“Hey, Your Majesty, this is nonsense.
The affairs of the Kong family are now so serious that the whole world may be in chaos.
If that doesn't work, I will go to Beijing to persuade His Majesty to make preparations." In Gaoyang City, Sun Chengzong suddenly felt bad after seeing the newspaper sent by his colleagues.
Then he immediately ordered people to prepare horses and march to Beijing.
Sun Chengzong (1563-1638), courtesy name Zhisheng and Kaiyang, was a native of Gaoyang County, Baoding Prefecture, North Zhili Province. He was an outstanding military strategist, loyal patriot, national hero of the Ming Dynasty, and an excellent educator. , scholars and poets.
Tianqi years
When the Ming Dynasty suffered successive defeats in the war with Hou Jin and the border defense situation was critical, Sun Chengzong replaced Wang Zaijin as the governor of Jiliao, stabilized Liaodong, and resettled millions of Liaodong refugees.
He made great contributions to the stability of Ming Dynasty.
Historically, in the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), the Qing army attacked Gaoyang. Sun Chengzong led the entire city and his family to defend the city. After the city was broken, he hanged himself.
His five sons, six grandsons, two nephews, and eight grandnephews died in the war, and more than a hundred people in the Sun family were killed. It can be said that the whole family is loyal.
Even the later emperors of the Qing Dynasty admired his loyalty and gave Sun Chengzong the posthumous title of "Zhongding".
Zhu Youjian, who knew Sun Chengzong was loyal, did not forget him.
After annihilating the Jiannu, Sun Chengzong was rewarded many times. In the 2nd year of Chongzhen, because of Sun Chengzong's contribution in pacifying Liaodong, Zhu Youjian granted Sun Chengzong the title of Marquis of Liaodong.
In the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign, Sun Chengzong blocked Zhu Youjian's reforms many times because of disagreements with him.
So Zhu Youjian sent people to secretly impeach Sun Chengzong, and then Sun Chengzong wrote a letter to go home and take care of himself. After Zhu Youjian rewarded him with a large amount of gold and silver and completed the superficial work, he readily agreed.
In the fifth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian once again rewarded him with one thousand silver coins. There are hundreds of pieces of brocade to show the emperor's favor.
Afterwards, Sun Chengzong slowly faded out of the court.
Although Sun Chengzong has faded out of the court, Sun Chengzong's influence still cannot be underestimated.
In this era of respecting teachers and respecting morality, Sun Chengzong, as the emperor's teacher, once openly opposed Zhu Youjian's reforms.
It will have a great impact on Zhu Youjian's reforms.
So at the beginning, Gaoyang's newspapers didn't write about how to treat the Kong family at all.
In order to prevent officials from causing trouble, Zhu Youjian ordered secret guards to quietly intercept all letters sent to Gaoyang.
But after all calculations, he still underestimated the enemy's determination.
As expected by the secret person, Sun Chengzong quickly chose to leave as soon as he received the news.
However, Zhu Youjian was not a vegetarian. He had already expected such a result, and had ordered the imperial guards in advance to go and protect Sun Chengzong as soon as he left Gaoyang.
"Lord Ding Liaohou, we have been waiting for you here for a long time." Just five miles out of Gaoyang, Sun Chengzong was stopped by heavily armed guards from two banners.
"Get out of the way, I have something urgent to report to Your Majesty." Sun Chengzong said somewhat unhappily.
Seeing these troops, Sun Chengzong understood what His Majesty meant, but as a person who cared about the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chengzong did not want to watch the Ming Dynasty fall into chaos.
"We are ordered to protect the safety of the Marquis. If the Marquis wants to enter the capital, we will not stop him."
"Humph, I understand. Since you want to protect me, don't slow down on purpose, otherwise it will delay the important event. I will definitely go to your majesty and ask for your help." Sun Chengzong threatened.
"Don't worry, Mr. Hou, we are only here to protect Mr. Hou's safety. We will not deliberately delay the trip."
