Xu Huating, the highly respected former chief minister, actually begged Gao Gong to let him go?
Is Xu Huating giving in? This news really shocked everyone present - except Gao Pragmatic.
The incident between Hai Rui and Xu Jie is a long story. It stands to reason that Xu Jie has been in power for many years and has a rich family. Even though he later forced Gao Gong to retreat with his words, he was too indulgent in his words, which resulted in Emperor Longqing's disapproval of him. I am very unhappy, but after all, it is still an honorable official career. After retirement, I can return to my hometown, roam in the forest, and entertain my grandchildren. It is very pleasant.
However, no one expected that in June of the third year of Longqing, the arrival of the new governor of Yingtian, Hai Rui, would shatter this beautiful feeling. Everyone knows that Haigangfeng's power is at the level of a nuclear bomb in the Ming Dynasty officialdom. But in fact, among the rectifications of various affairs within his jurisdiction, the biggest and most severe one is the regulation of land ownership. Cleaning up, and this is the action that hurts Xu Jie's interests the most.
What did Hai Rui do? Oh, Hai Rui said: Mr. Huating, at least half of your family’s land must be withdrawn.
How many fields does the Xu family have? I'm afraid only the Xu family knows this.
But in fact, most of Xu Jie's disciples and former officials knew very well about Xu Jie's huge family property and where it came from. It's just that there are more people doing this kind of thing, and sometimes it even becomes An unspoken rule. So these honest gentlemen all said: The Xu family's family business was painstakingly managed by themselves, and it is a legitimate and legal property, not the product of bribery or extortion. But saying this alone was not enough. He was too passive, so he also said that Hai Rui was careless in handling the case. He blindly ordered Xu Jie to "quit more than half of his property" before he could find out how much land he owned. This was a major mistake. What's more, they actually claimed with certainty that according to research, Xu Jie's actual farmland was only 30,000 acres, not the legendary 180,000, 240,000, or 4.5 million acres.
Well, if this is the case, according to the actual situation of the Ming Dynasty, if a chief minister who has been an official for many years has only 30,000 acres of land, then of course it cannot be regarded as greedy. Not only is he not greedy, he can even be regarded as incorruptible - what, you say Gaogong only has less than 3,000 acres of farmland? That is of course because the Gao Gong is abnormal. Besides, the six brothers of the Gao family (actually five of them, one of whom died young) have more than 10,000 acres of farmland in Xinzheng and surrounding areas. As for the Gao family, they have been officials since Gao Gong's grandfather Gao Kui, especially his father Gao Shangxian, who was the Gengwu Branch of Zhengde and the Yuan Dynasty. He was a Jinshi of Zhengde and Dingchou Branch. He once served as the Minister of Guanglu Temple and served as an official for more than 20 years. These old things, everyone Just ignored it.
In fact, when Xu Jie was in phase, nearly half of Songjiang's tax revenue went into his own pocket, and he eventually became a huge rich man. What was his method? It turns out that after local taxes are collected, they first go through the Xu Mansion (presumably because the Xu family has a large industry and occupies the main body of local taxes). The taxes submitted by local officials to the capital are actually raised directly from the Xu Mansion. However, Xu Jie played a clever trick here, counting seven baht of silver as one tael of silver, and took the difference himself. "Sinong can't tell the difference." ——Is it because you can't tell the difference, or are you afraid of the power of the powerful people in the dynasty and don't dare to tell the difference? There is no way of knowing this. Anyway, this statement comes from Yu Shenxing's official memoir "Gushan Bichen", and Yu Shenxing is said to be a disciple of Zhang Juzheng, that is, a grandson of Xu Jie's disciple.
In short, the children of the Xu family used various fraudulent means such as offering, deceiving, moving, flying, spreading, hanging, and sending to the village... to embezzle state-owned assets, exploit the people in the countryside, and seize the farmland that others depend on to make a living. , is an indisputable fact. As the head of the family, whether Xu Jie was always kept in the dark, or whether he knew it and acquiesced or even secretly supported it, only Xu Jie himself knew.
The only thing that is certain is that Hai Ruishi's understanding of Xu Jie obviously tends to be from a negative perspective, and he is dissatisfied with Xu Jie's greed and stinginess. There is another thing here: when Hai Rui first took office, he raised money from local rich people because of the famine in Wuzhong. Under the shock of Hai Qingtian's reputation, local rich people still had to give face. For example, a wealthy official and businessman from Liyang donated money directly. He offered 30,000 taels of silver, and Hai Rui went to Huating County to raise funds. Xu Jie, in desperation, reluctantly gave him a few thousand taels of silver to deal with him - this is probably because Hai Rui himself was Xu Jie's previous Recommended reasons.
At that time, Xu Mansion had thousands of registered family members and was very public. Hai Rui suggested that Xu Jie remove those fake household registrations so that they could not continue to use their reputation to do evil. Unexpectedly, Xu Jie expressed embarrassment and refused to agree. These two incidents probably left a very bad impression on Hai Rui, and even affected his subsequent attitude towards dealing with affairs in the Xu family. In addition, Xu Jie's brother Xu Zhi's misdeeds of killing people were exposed by the villagers. With Hai Rui's temper, it was impossible for him not to be angry.
