In the eighth year of Wanli, Gao Jingshi entered the Hanlin Academy as the top scholar in the new subject. Under the name of a group of big shots, he actually presided over the compilation of the "Da Ming Huidian". The Enyin system was mentioned in the Huidian, and according to Jiajing, During the Long and Qing dynasties, the cabinet's votes and the emperor's approval (check the archives) provided a prescriptive explanation on the issue of "civilians and military officials" that had not been clearly defined in the past:
"Anyone who is hereditary and has the ministers of civil and military affairs and the general army to join the following generals to suppress thieves. If they encounter a powerful enemy and are able to plan ambush, charge into battle, and achieve extraordinary feats, they will be inspected by the sub-inspector and verified by the Ministry of War. According to the promotion policy, anyone with the word hereditary will be allowed to succeed."
This article clarified for the first time the principle of military merit for civil servants and military officials, and set out the review procedures for reports. This decree is not found in the Zhengde version of the "Da Ming Huidian". It was a gradual example after the Jiajing Dynasty and was confirmed in the Wanli Dynasty (this is a historical fact).
Having said this, we come to the two most critical questions:
Why can't the momentum of civil servants and military officials be stopped?
Why didn't the emperor doubt the civil servants who held Yin official and military positions?
The simple answer to the first question is: the problem is that the reward is difficult and insufficient to reward merit.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were only three military merit titles with different surnames: duke, marquis, and uncle. Compared with the traditional Chinese "fifth-class title", it was already lacking. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the vast majority of nobles were awarded titles by military generals, while only a handful of civil servants were awarded titles.
After Jiajing, although affairs arose one after another, and many civil servants, governors, and governors personally experienced the battlefield, the canonization of lords tended to stagnate.
In fact, it is good for the court to regard the knighthood as an important ceremony, but excessive begging of the knighthood will make the ministers lose their ambition to serve the country.
In this regard, many people have also put forward opinions and suggestions. For example, Chen Zilong proposed to restore the "fifth rank" to boost military morale:
"Today, the world is striving for fame and fortune, seeking fame, and doing evil to the emperor, so it is better to be knighted lightly... The trouble in the world today is that people underestimate the power and have no intention of making progress. The holy king set up something to admire to tie his heart, and to The matter is different, but the name is important. A husband and a jue have power and property. If they are indiscriminate, they should be important to show respect; If you leave everything without caring about it, you will clearly wait for danger and eliminate redundancy."
However, in the Ming Dynasty, most of the country's major affairs were constructed by Zhu Yuanzhang in the name of "ancestral system", which was rigid and unchangeable. In this case, the institutionalized military position of civil servants, due to the nature of military merit and hereditary inheritance, replaced the political efficacy and political significance of civil servant titles in a certain sense, and became an important form for the court to reward meritorious civil servants.
Although the relevance of this system is not listed in the classics, it is a tacit consensus among people of the time.
As mentioned above, in the Hongzhi Dynasty, Yu Mian, the son of Yu Qian, asked Yu Qian to hold military positions for his descendants. In fact, he cited the former Minister of War Wang Ji Fengbo and the Ministers of War Ma Ang, Bai Gui, Cheng Xin, and Yu Zi in parallel. The example of Jun and other Yinzi Jinyi is used as a reason for begging.
A similar view of attaching Yinzi's military position to a "secondary" nobility or "quasi-nobility" system was widely popular in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. For example, when Shen Defu compiled "Wanli Yehuobian", he listed the relevant civil servants as The articles of "Shiguan" and "Buyin" of Yinzi's military position were included in the volume of "Xunqi".
In the official and private records of the Ming Dynasty, the civil servant Yinzi's military position was called "Yansei Zhizhi" and "Yansei Jinwu", which was also derived from the title of "Shijie" after Fu Gonghou Bo.
For example, in the early years of the Jiajing period, when the court was discussing Wang Shouren’s ennoblement, the ministers reported:
"The ceremony of ennobling me has six merits: it is the founding of the country, it is Jingnan, it is the control of the Hu, it is the pacification, it is the conquest of the barbarians, it is the capture of the rebels; when the defender died in Sui, the military commander Xuan You, the governor suppressed the bandits. , I can’t agree with you. The six merits are related to the importance of the country and the safety of the four directions. Since they are not granted the title of Maotou, they are not enough to repay. As for the death of Sui, Xuan You, and the suppression of the bandits, they are all matters of one body and one moment. It's OK to use the shade of brocade clothes on tin, but if you want to cut the talisman, it's not possible."
What does this passage say? To put it simply, those with great military merits are awarded titles, and those with lesser military merits are given the title of Yinzi Jinyi. This can be said to point out the institutional correlation and complementarity between "Yinwu" and "nobility".
In the early years of Jiajing, Xia Yan and others, who were in charge of military affairs at that time, were ordered to investigate the abuse of military positions in the previous dynasty and submit a report. The report first discussed the canonization of dukes, marquises and uncles in Hongwu's "founding of the country" and Yongle's "Jingnan" , which means that the previous dynasty was "cautious about famous utensils", followed immediately by the description of the official positions of the Jinyiwei officials, and bitterly stated that "since the orthodoxy, noble concubines, shang lords, princes, and children of middle and high nobles have sent many emoluments." In the Wei Dynasty, things are used step by step", and the bad government of "During the period of Zhengde, the eunuchs were good at power, and many of the sons of nobles and nobles used memorials and belts to pretend to be the emperor." Yinzi Jinyi means being ennobled, which shows the status and role of Yinzi Jinyi in the political reward mechanism of the Ming Dynasty.
