,!
The ministers in the south verandah had discussed matters at this point, and Liu Ping finally brought the emperor's summons, calling all ministers in the cabinet to come to the emperor immediately to see him. The elders looked at each other in twos and threes, and they all guessed that the emperor must have found a reason to help Concubine Zheng escape from the incident. However, whether the reason the emperor found can achieve the effect he wants, everyone still has to go there first to know.
Not long after, the six cabinet ministers returned to the outside of Xinuan Pavilion again to ask for an audience. Chen Ju welcomed them in according to the oral instructions. As soon as they entered the door, the cabinet ministers smelled the smell of medicine. After a quick glance, they found a silver-rimmed porcelain bowl on the table next to Yu Tao, with residual medicine stains in the bowl.
Under the leadership of Wang Jiaping, the ministers first greeted the emperor and said some words of blessing and comfort. The emperor did not have any unexpected reaction. He only expressed calmly, "I am fully aware of the good intentions of all my dear friends." , then the topic turned to the incident itself.
Gao pragmatic noticed that Zhu Yijun's face was indeed a little pale at the moment, but his mental condition didn't seem too bad, and his eyes even looked a little sharp from time to time - but he didn't know why.
"I have to ask you all to worry about me, but it's okay now. You can rest assured." Zhu Yijun looked around at the cabinet ministers and said calmly: "What happened today was unexpected. This was just after consultation and consultation by the imperial doctors. I don’t want the foreign court to have other speculations about this matter in the future, let alone any rumors among the people.”
Huh?
Gao pragmatic was a little surprised, thinking, did the emperor intend to suppress the matter forcefully like this? If this is the case, I am afraid that the final development of things may not be as satisfactory as you want.
It is relatively easy to convince cabinet ministers about things like this, but science and technology officials are far less easy to talk to than cabinet ministers. Although you are the emperor, if you don't come up with a convincing reason, these How can Yanguan give in so easily?
Hey, people are just following Emperor Taizu's orders and relying on arguments to make ends meet. Forcing the speaker not to speak? This is such a tough job that even your imperial grandfather, Emperor Shizong Jiajing, had to do it!
This truth is obviously not only understood by Gao Xiangpang, but which of the elders present does not understand it?
Sure enough, Chief Assistant Wang Jiaping immediately expressed his opposition, saying: "Since ancient times and now, gossip has been the enemy of the imperial court. The emperor is cautious about this, and I think there is nothing wrong with it. However, there are only a few ways to control rumors in the past dynasties, among which the most It is useless and even harmful, because it is better to guard against the people's mouth than against the river; the best thing is to 'listen to songs on the road'. I hope that your Majesty will be careful about it, think about it, and encourage it."
In fact, Wang Jiaping's words were a bit deliberately high-spirited, but this is a habitual practice of civil servants. Not only the civil servants are used to it, but in fact even the emperors are used to it. I don’t know if this is some kind of successful pua.
The reason why Wang Jiaping's words are deliberately exaggerated is that he secretly changed the concept here and equated the "gossip" in the emperor's mouth with "prophecies" and "nursery rhymes".
You know, once it is equated with "prophecy" or "nursery rhyme", it will be a big event. Of course, his concept of secretly changing is indeed very hidden, especially in the "feudal dynasty" era like the Ming Dynasty.
The word rumor originally meant popular folk songs or proverbs, that is, folk songs or folk proverbs. With the development of society, this meaning gradually evolved to refer to unfounded rumors or fabricated words. In ancient times, there were roughly two ways of spreading rumors: prophecies and nursery rhymes.
Therefore, although Wang Jiaping's words are exaggerated, the correlation and directionality are indeed correct, and it is difficult for the emperor to think of vetoing this correlation and directionality.
"Prophecy" is a term used by fortune-tellers to predict good or bad luck. "Prophecy" refers to the argots made up by Confucianists in the Qin and Han Dynasties to predict good or bad luck. "Wei" is a type of book derived from the Confucian classics in the Han Dynasty.
In ancient times, when science and technology was underdeveloped, people were full of curiosity about many things, but struggled to find the driving force and mechanism for the appearance of things. Therefore, they often entrusted the solution of mysteries to wizards engaged in divination. Whether it is the weather or national events, many decisions rely on divination. Of course, most divination results turn out to be wrong in the end, so these divination results are just rumors.
Nursery rhymes are a relatively easy-to-control method of communication. In order to achieve their own goals, some people with ulterior motives will compile rumors into the form of children's songs and teach children to spread them widely, thereby confusing people's hearts.
