Chapter 16 Chapter Thirteen A Pair of Turning Clouds and Raining Hands——The Vicious Development of Party Struggle After the Gong Ju Fraud Case

Now, a group of villains known as "Eight Passes and Sixteen Sons" gathered around Li Fengji like flies and ants.The power in the hands of treacherous officials is like a piece of rotten meat, attracting them.Among this quietly formed crony was Li Fengji's nephew Li Zhongyan.The hostility condensed in Li Fengji was finally passed on to him, and he exerted it to the extreme, bringing another dark story to the dynasty. Among the "Eight Passes and Sixteen Sons", there are Zhang Youxin, Li Xu, Zhang Quanyu, Li Yu, Jiang Qia, Cheng Xifan and others. Let my pen lightly touch a few people in the haze, and look at the gloomy faces amidst the ups and downs of the officialdom. Zhang Youxin was the son of Zhang Jian, the servant of the Ministry of Industry.Zhang Youxin was the first in the "Hongci" examination; he was also the first in the Jingzhao examination;He is also the head of Hongci Chitou, Jingzhao Jietou and Jinshi Zhuangtou, and has the reputation of "Zhang Santou".It's a pity that such a talented man is treacherous and evil by nature, "the debauchery is seen in the article".His tutors Wei Guanzhi and Li Fengji both opposed Pei Du back then.Li Fengji has always favored Wei Guanzhi's disciples.Later, Niu Sengru, who was introduced into the prime minister by him, was also chosen by Wei Guanzhi in the third year of Yuanhe.Zhang Youxin was Wei Guanzhi's number one pick, and he was extremely flattering to Li Fengji, so he naturally became the number one eagle dog of this treacherous party. Cheng Xifan was also a well-known Jinshi.He once contributed three volumes of "Cheng Zi Zhongmo" to Han Yu, hoping to be recommended.Hearing that he failed the imperial examination, Han Yu regretfully said to the examiner: "Cheng Xifan is not the same as all students." This sentence made Cheng Xifan win the appreciation of many people.A few years later, Cheng Xifan, who was well-known as a public official, finally got his wish and was awarded the post of Jixian Zhengzi according to the usual practice.Jixian Zhengzi is an elegant position, just like Xiaoshulang, it is the ideal first step for Jinshi to enter the official career.But Cheng Xifan looked down on this small official from the ninth rank.He found that Li Fengji, who was recruiting his party members, could give him a chance to make a fortune. Both Yuan Zhen and Pei Du were deposed, leaving two prime minister positions vacant.Li Fengji took one seat, but the other one remained vacant.Who can be in the photo is very important to Li Fengji. Zhang Youxin just made up for the seventh rank, and Cheng Xifan, who only became a Jinshi in the 14th year of Yuanhe, had even lesser qualifications.In Li Fengji's party, Li Yu, Jiang Qia, etc. are all well-known figures, but they are still ordinary people.They are all just wings.Li Fengji needed to find an ally who was qualified but would not pose a threat to him to fill the vacant prime minister position. At this time, the recognized prime minister candidate should be Li Deyu, a Hanlin scholar.But he was the last person Li Fengji wanted to see. Yuan Mei, a native of the Qing Dynasty, has an interesting introduction to the ingredients: "If the taste is too strong, it should only be used alone, not in combination. For example, Li Zanhuang (Li Deyu) and Zhang Jiangling (Zhang Juzheng) are first-class, and they must be used exclusively. Make the best use of your talents. Among the foods, eels, turtles, crabs, shad, cattle and sheep are all suitable for eating alone, and cannot be mixed." Yuan Mei used Li Deyu as a metaphor for eels, turtles, crabs, anchovies and other ingredients with strong flavors that should only be used alone, which is really appropriate.As an unborn figure, Li Deyu's talent and courage are enough to make the insidious Li Fengji pale in comparison.He is also a character who likes to act on his own, "only suitable for use alone."Working with Li Deyu, Li Fengji has absolutely no possibility of monopolizing power.What's more, Li Deyu is also Yuan Zhen's close friend.At that time, Yuan Zhen was besieged on all sides, but the emperor favored him as before.If there is Li Deyu as Olympic aid, it is still