This letter from Wang Xijue was slightly unexpected by Hai Rui.
Hai Rui and Wang Xijue actually knew each other. Wang Xijue was the second in the list in the 41st year of Jiajing reign. As one of the Three Tripods, of course he stayed in Beijing to edit the Imperial Academy. In the 43rd year of Jiajing reign, Hai Rui was promoted from Xingguo magistrate to head of the Yunnan Department of the Ministry of Household Affairs. To the capital.
However, Hai Rui and Wang Xijue were not familiar with each other at that time. Firstly, Hai Rui was relatively "isolated" and did not often make routine visits among officials; secondly, Wang Xijue was famous and had a noble status, so for Hai Rui, he failed the exam twice and was replaced as a candidate. , starting from the county magistrate, it took ten years to get to the county magistrate, and another six years to get to the position of head of the household department. This "student scumbag" completely looked down on him, and naturally he would not take the initiative to approach Hai Rui. .
The intersection between the two of them occurred for about half a year from the end of the third year of Longqing to the middle of the fourth year of Longqing. At that time, Wang Xijue performed well when he was a lecturer at the Jingyan Day. He was favored by the then Chief Assistant Li Chunfang and others and wanted to promote him. Unfortunately, the number of officials in Beijing Middle School was full, so he was transferred to Nanjing Imperial College as a secretary, which was regarded as "examination and training". ".
Hai Rui became famous because of "Public Security Shu" and had been promoted frequently in recent years. At this time, he happened to be released as the governor of Yingtian as the censor of Youqiandu.
Yingtian is roughly the part south of the Yangtze River in Nanzhili. It currently governs Yingtian, Chengtian, Suzhou, Songjiang, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Taiping, Chizhou, Huizhou, Ningguo, Anqing Eleven Prefectures and Guangde Prefecture. The scope is basically equivalent to southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui in later generations. From an economic point of view at that time, it was almost the strongest region in the Ming Dynasty.
In the early days, Governor Yingtian was stationed in Nanjing and lived in Huitong Hall. In Chenghua, he built another office and moved out of Huitong Hall. After Jiajing, he was stationed in Suzhou whenever there was a storm, which was called Xingtai. During the period when Hai Rui was in office, he was basically stationed in Suzhou. Note: In the second year of Wanli, in order to facilitate central dispatch, the Fu Office moved from Nanjing to Jurong; in the original history, after the 31st year of Wanli, it was permanently stationed in Suzhou.
At this point, the situation is very clear - Wang Xijue is the richest man in Suzhou, and he happened to return to Nanjing. What's more, it happened that Hai Rui was appointed governor of Yingtian to clear his father-in-law's land, and he was also directly stationed in Suzhou. How could this not be the case? Conflict?
Hai Rui set up his own land in Yingtian in order to cooperate with Gao Gong's recovery and then continued to promote a whipping method.
Let me briefly explain here that the whip method was proposed by Gui E in the 10th year of Jiajing. At the end of the 3rd year of Longqing when Zhigao Gongqifu and Hai Rui were appointed governor of Yingtian, it had actually been around for forty years.
However, although it has been around for a long time, it has not been fully implemented in the Ming Dynasty, because the main feature of this tax law is to combine the land tax, corvee and other miscellaneous levies of various states and counties into one line, collect silver tael in one, and pay it per mu.
In this way, the tax system is greatly simplified, making it easier to collect taxes, and at the same time making it difficult for local officials to cheat, thus increasing fiscal revenue. However, because only silver taels are collected, it has serious consequences in the commodity economy, especially in areas with underdeveloped currency circulation. "Acclimatized".
There are both pros and cons. According to the bureaucratic habits at this time, only a few people are willing to try to promote it. More officials tend to "doing nothing will be useless, but at least they will not be blamed", so they oppose the promotion.
Of course, there were still reformists among the top officials of the imperial court, such as Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and other important officials who strongly advocated the promotion of the one-whip method. However, although Gao Gong was the core figure of the reformists at this time and indeed advocated promotion, his promotion was different from the original history of Zhang Juzheng's direct "national forced promotion" in the ninth year of Wanli.
Gao Gong advocated implementing it one by one, one by one. His idea was that the rich provinces should go first, the middle provinces would gradually follow, and the poor provinces would delay. Therefore, it is obvious that the Jiangnan area, the richest area in the world, that is, the area under the jurisdiction of Governor Yingtian, must "dare to be the first in the world."
Of course, future generations will know the benefits of simplifying administration, but the "ancients" may not understand it either. So why has such a simple thing not become famous 40 years after the whipping law was proposed?
The reason is simple: although I understand the rationale, the more complicated the administration, the more opportunities I have as an official to take action. Now you suddenly say that you want to simplify it. My interests are at stake. How can I agree so easily?
