prosperous age

Chapter 668 Chapter 667

Although the "six things" mentioned by Zhang Juzheng were not specific national policies, they revealed various contradictions that appeared in the superstructure of the Ming Dynasty after the "Rule of Renxuan".

These contradictions include the contradiction between the civil official group and the inner supervisory group, the contradiction between the civil official group and the royal family rule, the contradiction between the superstructure and the ordinary people, and the national defense crisis and the relaxation of arms in the Ming Dynasty.

In essence, most of these contradictions and problems reflected in this memorial are the contradictions and problems within the feudal ruling class.

Although he has read it several times, Wei Guangde still feels that he has not fully understood the deep meaning of Zhang Juzheng's words.

So, naturally, Wei Guangde planned not only to go to Chen Yiqin's house tonight to discuss with him, but also to think carefully after returning home.

However, when he came out of Chen Yiqin's mansion at night, he not only had Zhang Juzheng's "Chen Liushi Shu" in his hand, but also had an extra copy of Gao Gong's memoir, which was called "Turning the Shu by Respecting the Sages" ".

This book of memorials was completed by Gao Gong at the end of the 45th year of Jiajing, and the Emperor Jiajing died before he could play it.

In this booklet, Gao Gong summarizes the eight evils in the world that he has experienced and observed in the past twenty years: bad law, arrogance, meanness, jealousy, scrutiny, party comparison, obstinacy, and false rumors. The reform plan of the eight evils states that "there is no forgiveness for dancing, no forgiveness for greed, respect for loyalty, rewards for justice, nuclear courses, public houses, trial of meritorious crimes, and verification of facts", referred to as "Eight Disadvantages".

It's just that when Gao Gong gave this memorial to Emperor Longqing, he was "entrusted with a heavy task" to copy books for Emperor Jiajing, so he didn't know about it, and he had never read Gao Gong's memorial.

He didn't pay attention, so Chen Yiqin naturally wouldn't let it go.

From Chen Yiqin's point of view, there are a lot of similarities between the two's governing ideas.

Speaking of this, it not only reminded Wei Guangde that the relationship between Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng seemed very close back then.

But relatively speaking, Wei Guangde felt after reading Gao Gong's "Eight Disadvantages" that Gao Gong seemed to be more idealistic than Zhang Juzheng. It is based on the personal judgment of the chief officer.

First of all, it is necessary to ensure that the chief officer does not have these problems, so that his policies can be implemented, and this is very difficult.

After returning home, Wei Guangde just looked around in the backyard, and went into the study alone, holding two memorials to study, trying to understand the difference between the two.

After reading it twice, Wei Guangde really found something different, that is in rectifying the administration of officials.

Zhang Juzheng talked more about making officials diligent in administration. Although he also talked about discipline, he seemed to have intentionally or unintentionally not mentioned the need for severe punishments and strict laws, how to deal with corrupt officials.

This may also be because in the Ming Dynasty today, finding enough honest officials seems to have become an impossible task.

Since there is not, it is better to let corrupt officials do things, stop dereliction of duty, and then pass inspections to clean up bad and unqualified officials.

Gao Gong, on the other hand, wanted to kill corrupt officials, instead of putting corruption aside like Zhang Juzheng did.

As a result, Wei Guangde had to think about the grand occasion of the Manchu dynasty last year, and what the officials were thinking was already clearly revealed.

"Remove the decadent habit and treat the sparse by worshiping the sage, ha ha"

The corners of Wei Guangde's mouth twitched, thinking, if Emperor Jiajing really read this memorial, he would have kicked Gao Gong and sent him back to his hometown.

As for the reason, it is naturally that you dare to say that his country is full of decadence in front of the wise and mighty Emperor Jiajing, and you want him to do his best to turn the tide.

So soon, Wei Guangde put Gao Gong's memorials aside and studied Zhang Juzheng's memorials specifically, because he felt that Zhang Juzheng seemed more down-to-earth and operable, at least he would not be besieged by the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty.

The first provincial discussion, when making decisions about the current imperial court, there are always many people who oppose it.

No matter how perfect the plan is, he can always pick out a lot of flaws and refute them to no avail. When you ask him to come up with a countermeasure, he can’t come up with it. He only cares about belittling others, as if only in this way can he appear capable.

As a result, His Majesty was unable to make up his mind and missed the best time to solve the problem.

Any kind of decision-making cannot be perfect. We should look at the mainstream, weigh the pros and cons, and work hard, as long as the pros outweigh the cons.

If you haggle over everything and get stuck in endless debates all day long, not only is it not conducive to solving problems, but it may also intensify conflicts.