unknown to make a comeback.If this situation really happened, Li Fengji would be very passive. At this time, a seemingly irrelevant thing happened. In the last years of Yuanhe, Han Hong was overwhelmed by Li Chun's (Tang Xianzong) Tianwei, handed over the power of Xuanwu Jiedu envoy, and returned to Chang'an to live in peace.Soon, he and his son Han Gongwu passed away one after another, leaving only his young grandson Han Shaozong.Han Hong and his son are well-known.Li You was worried that the servants of the Han family would take the opportunity to steal the family property, so he sent several eunuchs to the Han mansion to check the house book, count the property, and prepare to entrust it to the elders of the Han family.In the Han Mansion, the eunuch accidentally found an old account.In order to keep Han Hong's Xuanwu Jiedushi, Han Gongwu bribed many officials in power.Every transaction is clearly recorded in this secret account.Among the thousands of records, Li You suddenly saw the words "not accepted, but paid" written in vermilion behind "on a certain day of the month, how much to send to the cow servant", which was very eye-catching.Li You happily said to the left and right attendants: "Sure enough, I don't know people!" Li Fengji has such an ability to keenly see opportunities in things that seem to have nothing to do with him. Niu Sengru is said to be a descendant of Niu Hong, a servant of the Sui Dynasty.But the family of his generation has declined.Both his father and grandfather were mere courtiers.After losing his father in his early years, Niu Sengru barely survived on the little Susukida left by his ancestors.He was promoted to the rank of Jinshi, ascended to the department of virtuous founder, and embarked on a career that is far brighter than his father and ancestors.In the policy discussion case in the third year of Yuanhe, Niu Sengru was one of the three candidates involved in the turmoil, and was accidentally demoted.However, right and wrong have their own opinions.Niu Sengru soon moved to supervise the censor and returned to Chang'an from Luoyang.When he was in Yushitai, Niu Sengru impeached those state prisons that were flooded for various reasons, cleared a large number of unjust prisons, and won a lot of praise. In the first year of Changqing, Li Zhichen, the governor of Suzhou, committed a capital crime.In order to get rid of the crime, Li Zhichen bribed the eunuch and pleaded with the emperor.The soft-eared Li You said to Niu Sengru: Li Zhichen is very talented, I want to forgive him once. Niu Sengru said calmly: A person without talent is just wasting a salary.The reason why the emperor wants to amend the law is to restrain those talented people.An Lushan and Zhu Si are all capable of harming the world because of their extraordinary abilities. After hearing this, Li You gave Niu Sengru the golden fish purple clothes, and said nothing more. Compared with Li Deyu, Niu Sengru's talent is much mediocre.More importantly, Niu Sengru did not always display the uprightness in Li Zhichen's case.He always turns a blind eye to the shortcomings of comrades and old friends.In a word, Niu Sengru's principles are flexible. He is strict with those who are estranged or his political opponents, but he is very loose with those around him.An old account in Han Hong's mansion made the emperor have a good impression of Niu Sengru.Li Fengji acted according to circumstances, and immediately recommended Niu Sengru as his prime minister.This greatly shortened the relationship between the two people.Li Fengji knew that even if Niu Sengru disagreed with some of his actions, he would not openly express his opposition. Facts have proved that Li Fengji's judgment is accurate.Niu Sengru never said a word after he made the court hall into a mess.When the atmosphere deteriorated to the point where he could no longer see it, Niu Sengru, who was "difficult and brave enough to retreat", fled Chang'an without saying a word. What he saw was what he saw—this is exactly what Li Fengji liked.This time, he stood on the opposite side of his political opponents with a feminine image.No one could see Li Fengji's true face. After being deprived of the opportunity to worship the prime minister, Li Deyu also left, superimposing a sad figure on the image