This is where resistance comes from.
Since the resistance was high, the knife had to be sharp, so Gao Gong sacrificed Hai Rui's dragon-slaying knife.
The Dragon-Slaying Sword is certainly well-deserved, but it is unrealistic to expect Hai Rui to single-handedly "clear out the evil atmosphere", so Hai Rui's actions are still very targeted - yes, he mainly targeted the young man who had just returned to his hometown after serving as an official. Xu Jie, the former chief minister of the cabinet.
There is no need to go into detail about this past incident, only the incidental impact. As the richest man in Suzhou, Wang Xijue inherited most of his family property, but the source of these properties was naturally inseparable from the unified style of the official and business groups at that time, such as "escape from the field", "guilty sending", "feishan", "feishan" "Move the hill", "change the paragraph", "change the book" and so on, none of them are missing, everything that should be included is included.
However, Wang Xijue has always been a smart man. He knew that his reputation and status in the officialdom at that time was not enough to compete with Hai Rui, so he kept a low profile and refused to get involved in this "fight between gods", lest it become a problem. The mortals who suffered disaster.
Hai Rui indeed only targeted Xu Jie as his primary target. Regarding some matters at Wang Xijue's family, he had also received complaints from some people. Note: Because Hai Rui encouraged people to redress their grievances, there were an astonishing number of similar complaints. Against Wang Xijue, he did not directly use the national law. Instead, he wrote to Wang Xijue and sent a copy of all the complaints.
Hai Rui also used this method against Xu Jie, it was a kind of "courtesy first and then attack". Xu Jie also "gave face" at the beginning and returned some fields. Unfortunately, Hai Rui thought that he had returned too little. This kind of "return" was purely a face-saving project, so Hai Rui wrote to Xu Jie again, asking him to Of course Xu Jie refused to withdraw half of his land, and the conflict intensified.
As for Wang Xijue, Hai Rui adopted the same method and achieved far better results than Xu Jie's. Without saying a word, Wang Xijue returned the fields pointed out in the letter in accordance with Hai Rui's request. He even said in his reply that he had rarely paid attention to the situation at home because he was busy with studies and official duties, and he did not know that these things existed. He himself was shocked and ashamed by this, and said that when he was busy with this period of time, he would conduct a thorough investigation and live up to the kindness of Haigong's reminder.
As the second best person, he said that he was busy with his studies in the past, which was a reason. Even if others didn't believe it, they didn't dare to say anything. However, as a Southern Supervisor, it was a matter of opinion as to what he had to be busy with.
But Hai Rui had no time to pay attention to him. Since he was willing to quit the field, Hai Rui had temporarily ceased his activities.
If things only come to this point, the relationship between Hai Rui and Wang Xijue can't be said to be bad, because at least neither party is at odds with each other.
Although Wang Xijue lost some land, his family was not simply a "powerful landowner", but a more typical Jiangnan chaebol who "got rich through business and then bought land." To a certain extent, fields are just "investment real estate" and are used to "preserve the value of spare money" when business expansion cannot find a good direction or opportunity.
Therefore, the loss is certainly a loss, but it neither hurts the muscles nor moves the bones. It is only a temporary pain in the body, and it will pass if you endure it.
Who knew that fate was not as good as fate. Although Wang Xijue avoided the most rumored attack, he was hit by a stray bullet when he left office.
This matter is really unlucky for Mr. Wang. After Hai Rui's battle in Yingtian, he offended Jiangnan official circles. Although Xu Jie was unlucky, after giving a sum of money to his disciple Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng found Gao Gong, go and make peace on behalf of your teacher.
Although Gao Gong heard that Zhang Juzheng had received money, considering that Zhang Juzheng himself advocated reform after all, the peace for Xu Jie might just be due to the feelings of teachers and students that he could not refuse, so he decided to stop. There is a premise here, that is, Xu Jie The weak uniformity also means that the Jiangnan gentry and officials have pinched their noses and accepted the implementation of the whip method. Now that Gao Gong's goal has been achieved, he doesn't intend to torture people to death in terms of reputation.
But this time, Hai Rui was tricked.
Gao Gong only cares about whether the implementation of the policy is smooth. Now that the matter has been settled and the wind has been released from Zhang Juzheng, Jiangnan officials breathed a sigh of relief and thought of revenge - of course not against Gao Gong, Gao Gong's holy family. Tai Lung, they thought they couldn't handle it, their revenge was on Hai Rui.
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So immediately after that, Hai Rui was impeached. Not one letter or two letters, but a hail of bullets flew from Jiangnan to the General Affairs Department, entered the Department of Ceremonies, and were presented to Mu Zong's desk.
