Chapter 98 In the seventh meeting, I met with the three chiefs in the filial piety and heard the sound of wind and rain in front of the tomb.

On the afternoon of April 13th, on Taihui Mountain, located six miles south of Jiangling City, one could see tens of thousands of people thronging as far as the eye could see.Inviting soul banners, flags, paper figures, paper figures, horses, spirit houses, gold and silver mountains, and other various ghost objects have been placed in dense circles for several miles—the burial ceremony of the first assistant father, Zhang Wenming, will be held here later, just waiting for the order of the deacon , All these objects must be burned. But it is said that Zhang Juzheng left Beijing on March 11 and arrived in his hometown of Jingzhou on April 9.It took only 28 days for the journey of more than 2,000 miles. It was really Xiaoxing who stayed overnight and traveled in a hurry.This journey Zhang Juzheng can be said to be full of scenery, and his prestige has reached the extreme of being a minister: because he ate a meal of Huaiyang dishes carefully prepared by Qian Pu in Zhending Mansion, he had a great appetite, which caused all the officials in various places to rush. They paid a lot of money to hire chefs who are good at cooking Jiangnan cuisine. According to people's comments, "the number of southern cuisine masters was recruited at a time."He rode in a huge sedan chair specially made for him by Qian Pu, and as he passed along the way, the local guards led their subordinates to kneel down to welcome him, and the big officials crossed the border to greet him one by one, without exception.The giant sedan chair passed through Nanyang Mansion, and the king of Tang, who was entrusted here, came out of the city to welcome him, and hosted a beautiful banquet for him.When they arrived in Xiangyang, King Xiang, who lived in the city, went out of the city for thirty miles to meet him. , all meet with courtiers, even first-rank ministers are no exception.But now things have turned upside down. The descendants of Zhu Yuanzhang—the nobles of Tianhuang not only did not accept Zhang Juzheng's worship, but instead ran out of the city to meet this unsmiling prime minister. It is a great honor to work with him.Although Zhang Juzheng thanked this kind of "extraordinary gift" that seemed to be presumptuous, he did not refuse it sincerely.

But he said that a few days before he arrived home, the city of Jingzhou was already full of high-ranking officials on the sedan chair and horse road, and hundreds of common officials, vassals, and county guards from all the yamen on Huguang Road came to wait for Zhang Juzheng's honor.Those who came earlier were also representatives sent by dignitaries such as nobles and bureaucrats in the northern and southern capitals. They imitated the emperor and the empress dowagers of the two palaces and sent people to offer sacrifices and mourning ceremonies.Zhang Juzheng's two younger brothers, Zhang Juyi and Zhang Juqian, were in charge of the reception of these foreign officials in name, but in fact, they were all officials from Jingzhou Prefecture, and hundreds of people were busy with this matter for days. Zhang Juzheng naturally didn't know about these trivial matters.In fact, Zhang Juzheng was not very happy about the ostentatious scenes along the way and the enthusiasm of the officials, but he scolded the opera singers and came to play the gongs. In short, they were dogs in the wilderness. I can't catch up.He also simply "do as the Romans do", following these local officials to seize the red and grab the green land to make a fuss, and he just took this opportunity to touch the "water quality" of the officials from all over the place.

As soon as he entered Jingzhou, Zhang Juzheng took off his official robe and put on filial piety. Even though hundreds of officials gathered outside the city of Jingzhou and knelt to welcome him, his big sedan did not even stop. He even opened the curtain of the sedan chair to wave to the officials. He refused, so he went straight to look at Su Yi, Zhang Dashi's mansion at the east gate of the city.From the 33rd year of Jiajing, he returned to his hometown to beg for support for three years. In the 36th year of Jiajing, he re-entered Beijing. Twenty years have passed.The ups and downs of personnel and affairs in the past twenty years of cold and heat are really hard to describe in words.When he returned to his hometown, he was just a sixth-rank editor of the Hanlin Academy. Twenty years later, when he returned to his hometown, he had become a ruler with the world in his hands and his body attached to the country.When he returned home A, his feeling was not that things were different, but a kind of melancholy that couldn't go away.The father's mourning hall is still there, and the coffin is housed.The first thing he did when he got home was to go to the mourning hall to pay his respects.In the distance, life and death are boundless. I think that although I have achieved great achievements over the years, I can't show my love for the white-haired Gaotang servant soup. Now that I am touching the coffin, how can I not burst into tears! The day of the burial It was set on April 13th, and officials from the Qin Tianjian took care of everything from the survey of the burial to the determination of the date of the funeral.On the 10th, 11th, and 12th day of April, Zhang Juzheng, dressed in hemp and filial piety, kept watch for his father in the mourning hall. Except for his relatives, he did not see any guests.As a result, officials from all over the country who came to Jingzhou were like sparrows that had stunned their heads. Although they were flapping their wings, they didn't know where to fly.In the early morning of April 13th, the nanmu coffin containing the body of Mrs. Zhang was carried out of Zhang Dashi's mansion.As the eldest son, Zhang Juzheng personally took the lead.Two hours later, the funeral procession arrived at Mount Taihui.Jiangling belongs to the plain, and Taihui Mountain is said to be a mountain, but it is actually a slightly raised mound.At this time, the earthen well for the coffin of Mrs. Zhang had already been dug, and the burial time was set at 3:00 p.m., and there was still a long period of time in between.After Zhang Juzheng arrived at Taihui Mountain, he first went to the tomb well to see the surrounding situation carefully, and asked a few questions to Kongmu, the deacon's Qin Tianjian. Filial piety shed.There are dozens of filial piety sheds in a row, which are used for the temporary rest of the funeral officials. Although it is a temporary building, the tables, chairs, benches, tea and snacks are well-arranged.As soon as Zhang Juzheng stepped into the shed door with his front foot, a person came in with his back foot, plopped down on his knees behind him, and said loudly:

