eldest son of Ming dynasty

Chapter 844 Court Politics

Twenty years after the Ming Dynasty changed to the Yuan Dynasty and Zhengde, the country's southeast, northwest and northwest had undergone major changes. The only thing that remained unchanged was the one thing that remained unchanged.

It's Shandong.

Liu Jian, the chief minister during the Hongzhi period, was demoted to Shandong because he accidentally angered the emperor. He was over seventy years old at the time. At first, everyone thought that even if this old guy arrived in Shandong, he would only survive for a few years at most.

I never thought that Liu Jian was a truly longevity man. By the 20th year of Zhengde, he was already ninety-three years old and still in office.

In other words, there has been no change of governor in Shandong in twenty years.

During the reign of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, he once advocated that local officials should not be transferred easily if they did well. After all, if they are doing well, why would you replace them?

However, this system is not applicable in every scenario.

The first is the official himself. Over time, he will want to be promoted. In addition, if a person has been in power for a long time, it is easy for him to change his surname, and it will be difficult for the court to intervene.

This is the more important reason.

Therefore, although Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty's approach was reasonable, it was not adopted on a large scale.

Instead, the stream-of-service system, which changes every few years, has become the mainstream.

But everything has an exception, and these two factors can be avoided in Liu Jian's case.

It is impossible for him to return to Beijing, and he has always flaunted himself as a clean stream and disdained to be a powerful local minister.

In the past twenty years, Shandong has become Qingliu's private territory and an excellent place for idealists like them to experiment with governing the country.

However, the fact is that Shandong is the place that has changed the least among all places and is most similar to the early years of Zhengde.

It cannot be said that it is backward, but the appearance is still that of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

Under Confucianism, it is nothing more than those few tricks.

For example, there is still a lack of commerce here, and the small-scale peasant economy continues to be maintained. After the land clearing order in the 11th year of Zhengde, land annexation was restrained, and sweet potatoes were promoted, so there were not many hungry people.

Even if there is a disaster, the state treasury has money to provide relief, and Liu Jian is an honest official, so the relief food will not be deducted too much.

For another example, the road guide system currently only exists in a few provinces such as Shandong.

This is the economic aspect.

In terms of culture, Shandong is a province that ranks high in imperial examinations. Liu Jian established private schools in various parts of Shandong and promoted sacred learning. Among the higher colleges in the capital, the proportion of students from Shandong was the lowest.

More families still farm the land to pay for food and provide for their children to study for imperial examinations.

However, as mentioned above, this does not mean that Shandong is backward. In fact, commerce is flourishing in the coastal areas of Jiangnan and other places, and overseas foreigners are everywhere. Under the influence of commerce, values ​​​​that advocate money are becoming increasingly popular, and all noble scholars are saddened by this. , and most of them identify more with Shandong.

There is actually nothing we can do about this.

After the Age of Discovery came the era of globalization. The state of etiquette was no longer suitable for that era. Every nation and country had to fight and fight for its own interests.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao has no regrets about creating such a citizen culture.

Overemphasis on etiquette and tradition resulted in the birth of a strange business such as tribute trade, in which the more trade, the greater the losses.

This is his idea.

In fact, Liu Jian's governor's office was crowded with many Qingliu officials, and more of them had been assigned to various prefectures and counties by him.

Today's Shandong can be said to have good governance and good people. Agriculture can at least ensure stability and stability, and the people can live and work in peace and contentment.

The early collection and submission of the new version of the fish scale album needed by the imperial court during the 20th year of Zhengde is one of the clear evidence.

In fact, this group of talkative people benefited from the government's salary increase for officials and the land clearing order. The contradiction between man and land is not prominent. Officials do not necessarily have to be greedy for money to live. With the scene like today.

In this place, you can say that they are not as wealthy as the southeast, and they also say that you are not as prosperous as their rituals.

But at the end of the day, people are born, old, sick and die.

Along with the memorial of the fish scale album, there is also Liu Jian's resignation.

This is also what Zhu Houzhao wanted to discuss with his ministers when he arrived at the palace today.