The following plot is a familiar routine: Hai Rui defends himself, but as a foreign official, he cannot stay behind closed doors like Gao Pragmatic did in this slander case. He still has to do his work.
This time Hai Rui's self-defense was coincidentally timed, as it happened to be during the Beijing inspection period. So Hai Rui didn't bother the two masters, and wrote a "Self-Reportation of Unresponsibility", and wrote thousands of words to defend himself.
Originally, this was nothing to do with Wang Xijue, because Wang Xijue kept a low profile during this period and would never go against Hai Rui. Who would have thought that when people were sitting at home, the blame came from the sky? Because Hai Rui was impeached for many inexplicable "trivial matters", he got into a bad temper and gave a relatively detailed explanation and evidence for a lot of trivial matters in his self-defense.
I accidentally mentioned a sentence here: "Wang Xijue saw that he had turned to the North Division and carried his sedan chair straight into the Second Division. If he caused harm in the middle way, he would be punished for thirty years."
It stands to reason that Hai Rui's self-defense and resignation essay lasted several thousand words and answered at least dozens of false accusations. However, Wang Xijue's essay only contained 24 words in total, which is really nothing. According to Emperor Mu Zong's habit, he probably didn't pay much attention to it, and it didn't bother him at all.
But who is Wang Xijue? He valued fame and wings more than pragmatism, so he was naturally furious when he heard about it.
What is this thing about? When it was said that Wang Xijue was promoted from Nanjing Imperial College Division to Beijing Imperial College Division, he probably felt that he was going back to Beijing again and that he was about to be promoted to Beijing because of his high position, so he was a little exaggerated and said, "Go straight to the Second Division in a sedan chair." ——The shelf is a bit big.
It's not really a big deal to be a little more arrogant, but the trouble is that there was an accident in the middle, "harm in the middle" - Hai Rui didn't specify what harm was caused, but he probably injured someone. So, Hai Rui arrested the bearer who was carrying the sedan chair and beat him thirty times.
In the eyes of ordinary people, this matter is naturally a trivial matter. After all, the person who was beaten was just a bearer, and Wang Xijue himself was not injured at all.
But that's not how the accounts were settled. Although this slap was a slap on the bearer's butt, in Wang Xijue's opinion, it was like a slap on his own face!
What's more, if you fight, you'll fight. This is a great thing, so it will be spread among the locals for a while, and after a while, everyone will forget about it. But you absolutely shouldn’t, absolutely shouldn’t write this matter in the memorial!
Write it into the memorial, and it will be archived in the imperial court. This face of Wang Xijue will be recorded in the annals of history just like that with your slap!
It's tolerable, but what can't be tolerated! Liangzi was formed in such a magical way.
It was common for Hai Rui to offend people. He didn't care at the time. He learned about it from others later, but he didn't take it too seriously - anyway, the old man didn't have to worry about lice and debts. No less than Wang Xijue.
From then on, Wang Xijue never had any contact with Hai Rui, either public or private. Therefore, when he suddenly received a letter from Wang Xijue today, Hai Rui immediately smelled the strange smell in it.
Hai Rui read the letter, but found that it was written more implicitly than Gao Pragmatic's letter. Not only did it not mention past grudges, it didn't even mention the word "Nancha".
There is only one sentence in Wang Xijue's letter, which is almost without any salt, that is quite suspicious: "A corner of the Yangtze River provides nearly half of the world. The officials, gentry and people have been suffering from harsh governance for a long time, and all industries have withered. How can it last long?"
Although Hai Rui was upright, his uprightness was not slowness. He soon realized that what Wang Xijue wanted to express was in this seemingly general statement.
Jiangnan has heavy taxes. This is true when looking at the entire Ming Dynasty. However, the Ming Dynasty itself was a dynasty with very light taxes, and the taxes in Jiangnan were based on the agricultural level during the Hongwu period, especially grain output.
Nowadays, times have changed, and the main force of Jiangnan's economy has long been no longer food production, but has shifted to sericulture, silk making, paper making and printing, porcelain and shipping and other industries. At the same time, commerce developed rapidly because there was almost no taxation before. Private commerce was extremely prosperous, and even what later generations called "the sprouts of capitalism" appeared.
Under such circumstances, it is sheer lies to say that "the officials, gentry and people in Jiangnan have suffered from harsh rule for a long time, and all industries have withered".
Withered? What is it like to wither? Is the withered Qinhuai ten miles away?
You bullied me into being blind!
However, just like one of Sir Humphrey's famous sayings, "I am talking about my position and it has nothing to do with the facts." Wang Xijue's words are naturally also talking about his position. As for the facts... that is not important.
Hai Rui figured this out and couldn't help but sneer: "I'm not afraid of death, so why should I be afraid of death?"
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PS: Has anyone guessed the true intention of Wang Xijue’s letter?
