Chapter 24 Rewards and Punishments
Many things are difficult to predict, but if you summarize them afterwards, you can still see clearly.
Within the scholar-bureaucrat group, the most indispensable thing is smart people.
This war was fought without feeling. But after the fight, they suddenly discovered that most of the founding group was gone. Even if some of them stay, it will be difficult for them to have much influence in the military in the future. The group of heroes who made Zhu Yuanzhang so angry that he had to kill people to suppress them almost disappeared.
Secondly, the civil servant group that had gradually grown up since the late Hongwu period was wiped out.
As for the scholar-bureaucrat group, they actually don't care about clearing it out once or twice. After all, no matter what, scholars are needed to govern the world. But they were moved and despaired by the situation before them.
Yes, scholars are needed to govern the world, but they may not be the scholars.
During Jianwen's reign, several imperial examinations were held. It is not only to recruit talents, but also to win over the hearts of scholar-bureaucrats. These people have produced a lot of talents. Historically, during the Yongle period, many ministers were born here.
But now they can't.
All officials who passed the imperial examination during the Jianwen period were put into another register. If they did not become officials, their reputation as scholars would not be recognized by the court. Naturally, there are no privileges at all.
The Northern University Alliance is graduating a steady stream of students. There are one to two thousand people every year. Today, a considerable number of officials in the imperial court are from these people. My own juniors have not been properly arranged. Who has the time to arrange these people?
Especially Zhu Yunwen's betrayal dealt a severe blow to these people.
Because the reason for Zhu Yunwen's betrayal was very simple, that is, the original governance model could not support the new changes in the war. In order to conform to the changes in the form of warfare, the court must change. This change has hit them.
As a result, these scholar-officials felt a deep sense of crisis.
The reason why scholars are valued is because the world cannot survive without scholars. Not only the scholars themselves thought so, the imperial court thought so, but the people also thought so.
Now they suddenly found out that he had left them. The imperial court not only played well, but played better.
This is what makes them feel deeply desperate.
Many people are thinking, what happened to Confucianism? What happened to Daming?
The biggest change for these scholars now is that except for some stubborn Kong Yiji, who can only talk about the immorality of the world. Most Confucian scholars want one thing, and that is to bring He Xi's theory into the Confucian system.
In fact, the most powerful advantage of Confucianism is its inclusiveness. Strong inclusiveness.
As long as they are not knocked down all at once, they will always rise up. Reinterpret a classic. It's just that the host and guest have changed positions.
In the past, He Xi thought of ways to link scientific theoretical ideas with Confucianism to attract scholar-bureaucrats to learn from it, but now it is these people who take the initiative to do this.
In the future that can be met, He Xi must be a saint of Confucianism. Even before Zhu Xi.
This is all a story for later. At least these people are already very knowledgeable. They hate Zhu Yunwen even more than they hate Zhu Xiongying, so naturally they will not make themselves unhappy at this time. It just makes them add insult to injury, just like those villains, and makes them feel shameless. After all, they are a monarch and his ministers.
Therefore, silence is the best response.
After Zhu Yunwen's case was settled, there were others.
For example, Ding Xian. Ding Xian's crime was naturally to seek death. However, He Xi played a trick at this time. Naturally, Ding Xian's crimes are emphasized.
Without him, the evaluation of a dead person actually does not depend on what the person has done. It's about what living people need.
Just like some of the things Ding Xian did, many of them were learned from He Xi. If He Xi crucifies many of Ding Xian's policies, what will happen to He Xi's own policies?
Therefore, He Xi focused more on Ding Xian's personal ethics. However, it is obvious that Ding Xian's personal ethics did not disappoint. Just talking about the disgusting things Ding Xian did in private, how many times he died,
Not unfair at all.
There are also some people at the same time. For example, Korean public.
The Duke of South Korea took over the position of Duke of the country. Demoted to common people. As for the group of nobles who followed the Korean Duke, all of them were knighted and kicked out of the army. However, based on their accumulation over the years, it is still possible to become a rich man.
However, this made these people very dissatisfied.
But what's the point of being dissatisfied?
If South Korea surrenders before the Northern Army takes Nanjing, it will still be very valuable. However, they changed their attitude after they captured Nanjing, and it was too late.
He Xi will naturally settle accounts after autumn. Many Northern troops even wished they could rebel. So that they can fight the final battle and establish military exploits for their future.
This is naturally a great thing for them.
As a result, there was no possibility of retaining the Korean minister in his original position.
In fact, for He Xi, he would not add insult to injury. But the fate of Korean public ownership today is also due to He Xi. When He Xi was discussing the title with Zhu Xiongying, He Xi said that he felt that the title should be limited to a certain number and should not be awarded randomly. Otherwise it will not be valuable in the future.
I don’t know how this word got out. As a result, many Northern Army generals who wanted to be granted the title of Duke had ideas about the original Dukes of Nanjing.
