Political issues are the most complex issues in the world. They cannot be separated from the background of the times or people's identities. They also interact with any other issues.
If Li Rusong's personality was placed in the early Ming Dynasty, it was actually not conspicuous, because at that time, military generals headed by the Huaixi Military Group could suppress civilian officials and show off their power without being questioned.
If Li Rusong was not a second-generation official like a general, but a second-generation civil servant (or N-generation) like Gao Pingshi, his attitude towards life would not have had much consequences. It would be amazing to be called a headstrong and arrogant person, but he would not be willing to do so in the officialdom. There are just fewer people supporting him.
The bad thing is that he was born as a general, but he also offended civil servants at every turn, relying on the emperor's favor and trust, making himself a lonely minister all his life. When this happens during this period, it is really difficult for gods to save it.
With Gao Pragmatic's background, he dared to use the ancestral system to carry out reforms, and he did not dare to easily change the so-called tradition of using civil servants to control military forces. The reason is actually very simple: any regime that is in a stable period of rule must be a civilian regime.
Generally speaking, when military generals have a political advantage over civilian officials, they either rely on the remaining power of "conquering the world" at the beginning of the founding of the country, or rely on their strength to "turn the tide" when the country is in chaos. Military generals have never appeared in periods of national stability. A situation in which a group controls a country.
If so, it means chaos is about to begin.
In fact, although the financial system of the Ming Dynasty was extremely poor, its political system was very advanced and reasonable, and could even be said to be the most excellent system in ancient Chinese history.
As we all know, the most critical part of a political system is checks and balances. If any kind of power is unrestricted, it will cause the country to completely lose control, no matter who this power belongs to - the emperor, civil servants or military generals.
Later generations mentioned issues about the Ming Dynasty system. The highest power of the General Assembly lies with the emperor. The role of the cabinet is only as an advisor, and the power of the six ministries is also relatively weak. But in fact, this was only the original intention of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, to create this system. In fact, it was only implemented in the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties.
In fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, only the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties had political systems that were very close to those of the later Tatars. After Renxuan, because the idea of civilian government began to gradually become stronger at that time, specific administrative power was transferred to the cabinet and the six ministries, and the emperor's administrative power began to gradually shrink.
It must be admitted that such an evolution was not the emperor's original intention, but it was in line with the demands of officials at all levels after a country stabilized, and was not caused by problems such as the emperor's incompetence.
Will Emperor Ren and Xuan of the Ming Dynasty be more stupid than most emperors of the Qing Dynasty? Obviously impossible, but the situation in the Qing Dynasty was that even if the emperor was fatuous, officials would not dare to make such a request.
Why? The officials of this court regarded themselves as the emperor's slaves, so how could they dare to gradually ask for administrative power from the emperor?
This transfer was basically completed in the Jingtai and Tianshun dynasties, which was caused by two reasons at the same time.
First of all, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty dared to admonish the emperor directly and restrain the emperor with etiquette and morality, which restricted the emperor, so they were able to gain more and more power. The emperor cannot manage the country's government affairs by himself, so he needs to rely on the cabinet and the six ministers to help him implement specific administrative powers.
This is not caused by the emperor's stupidity, but because the emperor is pragmatic and needs to rely on his ministers to serve as his advisers. Of course, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty could not manage national affairs alone, but unlike the Ming Dynasty, they themselves were a minority. It was much easier to unite the minority to suppress the majority - because there were fewer people who needed to share the dividends.
They clinging to his power and distrusting Han ministers, and the only people in the Qing court who wanted to fight for power were Han ministers - "This is a chaotic order, and Guangdong will not obey the imperial edict." This can only be said by Han ministers like Li Hongzhang Only then can I say it. Those who participated in the "Southeast Mutual Protection" were all Han ministers. Even if the Manchus agreed to the Southeast Mutual Protection, they did not dare to join openly. This is proof.
The Ming Dynasty was a "majority" dynasty, and it was impossible for the emperor to have a small group of die-hard royalists who could be both civil and military, so the power of civilian ministers was further expanded. For example, during the Jingtai period, Emperor Jingtai relied on Qian; during the Tianshun period, Yingzong relied on Li Xian.
After Hongzhi, the situation became increasingly difficult for the emperor to control. The emperor has become the source and symbol of power, but they are no longer free to do anything.
For example, when Zhengde wanted to tour the south, the ministers, who had become more power-conscious, all opposed it. For example, Jiajing's Great Rites Conference, Wanli's Guoben Dispute, etc. were all conflicts between imperial power and civilian power.
