Emperor Longqing suddenly announced this today, even though Gao Pangshi heard Gao Gong mention to him last night that he would work with Cheng Guogong Zhu Xizhong to "know the scriptures banquet", that is, the two of them were also responsible for the prince's scripture banquet affairs. supervisor, but Gao Gong didn't mention the arrangements for other candidates last night, so Gao Pragmatic just learned about it.
To be honest, the lineup configuration of the Prince's Lecturer shocked him a little. If you add Shen Shixing, who is actually responsible for the specific affairs of the Prince's Scripture Banquet, it can only be said that the luxury of this configuration is basically heavenly.
Let's take a look at these people.
I won’t introduce Gao Gong, but let’s talk about Zhu Xizhong first, who is the most famous military minister and nobleman along with Gao Gong.
Zhu Xizhong, courtesy name Zhenqing, was the great-great-grandson of Zhu Neng, Duke of Yongle Dynasty. In the 15th year of Jiajing reign, he ascended the title of Duke and became Duke of Guo. He was in charge of the two palaces behind and on the right side of the Governor's Mansion of the Fifth Army, the General Shenji Camp, the Admiral of the 12th Regiment Camp and the Fifth Army Camp, with an annual salary of 700 shi. During the Jiajing and Longqing dynasties, he had gone out of the city to worship heaven and earth on behalf of the emperor more than 60 times, and the rewards he had received were unparalleled.
As a noble warrior, how much favor does he have? Anyway, even though he himself has been promoted to this point, his younger brother Zhu Xixiao is still the Commander-in-Chief of Jinyiwei.
What is more worth mentioning is that from the founding of the Ming Dynasty to the present, there are a total of six people who have been awarded the title of Grand Master as military ministers and nobles, namely: Zhang Fu, Zhang Mao, Zhu Yong, Xu Guangzuo, Guo Xun, and Zhu Xizhong.
The first five have all been buried long ago, so Zhu Xizhong is currently the only military official in the Ming Dynasty who is alive to join the highest position of Grand Master, the three princes.
The Grand Master is not to be feared, but the living Grand Master is to be feared, because this is equivalent to having no reward in the official rank. Not to mention that his younger brother Zhu Xixiao is also a Taibao. Isn’t that scary?
Of course, if history cannot be rewritten by Gao Pragmatic, Zhang Juzheng will still be alive as a grand master in the future, and will become the only two civil servants and living grand masters in the Ming Dynasty, alongside Li Shanchang during the founding of the People's Republic of China. The previous powerful ministers such as Yan Song and Xu Jie, who took over as the chief assistant, were no more than Shaoshi. Today, Li Chunfang, Gao Gong, Chen Yiqin and Zhang Juzheng in the cabinet are just young masters. Among them, Li Chunfang and Gao Gong were added in the first year of Longqing, Chen Yiqin was added in the second year of Longqing, and Zhang Juzheng was added in the third year of Longqing... As for Zhao Zhenji, he did not Sneak into the level of three gongs and three solitaries.
Next is Shen Shixing. Shen Shixing was qualified in every aspect to serve as the "Tongzhi Jingyanshi": he was the number one scholar in the 41st year of Jiajing. In the Ming Dynasty, the number one scholar was assigned to the Hanlin Academy for compilation and compilation of national history, and Shen Shixing was certainly no exception. Several years after he entered the Hanlin Academy, he entered the palace as Zuo Shuzi. Zuo Shuzi is the chief of Zuo Chunfang in the East Palace of the Crown Prince, and his position is like the emperor's attendant. However, Shen Shixing's specific duty was not to serve in the East Palace, but to be in charge of the Hanlin Academy as Zuo Shuzi. After that, he moved to the right minister of the Ministry of Rites and became one of the three giants in the Ministry of Rites.
To paraphrase a highly pragmatic person from his previous life, Shen Shixing is in this position because he has superb professional abilities, rich political experience, has been fully trained in multiple positions, and has the right job description.
Perfect.
The only thing that made Gao pragmatic a little confused was that Shen Shixing was a gold medalist in the 41st year of Jiajing, and Zhang Ju was his master. Why did Gao Gong agree to let Shen Shixing be responsible for the specific affairs of the Prince's Sutra Banquet?
Gao pragmatically thought: I have to ask my third uncle about this when I go back later.
Next are the six teachers who actually teach the prince.
Chen Jingbang was ranked No. 2 and No. 7 on the Yichou Section gold list in the 44th year of Jiajing. He ranked very high and his knowledge was no problem. The examiner that year was Gao Gong, so there was no problem. Historically, this person later became the Minister of Rites, a position that was easy to get into the cabinet, but he may have been unlucky. In the 13th year of Wanli, when he was the Minister of Rites, he had a conflict with the cabinet boss, so he resigned and went home. . For many years after that, Wanli sent people to visit him from time to time, but the opportunity was never good and he failed to recover. But no matter what, since he is on the Yichou Kejin List and can be considered a member of the Gao Gong faction, or at least a pro-Gao Gong faction, it is not a big problem.
