While talking, the two of them had arrived at Qianqing Palace. At this time, Chen Ju was already waiting outside the palace. While welcoming the two pavilion elders up the steps to the outside of Xinuan Pavilion, he said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, the Dragon Body is in good health. Today, after receiving all preparations for the establishment of the North Korean Province, Your Majesty, King Xuan Gongshun came to listen to the music, and afterward it was agreed that King Gongshun would be granted the title of seal in Yuzhou."
Wang Jiaping slowed down and asked, "Is there any reluctance in obeying the king?"
Chen Ju smiled and said: "How can you force it? King Gongshun burst into tears of gratitude, as if he had been given a new life."
As soon as this statement came out, not only Wang Jiaping couldn't believe it, but even Gao Pragmatic felt quite surprised. The two pavilion elders looked at each other, and it was Wang Jiaping, the chief assistant, who still asked: "This is not due to human nature. There must be a reason for it. Please make it clear."
Chen Ju couldn't help but admire the unpredictable reaction of the two pavilion elders, so he explained: "The emperor summoned King Gongshun to listen to the 33rd chapter of "Wu Yue Chun Qiu" about "die loyal", and then asked King Gongshun if he was willing to grant the title. Yue Kingdom. King Gongshun was shocked and insisted on granting a seal to the royal family in Shenjing in order to honor his sage. The emperor felt his sincerity and agreed to grant it, and proposed granting the title to Yuzhou."
Of course both Wang Jiaping and Gao Pragmatic knew the story told in "Wu Yue Chun Qiu", but Wang Jiaping had really listened to the complete set of "Wu Yue Chun Qiu", that is, "Huan Sha Ji" - after all, Kun Opera was originally a favorite of literati. , and he is naturally no exception.
However, Gao Pragmatic is obviously a fake scholar. He has no interest in opera, so he has no idea what the specific story of "The Thirty-Third Episode of "Wuyue Spring and Autumn"" is.
After Chen Ju said this, seeing that Wang Jiaping and Gao Pingshi didn't say anything else, he bowed slightly and went in to report.
At this time, compared to Gao Pragmatic's confusion, Wang Jiaping immediately darkened his face and sighed: "The emperor may have compared King Gongshun to Gou Jian, so that he did not dare to worry about whether the fiefdom was rich or not, but this old prime minister Wu Zixu ...If we don’t know how to advance or retreat, it may be the time to die.
I think it has been thirty and one years since I took the mid-term exam in the second year of Longqing and entered the capital. I have only fulfilled my responsibilities as a minister, but have lost my filial piety. Lin ridiculed him, thinking he was in love with power. "
Now it was Gao Pragmatic's turn to be shocked. He was at a disadvantage because he didn't know what the play was about, but after hearing what Wang Jiaping said, he could probably guess that it was the history of Wu Zixu's murder.
However, the murder of Wu Zixu seemed to be an excessive remonstrance, which made Fu Chai furious and unable to control his temper. However, this statement is simply untenable and is purely a child's thinking. In fact, the main reasons for Wu Zixu's death can only be two points: first, Wu Zixu's great achievements shocked the king, and he could not be granted a title; second, Wu Zixu had too much power, and it was not enough to win the king's power without killing him.
On the surface, this thing looks like this: After Wu King Fu Chai successfully defeated the Yue Kingdom in revenge, Yue King Gou Jian became the servant who feeds Fu Chai. At this time, the State of Wu not only defeated the State of Chu, but also almost wiped out the State of Yue. It was at its peak, so King Wu's husband was a bit swollen.
At this time, Wu Zixu kept persuading Fu Chai to kill Gou Jian, but Fu Chai disagreed. After many attempts to persuade Wu Zixu to no avail, Wu Zixu believed that Wu's power had reached its end, so he entrusted his son to Bao Mu of Qi. At this time, Bo Pu took the opportunity to falsely accuse Wu Zixu of treason, so Fu Chai gave Wu Zixu a sword and asked him to kill himself.
After Wu Zixu's death, Sun Wu, his friend, felt chilled and left the state of Wu. However, King Gou Jian of Yue defeated the state of Wu and washed away his humiliation.
But in fact, how could an important minister like Wu Zixu be killed simply because his repeated persuasion failed? Is Fu Chai so stupid that he doesn't care about his own image or that more of his subordinates lose trust in him? Obviously impossible, otherwise he would not have achieved the victory he did at that time.
There are two reasons why Wu Zixu was sentenced to death. The first point is that Wu Zixu's contribution was too great. When Wu Zixu was conquering the world for the former king, Fu Chai had no power yet. It was Wu Zixu who defeated several countries and made Wu the overlord of the princes in the world.
Such unparalleled achievements were fine during the reign of the former king. After all, Wu Zixu was promoted by the former king because of his keen eyesight. However, when Fu Chai came to the throne, he became a great threat to Fu Chai, so Fu Chai must find a way to suppress him.