At this time, the emperors had become the supreme rulers of the country who had retreated behind the scenes. They did always have the final decision-making power on everything, but the usual administrative power had almost completely fallen into the hands of the cabinet and the six ministries.
This was not caused by the emperor's stupidity and laziness. Many emperors in the mid-Ming Dynasty fought desperately with their ministers for power.
The emperor is the source of power. He can give people power, take away power, and control people's life and death. This is the only place where he can threaten ministers, but ministers in the Ming Dynasty are often not so afraid of death. When the emperor replaced a minister, more ministers often stood up to safeguard the collective power.
It's not that individual ministers are really not afraid of death, or that they don't care about their political future, but they don't dare to go against the overall interests of the civil service group. This is the so-called "no one can betray his own class."
Gao Pragmatic doesn't dare either. As a member of the civil service group, even one of the leaders, he has a strong enough reputation and strength, but he does not dare to be careless on this point.
His attitude towards military generals is better than that of most civilian officials towards military generals, but that is a personal attitude. The outside world will only say that Gao Situ is easy-going, because he does not want to give military generals equal power with him.
Turning back to the emperor, Zhu Yijun and his grandfather Jiajing were both born as young emperors, and both of them also had considerable political skills. But why did the great ceremony in the Jiajing period end with the emperor's victory, while the Guobenzhi in the Zhu Yijun period ended in victory? Did the dispute end with the victory of the civil servant group?
Did the civil service group become more powerful during the Wanli Dynasty than during the Jiajing Dynasty? not necessarily. In fact, the more critical issue here lies in the emperor's own thinking.
Gao pragmatically saw many people who traveled through the Ming Dynasty and became emperor. Regardless of whether they were reasonable or not, first of all, they gave Gao pragmatically an interesting thought: the impact of the emperor's own thoughts on his rule.
The thoughts of the time traveler emperor are of course very different from those of the indigenous emperors. The time traveler is a person who has experienced the world for a long time and has profound knowledge, or he is an ordinary young man from the bottom of society, which also has a great influence.
For each specific person, his ideological limitations are more serious than his physical limitations.
First of all, he was subject to the limitations of the times, and few people's thoughts could break through the shackles of the mainstream thoughts of the times; secondly, he was subject to the limitations of his personal class, and his class and lifestyle greatly limited his knowledge; Thirdly, he suffered from the limitations of personal education. Human thoughts are formed the day after tomorrow. The indirect experience of education and reading will also seriously affect his thoughts.
For the indigenous emperor of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible for him to break through the limitations of the times and see the trend and direction of historical development. His personal experience of growing up in the palace also left him with a serious lack of understanding of society as a whole.
Gao Pragmatic discovered that in history, several emperors who grew up among the people by chance had almost all very strong personal abilities.
The last point is that the education the indigenous emperor received was also based on traditional Confucianism, and it was basically impossible for him to break through the shackles of this set of ideas.
The biggest difference between Jiajing and Wanli is that Jiajing was the prince of a vassal and came to the capital to become emperor, while Zhu Yijun became a young emperor from a young prince. He received the Confucian education arranged for him by the civil service group.
In this life, Zhu Yijun was a little luckier, because he had a pragmatic person by his side who influenced him with some new ideas. However, limited to those with high pragmatic status, these effects are limited and restrained.
Limitations in thinking will lead to limitations in behavior. How is it possible to do something that is unimaginable? Ideological disability is much scarier than physical disability, because you don't even realize that you are disabled!
The civil servant group formed all-round constraints on the emperor in terms of moral etiquette, information control, administrative execution, and ideological control. As an emperor, you are aloof and seemingly omnipotent, but you are actually a large clay puppet: the information you see is distorted, the decisions you make are executed with high cost and low efficiency, and the changes and adjustments you want to make must be It is in line with the interests of the civil service group, and at the same time it must be in line with the mainstream consciousness of morality and etiquette...
Emperors may rarely summarize these things, but they must be aware of them. Therefore, in the original history, emperors preferred to use important ministers who they were familiar with and relatively "acceptable". Whether Jiajing used Yan Song, Longqing used Gaogong, or Wanli used Zhang Juzheng, there is not much difference in this root.
Regardless of whether the chief minister was loyal or traitorous, he essentially deceived the emperor into lameness. As for what happens next, it can only depend on the conscience of the chief assistant.