"Master Yuansuke." Zhang Juzheng turned around and saw that the kneeling man was wearing a gray and white rough linen filial piety, with a straw rope tied around his waist, which was a typical filial son's attire.Due to the change of attire, Zhang Juzheng didn't recognize who this "filial son" was for a while, so he asked: "You are?" The kneeling man raised his head and said: "Humble job Chen Rui, please meet Lord Yuanfu." "Ah, you are Chen Futai?" Zhang Juzheng immediately remembered that this person was the governor of Huguang Road who had been in office for more than a year, and he couldn't help saying in surprise, "Why are you wearing sackcloth and filial piety?" He said and stepped forward to help him up.

I don't know if it's because of nervousness or tiredness, Chen Rui's head was covered with sweat, and he didn't dare to look at Shoufu right now, so he replied in a sad voice: "The old man passed away, and the humble official was burned. If the life and death of a person can be exchanged, the humble official is willing to use his mustard body in exchange for the old man's immeasurable life." Hearing this obviously flattering words, Zhang Juzheng felt disgusted, but after all he came from the provincial capital four hundred miles away for the funeral, so Zhang Juzheng forgave him.After the guests and hosts were seated, Zhang Juzheng asked:

"When did you arrive?" "Arrived in Jingzhou a day earlier than Yuanfu." In fact, Zhang Juzheng knew the whereabouts of Chen Rui and other officials from his second brother Zhang Juqian, but he still couldn't help asking: "Have you been here for five days?" "yes." "I heard that many officials from Huguang Road have come." "Except for a very small number of people who couldn't leave due to official business, basically all of them came." In the morning of the funeral, the genius is bright, and Zhang Juzheng is mournful and does not look sideways.He only felt that there were a lot of people, but he didn't take a closer look at who were in the huge funeral procession.At this moment, he said politely to Chen Rui:

"Chen Futai, thank you for coming all the way to the burial. After returning home, Bu Guyin immediately kept a filial piety for three days, in order to show the love of a son of man, so he avoids seeing all the guests. I hope Chen Futai will forgive me for this." "My lord Yuanfu's filial piety to the emperor can be learned from the sun and the moon." "Feng Jun?" Zhang Juzheng was taken aback for a moment. "Your Majesty Yuanfu should know this allusion," Chen Rui said with a flattering smile, and suddenly realized that he was losing his composure, so he quickly covered his mouth and said, "Not long after my humble appointment, I heard that an official was celebrating the old lady's 70th birthday At that time, I wrote a wonderful speech of congratulations. I remember this passage, "In the early years of Jiajing, God looked south to Jingtu and gave birth to a different person, who was sent by Yuanfu as the king. Or called Yuanfu as the fathers, and named the king. For all the fathers, for the fathers of all the fathers, the sky is also true.' This birthday letter is an apt metaphor, once it is sold, it will be expensive in Luoyang. After I took office, I also made a special trip from Wuchang to Jingzhou City to visit Fengjun, ~see Fengjun Chaochen I also wanted to write a eulogy, but because of the previous article, the humble students sighed, "There is a scene in front of me, but Cui Hao wrote a poem on it."