The next three: Shen Li, Xu Guo, and Gu Yangqian are considered acquaintances of Gao Pragmatic—their brothers were present at the last gathering of disciples at Gao Gong’s family. They were all gold medalists in the Yichou Division in the 44th year of Jiajing, so they don’t need to be introduced too much. . To put it simply, both Shen Li and Xu Guo later served as cabinet ministers. Gu Yangqian was slightly less successful than the two of them, but he also served as governor of Jiliao and Korea manager (at that time, he was aiding Korea and expelling the Japanese), and finally served as associate minister of the capital. Ying Rongzheng, left minister of the Ministry of War.
Then comes the Zhang position. Zhang Wei was a Jinshi in the second year of Longqing's reign, and the examiner this year was Li Chunfang. Who put him on the list? No need to ask.
However, here is a fact that may not be known to many people: after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism was indeed established as the official ideology. However, during the Hongwu and Jianwen years, although the seven classics and meaning articles in the first imperial examination were strictly limited to the Four Books and Five Classics, it was not stipulated that Cheng and Zhu Neo-Confucianism must be the mainstay, and Cheng and Zhu's annotations were only one of the references.
In addition, the eight-legged essay had not yet been finalized at that time, and the form of the article was not very strict. Therefore, scholars still have some room for improvement when answering questions. During the Yongle period, the Ming court began to organize the compilation of the "Complete Four Books", "The Complete Collection of Five Classics" and "The Complete Collection of Xingli", and promulgated it throughout the country, stipulating that the answers to questions should be based on Cheng and Zhu's annotations of Neo-Confucianism, and must "follow the tone of the ancients" . Only then does it really begin to clamp down on the minds of scholars.
During the Zhengde and Jiajing years, with the rise of Yangming's philosophy of mind, the dominance of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism began to be challenged. Wang Yangming absorbed the thoughts of Laozi, Zhuangzi and Buddhism on the nature of mind, and put forward the theory of "developing conscience" and "unity of knowledge and action". He recruited many disciples and advocated lecturing. He not only cultivated a large number of followers, but also made Yangming's philosophy spread rapidly. Yangming's philosophy of mind was not only widely circulated among ordinary scholars, but also had many believers among the bureaucrats in the northern and southern capitals. Xu Jie, Li Chunfang and other high-ranking officials all believed in Yangming's philosophy of mind and advocated lecturing in the capital. This not only further expanded the influence of Yangming's philosophy of mind, but also made it gradually accepted by official schools and imperial examinations, making it a mainstream ideology.
Especially during the period from the mid-to-late Jiajing period to the Longqing period, the influence of Yangming's theory of mind in the imperial examinations actually exceeded that of Zhu's Neo-Confucianism. For example, in the examination in the second year of Longqing's reign just mentioned, because Li Chunfang served as the examiner, his Chengwen was based on Wang Xue's interpretation of the scriptures and incorporated the words of "Zhuangzi" into the text. In fact, starting from the mid-Jialong period, the Tang and Song Dynasty parties had an important influence on the imperial examinations. Most of its members not only respected and believed in Yangming's Xinxue, but also integrated Xinxue's ideas into eight-legged essays and policy theory.
Although Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng did not advocate lecturing, they were actually influenced by Xinxue. Therefore, Gao Gong had just mentioned to Gao Pragmatic that he was not opposed to Wang Yangming's "genuine Xinxue" at that time. What he opposed was the "fake Xinxue" that was becoming increasingly pragmatic. Mind learning". Zhang Juzheng is even more direct. He believes that the current psychology is just thinking without doing anything, without any regard for the actual situation, and the unity of knowledge and action is completely empty talk.
I digressed, and back to the topic, since Zhang Wei was the Jinshi selected by Li Chunfang, he probably had different ideas from Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng, but Li Chunfang was the chief minister after all, and someone had to be involved in such a big event as the Prince's Sutra Banquet.
Finally, there is Chen Yubi. This choice is very interesting because he is Chen Yiqin’s biological son! But his qualifications are relatively junior. He was a Jinshi in Wuchen Section in the second year of Longqing, one subject later than those under Gao Gongmen who were Jinshi in Jiajing forty-four years, but he is in the same subject as Zhang Wei.
It stands to reason that since Li Chunfang, Gao Gong and even Zhang Juzheng all tried to trick people into the Prince's Jingyan Banquet, it is not surprising that Chen Yiqin stuffed people into them. But Gao Pragmatic felt that the matter might not be that simple. After all, in his impression, Chen Yiqin's problem was just that he was a little conservative, but he was still a relatively decent person and could not talk about taking power. He should not do this.
What’s more, even if Chen Yiqin really wanted to fortify people, he couldn’t do it so obviously as he wanted to fortify his own son, right? Does Mr. Chen Ge have no disciples or confidants?
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic believes that there may be a problem here. It's just that I don't have any information at hand at the moment, so there's no point in guessing. I have to go back to the third uncle and ask again.
But no matter what, this time the Crown Prince held a banquet, from the perspective of the Japanese officials, not only were the officials themselves already luxuriously equipped, but the equipment behind them was even more luxurious!
