,!
Gao Pragmatic believes that the imperial power of the Ming Dynasty has not reached the so-called "independence" and "unprecedented expansion" level. This can be confirmed not only by the process of state decision-making, but also by the great Ming Dynasty officials - especially in the middle and late Wanli period in the original history. Their personal criticism, one should even say lashing out, of the emperor can be confirmed.
In fact, as early as before the Ming Dynasty, many dynasties in China had specialized admonishment officials and even related departments responsible for admonishing the monarch to avoid harming the entire ruling class and even the overall interests of the country due to the monarch's tyranny and immorality.
This is what the literati call "Tao", and it is also the ultimate principle that is higher than everything else in Confucianism. It is of course the ultimate principle that is higher than the monarch in the minds of scholars. What is more interesting is that they believe that this is also the highest embodiment of "loyalty".
The so-called direct remonstrance is based on this "Tao", which truly explains why those who dare to directly remonstrate are often named "loyal ministers" by future generations.
Of course, admonishing officials have the responsibility to advise and even criticize the monarch, but no matter what dynasty or era they are in, admonishing officials do not do whatever they want, but have many language prohibitions and restrictions to clearly distinguish the superiority and inferiority of the emperor and his ministers.
Cai Minglun said in "On the Criticism of Shenzong by Yanguan in the Middle and Late Period of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty": "These precepts (the language prohibitions and various restrictions that Yanguan should pay attention to when admonishing) include not promoting the evil of the emperor and father, and strictly prohibiting the following; When ministers give remonstrances, they must 'stop if they cannot do so', that is, when remonstrating with the monarch, if the monarch does not accept it, he must stop it; 'don't say anything that is inappropriate', that is, when ministers give remonstrances, they must pay attention to the principles, form, attitude, and propriety, abide by etiquette and law, and pay attention to progress. Attitudes and skills in remonstrating, etc.
Corresponding to this kind of conceptual precepts, the laws of the past dynasties have provisions for punishing speech crimes, such as criticizing the government, violating taboos, confusing the public with evil words, offending the emperor, disrespecting the emperor, etc. "
However, it was this rule that was observed by the official groups in all dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, especially in the middle and late Wanli period of history, it encountered a serious impact.
Yanguan's fierce criticism of Wanli can even be said to be a fierce attack on Wanli's personal moral integrity. This kind of intensity is probably unprecedented in the entire history of China.
"On Yanguan's Criticism of Shenzong in the Middle and Late Period of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty" has this description of Yanguan's criticism of Wanli: "As early as the seventeenth year of Wanli, Luo Yuren, the commentator of Dali Temple, denounced Shenzong's 'drinking' and ' Love of lust', 'greed of money' and 'Shangqi' are all four poisons;
In the twenty-fifth year of Wanli, Zhang Yangmeng, the censor of the left deputy capital, also accused Shenzong of being "loose", "suspicious", "victory" and "good goods". These attacks, which had the same effect but different approaches, came one after another, almost to the point of shouting out loud, putting Shenzong under overwhelming criticism. "
Another example is recorded in the "History of the Ming Dynasty". In August of the 32nd year of Wanli, Tian Dayi, a minister from the Ministry of Household Affairs, wrote a letter criticizing Wanli's personal ethics: "Your Majesty is devoted to wealth and profit, and hides selfishness... No one in the monarch or his ministers has ever thought of the people... … Empty words deceive people, people complain and the sky is angry, monsters mutate... The imperial mausoleum is plagued by the founder of the birthplace, the Xiaoling mausoleum is plagued by the ancestor of the founder, the Changling mausoleum is also plagued by the ancestor who laid the cauldron...
I have observed that over the past ten years or so, chaos has been committed, too many to enumerate, and the source of the disease is only the thought of profit... Since your Majesty was middle-aged, those who have concealed his intelligence and willingly indulged in greed, stupidity, and violence have only done it for the sake of family planning. , If you don’t know the prosperity of your family, your country will suffer.
For example, Xia Jie died in Yaotai, Shang Zhou was burned in Baoyu, You and Li Qirong were killed in Rongyi, Huan and Lingjuetong were killed in private affairs, Dezong called for trouble in Qionglin, Daojun heralded disaster in Huashi..."
After comparing Wanli to Jie, Zhou, King You, King Li, Emperor Huan, Emperor Ling, Huizong and other famous weak emperors in history, Tian Dayi said mercilessly: "The same mistakes are still there, and we can learn from them clearly. Your Majesty's recent chaos in government is no less than six. It is the season of generation. Once it is transformed, how can it stand up in the world?"
Is this scolding harsh enough? It's not an exaggeration to say it's bloody, right? But what is Zhu Yijun's attitude towards this?
Faced with such overwhelming criticism, and even all-round attacks on the emperor personally, Wanli's attitude towards this was just to ignore it, that is, to ignore it.
Regarding this, the "History of the Ming Dynasty·Tian Dayi Biography" records this: "Although the person who wrote the previous chapter has thousands of words, (Wanli) will not read it." - No matter how hard, how many, and how unbearable you scold me, I will only treat it as did not see it.
