In just five days, the Wuju private fraud case and the Yuwenshu fake case were thoroughly investigated. Regarding the Wuju private fraud case, the third division composed of the Yushitai, Dali Temple, and the Ministry of Punishment did not need to spend much thought at all. They only need to investigate and kick him out based on the evidence provided by Yang Ji. The Yuwenshu fake case mainly focused on the imperial guards, the army, and the capital officials. However, despite this, when the Third Division followed the clues and investigated, they found a lot of people, especially the Yuwen department in the imperial army. , and even suffered a major purge.
In fact, it is not uncommon to deploy people to the Forbidden Army. Even the "Five Houses and Three Guards" in the Forbidden Army are a place where noble families and the children of civil and military officials can be gilded. As long as they have enough qualifications here, they can rely on their family background to go out. Become generals, state captains, county magistrates, hussar generals and chariot generals of the military government, etc. However, it is one thing for the emperor and the court to agree, but it is another thing to secretly insert people into the Forbidden Army.
The former means that everything is within the emperor's sight and under the control of the emperor; the latter not only does not get the emperor's approval, first of all, his attitude is extremely bad, and secondly, the influx of a large number of "unknown origins" generals directly It threatened the emperor's wealth and life, so it was always taboo for the emperor to arbitrarily go to the imperial army to block people. This time, Yu Wenshu not only violated the emperor's taboo, but more importantly, the number of people packed into the imperial guards was astonishing. If these people took control of the imperial guards and suddenly launched an attack on the emperor, what would happen?
His extremely excessive behavior, after Yang Ji grafted it onto the argument of "preparing for rebellion", suddenly made Yang Guang feel extremely insecure; coupled with the influx of "three thousand fake people" into the military and political affairs, As soon as the two major incidents of monopolizing the pig iron business were proved, the argument of "preparing for rebellion" became a thorn in Yang Guang's heart. Before he was sure that Yu Wenshu was not in danger, it was impossible to recall Yu Wenshu to the court and continue to command the army. .
Zhang Heng, the imperial censor, Xue Zhou, the minister of Dali Temple, and Li Yuantong, the minister of the Ministry of Punishment, had figured out the emperor's thoughts. Therefore, the Third Division headed by the three of them knew that the more rigorous the review and the cleaner the cleaning, the more capable they would be. They would satisfy the emperor and take the opportunity to show off their outstanding abilities and establish their image of impartial law enforcement. Finally, they could take advantage of Yuwenshu's decline to eradicate the power of this big political enemy... This would accomplish multiple things with one stone, so why not do it? ?
During the days of the Third Judicial Trial, Daxing City was not peaceful.
The memorials impeaching the Yuwen and Yu factions flew like snowflakes into the Yushitai official office where the Third Division was working, and into the Daxing Palace.
After seeing the fall of Yuwen Shu and Yu Shiji, the Guanlong nobles naturally spared no effort to strengthen their offensive, hoping that with uninterrupted strong pressure, they would force Yang Guang to wipe out both the Yuwen faction and the Yu faction, thereby freeing up more seats for them to fight for. .
The other major political factions had different reactions and targets.
The key target of the Shandong gentry was Yu Shiji, which is understandable. On the one hand, the Shandong gentry and the southern gentry focused on poetry and prose, and their pursuit of interests overlapped. Yu Shiji's strong rise also vaguely developed into the leader of the southern gentry. , once he was allowed to integrate the southern gentry into one, it would obviously not be in the interests of the Shandong gentry, so the Shandong gentry wanted to take the opportunity to kill this potential enemy who was very likely to come back. Furthermore, the fifty-two prefectures under the jurisdiction of the Bingzhou Governor's Office have always been the basic base of the Shandong gentry. However, after Yang Liang's rebellion was put down, Yang Guang carried out a brutal purge of the officialdom of these fifty-two prefectures. During this period, Yu Shiji, Many people were deployed. In order to regain the basic base occupied by Yu Shiji, the Shandong nobles naturally added insult to injury and hoped to drive out the Yu faction.
The target of the southern nobles' attack was Yuwenshu. When Yang Guang was still the general manager of Yangzhou, in order to gain Yuwenshu's full support, he sent Yuwenshu's people to the south. The southern nobles saw that Yang Guang was at the key point of "cleaning up the family" , naturally also want to take the opportunity to regain their basic base.
However, the Shandong nobles and the southern nobles did not have a high voice or presence in the court, so they mainly cheered for the Guanlong nobles and fanning the flames became their main strategy.
On the contrary, the budding Wenwu from Hanmen reacted more intensely. In their view, although Yang Ji was an extremely honorable Sui prince, he opposed the ban on books in literature, promoted paper books and movable type printing, and also restarted the Three Studies in Liangzhou; in martial arts he respected meritocracy. He performed a martial arts competition, and when the martial arts competition was about to be destroyed, he forcefully cut off the evil hand, so he was completely different from the aristocratic family members and other royal family members. He was so protective of the poor family and worked hard to fight for and create opportunities for the poor family. It was despicable. He is called the leader of a poor family.