The most commonly used and powerful weapon used by civil servants to check and balance the emperor is ethics and morality. Ethics and morality are the foundation of our country that respects heaven and our ancestors. It is the grantor of imperial power in peaceful times. It is a tool for running the state machinery and maintaining long-term local peace and order. It is also the tool for The absolute ideals and concepts that have been ingrained in the hearts of everyone in this country for thousands of years, including the emperor himself.
Civil servants are familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics and have passed the imperial examination. They are undoubtedly the most familiar with ethics and morals in the country. They can link everything with appropriate morality and use this to blackmail the emperor and make things conform to them. willingness to give reasonable explanations for things.
They even taught the emperor ethics from a young age so that he could better govern the country indirectly when he grew up. In fact, for the actual operation of the country, the civil service group is the real core, and the emperor is just a symbol of traditional power. It is only because of the deep-rooted tradition and the lack of new ideological replacement that the throne is so unquestionable. It also made moral ethics more important to the emperor.
At this time, as a de facto ruled, Li Rusong demands equal rights with the de facto rulers. How can he succeed? Even under the protection of the emperor, the nominal ruler, he will still die - an accidental death in battle is also death. Look at Qi Jiguang, who has established a good relationship with the civil service group, how come he will not be surprised? What about dying in battle?
What makes people even more chilling is that Zhu Yijun himself most likely knew the inside story, so he allowed and protected Li Rusong from beginning to end. He knew that no matter how hard he protected Li Rusong, Li Rusong would die sooner or later. In this process of repeated seesawing, the Li family's army, which cannot lose its tail, will be severely weakened until there is no threat.
This means that the emperor actually acquiesced to the strength of the civil service group and had no intention of correcting the chaos in terms of whether "using civil servants to control military power" was right or wrong. Perhaps this was correct in the emperor's thinking formed by his Confucian education. The starting point of everything he did was to stabilize his rule.
Gao pragmatically walked out of the palace in silence. Instead of returning to the Ministry of Household Affairs, he asked the guard of honor to go directly to the Ministry of War. Coincidentally, not only Liang Menglong was present at the Ministry of War today, but also Wu Dui, the bachelor in charge of the affairs of the Ministry of War.
Wu Dui originally came to inquire about the Ministry of War's arrangements for rewards and punishments in the Battle of Jianzhou. At this time, seeing Gao Jingshi coming, he immediately understood that Gao Jingshi must also be concerned about this matter, and together with Liang Menglong, he invited Gao Jingshi Come in. The three of them held a small meeting in Liang Menglong's duty room.
As soon as they started talking, Gao Pingshi first heard the news. Wu Dui said that Ren Yangxin's article impeaching Li Chengliang and his son for "circling Shenjing to control the left and right, and the arrogance cannot be shaken" was not "spontaneous", but "spontaneous". It came from Shen Li's instruction.
This news made Gao pragmatic a little surprised at first, and asked: "Senior brother, can you tell?"
"It's not a conclusion, it's a certainty." Wu Dui shook his head and said, "I asked someone to ask Ren Zicheng (Ren Yangxin), and he said it himself."
Gao pragmatic understood immediately: Ren Yangxin was from Ruicheng, Shanxi Province. He was a Jinshi in the second year of Wanli, and his room master was Shen Li. Although he belongs to the theoretical Jindang lineage of the Practical School, he is obviously influenced by Shen Li, a teacher who ranks high as the censor of Zuodu.
He was the censor of Zhili, and Shen Li, the censor of Zuodu and his teacher, asked him to impeach Li Chengliang and his son, so it was naturally difficult for him to refuse.
The question is why Shen Li did this - you know, Gao Pragmatic, the de facto leader of the Practical School, has not publicly stated his attitude until now.
Wu Dui did not say anything clearly, but Liang Menglong sneered and couldn't help but speak: "During his term as Liaofu, Duke Xinzhai asked for credit for Li Chengliang several times. Now that Li Chengliang has suffered such a defeat, it seems to prove that Duke Xinzhai's praise in the past was false. , this is one of them; Mr. Xinzhai will be 60 years old this year, and some people can't wait, this is the other two."
Gao pragmatic glanced at Wu Dui and saw Wu Dui twisting his beard in silence. He couldn't help but snorted softly and said: "Gong Xinzhai asked for credit for Li Ningyuan. If there is any mistake, my uncle Wenzhenggong used to stand alone against all opinions and worked hard with his heart." Zhaigong is the governor of Liao, isn't that also wrong?"