When Wang Chonggu paid tribute to me, he was the first border minister (he was the governor of Xuanda at the time), so it was natural for his family to have several Yin officials.
Not to mention Gao Gong, because of his various contributions, the quota of Yin officials obtained by the Gao family has not been used up yet - there are not enough juniors.
Therefore, this trend of "civil servants shadowing the military" cannot be stopped, and it cannot be stopped - virtues are rewarded, officials are rewarded, and merit is rewarded. The merits of those ministers are there, but they cannot be promoted, and their titles cannot be increased. , how can you do it if you don’t have the descendants of officials?
Speaking of the fact that the emperor did not doubt that most of these Yinguan civil servants would later be stuffed into the Jinyiwei, there were several reasons.
First of all, the most fundamental thing is that there is no precedent for the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty to rebel - if you insist on talking about Hu Weiyong, it will be boring.
On this basis, we can discuss other aspects, including a trend issue.
The officialdom of the Ming Dynasty was "divided into two branches: Jin gentry and Jiezhou". The selection of civil servants was based on the imperial examination, while the selection of military officers was based on hereditary. It is said that "the state controls civil and military personnel only through promotion and inheritance."
The military attache group is mainly composed of the descendants of military generals in the early Ming Dynasty. It is a relatively closed hereditary community. Qi Jiguang also came from this kind of background. However, it is really rare for someone like Liu Xian to fight with swords and guns.
Once the descendants of civil servants entered the Jinyiwei hereditary lineage, it meant that these descendants would occupy the right column for generations. This phenomenon broke the internal isolation of the military attachés of the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent. Well... it can also be regarded as improving the structure of the Jinyiwei military personnel.
Many children of civil servants who entered the ranks of military officials continued to maintain the style and social network of the original Jin gentry families. At the same time, through marriage, job relationships, etc., they gradually became warriors, becoming the link between the two political and social groups of Jin gentry and military officials.
In fact, the social media role of the descendants of civil servants Yin and Wu was already prominent in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. For example, during the Hongzhi period, Yao Jifu, the son of Yao Kui, the Minister of Civil Service, and a member of Zhongshu She, once advocated that among his father's generation, those who were the same as Jinshi and "those who had the imperial registration and lived in the capital" held social activities, attracting the children of officials and gentry in Beijing to sing and make friends, and there were "four The friendship between the whole family in ten years is as good as yesterday."
At that time, most of the people who participated in the gathering were civilian gentry. Bai Guizi, the Minister of the Ministry of War, who entered the military service due to his father's influence, Bai Bin, the governor of Jinyiwei Qianhu, and Li Jing, the governor of Jinyiwei Qianhu, also participated happily.
Another example is Wang Aoyin, a veteran of the seven dynasties of the Ming Dynasty and Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. Wang Aoyin’s son was appointed to a military post in Jinyi. His eldest daughter was “fit to command Huang Pu, the left guard of Tianjin”, his second daughter was “fit to be a student of the country, Yang Bor”, and among the five granddaughters, he was the “eldest”. It is suitable for Ma Pu, secondly for Wei Gang, the commander of thousands of Jinyi households, secondly for the son of Zhang Yu, commander of Jinyi for thousands of households, secondly for the son of Zhao Ming, commander of Qianjin for Jinyi, thirdly for Xia Ming's son Xuan, commander of Tengxiang Wei, etc." This is the functional expression of marriage.
After Wanli, the descendants of civil servants who joined the Jinyiwei relied on their special political and cultural background and resources spanning "civilization" and "military", and on the basis of social interaction, they also built a set of political patronage relationships to protect themselves and their family's interests. of lasting existence.
The main manifestation of this aspect is that Wenyin's children gradually took control of the power of Jinyiwei by leveraging their own unique advantages.
In the original history, after the current Jinyi Guards Commander Liu Shouyou, his grandson Liu Chengxi and his great-grandson Liu Qiao continued to inherit the Jinyi Guards for two generations, and both were promoted to the level of governor and took charge of the guards.
In addition to the Liu family, Wu Mengming, the grandson of Wu Dui, Guo Chenghao, the grandson of Guo Zizhang, the Minister of War, and Tian Ergen, the son of Tian Le, the Minister of War, were all prominent commanders of the Imperial Guard during the Tianqi and Chongzhen periods.
Based on the particularity of the judicial function of Jinyiwei and the advantages of Wenyin's disciples, some people in the Ming Dynasty even pointed out that "Jinyi's legal and political employment is not similar to Simamen's recommendation of qualified officials. Through it, he relies on His Majesty Dan, which is different from the law enforcement pen." The scholar-bureaucrats are the same as those in the imperial examination." Therefore, the theory of "only Confucianism can serve as the governor of Jinyiwei".
In other words, if you were not a civil servant after Liu Shouyou, you would not be suitable to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Guard!
Did the emperor say anything? No, the emperor not only acquiesced, but even seemed to support it - since the civil servants are also loyal and good, why don't I use it?
Moreover, Jin Yiwei originally had such a bad reputation, but now after changing several governors, he is actually praised as a virtuous person for a while, why wouldn't I do it!
As for, do you think Jin Yiwei will lose control?
Just kidding, Jin Yiwei has long since returned to the East Factory to supervise! The position of Imperial Envoy Admiral and Governor of the East Factory can only be done by an eunuch. There cannot be any civil servant who is so awesome as to cut off his children and grandchildren and send them in to be the factory governor, right?
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