Zhang Juzheng knew about the celebration of his father's 70th birthday two years ago by nearby officials, but he had never heard of this congratulatory article.It was probably due to too much praise, and no one sent a message to him.After listening to it now, he didn't react at all, and just continued to ask: "Have all the officials from Huguang Santai come?" The so-called three stations are the governor, the inspector, and the academic administration.The three are all three-rank yamen. The governor is in charge of civil administration, referred to as Futai;He is the three highest-ranking officials in a province.Although the level is the same, because the governor is in charge of administration, it is ranked first.

"They're all here." Chen Rui replied. "Ju Qian," Zhang Juzheng told his younger brother who was sitting on the side, "you go to the Futai and Xuetai, please come and sit here." After a while, Ju Qian led two officials in. The one in the lead was Wang Longyang, the imperial censor of Huguang Road, followed by Huguang Xuezheng Jin Xuezeng.In the second year of Wanli, Jinxue took charge of the Jingzhou Tax Customs, and dug out the moth that swallowed up the country's huge tax money, Zhao Qian, the magistrate of Jingzhou, and made the income of the Jingzhou Tax Customs jump from the bottom one in the country to the fourth in the country. In Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Zhangjiawan, Tongzhou, Beijing.Jin Xuezeng was already well-known in the official circles, and his reputation became even stronger this time.At the beginning of this year, he passed the three-year examination and received a speech from the Ministry of Officials. He was promoted to be a third-rank academician of Huguang Road.People who are familiar with officialdom are very surprised by this arrangement. Among the three governors in one province, the most leisurely one is studying politics.Compared with the busy traffic in front of Futai and Yamen, Xuetai's mansion is not crowded, but it is considered normal to be cold and desolate all the year round.Therefore, some people jokingly called Jin Xuezeng's promotion this time as "jumping from a hot pot to a cold stove".With the rank of Luxiang Qianzhong, but losing the hot power, in the officialdom, this is also one of the means to eliminate dissidents, and it is called "Qingrong Supporting Method".But no matter from any point of view, a cadre like Jin Xuezeng, who is deeply trusted by the first assistant Zhang Juzheng, should not be the object of Qingrong's support, but he was supported by Qingrong.The old official circles think this is a mystery.Jin Xuezeng also felt that something was wrong, but he happily went through the handover procedures and left Jingzhou to take up his post in Wuchang.When Zhang Juzheng returned to his hometown to bury his father this time, officials from all provinces came to attend the burial, and Jin Xuezeng was no exception.Although he came, he was not as prominent as Chen Rui. At best, he just made people feel that he was a follower.

It is said that after Wang Longyang and Jin Xuezeng entered the filial piety at this time, the three chiefs and Zhang Juzheng once again bowed to each other and thanked them for their seats.Since leaving Beijing in the second year of Wanli, except for Jin Xue who went to Beijing to report on his work in the fourth year of Wanli and Zhang Juzheng summoned him once, the two haven't seen each other for two years.After a brief narration, Zhang Juzheng asked Jin Xuezeng: "You have changed from tax customs to school inspector. Your responsibilities are completely different. You have been in office for a few months. Are you used to it?"