"Team 1 will go to check the road conditions, while Team 2 and Team 3 will protect the Marquis. Team 4 will stay behind."
Following the order from the first hundred households, the guards quickly divided into 4 teams, and then quickly divided into 4 teams according to the previous division of labor.
The whole process was like flowing clouds and flowing water, without any pause.
"What elite soldiers. If the Ming Dynasty had 100,000 such elite soldiers, how dare the small surrounding countries not accept it!"
Sun Chengzong has been on the battlefield for a long time. Whether the army is elite or not may not be accurate from a standing position.
But once it moves into action, it can be seen at a glance whether the army is elite or not.
As quiet as a pile. It moves like a wolf and moves like the wind. Coupled with the orderly formation, this kind of army is truly elite.
"It's a pity that thousands of troops are easy to come by, but elites are hard to find. If His Majesty had a hundred thousand troops like this, not to mention destroying the Kong family, even if he directly offended all the aristocratic families, powerful people, landlords and nobles in the world, so what? !”
As the imperial master of the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chengzong naturally knew his Majesty's determination to reform.
Sun Chengzong also agreed with the addition of mathematics, Ming law and other miscellaneous subjects to the imperial examination, breaking the Confucian monopoly.
After all, although the Four Books and Five Classics are Confucian classics, they cannot fully adapt to the development of the court.
Before officials of the imperial court take up their posts, they need to pass corresponding training.
If it were other emperors, it would be okay. It would be normal for a backup official to wait for ten or eight years, and the training would be done slowly.
But for His Majesty, a person who can't tolerate people's disdain in his eyes, it seems embarrassing that the new official of the imperial court cannot be used directly as soon as he comes up.
In the first year of Chongzhen, the second year of Chongzhen, the third year of Chongzhen, and the fourth year of Chongzhen, in the past four years, the imperial court held 4 imperial examinations uncharacteristically. It seems that the emperor's favor is great, but in fact, there are too many officials who were kicked off by His Majesty.
Fortunately, Zhu Youjian was not so murderous. Although the punishment system for corrupt officials (evil officials) was increased every year, he did not kill corrupt officials on a large scale like Taizu.
Otherwise, more than 10,000 people would have died.
Now His Majesty has directly included the death of corrupt officials in the first article of the Ming Dynasty Law, and has not allowed future emperors to modify it. This shows that Your Majesty is very determined to eliminate corrupt officials.
According to His Majesty, the death penalty cannot stop corruption. Wouldn't a lighter treatment encourage corruption?
When His Majesty asked him to leave Beijing, Sun Chengzong knew that His Majesty would sooner or later include death for corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty Law, but what he didn't expect was that His Majesty would act so quickly.
They even directly used the Kong family to kill monkeys and honor chickens.
If this move succeeds, that's fine. If it fails, His Majesty will fall into an abyss of eternal destruction.
The Kong family is easy to clean up, but how do the officials from all over the world clean up the Kong family behind their backs?
Do you really think that a so-called Confucius' dream can solve this problem?
Let’s not talk about whether Confucius’ dream is true or false. Even if it is true, so what?
As long as hundreds of officials and literati don't think this is true, even if it is true, it is still false.
You know, there are no fools who can become an official.
Couldn't they see that the purpose of His Majesty's move was to completely clean up the officialdom!
I hope all officials can be good officials who benefit the people!
No! Of course they can see it.
But how many officials really want to be a good official?
The general environment is like this. In fact, a so-called quick knife can solve the problem?
Governing a big country is like cooking small dishes.
The relationship between the local government, the central government, various officials, aristocratic families, powerful people, and landlords is extremely complicated. If you want to sort out the relationship, you don't know how much effort you have to waste.
If you cut through the tangled knot with a sharp sword, how many people will you make a grudge against if the tangled knot is not cut off?
One or two people are not terrible, but if the whole country is put together, the Ming Dynasty will be shaken three times!