Is Zhu Yijun's reaction just because he has a good temper? Obviously not. If he had a good temper, how come Zhang Juzheng was almost dug up and whipped?
In the original history, Wanli used to ignore and ignore the collective fierce criticism and even abuse of Yan Guan. In fact, it reflected from the side the weakness of imperial power in the Ming Dynasty, especially in the middle and late period, and it could not reach the so-called "monarchy" at all. Unprecedented expansion.”
And these are the reasons mentioned before, "especially the reasons why the power of neglected monarchs such as Wanli has never been able to return to the peak of imperial power in the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties."
However, among many people in later generations, whenever they talk about the outspokenness of officials, some commentators often say that "under the imperial staff, ministers are as silent as cicadas, dare not express disobedience, and even only know how to flatter... This is how to create Clichés such as "The Ming Dynasty's unprecedented expansion of monarchical power".
This kind of argument seems reasonable, but if you study the history carefully, you will find that the so-called "the imperial staff led to the decline of the morale of the soldiers" is just a taken-for-granted inference, which is not consistent with historical facts and is not tenable.
In fact, many high-ranking officials at that time used the imperial staff as a means to gain prestige and even promotion. As Yu Shenxing, the Minister of Rites at that time, said: "In modern times, scholar-bureaucrats have a high sense of integrity and do not care about life and death. They often regard the imperial staff as the road to immortality. Once they are rebuked, they will be high-spirited, with their eyes high, and they will be arrogant. As the saying goes It’s very exciting.”
Xu Guo also pointed out angrily: "Jiangyan has become a trend recently. It can be famous, it can be used to gain rank, and it can be covered up. People are rushing to take it as a shortcut. This trend has become established and nothing can be done to stop it."
And Meng Sen once said: "Although the imperial staff of the Ming Dynasty is cool, when a gentleman is struck by the staff, the world will consider him the most glorious and admire him for life."
It can be seen that the so-called "under the imperial staff, the scholar's style is decadent, and only knows how to flatter" is probably inconsistent with the actual situation of the scholar's style in the Ming Dynasty. It is actually difficult to establish the theory of the royal staff in terms of the unprecedented expansion of royal power in the Ming Dynasty.
So what was the situation of the monarchy in the Ming Dynasty?
Not only did he dominate the decision-making power of the administration, the monarch of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be independent. However, due to his open way of speaking, the monarch was restricted everywhere, and he could only deal with it with the seemingly lenient "stay in the middle but not make any progress" approach.
Behind all this is actually the fact that the monarchy was unable to deal with the unprecedented and fierce criticism from the officials, and had no choice but to "show it off" and ignore it.
This kind of turning a deaf ear seems to be the arrogance of the emperor, but in fact it is just the opposite. It is the powerlessness of the monarchy in the face of too strong public opinion and moral pressure, and it is a typical weakness.
Of course, the Zhu Yijun in original history is obviously different from the current Zhu Yijun. If Zhu Yijun in the original history was made lose temper by the "non-violent non-cooperation" of the civil servant group, then Zhu Yijun's life now is relatively better.
It can be said that Zhu Yijun's current "good" situation is mainly due to the reforms of the Pragmatic School. Of course, there are also several big victories achieved by Gao Pragmatic with these reforms as a bonus.
The purpose of the reform of the Practical School can be summed up in four words: enrich the country and strengthen the army. Judging from the staged effects it has achieved, this is exactly the case.
From the perspective of a wealthy country, the annual revenue of the Ministry of Household Affairs has more than doubled compared to the late Jiajing and Longqing dynasties, and many unnecessary expenditures have been cut off - for example, clan expenditures have been reduced by two-thirds, and post station expenditures have been reduced. By three-quarters of the total, most of the government-run military industries in Jiubian that were losing money every year were shut down and so on.
On the one hand, there was a significant reduction in unnecessary expenditures, and on the other hand, the annual revenue of the Ministry of Household Affairs increased significantly. During this period, the imperial court's financial system immediately regained its vitality from the brink of death. The current situation, let alone being completely healthy, at least no longer looks like a terminal illness, there is no doubt about it.
From the perspective of strong soldiers, it is more intuitive. The original Beijing camp claimed to have an army of 400,000, and the outside world also thought that there were at least about 200,000 with some fighting strength, but in fact it was useless.
What was the status of the Beijing camp at that time? Even when some symbolic ceremonies need to be held in the capital, the capital camp has to spend money to hire people to show off. There are really only a few hundred thousand troops on the roster, but the money required is not even a penny.
What now? There are really 300,000 to 400,000 people in the Beijing camp, but about 300,000 of them are in the production and construction corps. They are only responsible for work, not fighting. All the fighting is left to the more than 60,000 imperial guards. , and the Imperial Guard has proven that he is very capable of fighting!