However, suppression sometimes requires a lot of patience. Wu Zixu often has to make a series of mistakes to justify the suppression before he can act. But firstly, Wu Zixu might not have made any mistakes, and secondly, Fucha might not have the ability to set up such a big situation. At this time, Wu State happened to defeat Yue State, and Fuchai's prestige had greatly increased, so he simply took the opportunity to kill Wu Zixu, and everything was over.
The second reason is because Wu Zixu has too much power. At that time, Wu Zixu could be said to have a higher status than one person and more than ten thousand people. When Fu Chai succeeded to the throne, he even said that he would give half of the Wu Kingdom to Wu Zixu.
This kind of statement was obviously just a political statement and should not be taken seriously, so it was rejected by Wu Zixu. However, it also shows Wu Zixu's reputation and status in Wu State.
A minister, or an old minister of the late emperor, to some extent has the meaning of "taking care of life". Wu Zixu's too much power will certainly be a great threat to Wu Wang Fu Chai. Therefore, the situation is similar to the previous one. Wu Wang Fu Chai will either Gradually reduce power, or kill Wu Zixu.
Since the story is like this, if Zhu Yijun listened to the play today and really insinuated that someone in the court was Wu Zixu, then Gao Pragmatic can be sure that Zhu Yijun was definitely not targeting Wang Jiaping, but could only be targeting someone Gao.
Although in comparison, Wang Jiaping is obviously more in line with the character image of "Old Prime Minister", but if you think about it carefully, apart from his age, in what way is he more like Wu Zixu than Gao Pragmatic?
He made great achievements in the hands of the late emperor. Wang Jiaping obviously did not meet this point, because he was a Jinshi in the second year of Longqing. By the time of the death of Mu Temple, Wang Jiaping had only done two major things: first, he participated in the compilation of "Records of Emperor Shizong" , the second is to be ordered to go to Shu and be ennobled as a vassal.
There were so many people participating in the compilation of "Records of King Sejong". At that time, most of the people in the Hanlin Academy participated in this work. With him, there were not many Wang Jiaping, but without him, there were not many Wang Jiaping. How can it be regarded as a great achievement?
Not to mention being ordered to go to Shu and confer a vassal title. Any Hanlin academic officer can do this job. Even if you go too far and send a eunuch who is a ceremonial supervisor, there is no big problem. It is really not a credit, at most it is a hardship. labor.
Of course, Gao Jingshi didn't have any great achievements at that time. Even if he did, for example, he did put forward many suggestions on reform, but because of his age, they were basically recorded in Gao Gong's head, and Gao Jingshi never did it. I want to take the credit from the deceased San Bo's name and enjoy it myself.
So, what if we don’t look at the reign of the First Emperor, but only look at the Wanli Dynasty? Let's just stop comparing them all - there are many nobles in the dynasty, but when it comes to merit, the total sum of them may not be enough for a person with high pragmatism.
Especially in the twenty years after the eighth year of Wanli, almost all the great victories of the imperial court were achieved by Gao Pragmatism, and almost all the reforms of the imperial court were promoted by Gao Pragmatism. What could be better than this? If you really want to compare like this, it would seem that all the princes in the dynasty are just plain people, and he seems to be the only one who is very pragmatic and works alone in the whole dynasty.
It’s not that the others didn’t work, it’s that he was very pragmatic and did too much!
What are the consequences of doing a lot of good work? Of course, as officials become more powerful, their prestige becomes more and more powerful, and they gain more and more power. At the same time, more and more people are following him to gain credit and watching his expressions and actions.
Who is more like Wu Zixu at that time? Of course he is very pragmatic! Wang Jiaping thought that the emperor had insinuated that he was Wu Zixu. In fact, it was because he happened to be the chief minister and had been admonishing the emperor for some time before, so he made a dogmatic mistake.
Now that he understood the truth, Gao Pragmatic wanted to clarify the situation and comfort Wang Jiaping, but he changed his mind before he could say anything.
At present, this political struggle has entered a fever pitch, and has actually become a decisive battle between the Practical School and the Heart School. As a neutral faction on the side of traditional Neo-Confucianism, Wang Jiaping had almost no political power because the traditional Neo-Confucian school was too loose. He could easily become cannon fodder in this conflict.
To be honest, for Gao Pragmatic, even if Wang Jiaping really became cannon fodder, he would not feel much guilt. After all, although there is no smoke in the political struggle, it is often more cruel than the battlefield. However, Wang Jiaping has recently shown signs of leaning towards the side of the Practical School, and his actions will definitely affect more traditional Neo-Confucian neutral schools.
In this way, Gao Pragmatic, whether emotionally or rationally, should consider Wang Jiaping's final outcome. If Wang Jiaping really becomes cannon fodder, his high sentiments and pragmatism will be at his disadvantage, and his rationality will make the neutral faction lose their enthusiasm to move closer to the pragmatic school.