Yang Ji severely cracked down on aristocratic families in Liangzhou, preventing them from enclosing land and purging corrupt and bribed family officials; in the court, he successively had fierce duels with the three major factions of Guan and Long and King Cui Zheng of Shandong. This is exactly the type of strong person that a humble family would welcome. Now Yang Ji is facing off against Yu Wenshu, who is trying to destroy the martial arts, and Yu Shiji, who is supporting Yu Wenshu. Who else can they support if they, the poor people, don't support Yang Ji?
Although the officials from the humble family are weak, their power is not inferior to others!
The strong participation of these major political forces has made the situation between North Korea and China chaotic.
However, this is exactly what Yang Guang likes to see. He has never been afraid of struggle. What he fears is that the major political forces treat each other politely and treat each other as guests. If that happens, he, the emperor, will be in danger.
Especially the voices of officials from poor families and literati and warriors made Yang Guang particularly happy. In his opinion, the most perfect political form of the Sui Dynasty was for aristocratic families and poor families to go hand in hand, involve each other, and restrict each other. Only in this way can we create The stable Sui regime.
However, this world owes too much historical debt to the poor families, which makes the poor families weak and pitiful. Even if a few genius-like figures occasionally appear in the poor families, it is because there is no strong person in the court to support them, which leads to them being sent to hell by the family members. Among them, they are either taken over by the noble family for their own use.
Nowadays, the civil and military scoundrels of a poor family generally rely on the powerful Yang Ji. In fact, it is an extremely smart choice, and it is in line with his strategic needs and the great strategy of long-term peace and stability in the Sui Dynasty. If a poor family has such a strong figure as Yang Ji as its leader, it is actually a poor family. and the Gospel of the Sui Dynasty.
This also made Yang Guang want to transfer Yang Ji to the imperial court, let him take over the post of Minister of Internal Affairs, and serve as the representative and leader of poor families in the central government. At the same time, he could be nearby to assist him. After all, that boy was weird. There were just too many ideas and they were too in line with his wishes.
But Yang Guang thought about it carefully and rejected his idea. There is no doubt that he is determined to suppress the aristocratic families, including the Guanlong nobles, and he also needs a sharp sword like Yang Ji, but Yang Ji is really capable of causing trouble.
Since Yang Ji became an official, he has hardly spent a single day peacefully. He just wants to engage in foreign affairs in Liangzhou, but as soon as he returns to the capital, he will go to engage in a certain force, making the entire center a mess.
With his ability to get into trouble, if he were to become a Beijing official, he would offend all the civil and military officials of the court in less than half a year. By then, he would be outraged by the public, and there would be no officials from a humble family to help him. As an emperor, he would not be able to protect himself. Yu Shiji would not be able to protect himself. Is this the best example?
The key is that the targets of Yu Shiji's offense are mainly officials, not the big forces behind the officials. There will be a chance for a comeback in the future. But Yang Ji specializes in dealing with the big forces behind officials. Once he falls, there is almost no chance of comeback.
Since he can't move the family members and the Hanshi have not become a strong political force, then let Yang Ji continue to go to Liangzhou to recruit foreigners and train Hanshi for the Sui Dynasty.
Moreover, Liangzhou is prospering and various weird systems are being tested, all of which are inseparable from him. So wait until the officials from the poor families are in a good mood, and then transfer them back to support the situation and protect and support the poor people.
It was not yet noon, and the morning court had already dispersed. All civil and military officials had gone to their respective offices and rushed to handle the day's government affairs.
As usual, Yang Guang was reviewing memorials in the imperial study room of Zhongzhonghua Palace. Now there were piles of memorials that he needed to review one by one every day, and he had to be busy until late at night every day.
The five provinces and six ministries system of the Sui Dynasty had only just established a large framework, and it was not as divided as the monarch and the ministers did later. Now the power of the prime ministers in the Sui Dynasty is relatively small, but the monarch's power is equivalent, so the fatigue of the monarch is unavoidable. matter.
Yang Guang is in his prime of energy and has very good physical strength and energy. He is also accustomed to this high-intensity work mode.
"Reporting to the saint, King Wei has requested to see you." A eunuch reported at the door of the imperial study.
Yang Ji stopped writing, raised his head and said, "Let him come in!"
Yang Guang had something difficult to decide today, so he called Yang Ji over. It turns out that the imperial court elects new officials every year. At this time, it has always been a critical moment for officials to fight openly and secretly, collude with each other, sell their positions, and compete for connections. In the past, the power and appointment power were in the hands of the Ministry of Personnel, but the Ministry of Personnel More than 90% of the people selected are the children of aristocratic families and officials, and the remaining poor scholars also have various relationships with aristocratic families and officials. Especially when there were a large number of vacancies in the fifty-two prefectures under the Bingzhou Governor's Office, Yang Guang was very disappointed by the ugly behavior of important officials in the court.