When submitting the memorial, the ministers and workers should go straight to the topic, not go around in circles, concentrate on their own work, and avoid arguing.

This article, in fact, can also be regarded as Zhang Juzheng's certain restrictions on the prevalent official system in the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court specially set up censors and officials. These officials are of low rank, but they have the power to supervise and impeach high officials, and they like to express their opinions on everything, and they are basically opposing opinions.

The purpose of the second article of Zhenji Gang is not only to hope that the court will restore the original law, but also to criticize the behavior of Emperor Jiajing, who has been in power for more than 40 years, with unknown rewards and punishments, and who promoted ministers or sent them to prison according to his preferences.

Guilt or innocence, it all depends on the emperor's thought, and there is no such thing as a crime.

Subsequent important edicts require all yamen to complete the processing within the specified time after receiving the order.

If it cannot be completed, explain the reason and come up with a solution.

All kinds of orders should be registered and recorded, and canceled after completion.

Those who are not completed must be held accountable, and officials will be judged according to their efficiency in completing tasks.

Zhang Juzheng's method is to cut off the buck-passing among the various ministries. After receiving the order, he must give a strict statement, and then supervise your implementation according to your statement, and no one is allowed to respond negatively.

In other words, it is to clarify responsibilities and quantify tasks through standard file formats, which is convenient for supervision and assessment.

The verification of the name in the fourth article is that what the country really needs are those who can solve practical problems. The method of judging talents by reputation will prevent those who do things down-to-earth from being promoted. On the contrary, those who talk about me often get promoted.

If things go on like this, everyone is unwilling to do things, and the work efficiency is low.

For officials who have served for a certain number of years, a precise assessment must be carried out, and their achievements in various aspects should be considered, and their positions should be adjusted according to the order of "competent", "normal", and "incompetent", and magnates should be rewarded and punished.

Among them, Zhang Juzheng especially mentioned the promotion of Zuoer official. Officials who have passed the nine-year examination show strong ability, so they should be promoted in the headquarters instead of being transferred between yamen.

Article [-] The national foundation is actually the solution to financial distress.

Finance is the cornerstone of the country, and the economic status of the people and a reasonable tax system are the foundation of the country's finances.

In the last ten years of the Jiajing Dynasty, Yan Song controlled the government and was crazily corrupt. Emperor Jiajing devoted himself to cultivating Taoism and did not care about political affairs.

The local tyrants annexed the fields and passed the burden of taxation to the people at the bottom, making the country's finances even worse.

Zhang Juzheng hoped to restrain the powerful and let the common people recuperate.

It advocates strict economy, advocating simplicity and people-oriented.

Of course, every time he saw this article, Wei Guangde's eyes would linger for a while on the so-called famous sentence "To fight against the outside world, we must first secure the inside", but this time, although Wei Guangde didn't look away, he just closed his eyes.

In the last few sentences of this line, Wei Guangde seemed to smell a trace of blood.

In the first year of Longqing, due to insufficient national resources, the Metropolitan Procuratorate sent a large number of censors to various places to supervise the distribution of taxes, that is, to collect taxes and labor from various places.

And Zhang Juzheng already knew that the result of doing so, "If you ask for it to harm the wealth and go away, why should you ask for it from the poor people, so as to consume the vitality of the country."

"Now I want to deal with the reasons for the way. Today's vulgar and extravagant, there are no restrictions on the service and housing of officials and people, foreign tyrants merge, taxes and labor are uneven, flowers are distributed cunningly, stubbornness does not pay for land, and the common people are tired."

Wei Guangde opened his eyes abruptly, and couldn't help but stare at one of them.

"Tired people."

Wei Guangde seems to have noticed that when Zhang Juzheng was writing this matter, perhaps his eyes on making up for the deficit of the court had already moved away from the "little people", so why should the "poor people" ask for it.

Zhang Juzheng distinguished Ming society into three categories: officials, common people, and ordinary people.

The respective references are very clear, and Wei Guangde naturally knows it at a glance.

It's just that he is also very suspicious. Is Zhang Juzheng planning to hit "the way to make money" on "officials and people"?
What is he going to charge?
There is no mention of it in the main part of the memorial, so Wei Guangde re-read the memorial.

The fundamental reason why he attaches so much importance to this matter is that he is not much smarter than Zhang Juzheng, Chen Yiqin and others except for a little insight from later generations.

Since he didn't have the talent to know the world, Wei Guangde didn't intend to be the elephant.

If you join the cabinet yourself, should you join the cabinet to govern?

Of course he didn't want to kill himself like Zhang Juzheng did.

However, more importantly, he did not want to give Zhang Juzheng any chance to be convicted.