He said that Xinjiang and Shandong each had a memorial, which also refers to this matter.

Regarding Yang Yiqing's memorial, he had already discussed it with the Minister of Hubu and the Minister of War, and then it was no surprise that he discussed it.

The method of handling the situation is simple and clear: for the civil strife in Kazakhstan, temporarily allow it to ferment while secretly contacting its domestic forces.

When the opportunity comes, it will naturally hit with one hit.

Zhu Houzhao's foreign expansion policy is actually conservative and restrained, but once he really takes action, he will not be able to scratch the surface.

"...It's really hard to decide on the candidate for the governor of Shandong. Duke Xixian has been in Shandong for twenty years and has left his mark everywhere. Mainly because the officials there call themselves Qingliu. If someone who cannot convince the public is chosen, On the contrary, it will ruin Shandong’s current overall situation.”

The emperor gave each minister a seat, so Gu Renyi sat down and spoke.

Zhu Houzhao sounded very reasonable, "But it's impossible not to agree this time. He mentioned it to me three years ago, and it will take another three years to delay. And if it continues to be delayed, we will still face this problem in the future. "

Intellectuals are the most hopeless to a certain extent. They all say that the prime minister's belly can support the boat, but in fact, as long as you don't suit their taste, they are the most careless and stingy, and they will fight you no matter what.

Zhu Houzhao didn't want to cause such a disturbance in Shandong.

First, it was stable all year round and he didn't need to worry too much, which was good.

Secondly, it is difficult to say how the storm will develop once it takes off, and whether it will spill over to the capital.

All in all, don't cause any trouble. It is precisely because of this that this candidate needs to be discussed.

It's not that there are no Qingliu in today's imperial court, but there really aren't many Qingliu who can rival Liu Jian and his virtues in Shandong.

Maybe Jin Gui is one of them, but he is the Minister of Rites, has a high status, and has made no mistakes. There is no reason to suddenly demote him to Shandong.

Gu Renyi followed the emperor's words and recommended a candidate, "Your Majesty, it would be better if you recommend someone from Shandong. Gu Dingchen, the governor of Shandong, is knowledgeable and capable. He speaks out when things happen and has a long-standing economic mind. He is proficient in everything. It is Shandong. The perfect choice for governor.”

Gu Dingchen is indeed a good candidate, and he has a good reputation.

He is Liu Jian's right-hand man.

However, in the eleventh year of Zhengde's reign, Gu Dingchen was appointed as Zuo Yude of Zhan Shifu and concurrently as a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy. This was the position of Prime Minister of Zheng'erbajing.

The clear flow could not be clearer.

The so-called "dare to speak out" in times of trouble led him to criticize Zhang Cong's actions crazily.

Zhang Cong also hated this person deeply.

What Zhu Houzhao considered was that at this time, he had already carried out a relatively severe crackdown on Zhang Cong. He punished one of his Sichuan governors and forced him to complete the official silver smuggling case.

If someone like Gu Dingchen is promoted to be the governor of Shandong at this time.

It may give people a wrong political signal, making people think that Zhang Cong's time is almost up, which will also cause trouble in the court.

And he wasn't sure whether Gu Renyi really thought Gu Dingchen was suitable for him when he said this, or whether... he was trying to pave the way for Zai Gao and sound the death knell for Zhang Cong.

For him, the ideal Qingliu would at least have a not-so-bad relationship with Zhang Cong.

Zhu Houzhao used to watch TV dramas and heard those emperors say that although he was an emperor, he could not do whatever he wanted, but he didn't believe it. Now he has experienced it himself and understands that this is really true.

If these thoughts are not there, Qingliu will control the trends in the court. These people quietly lay out the plan and guide the emperor's actions. If it really comes to this, then the emperor deserves it. It was such a failure.

"Are there any other candidates?" Zhu Houzhao asked aloud.