Some of the new officials selected by the Ministry of Personnel do have real talents and knowledge. If they are properly awarded official positions, they can definitely benefit the country and the people and benefit the local area; but the other part are useless. These people are the product of mutual compromise between the Ministry of Official Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Their moral character is very low, and some people are even involved in murder cases. If such people become officials, they will definitely be a disaster for the people.
In order to make the new officials of the imperial court have better conduct, more sources, and stronger abilities, Yang Guang decided to imitate the examiner system established in the military examination and set up a seven-person Cao group. But it is really difficult to decide who will take charge.
If it were in the past, when Yang Guang encountered such troubles, he would have to invite his right-hand men Yu Wenshu and Yu Shiji to discuss it. They were also indispensable among these seven people; but Yu Wenshu left a deep and bad impression in his mind of seeking power for personal gain. , and Yu Shiji’s move to dominate the three provinces also left a bad impression on him. Now that both of them have been demoted, how could Yang Guang discuss with them and give them the important task of selecting officials?
However, this matter involves the interests of too many people, and we cannot easily discuss it with others. After thinking about it, he called Yang Ji, who had a lot of clever ideas.
When Yang Ji arrived and understood Yang Guang's intention, he said: "I remember that brother once said that this world is the world of aristocratic families, and each aristocratic family has formed several major political forces, and the emperor is these few The profit distributors of big political forces. You can choose one person from each of the major forces to be elected as an official! For example, the Guanlong nobles, Shandong nobles, Southern nobles, Central Plains nobles, and Hebei nobles can each occupy a seat, so that They can keep each other in check to prevent one family from becoming dominant. In addition, there is another advantage!"
"What's the benefit?" Yang Guang asked.
"As the saying goes, cutting off a person's financial path is like killing his parents, so cutting off a person's official career is a feud for three lifetimes. In this way, the appointment of a more important official position will become a key point of contention for several elected officials. No matter who gets it , the other few will definitely be dissatisfied. If things go on like this, the several major forces will definitely hate and be hostile to each other, and the next battle is inevitable. This is one; second, although each elected official represents a major force, but He also has a sense of intimacy and alienation, and the officials he recommends must be people close to him, which will cause internal disputes among them." Yang Ji said with a smile: "It can be said that this is an invisible knife that can separate several major forces. In small pieces, in small pieces.”
An unconcealable smile flashed in Yang Guang's eyes, and he nodded: "Actually, I think so too, but I'm not as thoughtful as you. If you think about it carefully, it's really the case. So who will arrange the other two seats? Who will Come to be the representative of a poor family?"
Having said this, he said worriedly: "For the Sui Dynasty, the best political form is for aristocratic families and poor families to go hand in hand. Under this general premise, if the seven elected officials are all from aristocratic families, they will not I will give the poor family a little bit, so that the poor family will have no chance of getting ahead."
"What brother said is absolutely true!" Yang Ji nodded and said, "I think the other two seats can be given to the royal family and relatives."
"Royal family and relatives?" Yang Guang was silent, unable to make a decision for a while. Royal family and relatives were not impossible, but in the early Northern Zhou Dynasty, they were controlled by the royal family Yu Wenhu, and in the later period, they were controlled and killed by Yang Jian, a relative, so He has some concerns about these two major political forces.
"The royal family, their relatives, and the emperor have a mutually prosperous and mutually destructive relationship. As long as the two elected officials are upright, dedicated to the country, and understand my brother's ambition to promote a poor family, they will definitely put national affairs first before considering their own interests. Because the turmoil in the country will not do them any good." Yang Ji glanced at Yang Guang and continued: "Taking a step back, even if the two have selfish motives, they have the important responsibility of promoting poor people, so the two of them Together, we can always form a representative of a poor family, right?"
Yang Ji remembered that in the late Sui Dynasty, Yang Guang asked Pei Ju, Pei Yun, Su Wei, Yu Wenshu, and Yu Shiji to be in charge of the government. However, these five people compromised with each other when appointing officials. Everyone was eliminated. Yang Guang also realized this problem and brought Yang Gongren up. However, he was always honest and fair, but he was excluded and slandered by the five powerful officials, which led to him being released as the ambassador of Henan Province. . His departure also left the appointment and official power in the hands of five people, which ultimately made the court become darker and darker.
The imperial court was under the joint control of the five of them. Yang Guang didn't even know the real Sui Dynasty. When Yang Guang realized that the north had already been in chaos and it was unstoppable, he hid in Jiangdu Palace and became an ostrich, not wanting to hear any more bad things. rumors.
Now Yang Guang is wise and wise, and he is also good at listening to advice. If there are more upright, honest and honest people around him, and more people can dilute the power of the 'prime minister', the Sui Dynasty may not be in despair.
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