When Gao Gong was involved, Wu Dui, as a student, did not dare to remain silent, and immediately said: "My former teacher, Xiang Wen Zhenggong, has always been recognized by the world for his ability to employ people. His brother Xinzhai is the governor of Liao, and brother Xinzhai is a real soldier." , Recruiting immigrants, managing armored battles, marketing war horses, trusting rewards and punishments, so that the native barbarians (Chahar) did not dare to invade and King Gao killed them. So Kuandian Six Fortresses were set up to expand eight hundred miles of Xinjiang for our court - this is like It’s wrong, so why not?”
Liang Menglong sighed: "So some people just can't wait and can't bear it for two or three years."
Wu Dui also sighed, shook his head and said: "No wonder he couldn't bear it. Rixin had replaced him as the chief minister before. Although he became the general constitution, he must still be unable to swallow this breath.
At the beginning of this year, Feng Pangong, who was supposed to return to the cabinet, fell ill again, so our original plan for the cabinet to be able to suppress the Xinxue school no longer existed. At this moment, it is not surprising that he thinks that if he takes the initiative, he will have a chance to join the cabinet and get our support. "
It turns out that Zhang Siwei and Ding You have been very unlucky in the past few years. First, he died of illness because of his father's death. When Ding You was over, the news that the court summoned him to return to Beijing had just arrived. He was still resigning according to the "procedure", but his mother died of illness again. Now the formal resignation turned into a real resignation, and Ding You could only continue to worry.
When my mother's wedding was about to end, he himself fell ill again. Zhang Siwei was not in good health to begin with. When he was in his prime, he had to leave his job and go back to his hometown to recuperate for several years due to illness. Now that he is older, he fell ill again.
He even dictated a letter to Zhang Taizheng, who was visiting his hometown, to bring it to Gao pragmatically. In the letter, he told Gao pragmatically in a rather pessimistic manner, saying that he might not have the chance to return to the central government, but at the same time he praised Gao pragmatically. Fan, said that Gao Pragmatic's performance in the past few years was better than he imagined, and encouraged him to continue working hard.
Zhang Siwei also said in the letter that the "Jin Party" itself should not always be independent from other people in the pragmatic school. Now, under the leadership of Gao Pragmatic, there has been a trend of gradual integration. This is a good trend and should continue. On the contrary, if he returns to Beijing, this trend may be broken, which is not good for the Real School as a whole. Therefore, it is good for him not to go back. He advises Gao Jingshi not to take this into consideration and strive to get the Real School to work together as soon as possible.
Zhang Siwei said a lot about all this.
Gao Pragmatic thought about it carefully and felt that his uncle's words were probably not false words of comfort, but rather meant something. Although Zhang Siwei has been in Dingyou in the past few years, he has always been very clear about the situation between DPRK and China because Jinghua is very well-informed about the news.
Although the Pragmatic School still seemed to be a whole after he left office, it actually formed two factions. Among them, Gao Pragmatic had the advantage in strength, while the Xu Guo and Shen Li factions formed due to the existence of Xu Guo as their secondary assistant. A situation of nominal dominance.
Of course Zhang Siwei was dissatisfied with this, so at first he hoped that he could return to the center earlier, but things didn't work out, and now it seems a little difficult. He was naturally on Gao Pragmatic's side, and truly believed that only Gao Pragmatic could shoulder the important task of being the party leader of the Practical School, so he dictated this letter and asked Zhang Taizheng to forward it to Gao Pragmatic.
Gao Pragmatic knew that with Zhang Siwei's explanation, he would definitely communicate with other members of the Jin Party and understand that from now on, the Jin Party would accelerate its integration into the entire Pragmatic School and follow Gao Pragmatic's lead. To some extent, this letter can even be regarded as Zhang Siwei’s political testament.
But I don’t know if Xu Guo and Shen Li also noticed something, so Shen Li pushed Ren Yangxin to impeach Li Chengliang and his son. The real target of this move was not Li Chengliang himself, but to attack the forces of the Xin School and Zhang Xueyan at the same time. reputation.
If Zhang Xueyan resigns because of this, and the Xin School does not dare to take the lead because of Li Chengliang's incident, then will the new candidate for the cabinet have to come from the Real School? Who is the most suitable person in the real school to join the cabinet now?
Gao Jingshi had just assumed the new position of Minister of Household Affairs, and he was too young, so he was definitely not the first choice to join the cabinet, so the first choice was naturally Shen Li, the censor of Zuodu.
Xu Guo must also support such a change, because he alone can no longer suppress Gao Pragmatic by relying on his title of second minister. If Zhang Xueyan, who supports Gao Pragmatic, resigns and Shen Li becomes a cabinet minister, the situation will be different. It is very possible for him to turn the situation around.
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