The history of the Ming Dynasty in China is a very special era. Before the Mongols came to dominate the Central Plains, and later the Manchus took over the Datong. It was also the era when China's official government was the most corrupt, and its values ​​and beliefs collapsed. "A group of officials and cliques, each enters the relatives, recruits traitors, discourages the benevolent and worthy, betrays the public and seeks private interests, and talks with the same position. This is the source of chaos." In the darkest age, bright and handsome intellectuals have room to stretch , but also because the political arena is nothing more than a totalitarian curtain, China cannot produce historical figures of the Reformation and Renaissance.

Focusing on two key protagonists, one is Emperor Jiajing, and the other is Hai Rui. The mutual support and collision between the political system and the moral system burst out a memorable historical tragedy and lesson.Even after more than 400 years, Jiajing and Hai Rui still sighed silently to us: history is an endless dialogue between the present and the past, and history is also an endless debate; the purpose of reading history is to "review the past, grasp the Now, looking to the future", we readjust our direction from the rearview mirror of history and think about how to take the steps of life.

Hai Rui is indeed a model bureaucrat with an eccentric personality.He was born in a poor and remote Hainan Island. He lost his father at the age of four and was brought up by his widowed mother. He was only qualified to be a candidate for merit. The land and water conservancy policies of the central government and the Zhejiang provincial government drew Hai Rui into the center of the magnetic field and became a symbol and model of official administration in the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding monarch of the Ming Dynasty, was very strict in governing officials. He followed the tradition of "thrifty to support honesty". The bureaucrats' salaries were beyond their means, so they could only rely on "regular routines" to supplement living and office expenses.Just like the Taiwanese proverb: "Strict government, rich thieves", the stricter the laws of the Ming Dynasty, the more serious the problems of bureaucrats going through the back door, collusion between officials and businessmen, and corruption.Hai Rui is full of thoughts on the rule of Yao and Shun, the way of Confucius and Mencius, and the laws and regulations of the Ming Dynasty. He has a simple, upright, and resolute personality, but he is also stubborn, inhumane, and ignorant of flexibility.Hai Rui's adherence to moral values ​​and consistency in words and deeds is admirable, and even Zhang Juzheng respectfully calls him a "sharp weapon of the country"; but just like the two blades of a knife, Hai Rui's intransigence and lack of accommodation and compromise are also frightening.When Hai Rui was dismissed from office, he said: "All the officials in the court are women." He put himself in opposition to all bureaucrats.

Hai Rui’s earth-shattering work was after he became the head of the household department in 1566 (the forty-fifth year of Jiajing), he proposed the "blunt statement of the world's first book" that has been passed down through the ages, and first scolded Emperor Jiajing: "The Jiajing people , saying that the family is clean and has no money to use", "People in the world have not treated His Majesty for a long time", and then Hai Rui quoted scriptures to ask Jiajing to reflect on himself and work hard to govern the country, "It's just for Your Majesty to cheer up."According to Hai Rui's worldview, as long as the emperor is sincere, he can govern the country. This is a typical rule of man and morality, and it is completely different from the Western democratic concept of "human nature is evil" and the rule of law and system of "supervision and checks and balances". .

After Jiajing finished reading "Calling the Emperor", he was furious and wanted to kill Hai Rui, but the eunuch Huang Jin bluntly said that Hai Rui "has always had an insane name" and had already prepared a coffin to bid farewell to his wife and children; In the next few months, I read this memorandum again and again, and I was "moved to death", with compassion in my heart, and I couldn't make up my mind to kill Hai Rui who was determined to die.This is the moral choice under totalitarianism. After all, the totalitarian monarch Jiajing is a cultivator, and still has a glorious side of humanity; Hai Rui, who has internalized the way of the sage-king, does not understand the "hidden rules" of human sophistication, and wants to implement the concept of sages. It also made him a "famous official through the ages".Behind Jiajing and Hai Rui's duel of wills should be the sympathy between the two. No wonder that when Jiajing died, Hai Rui heard the news in prison, "Immediately mourned, vomited out all the food and drink, fell to the ground, and cried all night long. "

Jiajing held the military power but became a nihilistic monk and did not go to court for more than 20 years; Hai Rui, full of superb moral ideas, jumped into the world of mortals, went up and down several times, and was dismissed from office until he died.Mr. Liu Heping, the author of this book, described "a lonely person in the highest state of power and a lonely person in the highest moral state, they understand each other", which is actually a pertinent theory.Hai Rui cannot become a Martin Luther-style religious reformer, nor can he become a Machiavelli-style strategist, but Hai Rui is Hai Rui. In the peak period of totalitarianism and the dark era of corruption, historian Huang Renyu described "Hai Rui His life embodies the spirit of an educated scholar who sacrifices himself to serve the public."Through this wonderful and vivid book, we listen to Hai Rui's heartbeat and are inspired by his spirit. We still move forward with confidence and hope without fear.