Gao Pragmatic's words, "Those who should be impeached should be impeached," can be regarded as the final statement of today's Double Ninth Festival Conference. What it represents is not just him personally, but a declaration of battle for the entire Gao Party and the entire Practical School group.
The first Wanli party struggle launched with a high pragmatic will broke out.
In his view, the core driving force of this party struggle is to ensure that the advantage of cabinet power is still maintained without the leader and assistant of the real school to hold the battle. And its more direct driving force is to ensure that Shin Shixing cannot insert a second official from the Xin School in the cabinet this time.
Even if uncle Ding You resigns, I will leave you Shen Rumo alone!
And Pan Sheng.
Regardless of whether you are greedy for profit or out of necessity, in short, you have changed your previous neutral position and clearly sided with the Heart School.
This is because you betrayed the past friendship first. In this case, don't blame me, Gao, for not talking about the past friendship.
If betrayal can be easily forgiven, then if there are so many people in our school, how can I "lead the team" if someone betrays me in the future?
Sometimes it may not be easy to kill chickens to scare monkeys, but the effect of killing monkeys to scare chickens is never too bad.
A pavilion elder is qualified to be this monkey.
Parties fight, and if there is a party, there will be fights! What's more, this was the party struggle of the Ming Dynasty, not the kind of the Song Dynasty, which was not so gentle and elegant, abolishing laws but not people.
The party struggle in the future will always be life and death.
Gao Pragmatic is very clear that there have been varying degrees of party strife in all dynasties, but their impacts have also been different. Although Confucius once said: "A gentleman is a group but not a party, and a villain is a party but not a group." But history told him that party fighting has never been the "patent" of villains. Gentlemen can also fight in parties, and they can even fight much better than villains.
Why does Gao pragmatically think that the party struggle in the Ming Dynasty was different from that in the Song Dynasty? The characteristics that best illustrate the party struggle in the Song Dynasty are the "Qingli New Deal" and the "Wang Anshi Reform".
In the third year of Qingli in the Northern Song Dynasty (1043), it was nearly ninety years since the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty. At this time, the Northern Song Dynasty had already experienced several wars against the Liao and Xixia, and its national power was severely depleted. At the same time, there was also a rebellion of hungry people in the country, which could be described as "internal and external troubles."
At this time, the famous minister Fan Zhongyan submitted the "Ten Matters in Answer to the Imperial Edict" to the current emperor Song Renzong, proposing reform measures to address various shortcomings in the system at that time. Afterwards, Renzong issued a number of edicts based on this, known as the "Qingli New Deal" in history.
Since the New Deal directly hit the vital points of many vested interests, the seeds of "party strife" were sown from the very beginning, which ultimately caused the Qingli New Deal to "come to an end without any problem."
In order to implement the New Deal, Song Renzong intended to promote Xia Song to serve as Privy Councilor (the highest military officer in the country). Originally, Xia Song did not have many opinions on the New Deal, but Wang Gongchen, Ouyang Xiu, Yu Jing and others who were also "reformers" firmly opposed it, and Xia Song failed in the end. In this regard, Xia Song completely stood on the opposite side of the "reformists".
With the advancement of the New Deal, the contradiction between the reformists and the opposition gradually became public, and the struggle became increasingly fierce: first, Ouyang Xiu wrote a letter accusing the imperial censors of "not having the talent they deserve"; as a counterattack, the supervisory censor Liang Jian impeached and the reformists Two ministers who were closely related to the leader Fan Zhongyan eventually caused Fan Zhongyan and Wang Gongchen, the chief of the Yushitai, to resign from their official posts to show support for their colleagues.
After that, the party struggle further "escalated": Xia Song, mentioned above, had someone tamper with letters and falsely claimed that the behavior of reformist officials was the "Yi and Huo incident." This "murderous and heart-breaking" move deeply frightened the reformist backbones Fan Zhongyan and Fu Bi, who immediately resigned from their posts in the DPRK and went out to patrol the DPRK's borders.
