and also leaving a good impression on the new king to keep his official chair, killing two birds with one stone. Fortunately, Zhuangzong was not a foolish king. He knew in his heart that this guy had a stubborn temper, so he sent him to Nanzhili to be the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. He was promoted to an official position in name, but in fact he was out of sight and out of mind. Give him a false position so that he can live in peace and contentment.
Because of his experience in Liaodong's "Qing army patrolling the customs", Yang Mingzhen was familiar with all the little tricks those military leaders used to play. When he received the transcript of the side newspaper from Yulin Mansion, he saw the flaw at a glance: What? "The horses in the camp were short of fodder and encountered horse plague. How many of them died?"
I bother!
The horse belongs to the official family, will you feel distressed if it dies? The government-run horse farms will pay for the poor horses at the same price as the good ones. The generals in the border towns will not only keep one or two fast horses for escape, but they are eager to report the dead horses in batches every year. Everyone pays more money, and the soldiers usually resort to corruption. Horse stuff, torment the horse to death and everyone eats meat and beats teeth as a sacrifice! What you are doing now is just a way of setting the stage for future defeat!
No nonsense, I want to join them: not only will we definitely lose this battle, but we will lose ugly! Anyway, apart from reading the newspaper and drinking tea, I am so idle that my balls hurt. If you can trust me, I would like to go to Shaanxi in person to keep an eye on these unscrupulous dogs!
Facts have proved that it was Lao Yang himself who lost, and the loss was as ugly as it was ugly. Of course, this is something.
*Daozong, Zhuangzong, and the radicals of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth that represent the emperor's name are just for the plot of the story. Sometimes the plot requires that the affairs of several emperors be mixed together without taking it seriously. All the real emperors mentioned directly in the article, such as Wanli, Wu Zong, etc., are real. When fictional emperors such as Daozong and Zhuangzong are used, the affairs of several emperors are mixed into one person~ However, except for Names of people, most of the events actually happened.
