Early the next morning, before dawn, many eunuchs and maidens were already busy in the Forbidden City, the center of the Ming Dynasty. Today is no different than before. The busiest place in the palace is actually the Wenhua Hall, which is usually a little deserted.
The Wenhua Hall was built in the 18th year of Yongle. It is located to the east of the Union Gate of Waichao, opposite the Wuying Hall in the east and west. Because it is located in the east of the Forbidden City, it was once used as the prince's official residence. According to the Five Elements, the east belongs to wood, and the color is green, which represents growth, so the roof of the palace used by the prince is covered with green glazed tiles.
Wenhua Hall was originally the imperial palace of the emperor. In the Tianshun and Chenghua dynasties, before the prince Jian Zuo, he took photos in Wenhua Hall. Later, because most of the princes were young, they could not actually participate in political affairs. Especially when Emperor Jiajing came, the emperor who expected immortality simply refused to confer the title of prince, so in the 15th year of Jiajing's reign, it was changed to the Emperor's Bedroom, and later to Jingyan. At that time, the building was changed to a yellow glazed tile roof. In the 17th year of Jiajing's reign, the Shengji Hall was built behind the hall.
Generally speaking, the Wenhua Palace was the palace where the emperor listened to Hanlin scholars' lectures at banquets, where the princes attended the school, and where they supervised the country. It was also the palace where the emperor occasionally visited the palace.
The main hall of Wenhua Hall has an I-shaped plane. The front hall is the Wenhua Hall, facing south, five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with yellow glazed tiles resting on the top of the mountain. There are six doors with three-crossed and six-bowl water chestnut flowers in the bright room. There are sill windows in the secondary room and the top room, with four windows with three-cross and six-bowl water chestnut flowers each. The east and west gables also have one window each. From the platform in front of the palace, there is a corridor leading directly to Wenhua Gate. The back hall is called the Lord Jing Hall, and its regulations are slightly similar to those of the Wenhua Hall, but the depth is slightly shallower. The front and back halls are connected by corridors. The east and west side halls are Bunren Hall and Jiyi Hall respectively.
The Ming Dynasty has the position of "Wenhuadian Grand Scholar", whose theoretical responsibility is to tutor the prince in his studies. Of course, in reality this is a false position. Wenhuadian Grandmaster is one of the elders, and of course he will not directly teach the prince. .
By the way, among the bachelors of the Ming Dynasty, the bachelor of Zhongji Palace (Huagai Palace) was usually the first assistant, the bachelor of Jianji Palace (Jinshen Palace) was the second assistant, and the remaining few elders were arranged according to the order of Wenhua Palace. , Wuying Hall, Wenyuan Pavilion, and Dong Pavilion were sorted and moved from high to low. The bachelor of Wenhua Hall was ranked third, which shows that the weight is not low.
The entire northeastern part of Xiehemen in Donghua Gate is a building complex with Wenhua Hall as the main body. The architecture is majestic, but the appearance of the hall is simple. There is no plaque in the Wenhua Hall, but there are Jingyi Hall, Gongmo Room and Jiuwu Zhai in the east and west side halls.
Because the Wenhua Palace is close to the offices and cabinets of the ministers, if the emperor is diligent in governing, he will often think about government affairs in the Wenhua Palace. For example, Renzong once posted a list of important officials on the west wall of Fengtianmen. During Yingzong's reign, he posted the names of central and local civil and military officials in the Wenhua Hall. Xiaozong did the same. However, when he arrived at Long Qing's place, although the emperor still complied with the instructions, he had very little time to come to the Wenhua Palace - after all, in Long Qing's view, he only needed to use his assistant ministers, and the general trend of the world was basically under control. As an emperor, there is no need to care about everything.
The small hall behind Wenhua Hall is called Jade Restaurant, while in the northwest is a simple wooden hut called Shengcuiju. The reason why it is a simple wooden hut is because whenever the country encounters a major disaster, the emperor must build a province here. However, the symbolic significance of this place is much higher than the actual significance. Historically, it was almost during the Chongzhen period. Due to the constant border chaos and domestic war, Emperor Chongzhen came to the provincial residence many times to practice hard, hoping to eliminate the war chaos by reflecting on his own mistakes. Before him, this house was almost built in vain. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic always believed that Chongzhen was an emperor who was unable to turn the tide, but was really determined to govern.
