Through the few conversations he had just had with Zhao Zhigao, Gao Pragmatic had a general understanding of why the Hanlin Academy was so deserted today, and he thought to himself, now I have become a famous figure in the capital, right?
Look, the nobles in the Imperial Academy are extremely dissatisfied with me, a young boy with no reputation at all, working in the same yamen as them, but because I tinkered with the book "Long Wen Whip Shadow" at this age, they even thought that I was originally They wanted to "teach me a lesson", but they couldn't do it - it's not that they thought they were not good enough, but that a small child had such knowledge, and as seniors, generally speaking, they only have praise and support. , if you come forward to suppress it instead, your reputation will be ruined.
The nobles of the Imperial Academy have no real power in their hands. If this crucial reputation still stinks on the streets, wouldn't it mean that they have nothing to rely on? Therefore, they are obviously extremely dissatisfied, so they can only express their position through such soft means of avoiding others, but they cannot really jump out and personally compete with themselves - winning is a win without force, and losing is even worse. It will be infamy for thousands of years, isn’t it just someone who was stupid?
Only an honest and kind person like Zhao Zhigao would pinch his nose and still come to work. But if he hadn't had a correct attitude and a very low posture just now, wouldn't Zhao Zhigao look ugly to him?
However, after seeing Zhao Zhigao but not the other future elders of Wuchen Branch, Gao Pingshi still felt a little regretful, but after thinking about it, he was relieved: It doesn't matter if you can't see it today, anyway, it doesn't matter whether you accept it or not. , my "working relationship" is still affiliated with your Hanlin Academy, and there will be times when I can get in touch with you in the future.
Besides, there may be another very important reason why Wuchenke was so awesome in history... Gao Gong fell.
At first glance, Gao Gong's downfall and the brilliance of the Wuchenke Jinshi are completely unrelated. It seems that they have nothing to do with each other, but in fact they are not. There is a great relationship between these two things.
Let’s take a look at the timetable first: In April of the 44th year of the Jiajing reign, Li Chunfang was promoted to be the Minister of the Ministry of Rites and a bachelor of Wuyingdian Hall; in March of the 45th year of the Jiajing reign, Guo Pu and Gao Gong were respectively promoted to be the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and a bachelor of the Wuyingdian Hall. , the Minister of Rites and a bachelor of Wenyuange entered the cabinet at the same time; in February of the first year of Longqing, Chen Yiqin was promoted to be a minister of the Ministry of Rites and a bachelor of Wenyuange, and Zhang Juzheng was promoted to the left minister of the Ministry of Personnel and a bachelor of Dongge. Because Gao Gong failed in the battle with Xu Jie, he resigned from the cabinet after being approved in May of this year. Guo Pu, as a die-hard ally of Gao Gong, carried on alone until September, and then resigned in anger.
Readers may have noticed that before the second year of Longqing, Gao Gong had already resigned and returned to his hometown in Xinzheng.
What does this mean? It means that the autumn palace of the second year of Longqing has nothing to do with Gao Gong.
Coincidentally, in July of the second year of Longqing, Xu Jie was approved to become an official by Emperor Longqing, who was increasingly dissatisfied with him, and returned to his hometown in Songjiang. So Li Chunfang, who was ranked behind him, stepped in and became the chief minister of the cabinet as if taking advantage.
At that time, there were only three cabinet ministers in the cabinet. According to their ranking, they were Li Chunfang, Chen Yiqin, and Zhang Juzheng. Therefore, in the autumn of this year, Li Chunfang was the examiner, and Chen Yiqin and Zhang Juzheng were the two highest-ranking fellow examiners. As for other fellow examiners, their statuses differed, but even the highest status among them obviously could not be compared with the two elders Chen and Zhang.
In the early and middle Wanli period, in the officialdom where seniority was a serious issue, the Jinshi in the late Jiajing and Longqing years were in their "prime years". However, due to Gao Gong's downfall, the Yichou Ke Jinshi in the 44th year of Jiajing, who was supposed to have great ambitions, was unable to do so due to his lack of qualifications. The teachers were high-ranking, and many of them were implicated. Their careers either suffered major setbacks, or were completely ruined, and only a few were spared.
These people are either not closely related to Gao Gong, or Zhang Juzheng believes that talents are really rare, or they have simply surrendered and become dog lickers - of course, most of them just pretend to be dog lickers, but in fact they are secretly waiting for them. When the opportunity arises, be ready to counterattack at any time - for example, Zhang Siwei obviously did this.
But in any case, many of the most powerful figures during Gao Gong's reign were "buried" with Gao Gong's downfall. Song Zhihan, Tu Menggui, Cheng Wen, Han Ji, Luo Zun, Zhang Mengnan and others, who are not like this? Only Shen Li and Xu Guo were spared the catastrophe because they were still working in the Hanlin Academy until Gao Gong stepped down.
Gao Gong has been "teaching" for so many years. It is definitely not a boast to say that his disciples and former officials are all over the world. In addition to the above, there are many people. It is impossible to count how many people were implicated in the end. Maybe Zhang Juzheng himself Can't even figure it out.
Since the prowess of the Jinshi in Wuchenke is more or less related to the downfall of Gao Gong and the loss of Jinshi in Yichou, then once I help Gao Gong stabilize his position at the turn of Long and Wan, he can continue Rule the world, and finally serve with glory. Then the competitive pressure of Wuchenke will be much greater in the future, and it is hard to say whether it will still have the glorious performance it has in history.
But even so, several talented people in this department are still relatively optimistic about their career prospects, especially Zhao Zhigao's attitude that is now showing signs of softening. Gao Pragmatic feels... this is an opportunity.
This opportunity is of course not meant to win over Zhao Zhigao. Historically, Zhang Juzheng was so powerful that he failed to win over this person. Even if Gao Gong was a mere brat, he might not be able to win over Zhao Yiyang, so why bother asking for trouble? ?
The "opportunity" he was thinking of was to first change Zhao Zhigao's attitude towards him. When the other officials of the Hanlin Academy knew that he had communicated with him today, they would probably come to inquire about him. According to the temper Zhao Zhigao had just shown, , he is unlikely to say bad things about people behind their backs.
And if you have a "very happy conversation" with yourself, it is almost certain that he will sing praises for yourself - as mentioned before, the elders in the literary world are usually willing to encourage and praise juniors who have both political integrity and talent. . The truth behind this is actually very simple: if you really succeed in the future, can you remember my support back then? If you have no future, who will remember you? I don’t even remember you as a person, and naturally I won’t remember how I praised you.
Therefore, praising the juniors is a beautiful virtue and necessary accomplishment of a senior. On the other hand, if you suppress the juniors, you can only gain a bad reputation - if this junior is more awesome than you in the future, why don't you slap him in the face?
This is why it is said that you should bully the old rather than the young.
Therefore, Gao pragmatically immediately used the methods he used to serve leaders in the past, flattering Zhao Zhigao and the Hanlin Academy in a roundabout way, and made Zhao Zhigao, a poor Hanlin scholar who had not received such treatment, very happy. Still quite young, Editor Zhao was just about to behead a chicken, burn yellow paper, and become a close friend for eight years with this old friend.