Hai Rui is known to the world as an honest and upright person. When handling the land and land lawsuits related to the Xu family, he did not remember old grudges and only relied on the law (refer to the anti-donation clause in "Ming Law"), and even dismissed the then chief minister. The pleas of Li Chunfang and others have been passed down as legends through the ages, but because they deeply touched the interests of the wealthy family, they were discussed in the public opinion and were often maliciously attacked by public opinion in the court.
However, just when Xu Jie and Hai Rui were in a stalemate over the issue of retiring their fields, another piece of bad news for Xu Jie came: on December 22 of that year, the emperor issued an order to summon Gao Gong to return to the throne. . Gao Gong obeyed the order and immediately set off for Beijing to take up his post.
Gao Pingshi, who accompanied Gao Gong all the way back to Beijing, certainly knew that Gao Ge Lao's return to Beijing was so fierce. Not only was he reinstated, but he was also the cardinal in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. This shows that the emperor still trusts him as before.
Gao Gong was an expert in financial management in the Ming Dynasty. He and Emperor Longqing could even be described as "a monarch and a minister, with the same affection as father and son." Gao Gong has always hated the hidden loss of state-owned assets. Therefore, Gao Gong and Hai Rui's basic positions are completely consistent on the issue of rectifying the wealthy families in Jiangnan. However, Gao Gong himself also knew that since he had already had a deep grudge with Xu Jie, if he fully supported Hai Rui, public opinion would inevitably criticize him for using private interests to manage politics and avenging personal vendettas. This was something Gao Pragmatic had previously urged him to avoid. Therefore, Gao Gong dealt with the matter in many compromises and did not fully support Hai Rui.
At this time, the impeachment of Hai Rui became more and more fierce. The most scandalous one was the official's apology to Dai Fengxiang in February. Shuyan said that Hai Rui was greedy for personal fame and fortune, disrupted the law and order, and was completely uninformed about the way to be an official. The unruly people were allowed to sue the squires arbitrarily and deprive others of their legal property unreasonably, which led to the popular saying among the people that "it is better to sue for thinning than to plant fat fields". It is also said that Hai Rui's other policies also had many shortcomings, including the crimes of "colluding with Japanese pirates", "capture cities", "robbery treasuries and cut off passes", leading to "baggage obstruction, fireworks cut off" and so on.
Well, this statement can be described as a model classic for those who make baseless rumors and slander. Anyway, I am an official, and I have heard about it.
However, what kind of person is Xu Jie? He has served in the cabinet for nearly twenty years, and he is well aware of the trust placed in Gao Gong. How could he place his real hope on the false accusations of officials? Besides, who in the world doesn’t know what kind of person Haigang Feng is?
His only purpose in doing this is to create such a trend that the emperor or simply let the Gao Gong faction see that even if I, Xu, are no longer in the center, there are still countless people willing to stand on my side. If you If we want to continue to make trouble, then let's make trouble slowly. If the trouble continues endlessly, my reputation will be damaged, but you will not be able to suffer much!
But it's one thing to show off one's horse and horse, but in fact, why doesn't Xu Jie know the real situation at hand? Behind Gao Gong is the unwavering support of the emperor. His position in the cabinet has nothing to do with the title of chief minister, second minister or group minister. If a powerful cabinet scholar is really determined to follow him, who has retired from office, The battle begins with the outdated first assistant, and there is no need to doubt the final winner. It's amazing, but someone said behind his back that he was mean-spirited, seeking personal revenge, etc. - how could he lose a piece of flesh from someone higher than him?
Indispensable!
In the end, it was his Xu family who was truly unlucky!
With Xu Jie's cunning and forbearance skills, there was actually only one choice left at this time: bow his head to Gao Gong and give in.
Thus, there was this handwritten letter that Gao Gong received.
All the disciples looked at each other, and for a moment they were all unsure about their master's identity. In the end, it was Han Ji who couldn't help but bowed his hands to Gao Gong and said: "Master, Xu Huating treated you like that back then. Now that his own scandal has been exposed, he can't blame others! Besides, that person from Haigangfeng is They are notorious for only accepting death and no one can persuade them, so why should we ask for trouble and get involved? We might as well let Haigang Feng investigate."
Gao Pingshi quietly took a look at Han Ji, and saw the eager look on his face, and couldn't help but sigh slightly in his heart.
He knew that among Gao Gong's disciples, Han Ji had been ranked higher on the gold list at first, but now his official position was behind Song Zhihan, who was not as good as him. Of course he was worried. Now that Xu Jie wanted to give in, he had a lot of leverage. But he could be caught, and of course he wished he could be beaten to death with a stick - Xu Jie would definitely not be beaten to death alone. How many disciples and old officials were behind Xu Jie? Are there not any of these people who are implicated? After the abolition, how much space will be left inside and outside the court? Moreover, once the master decides to start a fight, as one of the scientific and technical officials, he will definitely be able to do a great job. After this is done, rewards will be given based on merit. Can't someone like him, Han, move up his position?