In addition to Li Ru's "There is a Han in the east and a Han in the west. It is not difficult for a deer to walk into Chang'an" in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is an example that people in the Ming Dynasty are more familiar with, which happened together in Strange events in the late Yuan Dynasty.
It is said that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, social unrest occurred, and peasant armies from all walks of life revolted and caused trouble, and Zhu Yuanzhang also participated in it. In the fifteenth year of Emperor Shun's reign, a nursery rhyme suddenly spread on the streets of Dadu: "A gust of yellow wind and a gust of sand, there is no one home for thousands of miles; looking back, the snow has disappeared, and the three-eyed monk blinded the horse."
The three-eyed monk refers to Zhu Yuanzhang, who was once a monk, and the horse refers to the Mongols, because the Mongols often call themselves a horse nation, and "blinding the horse" means that the Mongols are about to die. Having said that, it is obvious what the rumor makers want.
From the above two ways of spreading rumors, it is not difficult to see that wizards and peasant armies were the two main groups of people who spread rumors in ancient times. In addition to these two, there were also ordinary people and emperors-or those in power.
The reason here is actually very simple. Since Dong Zhongshu, the ancient Chinese believed deeply in the theory of "influence between heaven and man". Because they did not understand the laws of nature, whenever a natural disaster struck, some of them would even attribute it to God's punishment on themselves. And the rumors that were born from it spread like wildfire.
For example, in the 14th year of Zhizheng in the Yuan Dynasty, a rare heavy rain fell in the south. This heavy rain lasted for more than 80 days, causing huge floods and famine. At this time, rumors suddenly spread that dragons hiding underground had emerged one after another during the heavy rain, and there were so many of them. They were sent by God to clean up the people on the ground.
Just such a rumor actually convinced many knowledgeable and experienced people at that time.
Zhu Yijun himself also experienced a famous rumor, but this was somewhat inaccurate because the rumor actually occurred during the reign of his father, Emperor Longqing.
In the first year of Longqing, rumors circulated among the people of the Ming Dynasty that the imperial court would go to Jiangnan to recruit beautiful girls to enter the palace. Until the second year, the rumors not only failed to be alleviated, but intensified, and it was even said that widows had to accompany beautiful girls to Beijing.
For a time, no matter the family was rich or poor, anyone with a girl of the right age in the family could get married regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Later, according to "Zitaoxuan Miscellaneous Records", a family hired a craftsman to sew a wedding dress for their daughter. When the wedding dress was ready and ready for marriage, they found that their son-in-law had been snatched away by another family.
In desperation, the family simply betrothed their daughter to the craftsman. It can be seen that families with daughters at that time were eager to get their daughters married.
In addition to these women of the right age, even widows were getting married one after another. A poem at that time described it like this: "It is ridiculous to laugh at a group of chaste women, and they also follow the imperial edict to become romantic." However, in the end, it turned out that these were just It's groundless, but it's a pity that it's too late for those who know the truth. Many girls only find out that their partner is much older than themselves after they get married. Some of them marry unreliable husbands, and are even sold into brothels later. It's really unbearable. Sad.
As for the emperor spreading rumors, everyone is familiar with this. Why did Liu Bang's mother dream of having sex with an immortal by the lake, thus giving birth to Liu Bang? The former founding emperor of Zhao, Liu Yuan, declared to the world that he was the son of the Sun Spirit and was known as the second Liu Bang; when Zhu Yuanzhang's mother, Chen, was pregnant with Zhu Yuanzhang, One night, she dreamed that a god gave her an elixir to take. When Zhu Yuanzhang was born, the house was filled with red light. Neighbors thought there was a fire and rushed to put out the fire... This was all a familiar rumor made by the emperor. .
So, when rumors spread, what measures did the politicians take to govern? As Wang Jiaping said just now, "There are only a few ways to control rumors in the past."
The first is to crack down on those who create and spread rumors through severe punishment. For example, during the period of King Li of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Li found the wizards of the Wei Kingdom to monitor the people, and if they found any unfavorable words, they would be killed. This is the origin of Wang Jiaping's allusion of "guarding the people's mouths is better than guarding the rivers." During the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang also issued an order: "Anyone who dares to utter poetry or calligraphy will abandon the market and make the past unreliable. Those who spread rumors and slander will be punished by their clan."
However, Wang Jiaping also commented on this kind of treatment just now: "It is most useless and even harmful."
In fact, when Chinese society was stable in all dynasties, the handling of rumors would be slightly relaxed, and "opening up the air" became the most common practice.