of Chang'an Ukiyo.That year, when he was thirty-six, it was the best time of his life. He went to Juzhou Fengyu, Wild Mist and Reed Snow in the west of Zhejiang Province, and spent those eight years of hard work. In the third year of Yuanhe's policy discussion case, Niu Sengru and Li Deyu's father had a grudge.More than ten years later, he took the lead again and seized the position that should have belonged to Li Deyu-the rift between Niu and Li, step by step, reached an irreparable point.When Li Deyu mentioned Niu Sengru, he always called him "Tailao Gong" contemptuously.He regarded Niu Sengru as cattle and livestock, and only distributed them to the altar.In "Poverty and Sorrow", Li Deyu simply quoted the prophecy of the calf circulating in the market to curse Niu Sengru. In the next few decades, the grievances and grievances between the two will be deduced into scenes of tragedies and farces.Tailao Gong was not the only one who was finally sent to the political altar. Yuan Zhen dismissed his prime minister, Li Deyu was released, and only Li Shen was left among the three elites in the Hanlin, facing the lonely courtyard of "the birds singing all day in sadness, and the flowers falling in the sky alone in the last spring". However, Hanlin Academy is still in the hands of Hanlin Sanjun.Bachelor Jiang Fang and Li Shen are old friends from the same hometown.He and another bachelor, Pang Yan, owed their status to today only because of the support of Li Shen and Yuan Zhen.A hostile Hanlin Academy made Li Fengji, who controlled the Zhengshitang, feel like he was on pins and needles.He once conspired to have his good friend Linghu Chu return to Chang'an, but was obstructed by Li Shen.This made Li Fengji secretly determined to completely eliminate Hanlin Sanjun.But he also knew that the emperor loved Li Shen no less than Yuan Zhen. Li Fengji wanted to use a more secretive method to achieve his sinister purpose. In the Tang Dynasty, Yushitai was appointed as the official Yushi doctor, and Yushi Zhongcheng as the deputy.After the Anshi Rebellion, the doctor Yushi was often vacant, and Zhongcheng was the real "chief of the constitution" and very powerful.Li Fengji asked for an order to transfer Li Shen to Yushi Zhongcheng.The emperor did not doubt that he was there, and readily agreed to the prime minister's proposal.Careful people noticed that there was a candidate for the vacant doctor censor.The well-known Han Yu was changed from Minister of the Ministry of Officials to Jing Zhaoyin, and also a doctor of imperial history. The mystery of this personnel transfer is that, according to the old practice, when Jing Zhaoyin took office, he had to go to Yushitai to meet Yushi Zhongcheng, who was in charge of Fengxian—this is the so-called "Taiwan Can".But Han Yu's situation was different.When he was changed to Jing Zhaoyin, he was also the "Censor Doctor" and was the superior of Yu Shi Zhongcheng.From this point of view, the situation just happened to be out of position, Yushi Zhongcheng Li Shen should see Han Yu in the capacity of deputy second—this was a well-organized chaos. Li Shen, who is straight and violent, meets Han Yu, who is also straight and violent.Neither of the two were willing to make concessions, and they accused each other through correspondence.The sharp text flashes with swords and swords.The matter soon became a hot topic, and everyone in the government and the public knew about it.At this time, Li Fengji calmly appeared on the stage with the posture of a prime minister.He did not favor any side, and on the grounds of "becoming a minister", he reprimanded both parties, and requested that Han Yu be dismissed as the Minister of the Ministry of War, and Li Shen be demoted as the Jiangxi Observer. The insidiousness of killing two birds with one stone. In this way, the Hanlin Sanjun, who was famous for a while in the Changqing Gongju fraud case, was exhausted.Only Li Fengji "dances in the dark and the spring breeze remains". This treacherous official's method of crowding out Li Shen is based entirely on his profound insight into human nature, and it is a genius play. Like Li Taibai's poems and Zhang Xu's cursive script, it can be used but cannot be imitated.During the Yufang incident, Pei Du and Yuan Zhen had a heart attack for