Wang Qiong, the official secretary of the Ministry of Personnel, could not avoid such a question, "Your Majesty, I recommend Ouyang Duo, the chief envoy of Guangdong. He is a man who studies literature externally and has a clean character internally. Although his official position is obvious, his furniture is poor, so it is not possible to have too many." He was an honest official. In the 18th year of Zhengde, Ouyang Duo was the prefect of Fuzhou. He ranked first in the country in the official assessment. He was promoted to the chief envoy of Guangdong that year. The ministers observed that he was in charge of the government in Guangdong. He was people-oriented and did not change his original intention. He is quite famous in Fujian and Guangdong provinces, and Wei Chen believes that even Ouyang Duo is qualified to be the governor of Shandong."

"kindness."

Wang Qiong was very good at catching the emperor's mind.

Zhu Houzhao's method of employing people is not only to decentralize and train, but also to promote them resolutely and quickly once they are identified.

The bureaucratic machine of the Ming Dynasty is already very complete. It does not require any special ability on the part of the individual, and the emperor is very diligent. It is not your turn to make decisions on major matters, but on small matters, as long as you are deemed to have the corresponding ability to deal with them after training, then Basically there is no problem.

I have worked as a prefect and as an envoy with good results, so there is no problem with the governor.

However, at first glance, what this old fox in officialdom said sounded reasonable and without selfish motives.

But in fact Ouyang Duo is a less thorough person in Qingliu.

In fact, before the Tianxia Qingtian Order, around the eighth year of Zhengde, Ouyang Duo served as magistrate of Jiande County, Zhejiang Province.

At that time, there was no order to clear the land, let alone eliminate the elite gentry.

But Ouyang Duo was able to do something like "distribute half of the common people's corvee to the scholar-bureaucrats".

Therefore, in the eleventh year of Zhengde, Zhang Cong promoted the land clearing order everywhere, but Ouyang Duo said nothing. He knew the real burden of the people.

But Ouyang Duo is indeed not from Zhang Cong's group.

The reason why he was given the title of No. 1 in the world was, on the one hand, that Ouyang Duo did think of many ways to equalize taxes and services when he was an official, which was highly praised by the people. On the other hand, it was Zhang Cong's gesture to win over people's hearts.

Otherwise, the second and third places may be given to him. Most of the time, the first place has little to do with performance, unless you really have political achievements that blind everyone's eyes.

Therefore, from this perspective, although the person recommended by Wang Qiong did not strengthen Zhang Cong much, he did not give up this important position to the so-called Qingliu group.

This is also a victory.

The comings and goings in the court are nothing more than these tricks.

Mingjun is never afraid of these, Mingjun can take advantage of them.

"The governor of Shandong is also a high-ranking official, Mr. Zhang Ge, what do you think?" Zhu Houzhao asked with raised eyebrows.

Zhang Cong now has "unpaid debts". He can't say more because Wang Qiong has already said it. If the emperor agrees, he doesn't need to say anything more. If the emperor doesn't agree, it's useless for him to say, "Your Majesty, Weichen has been reflecting on the way of employing people recently, and it is difficult to distinguish the pros and cons for a while, but Weichen understands that the Emperor is wise and wise, and everything will be handled by the Emperor, and Weichen will act according to his orders."

Zhu Houzhao's lips curled up, "I'm thinking about it. Yao Yulin's matter has also reminded me, and I have to think about it carefully."

Zhang Cong's face remained calm, but he had some thoughts in his heart.

After going down,

Wang Qiong followed him and asked: "There are not many people who can replace Liu Jian. Gu Dingchen and Ouyang Duo are two completely different people, but the emperor is not satisfied?"

Zhang Cong looked into the distance quietly, "The Emperor is not a hesitant person. I'm afraid... he is waiting for the results of my decision."

If the official silver smuggling was handled to the emperor's satisfaction, then the governor of Shandong would naturally not ask Qingliu to take it away. Those people, under the protection of Liu Jian, would cause him a lot of trouble.

If he is not satisfied with the situation, then Gu Dingchen will come forward and his situation will immediately worsen.

The emperor has always been at ease.

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Note: It is a historical fact that Ouyang Duo distributed half of the common people's corvee work to the scholar-bureaucrats.