Continuous party strife led to the end of the reform: only one year after the implementation of the New Deal (the fourth year of Qingli), Fan Zhongyan was dismissed from his position as political advisor (approximately equivalent to deputy prime minister), and Fu Bi also resigned from office on the same day. Both of them were dismissed. He was reassigned as a border envoy and stayed away from the court. Soon after, all reform measures were repealed, and the "Qingli New Deal" came to an end.
Compared with the "Qingli New Deal", the "Wang Anshi Reform" is more representative.
This reform during the Xining reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty can be said to fully reflect the characteristics of "party struggle": almost all officials in the court chose to "take sides", and because Shenzong supported the new law, the "reform faction" occupied the top spot from the beginning.
With the advancement of the new law, the voices of the opposition "are getting louder and louder": Yushi Zhongcheng, Lu Jiaoshangshu, impeached Wang Anshi, but Shenzong refused to reply, and the former asked himself to leave the court; Fan Chunren, the Supreme Court of the Imperial Academy, attacked Wang Anshi for the chaos caused by the reform. , Shenzong did not comment, and Fan Chunren resolutely resigned; Fu Bi, an important veteran and minister, resigned as prime minister because of illness; Sima Guang wrote to Luoyang to no avail, and took the initiative to ask to go to Luoyang to compile "Zi Zhi Tong Jian"; Su Shi and Su Che wrote to state the disadvantages of the reform, and the result was that Su Che was demoted to Henan, and Su Shi asked himself to leave Beijing to serve as the general magistrate of Hangzhou...
It can be said that all opposition officials have left the central government without exception. However, after thirty years in Hedong and thirty years in Hexi, the final result was still the failure of the reform and the conservatives once again took power (omitted a bit, I don’t want to write too much about the history of the Song Dynasty).
But the most critical thing is that these seemingly fierce battles basically did not result in death, or in other words, there were no personal attacks or even physical destruction outside of politics itself.
Compared with the Ming Dynasty, the party struggles in the Song Dynasty were really restrained.
So what was the style of party struggle in the Ming Dynasty?
Some people talk about the late Wanli period when describing the party struggle in the Dynasty. In fact, that is a misunderstanding. In fact, as early as the period of Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, signs of "party struggle" had already appeared.
At that time, most of the people who followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world were Huaixi people, and Zhu Yuanzhang himself was also a Huai people. Therefore, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, most of these people were granted public titles and held high positions.
The core figure at that time was South Korean Gong Li Shanchang, who led the Huai people bureaucracy in the DPRK.
Due to his dual status as a hero and a fellow countryman of the emperor, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Shanchang served as Prime Minister Zuo, ranking first in the court. After him, his fellow countryman Hu Weiyong succeeded him as prime minister.
During the more than ten years they had been in power, due to the exclusion of the Huai people group, it was difficult for non-Huai people officials to gain a foothold in the government. For example, Liu Bowen, a close advisor to Zhu Yuanzhang, was suppressed since he entered the court because he was from eastern Zhejiang.
Liu Bowen's talent and merit are obviously not bad among the heroes, but because Huai officials obstructed him, when the heroes were awarded, he was only named Chengyi Bo, while Li Shanchang, who was born in Huai, was named Han Gong.
Due to Li Shanchang's instigation, the clever Liu Bowen retired and returned to his hometown after only four years in Hongwu, and has stayed away from officialdom since then. But this was not the end: because when Zhu Yuanzhang consulted Liu Bowen about the candidate for prime minister, the latter did not speak well of Li Shanchang, so Li Shanchang held a grudge and later removed Liu's salary for an excuse.
After a series of blows, Liu Bowen soon fell ill from worry and anger. At this time, Hu Weiyong of the Huairen Group took the opportunity to send a doctor to treat him, but something strange happened: Liu Bowen died a month later.
It can be seen that even if they stay away from politics, the Huai bureaucrats still refuse to let go of their enemies. Liu Bowen is only one of their opponents, far from all of them. In fact, the Huai people group at that time almost suppressed the whole country with one faction - otherwise, do you think that Zhu Yuanzhang really had a brain attack and actually killed the heroes like that?
He found that the Huairen Group was too powerful and he could have suppressed it when he was alive. However, the prince died young and it was completely uncertain whether the grandson had such prestige and ability. So Zhu Yuanzhang became the hero of the massacre.