Jin Xuezeng leaned forward and replied: "The first day I arrive at a humble job, the second day I get used to it." "So fast?" "Things are so serious that you can't slow down even if you want to slow down." "What's the matter?" Zhang Juzheng asked. Jin Xuezeng said: "As soon as the humble official arrived at the yamen, he set up a banquet for the officials of the Xuezheng yamen. The intention was to connect with each other and everyone knew each other. Who would have thought that an instructor would not move his chopsticks when he came to the banquet , I asked him why he didn't eat it, and he replied, "Sage Kong didn't eat it if he didn't have the sauce. How could I, a disciple of the holy sect, dare to make a mistake?" Upon hearing this, I knew that Mr. Dong Hong was deliberately messing with me. I guess what he was thinking in his heart was, "You are a tax collector, your eyes are on the abacus all day long, and you are smelly of copper, and Zi Ri Shiyun is dead, what qualifications do you have to be the official of my Xuezheng Yamen?" He After saying this, all the officials present put down their chopsticks and looked at me with their eyes. It is true that there was no sauce dish in the meal. This is not an oversight. I have never liked to eat sauce. But not eating sauce does not mean that I don’t understand sauce. Since Mr. Jiaoyu is picky, if I bear it, they will really laugh at me for being ignorant. How can I be an adult in the future? So I wiped my mouth and sneered back, 'The Five Classics of Rites In ", it is recorded that there are soy sauce, egg sauce, mustard sauce, and soybean paste, each of which is suitable for use. Confucius did not eat without sauce, which is the source of this. Since then, there have been more and more types of sauces. Huan Tan's "New "On" contains boat sauce, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had fish intestine sauce, Nanyue had medicine sauce, Song Xiaowu's poems had Pao sauce, Emperor Wu of the Han court also had Lianzhuyun sauce, Yujin gold sauce; Sauce; today there are oyster sauce, horseshoe crab sauce, clam sauce, and shrimp sauce in central Fujian, ant sauce and caviar sauce in Lingnan, and there are many kinds of sauces in various places. There are many on the market today, and Jiangnan focuses on soybean paste. Beidi is cooked noodle sauce. There are so many sauces, Confucius may not have eaten all of them. Whether to eat sauce is a personal preference. Among those who like to eat sauce, there are also many male thieves and female prostitutes who are criminals. Do not eat There are also many people who are upright and upright in the sauce. In my Ming Dynasty, there were two emperors, Hongwu and Zhengde, who didn’t like to eat sauce. Can you say that they are not saints? It really worked, the teacher said blushingly, "Master Xuetai is knowledgeable, I admire you from a lowly position." Then he picked up the chopsticks." Jin Xuezeng's words were so vivid that Zhang Juzheng broke into a smile.Chen Rui had heard this story a long time ago, so he asked jokingly: "I heard that this oracle has since gained a good name, Mr. Jiang?" "Yes, but Mr. Jiang is an honest man. He will be buried this time, and he will follow. When he saw the old man's nanmu coffin being carried out in the morning, he couldn't help crying. Along the way, he cried Loudest." Jin Xuezeng intended to make fun of it, but Chen Rui felt that he was subtly showing his merits to the chief assistant, which meant "Look, how loyal the people in our yamen are to the chief assistant!" Face said: "Mr. Jiang's howling is contrary to the "Zhou Rituals". When a gentleman cries to sacrifice to a sage, he must have heart-pounding pain. The pain is exhausted, and the voice is hoarse after exhaustion. An Neng let out his mournful voice!" Jin Xue once looked down on Chen Rui as a sycophant from the bottom of his heart, so he was inconvenient to refute, so he just smiled and said: "Master Chen is right, but if it fails, I will pass on Master Chen's teachings to Mr. Jiang." "There is no need to communicate..." Chen Rui still wanted to make use of the topic, but saw Zhang Juzheng's eyes moving, as if he wanted to speak, so he quickly stopped talking.From the conversation between Futai and Xuetai just now, Zhang Juzheng could hear that there seemed to be a gap between the two of them.Differences in the ability and personality of officials, and the conflict of interests of deacons lead to discord among government officials. Such things are commonplace, and it is not worth making a fuss about.Zhang Juzheng didn't want to judge right from wrong, he had other questions in his mind, at this moment he coughed and said slowly: "Bugu met the three of you in this filial piety today. The original intention was not to discuss business matters. My father passed away on September 13th last year, and it has been seven months since today. During these seven months, you have been the father of Bugu The funeral is a lot of work. Now that the provincial officials come to the funeral again, for you, it is a kind of etiquette and affection for my father, but for me, it is a huge psychological burden. So many officials gathered in Jingzhou, How much burden does the reception issue cause to the Jingzhou government office? This is still a trivial matter, and more importantly, it delays political affairs. If something major happens at this time, and there is no official control to control it and cause disasters, I, Zhang Juzheng, will not be forever. Sinner? In view of this, the burial will be completed today, and tomorrow morning the three of you will take the lead to leave Jingzhou and go back to the yamen, and please tell all the officials of the burial that you must leave immediately without delay. This is the first thing that Bugu will talk about today It’s a big deal, please three must carry it out.” Zhang Juzheng looked stern when he spoke, and the three officials knew that he was definitely not speaking politely, so they all hurriedly stated: "According to the chief minister's instructions, the humble officials will leave early tomorrow morning." "That's great," Zhang Juzheng breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked casually, "Chen Futai said, are all the important officials from the province here?" "Yes..." Chen Rui was stunned for a while, and then replied, "However, there is still one who has not come." "Who is it?" "Zhao Yingyuan, the censor of Xiangyang Mansion." "Ah? After all, there is still one who doesn't follow the conventions," Zhang Juzheng asked again with a twinkle in his eyes, "If Bugu remembers well, we should wait for Zhao Yingyuan's Xiangyang tour." "Yes," Chen Rui replied cautiously, "Zhao Yingyuan asked the magistrate of Xiangyang to bring me a letter, saying that he cannot travel due to illness, so he cannot come to Jingzhou to attend the funeral of Mrs. Zhang, and he wants to ask for leave." "I see……" Zhang Juzheng wanted to say something, but Zhang Juqian came in and told him that the time for burial had come.Then he stood up, pulled off his mourning clothes, and went out to the tomb well. The auspicious day chosen by Qin Tianjian Feng Shui Master for Zhang Wenming is the late afternoon.The tomb well began to be excavated and built after the Lantern Festival in the first lunar month. It took nearly three months for hundreds of people to lose it, and it has already been repaired: it looks like a huge mound from a distance, surrounded by granite walls. On the ground, the stone men and stone horses on both sides are already in their positions. The place where the Shinto connects to the tomb is a tunnel about ten feet long.Zhang Wenming's nanmu coffin was parked at the entrance of the tunnel, and when the time came, Min Yi carried the coffin into the tomb well and placed it in the tomb well, then covered the tunnel with soil and leveled it, and the funeral was over. Zhang Juzheng and his party had just stood still in front of the nanmu coffin at the entrance of the tunnel, when they suddenly heard three gunshots of "tom, tom, tom" from somewhere nearby, which was announcing the arrival of Ji Chen.The originally noisy scene suddenly became silent.This Taihui Mountain has an open terrain, and the open space under the mound can accommodate thousands of people, but now it is full of people.The open area was surrounded by guard sergeants, and outside the cordon, there were crowds of onlookers on three floors and three floors outside.The filial son cried like a tide and shook the field.Flags surrounded by flags and flags are like clouds: No one in Jingzhou Mansion, counting down from the last 18 generations, has had such a vision of such a grand funeral.In addition to being amazed, I am still amazed. It's strange to say that it's strange, but after the cannon fire, it was a sunny and clear sky, but suddenly dark clouds appeared.Zhang Juzheng looked up and saw a group of swifts crossing his head, they were circling and whining, and the stronger and stronger southerly wind pushed them far away.The shattered lead cloud is getting lower and lower, and in the dome of the cloud, there seems to be a black and fierce mountain ghost with wings.Zhang Juzheng couldn't help shivering, and thought in his heart: "Such a ghostly scene, the way of heaven is not in vain!" Before he could say a word, the executive officer had already knocked on the gong, and then loudly shouted: "Respectfully sending Lord Feng into the Underworld—" As soon as the shouting stopped, a waiter had already handed a bowl of still warm rooster blood to Zhang Juzheng.It is a custom in Chu that before sealing the tomb of the deceased, the blood of a rooster must be sprinkled in the tomb passage, which means to dispel evil spirits and let the soul rest here without being disturbed by miscellaneous gods.Those who sprinkle chicken blood must be close relatives of the deceased.As the eldest son, Zhang Juzheng is duty-bound to take on this important responsibility.He took the chicken blood bowl, walked in front of the nanmu coffin, and sprinkled chicken blood all the way to the mouth of the tomb well.When the last drop of blood spilled on the ground, he threw the big magnetic bowl to the coffin lid and smashed it according to the rules. With this crackling sound, the deacon sang loudly: "Greetings to Lord Feng—" The voice was majestic and somewhat desolate. Thousands of officials in sackcloth and filial piety, as well as relatives from far and near the Zhang family, all of a sudden knelt down like saplings blown by a storm. "A salute--" All the white filial hats were stuck to the ground, like magnified white chrysanthemums, swaying towards the entrance of the tomb. "Two salutes—" The lingering sound of the word "worship" was still lingering in my ears, and suddenly there was a thunderous thunder in the sky, and then the raindrops the size of peas slammed down. "Three salutes—" The sound of wind and rain, the sound of the flag being blown, and the sound of the flag being torn, set off against the large kneeling white body in the wilderness, making it look so solemn and stern. After sprinkling chicken blood, Zhang Juzheng retreated to the entrance of the tunnel and knelt down on the ground.After the three prayers, he still couldn't kneel down, tears and rain were streaming down his slender cheeks, and the nanmu coffin had been placed properly behind the cave.The lost soldiers all withdrew.Dozens of shovels were raised together to fill the tunnel = At ​​this moment, Zhang Juzheng suddenly realized that this was the last time he would do his filial piety for his father: all the humiliation he had endured since the "storm of love" happened last winter Scolding, insults, hurts and misunderstandings all came to my mind at the same time.With mixed feelings, he couldn't hold back anymore, and finally burst into tears. All the officials attending the funeral, these "filial sons and virtuous grandchildren" who pretended to be filial piety, were all stunned at this moment, and the filial piety and affection of the chief assistant gave them a huge shock. After an unknown amount of time, there was a sudden commotion in the backcourt. The officials turned their heads and saw an old man in a black poplin Taoist robe leading a group of students from the prefecture to the Shinto.