When Zhang Juzheng was in power, he could say that power invaded the government and the public, even the emperor would listen to him.

In Wei Guangde's impression, it is said that Zhang Juzheng dared to show embarrassment to the emperor because the emperor disagreed with him or was a little hesitant in dealing with government affairs, so that the emperor had to succumb.

If Zhang Juzheng caught him with something, would he threaten the emperor to take him down?
Therefore, to avoid such things from happening, he must know his thoughts in advance, try to avoid committing these things, and not give him the slightest chance.

He, or the people behind him, are the "officials and people" in his memorials. In other words, Zhang Juzheng's way of making money for the court falls on himself and the people around him.

By this time, Wei Guangde finally understood that he always felt weird when he read Zhang Juzheng's "Chen Liushishu" at first, but now he finally knows where the source is.

"Collect business taxes like Wei Zhongxian?"

Wei Guangde muttered unconsciously.

He remembered that later generations gave Wei Zhongxian a very low evaluation. The fundamental reason was that Wei Zhongxian turned his attention to merchants in order to make money for the court and himself. The people rebelled.

Of course he didn't want anyone to rebel, because he was the one who was unlucky.

Zhang Juzheng seems to have a similar view to Wei Zhongxian.

The only difference is that it seems that the merchants are not powerful enough to intervene in the court.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the relationship between businessmen and officials became more entangled, and they could not be torn apart at all.

It is said that most of the officials in Jiangnan, Shanxi and other places were funded by businessmen at that time to support their careers, so after they entered the court and became officials, they were mostly controlled by businessmen.

Wei Guangde knew that Zhang Juzheng's main achievements were "one-whip technique" and "examination", but "one-whip technique" seems to have little to do with Zhang Juzheng, as it has been around for a long time.

Moreover, the "one whip law" has little effect on "officials and the people".

He must have been doing other things.

Wei Guangde already had a judgment at this time, Zhang Juzheng should have done more things after he took control of the power, and these things may be the reasons that directly pushed the Zhang family into eternal doom.

Wei Guangde recalled it carefully for a long time, and he never thought that when he was in contact with Zhang Juzheng, he had said anything else. His opinions on taxes were more complicated because he was very supportive of the "one whip method".

Wei Guangde didn't think about the "hidden fields" and "hidden households". Although he knew it, he knew even more that to do these things, the imperial court needed a lot of investment and the resistance they would encounter.

The officials below will first quit because of their respective families.

If you do these things in other provinces, others can also check your family background. How can the civil servants poach their own corners?

Forget it, it's late, so be it.

Wei Guangde automatically filtered out the matter of Zhang Juzheng's military preparations among the six events. He felt that he knew better than Zhang Juzheng, and he started to prepare earlier.

In fact, after Wei Guangde took the imperial examination, he also thought about doing something to achieve fame.

For civil servants, is there anything more famous and eternal than creating a "prosperous age"?
It's just that he knows how difficult it is to create a "prosperous age" again, and the details can be omitted. At the very least, the treasury must be filled and the people have enough food and clothing.

What does the prosperous age of Kaiyuan look like?
"Recalling the heyday of Kaiyuan in the past, there are still thousands of houses in Xiaoyi.

The rice is fat and the corn is white, and the public and private warehouses are full of fruit. "

This is internal.

Externally, there is no major threat around the Tang Dynasty. Even Tubo, which has been defeated by the Tang Dynasty for many times, chose to ask for peace in order to end this kind of war because of the strong national power of the Tang Empire. state.

Yes, during the Tang Dynasty, the main enemy of the Tang Empire was not the Turks on the northern grasslands, but Tubo on the Tibetan plateau.

It was difficult for the Tang army to attack the plateau on a large scale. The strong plateau reaction made every attack of the Tang army miserable, and the initiative of the war was always controlled by Tubo.

It is in such an internal and external environment that the rare "prosperity" in Chinese history has been created.

Wei Guangde's previous idea was to "lighten the people's taxes", and the imperial court financed the sea and imposed heavy taxes on export commodities to solve the imperial court's financial problems.

Even if it cannot be resolved, at least it is good to alleviate it, so that the people can recuperate.

For the outside world, it is to use generals who are used to fighting, train an invincible army, directly push the northern Mongolia, and then "plow the court to sweep the holes" to completely solve the hidden dangers in the Northeast.

In his memory, he seems to remember that there was a "Three Great Marches in Wanli", among which was the war to aid Korea and fight against Japan, but he didn't know when it was.

If it was because he was still in court, the war would definitely not end so easily.

Wa Island, in the eyes of western navigators, is Treasure Island, how can it be abandoned casually.

(End of this chapter)