By the Jia, Long, and Wan dynasties in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, "party struggles" with more clearly defined factions officially appeared.
First, during the Jiajing period, there was a battle between the "Yan Party" headed by Yan Song, the chief minister of the cabinet, and the "Qingliu" represented by cabinet members Xu Jie, Gao Gong, etc. - note that the word "Qingliu" at this time does not have a derogatory connotation. .
At that time, Yan Song formed a party for personal gain and engaged in massive corruption. The "Qingliu" officials used this to continuously attack the "Yan Party". And Yan Song was not idle either. He used his power to murder Xia Yan, the leader of "Qingliu" and others on various charges. However, during the more than 20 years that Yan Song was in power, the "Qingliu" attacks on him never stopped: Shen Lian, Yang Jisheng and others successively went to court to impeach Yan Song, but they failed and were framed and killed by Yan Song.
The events after Yan Song's defeat have already been discussed a lot in this book, so I won't go into details here. I will briefly discuss the original history of the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the "party struggle" reached its peak. First, on the issue of Wanli establishing a prince, Zhejiang Party officials who were born in Zhejiang basically chose to obey Wanli's idea (mainly because they were in power), while the famous Donglin Party official Shangshu strongly opposed it. In response, other parties rallied to attack the Donglin Party.
As a result, officials from various factions have been fighting over the selection of the crown prince for more than 20 years.
By the time of the Apocalypse, the "party struggle" evolved into the struggle between "inner court" and "outer court". Because the eunuch Wei Zhongxian was the eunuch who was responsible for the ceremony, he was able to participate in secrets, and he also supervised the Dongchang. He could fabricate crimes at will and control the life and death of officials. Therefore, a group quickly formed around him, which the Donglin Party members called "Eunuch".
Because Wei Zhongxian gained the trust of Tianqi, he was extremely powerful inside and outside the court and could do whatever he wanted. There was an endless stream of followers who followed him, and they were even called "Nine Thousand Years Old".
Seeing that the "Eunuch Party" was monopolizing power and corrupting the imperial court (in the view of the Donglin Party), the Donglin Party members began to violently attack the Wei party: Yang Lian, deputy censor of Zuodu, wrote a letter to impeach Wei Zhongxian on twenty-four major crimes, and was falsely accused and imprisoned. , was tortured and died in prison; other Donglin Party members such as Zuo Guangdou and Wei Dazhong were also imprisoned and tortured to death for opposing the Wei family's dictatorship.
At this point, the power of the "Donglin Party" was greatly frustrated, and the "Eunuch Party" spread all over the court. It was not until Chongzhen that they were eliminated by the "decapitation tactic" of the "Sage King" - and by the way, the Holy King also eliminated himself.
Looking at the party struggles in the Song and Ming dynasties, most of the party struggles in the former were purely political disputes, such as between the reformers and the conservatives, and the results of the struggle only ended with the removal of the prime minister and removal from office (away from the central government).
The latter are mostly divided into factions based on the place of origin of officials, and fellow villagers cling to each other, suppressing and ostracizing those who are not from the faction. Later, it develops into "fighting for the sake of fighting", where everything must be criticized and fought. The results were tragic: many of the losers were sentenced to death and died.
Gao Pragmatic once thought about what is the reason for these two different situations?
He felt that perhaps the foundations of the two dynasties were different.
The Song Dynasty can be called the happiest dynasty for intellectuals in Chinese history. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once made an oath "not to kill scholar-bureaucrats and those who write letters to express their opinions" and engraved it on a monument. Therefore, the Song Dynasty was extremely tolerant of intellectuals (literati). As long as their crimes were not so heinous that they aroused public outrage throughout the country, they would not be punished.
Even if you fight with the monarch, your life is usually not in danger. At most, you can just go to another place and stay away from the government. This is most typically reflected in the situations of Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi.
The Ming Dynasty was different. Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was born in a poor family and had personal experience with the corruption of officialdom. After the founding of the country, severe punishments and laws were used to rectify the administration of officials, and the requirements for officials were extremely strict. The slightest act of corruption would be punished with death.