For example, after Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty came to the throne, he rectified the government affairs and issued an edict to abolish the crime of slander and rumors. He also specifically explained in the edict that the imperial court had banners for admonishing good words and wooden boards for discussing right and wrong and blaming mistakes. Their function was to allow admonishers to speak freely and discuss matters governing the country and the world.
However, the current law stipulates that discussing right and wrong will be regarded as spreading absurd remarks and will be punished accordingly. This will prevent the ministers from speaking out what is in their hearts and the emperor will not know his fault. This is not advisable, so He wants to abolish this rule.
In addition, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty also explained to the people in the edict that the people sometimes invited each other to gather and curse the emperor. The officials thought this was treason; if he had other remarks, the officials thought he was slandering. However, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty believed that this was just because of the ignorance of the common people, and he thought it was undesirable to be sentenced to death because of ignorance.
At the end of the edict, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty also emphasized that "from now on, those who commit this crime shall not be punished", that is, they will not be punished. It can be said that there is indeed a reason why even Green Forest Red Eyebrow did not dare to dig the tomb of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty.
As for what Wang Jiaping said in the end, "The best way to control rumors is to 'listen to songs on the road.'" This method is also an old method of the Han Dynasty.
What we are talking about here is actually to attack ** by adopting the public opinion in the rumors. According to the "Book of Wei" cited by Pei Songzhi in "The Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms: Chronicles of Emperor Wu of Wei", during the period of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, he issued an edict: "The three government offices were ordered to report state and county political affairs to be invalid, and those who spread rumors should be dismissed." This meant that The Three Dukes reported those officials whose performance was so poor that the people criticized them with songs and songs, and dismissed them.
Obviously, this is different from the Qin Dynasty's strict system for dealing with rumors. The Han Dynasty's approach was not to kill them with a stick, but to regard them as a mirror for understanding society. Therefore, in the Han Dynasty, "reporting rumors" became an important duty of local officials. The court stipulated that officials should "listen to songs on the road".
All in all, what Wang Jiaping said means that when facing rumors, those in power must first correct their attitude.
There is no doubt that rumors spreading wildly will make people panic and cause social unrest. However, in the face of this situation, if those in power can behave correctly, calm down and understand the basis of the rumors, and then carefully explain the ins and outs of the matter to the people, then the rumors can be alleviated to a certain extent.
For example, during the period of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, due to frequent earthquakes, floods, solar eclipses and other phenomena, rumors spread among the people. However, Emperor Cheng did not severely crack down on this. Instead, he first did some self-reflection and then corrected his words and deeds. He reprimanded a group of officials who did not act, and at the same time improved politics, and sent officials to patrol the country to explain the situation to the people.
What's the final result? While eliminating rumors, it also has a certain positive effect on social governance. This is a very good precedent, and precisely because the Han Dynasty performed very well in this regard, Wang Jiaping regarded the Han Dynasty's method of "listening to songs on the road" to deal with rumors as "the best".
Zhu Yijun did not expect that his words would actually lead to a lesson. What was worse was that he could not refute the lesson. He originally planned to use his posture to calm down the ministers, and then use his kindness to make them accept the conclusion that "what happened today was just an accident". After they left the palace, they could suppress the outer court. After discussing with the people, the possible suspicion of Concubine Zheng in this matter was finally eliminated.
Unexpectedly, although his plan seemed to be fine, it was a pity that Wang Jiaping did not accept this plan at all. Although Wang Jiaping, the chief assistant, did a rather miserable job as a polished commander, his character was very tough - especially in the aspect of "moral governance" that Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism most insisted on.
This is like singing. If the first line is off-key, how can you continue singing?
Zhu Yijun was very angry, but he couldn't find a way to remedy it. He couldn't help but be so angry that his eyes turned black for a while.
His temples were twitching, and he suppressed his anger and glanced at the ministers again. He saw that almost everyone had serious faces, as if if he, the emperor, did not listen to the advice, the world would be in chaos tomorrow morning at the latest, and even more so. It made him furious.
However, since it is "almost", there are exceptions. Zhu Yijun discovered that although Gao Pingshi also looked serious, he also frowned deeply and looked at his left hand with worry.
Only then did Zhu Yijun remember that he was still holding a cloth handkerchief in his left hand, and there was blood on the cloth handkerchief that he had just wiped the corner of his mouth.
Pragmatism is worried about me! It is true that the strong wind knows the strong grass, and the rough wind knows the honest minister. It seems that if we want to solve this crisis, we still have to find ways to win pragmatic support... But, how can I persuade him?
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