But Gao pragmatically considered that this was not the end. He then thought about it, if Zhu Yijun really meant to imply that he had become Wu Zixu today, then if Wang Jiaping really resigned now, would he be the first to take over as the chief assistant? Become a leader?
If coupled with Wang Jiaping's influence, the loose traditional Neo-Confucian neutral school began to move closer to the real school, wouldn't Wu Zixu's position become more solid?
Therefore, the key to the problem now becomes how to determine whether Zhu Yijun hinted at the presence of "Wu Zixu" in the opera today. Or to put it more bluntly, is it implying that his high pragmatism was Wu Zixu, the old prime minister of Wu State at that time?
It is a pity that Chen Ju only went to report to the emperor that the two pavilion elders had arrived. This would not take long, and there was no time for Gao Pragmatic to make a serious conclusion. Chen Ju came out again at this time, bowed with a smile and said: "The emperor has spoken, please Yuan Fu and Gao Ge Lao come in to see you."
Wang Jiaping was already ready to resign - of course, not in person now. After all, doing so was against the rules. On the contrary, it meant forcing the emperor. He planned to go back and write his resignation after the audience.
But now that he had made up his mind, his attitude at the moment seemed unusually calm, his face was solemn but unhurried, his movements were calm, calm and powerful, and his prime ministerial demeanor was suddenly full.
On the contrary, Gao Qingjing, who had always walked in the palace as if he were strolling leisurely, now walked heavily. He frowned, as if he was facing an extremely difficult matter and was unable to make up his mind.
Entering the Xinuan Pavilion, Zhu Yijun crossed his legs and looked at the two people with a smile.
"See Your Majesty." The two pavilion elders saluted at the same time.
"No courtesy." Zhu Yijun said with a smile: "There is good news today. Earlier, the Supervisor of Ceremonies received a memorial from North Korea. Everything is ready for the establishment of the province. All we need is the east wind. After that, I called King Gongshun to discuss it. He We have agreed to seal Yuzhou, so there will be no obstacles to establishing a province."
It stands to reason that at this time, the two cabinet ministers should be smart to flatter each other. At least they should flatter him a little on this topic and say something like "my emperor is wise".
However, when Gao Pangshi was about to say something, Wang Jiaping solemnly raised his hands and said: "Your Majesty, you have the right to be a king, a king, and a minister. Now that the old ministers and senior officials from the high court came to see the emperor, they all stood solemnly, but the emperor didn't even sit upright. , It is really not a royal posture. Please sit upright, Your Majesty, so that I can discuss it with you and the elders in the high cabinet."
Zhu Yijun obviously didn't expect such a thing, and couldn't help but be stunned.
Speaking of which, Wang Jiaping's words are certainly true, but in fact, we have been kings and ministers for many years, and no matter what, we will not talk completely according to etiquette every time we meet. What's more, today is originally about a happy event, so the particularities of sitting posture and the like need not be so absolute.
The key point is, isn't it just that you have crossed your legs, and it's not too much. As for going to the "junjunchenchen" line like this?
The main thing in Zhu Yijun's heart now is not how dissatisfied Wang Jiaping was after such a remark. He was more wondering why Wang Jiaping was so angry today?
"Ah... what Yuan Fu said is that I got carried away with my pride." Although he was puzzled, Wang Jiaping's words were at least correct, and Yuan Fu still had to give him face, so Zhu Yijun immediately admitted his mistake, folded his legs and sat down. But as a result, Zhu Yijun lost interest in talking for a while, and simply sat and watched Wang Jiaping's response.
"The Emperor corrects his faults immediately. There is no way to do good." Wang Jiaping did not show any change in expression. He nodded and went directly to the topic: "The Emperor and King Gongshun discussed the issue of the vassal location. The veteran thought that the process was not important. In short, since the matter was discussed OK, then the next step should be to establish North Korea as a province."
Zhu Yijun always felt that Wang Jiaping spoke in a stunned manner today, as if he was choking on fire. Even though he was usually very straight-tempered, he was not to this extent, which was really baffling.
But since Wang Jiaping said this, Zhu Yijun had no choice but to adopt a business-like attitude, nodded blankly and said: "Then, why does Yuan Fu teach me?"
Wang Jiaping shook his head and said: "I have never been to North Korea, so I am not the best person to make suggestions on the establishment of North Korea as a province. Rixin is the first contributor to North Korea's internal affairs, so I think it is better for the emperor to listen to his opinion."
"Well... that's what Yuan Fu said." Zhu Yijun said in his heart: I originally wanted to listen to the pragmatic view, but since you are the chief assistant, I have to call you for consultation. Since you said so yourself, then why should I be polite?
"Seeking truth, then you tell me."
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