But when it comes to the treatment of ministers, he and his son Zhu Di set a very bad example for future generations: when Zhu Yuanzhang handled the cases of two heroes, Hu Weiyong and Lan Yu, only a few officials who were implicated were killed. Reaching more than 40,000 people;
Zhu Di did not hesitate to give in too much. In the case of Fang Xiaoru, he even carried out the feat of "killing ten tribes", and even Fang Xiaoru's disciples and friends were not spared. Because of Fang Xiaoru alone, more than 800 people were killed before and after.
Therefore, party struggles in the Ming Dynasty almost always ended with personal destruction, and losers often could not even save their lives.
If this is just the "ancestral" inertia formed by the actions of the founding emperor, then there are also actual social roots.
The key point of this social origin lies in the development of the Yangtze River Basin.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the development of the south of the Yangtze River had already reached a large scale, and the economic and cultural levels were relatively high. However, the Yellow River Basin did not decline, and since the capital of the country was Kaifeng, the development of the entire north and south was relatively balanced.
This can be seen from the birthplaces of famous officials in the Northern Song Dynasty: Fan Zhongyan was from Suzhou, Wang Anshi was from Linchuan, Jiangxi, Kou Zhun was from Weinan, Shaanxi, and Han Qi was from Anyang, Henan.
But by the Ming Dynasty, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River had been fully developed, and the economic and cultural levels surpassed those of the north. In addition, Nanjing was the capital at the founding of the People's Republic of China, so its status as a political and cultural center has never declined.
Since then, it has led to a result that most of the "gold list winners" came from this area, so that the emperor had to change the national first list of the imperial examination and divide it into northern and southern lists, etc., in order to maintain a balance as much as possible.
But even so, the effect was not particularly good, at least it should not have achieved the results the emperors wanted. Therefore, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the most influential "Donglin Party", "Zhejiang Party", "Kunming Party", etc. were all concentrated in the Su, Wuchang and Chang areas without exception.
This makes it easier for them to recognize each other in terms of cultural concepts, and then unite the party and advance and retreat together.
If Gao Pragmatic had not appeared, Gao Gong's "Gao Party" would have been nothing more than a flash in the pan, relying entirely on Gao Gong alone. As soon as Gao Gong himself fell, Gao Dang would simply disappear.
Similarly, if Gao Pragmatism had not helped Gao Gong integrate the Gao Party, Zhang Siwei's Jin Party would not have been controllable by himself alone - in addition to the Zhang family in Puzhou, the Wang family, the Ma family, etc. were all members of the Jin Party. Dude, it turns out that they are not inferior to the Zhang family.
It was only because Gao Pragmatic "connected" Zhang Siwei and Gao Gong so that Zhang Siwei could, in turn, use Gao Dang's power to establish his absolute advantage in the Jin Party and thus form the sole authority. Some scattered Jin parties were also integrated.
The two parties combined together to basically form the basic foundation of the Real School, and standing opposite it is today's Heart School. (In fact, due to its highly pragmatic management, it is almost impossible for the Zhejiang Party to emerge, at least as hard as the Zhejiang Party did in history.)
But now, with Gao Gong passing away, Guo Pu becoming official, Zhang Siwei and Ding You, the Xin School has finally found an opportunity from more than ten years of forbearance. With the support of some maritime merchants, it has begun to make plans to "recover lost ground". The first trial.
It stretched out its first paw.
Xu Guo did not see this, or even if he saw it, he hesitated because he was not worthy of his name as the party leader.
In this way, Gao Pragmatic, the man behind the scenes who actually built up the political resources of three generations of chief ministers and the former Xiaoge elder, finally stood up.
After the Double Ninth Festival, Gao pragmatically stood on the White Jade Tower and suddenly read a sentence that he had read by heart.
"An De relied on the sky to draw his sword and cut you into three pieces."
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Thanks to book friends "Too Fat to Fly", "Mo Wen Seven Swords", "Cao Mianzi" and "HAMW05" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: I’ve thought about the title of the next chapter, and it’s called “Cut You into Three Pieces”!