As soon as the Production and Construction Corps was established, the soldiers who originally only existed on the roster quickly came to life. This is not because Gao is pragmatic and knows magic, but because he understands people's hearts and systems.
In fact, what is the essence of the current Beijing Production and Construction Corps? It is the Beijing-run joint production contract responsibility system.
Yes, although this thing is called the "Production and Construction Corps", Gao Pragmatic actually created an expanded version of the Red Dynasty's "Household Contract Responsibility System" - but it is not a people's commune.
why? Because Jingying has been privatized to a certain extent during the past two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty - the nobles and nobles are the "actual shareholders" of Jingying. (I remember I mentioned the reasons for this earlier in this book, so I won’t repeat them here.)
At this level, unless Gao pragmatism wants to achieve socialism in one step, it can only stimulate the enthusiasm of various nobles and use their subjective initiative to carry out reforms.
How to change this? Of course, they must first recognize their vested interests, and then rely on the emperor's inherent righteousness to get a share of the pie - and get rid of the original baggage at the same time.
So how does the current Production and Construction Corps do it? The nobles actually controlled the production and construction corps, and the imperial minister was responsible for overall supervision. The emperor sent eunuchs and eunuchs to oversee the finances. Finally, the three parties divided: 70% of all profits went to the nobles, 20% to the emperor, and 10% to the emperor. Ministry of Revenue (but will be returned to the Ministry of War).
Why do 70% of the majority go to the nobles? Because they have to pay for the maintenance of the Imperial Guard. The imperial court only cares about the rewards after winning the war, but does not care about daily expenses, equipment updates, etc. This fully reflects the concept of "linking rights and responsibilities" that Gao Pragmatic has always adhered to.
Since the imperial court does not maintain the Royal Guards, an army of more than 60,000 people with the best equipment and training in the country (in the past, hundreds of thousands of troops were paid according to the military register), the burden was completely thrown away, and at the same time, there was a large sum of money. Income, this is also "one in, one out".
As for the Jiubian and local health stations, the current reform has not yet been completed, and the situation in each region is also very different. However, according to high-pragmatic planning, the future will basically follow the template of the Imperial Guard.
If we look at it from the perspective of later generations, we can probably say that servants are like volunteers who signed a contract, an elite combat force. Guard soldiers are like compulsory soldiers, but they basically do not undertake military tasks. Instead, they are responsible for farming, working and other business activities, and use part of their income to support the combat volunteers of the guard.
However, Gao Pragmatic has not fully implemented this matter because there are still some contradictions that are difficult to resolve.
For example, Jiubian is definitely a place where combat soldiers gather, but the economic level of Jiubian is definitely not as good as that of Jiangnan and Guangxi (Guangxi now has the strongest sugar industry and is much richer than in the past).
As a result, the Jiubian region needs many elite soldiers, but its guard troops may not be able to create that much fiscal surplus. This requires "fiscal transfer payments" from wealthy areas to the Jiubian region.
Since transfer payments are required, issues such as how much to transfer and where to transfer from are extremely important. We cannot make decisions based on high pragmatism. Therefore, we need a longer period of financial data to support the decision-making, and there is no need to rush.
At present, the military expenditures of the Nine Borders are allocated based on needs in a pragmatic manner. It is mainly governed by people, and there is almost no system at all. It is very inconsistent with the tone of pragmatism.
But judging from the fact that Jiubian's combat effectiveness has been increasing year by year over the years, at least the effect of the reform is pretty good, and Gao Pragmatic can only do so reluctantly.
In short, due to the reforms of the Practical School and the rapid rise of the pragmatic school, Zhu Yijun has been the emperor for almost thirty years, and it has been almost smooth sailing, which has covered up many contradictions.
The fierce conflict between monarch and ministers in the original history is now less reflected. Instead, it has become more of a dispute between the practical school and the spiritual school within the civil servant group, making the imperial power a lot more detached.
Under such a situation, although the ministerial power was further strengthened due to the effective reform, the imperial power was also strengthened. As a result, Gao Pragmatic had to worry about what impact it would have on the situation in Ming Dynasty if Zhu Yijun had a conflict with him.
This has never happened in history, and Gao Pragmatic doesn't dare to vouch for it, but he thinks that both parties will probably suffer losses. If we really go in this direction, sooner or later there will be a day when the emperor and his ministers will be against each other and dislike each other just like the late Ming Dynasty in the original history.
Once something goes wrong in the imperial government, a sage like Chongzhen might appear and kill ministers at will, causing conflicts to become more intense and distrust between the emperor and his ministers to grow. In the end, before the emperor dies, he will say, "I will not subjugate the country." The king and his ministers are all ministers of the subjugation of the country." Such words.
The emperor's proposal must not be agreed, but the emperor's wish cannot be ignored. The time has come to test Gao's pragmatic ability to handle water.
"Liu Ping, I want to give you a fortune, but I wonder if you dare to ask for it?"
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Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "Yun Fuyue Yu", and "book friend 20210814005313245" for their monthly ticket support.
ps: ...Forget it, I don’t want to say it anymore.