It stands to reason that any prince of the Ming Dynasty must begin to systematically receive the influence of Confucian classics at the earliest age of five and at the latest age of thirteen. The technical term is "lectures outside the cabinet". The ceremony for the prince to leave the cabinet to give lectures is similar to the ceremony for the emperor to give lectures after a banquet, and is also held in this Wenhua Hall. From then on, the prince's master selected by the emperor would tutor the prince in reading in the east wing of Wenhua Hall every day.
When the crown prince reaches the age of fourteen, he will hold a crowning ceremony as usual to mark his adulthood. The crowning ceremony is also held in the Wenhua Hall.
Even when the emperor was seriously ill, the crown prince was sometimes ordered to attend the court on behalf of the emperor at the Wenhua Palace. For example, when Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty was critically ill, he "ordered the crown prince to temporarily pay homage to the Wenhua Hall, and all officials, civil and military, would pay homage to the crown prince as usual."
There is of course a reason why the Wenhua Palace is so lively today: the emperor will visit the Wenhua Palace with the crown prince and the crown prince’s biological mother, the imperial concubine Li, and the children of the family who are within the fifth service and recommended by the third-rank civil servants in the capital will Under their personal selection, a prince's companion was born.
This was actually the first time since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, only Zhu Yuanzhang had selected some top students in the Imperial College to serve as Prince Zhu Biao and others. However, there are two points to be explained: First, these top students in the Imperial College were all adults, and they were said to be companions. Reading, in fact, plays more of a role as a teacher; secondly, this system gradually turned into the current Jingyanjin Lectures, but the level of selection is higher. Basically, they are selected from the Hanlin Academy, which is a serious A teacher is usually called a Jingyanri lecturer or something like that, and other titles are also added, such as a bachelor's degree.
But this time, because only "little kids" were selected, they were not asked to give lectures to the prince, but simply to "accompany him in reading", so the age of the selected candidates was limited to "similar to the prince."
Of course, similar is a very inaccurate term, but since the emperor's holy intention was expressed in this way, the people below had no choice but to "understand it on their own." Generally speaking, the age must not be more than three years old, otherwise...even if it is a civilian child, there will be no conversation at all. But since the prince's age is also there, there is no need to consider that he is three years younger than the prince - he may not be able to speak clearly, why do you want to accompany him to study?
Coupled with the private news from the father-in-law Li Wei, everyone agreed that the emperor was clearly hinting to the ministers: Don't send too many people to me!
This is actually understandable to everyone. After all, our Emperor is always intolerant of details. If there are so many people that the entire Wenhua Palace is filled, you can imagine how bad His Majesty's mood will be. Although the civil servants were not very afraid of this emperor, who was far less domineering than his father, there were also people they were afraid of - such as Gao Gong.
I don’t know where the news came from, saying that Gao Gong had a nephew named Gao pragmatic. He left the capital not long ago and went to another courtyard. On the way, he was robbed by thieves in Bailixia. The nephew of Gao Ge Lao, despite his young age, calmly commanded the servants to resist for a long time. He happened to encounter Liu Xian and his son, the former Langshan Commander-in-Chief, leading more than 20 servants passing by. With the cooperation of the two, they were defeated. He killed a group of thieves several times his own number.
This was already remarkable enough, but he didn't want it to be even more bizarre after that: Gao Pragmatic said to Liu Xian, "I would like to use the strength of the people to help the general complete his victory in one battle and eliminate this huge harm to the capital." He then praised the strategy and presented a method to defeat the enemy. Liu Xian was also a brave man and he actually agreed. He ordered the two to three hundred men provided by Gao Pangshi and went to conquer Baili Gorge.
I don’t know whether it was Gao Pingshi Zanhua’s strategy that was really great, or Liu Xianwei’s reputation was so great, but after a period of operations that no one knew the details of, the Bailixia giant invaders actually surrendered...
With the appointment of Liu Yingjie, the governor of Shuntian, Liu Xian became famous in Beijing, and Gao Pragmatic also became famous immediately - he did not personally lead the troops to suppress the bandits, but a child of only a few years old could do this To what extent, who is so shameless can still say more?
Considering Gao Gong's status in the emperor's mind, everyone has a certain idea. Now it's time to see what today's selection will look like.