Who is the Duke of Nanjing? The Duke of Wei's Xu family cannot touch this. Everyone knows what Feng Cheng and Feng Cheng did to Song Guogong and cannot be touched. The same is true for Cao Guogong's Li family. As for the next step, probably only Xin Guogong Tang’s family will follow.
But this one doesn’t seem to need to be moved. Without him, Tang He would have died long ago, and none of his five sons would be alive. Now it has been passed down to his great-grandson. The great-grandson is not yet an adult. During the entire North-South War, the Tang family did not show up.
It's not a good idea to mess with others.
Therefore, the title of Duke of Korea will naturally be abolished.
He Xi immediately explained that in the future, too many people could not be granted at one time, and it was not necessary to kill one Duke in order to get one more. But Zhu Xiongying also has prejudices against the Korean public lineage.
The wood is ready. There's not much to say.
Not to mention Fu Youde's Ying Guogong. Abolish directly. On the contrary, a certain degree of praise was given to the posthumous names of generals such as Fu Youde, Geng Bingwen and Shengyong who died in battle.
Otherwise, praising loyal ministers is what every emperor will do.
As for the character Fang Xiaoru, I don’t know how to evaluate him.
He Xi made the final decision, praising Fang Xiaoru's personal ethics and not talking about anything else. Neither Fang Xiaoru's status in the literary world nor Fang Xiaoru's political achievements as chief assistant are discussed.
In fact, not to talk about these is to deny Fang Xiaoru's achievements in this area.
He Xi avoids these because he is worried about the many controversies in public opinion. After all, in He Xi's view, the biggest thing now is to successfully hold this conference.
It is a decision-making model that determines whether Dingguo will be the country. He Xi has avoided some fundamental issues.
Fang Xiaoru's posthumous name is.
What He Xi wanted was to confirm the official status of He Xi's new learning at this conference, not to deny Confucianism. Or Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. The two seem to be the same, but in fact, there are still some differences.
Can't push some too hard.
Slow things down.
Enough about punishment. Naturally, I want to talk about rewards.
First of all, the one who wants to be sealed is naturally Ye Chen.
Ye Chen's two battles between the rivers, the first blocked Fu Youde's attack, the second counterattack was successful and defeated Fu Youde, and then the Battle of Guangwu, beheaded Fu Youde, swept across the Central Plains, and pushed the battle line directly to the edge of the Yangtze River.
Merit comes first.
He was granted the title of Duke of Liao. Lu Wanshi. He was given ten farms outside the customs and hundreds of miles of fiefdom overseas.
The reward given to Ye Chen can be regarded as a bigger reward than those given below.
There is nothing to say about granting the title of Duke of Liao. After all, after the Battle of Hejian, Ye Chen was already the Duke of the country. The Duke of Liao was just a transfer of power to a great power. The salary may seem like a lot, but it is not much. That's more than two thousand taels a year, an annual salary of nearly three thousand taels.
The farm outside Guanwai is actually in
North-east area.
The reason for this is that granting honors and granting land is one of them. Although there is still land for Ming products, there is not much left. Whether it is near Nanjing or near Beijing.
He Xi also wanted to guide the people to develop the Northeast, so he negotiated with Zhu Xiongying to grant all the land outside the customs. The land is good. But it's a little colder, but I can give you more.
As a result, Ye Chen's annual salary is as much as five to six thousand yuan.
The Duke's annual salary is two to three thousand yuan, plus Ye Chen's official position as privy envoy, and other official positions. The salary and salary add up to this amount. Coupled with the farms in the Northeast, the annual income has exceeded 10,000 yuan.
This number is actually quite a lot.
Not to mention, Ye Chen also has some shares in many industries. It depends on the situation. Not easy to measure.
But an annual income of 10,000 yuan is already the upper limit of the income of nobles in this era. It couldn't be any higher. After all, the Ming Dynasty's annual income was only tens of millions of yuan at most. ..
Of course, this situation is expected to change soon.
But even if there is some improvement, it will still be about a billion yuan a year. A person receiving one ten thousandth of the country's annual income is already quite good.
Overseas fiefdoms are a new addition.
This is what Lu Zhongheng advocated.
This overseas fiefdom is hundreds of miles away, but now it is just a qualification. When the imperial court secures overseas places, or in other words, he can apply to the imperial court for any places he likes. Finally, the imperial court granted this piece of fiefdom to the honorable noble.
But there must be limits.
In terms of self-reliance, he is inferior to the feudal king. The feudal king could do almost anything in his fiefdom and make laws. Murder and arson. Either way.
But the vassals must be subordinate to the imperial court, and many things in the fiefdom must be aligned with the Ming Dynasty court. You can't do whatever you want. The area of the fiefdom must also be limited.
For example, Ye Chen is just Baili.