a long time.Li Fengji just seized the opportunity when Yu Fangyuan recommended a knight, and acted decisively, intensifying the conflict between the two.This time, he was ingenious and created a conflict between Li Shen and Han Yu out of thin air.The depth of thought and the sophistication of methods, no one can compare with Li Linfu after Li Linfu - such a figure proves the depravity of an era with his unshakable figure. Li Shen cried. Standing in the middle of the deep palace, Li Shen felt the cold rain dripping on his face.When he entered the palace to bid farewell, how much he wanted to tell the emperor the grievance and resentment in his heart, but he didn't know where to start.Unknowingly, a sad person is like a calamus by the water, when the rain hits, tears flow down his face. An imperial edict was handed out to the deep palace: the soft-hearted Li You left Li Shen in Chang'an. Li Fengji tried his best, but he didn't expect that Li Shen's tears aroused the emperor's pity.Over the years, Li Fengji's tactics have only failed twice.Once he was frustrated by Pei Du's fearless posture, and the other time was when Li Shen's true feelings were revealed.Perhaps only true temperament can fight against insidious tactics.It's a pity that the scholar-bureaucrats who indulged in party struggles pretended to be too much and became numb for too long.Most of the only innocence faded away.If Li Fengji was completely defeated last time, this time he has nothing to worry about: when a political opponent can only rely on tears to fight back, what is there to be afraid of? Li Shen was kicked out of Chang'an, and it was only a matter of time. The Changqing era could not be regarded as an era of talent shortage.Taking poetry as an example, Hu Yinglin said in "Poems": "After Yuanhe, the way of poetry was late, and talents were cut off for a while. If Changli (Han Yu) is magnificent, Liuzhou (Liu Zongyuan) is fine, dream The magnificence of (Liu Yuxi) and the grandeur of Lotte (Bai Juyi) are all talents of everyone.”Ouyang Xiu also praised Li Deyu for his "cute diction"; Li Shen's poems are well-known and popular among women and children; How many hearts of Zhu Yan Qing'e are drunk... Pei Du and Bai Juyi sang poetry in Luoyang, and there are many excellent works.Duan Wenchang is not good at poetry.But as far as I know, the sentence "The water is dark and the clouds are outside, and the mountains are shining brightly" is really not bad.Linghu Chu is known for his gorgeous parallel prose, and his poems also enjoy a high reputation.Even Li Fengji, a treacherous official, co-authored a book "The Collection of Broken Gold" with Linghu Chu. Elegant verses let us have so many beautiful imaginations about this era.Using poetry and prose as the criterion for selecting scholars and selecting officials made the Tang Dynasty a dynasty of poets.Poets and ministers have the greatest intersection.In the history constructed by discourse, the group of poets and ministers is free and easy, and contented with looking forward to.When they are proud, they point out the country on the temple; when they are frustrated, they retreat to the rivers and lakes, laughing at the clouds and rolling waves... Whether it is him with fluttering green skirts or him with bright red clothes, they are the best left to us by history imagery. In the season when the flowers are not falling and the birds are not yet scattered, I thought that I could comprehend the pulsation and wind in the depths of their souls from the poems.However, the words outside the poetry anthology, the words that record historical facts, make us quickly realize that behind the beautiful rhetoric, there is not always a beautiful reality hidden. A minister is a poet; the quality of a poet is, to a large extent, the quality of a minister.In stark contrast to the group of poets who are as vast as stars, there is the so-called sad statement of "unknown ministers in the Changqing Dynasty".In the seventh year of Zhenyuan, the Jinshi Party, Hanlin Sanjun and Li Fengji's treacherous party appeared on the stage in full bloom, and sang a chaotic drama.With Li Fengji's complete victory, the party struggle in the court has come to an end for the time being.From this treacherous minister, we can generalize several characteristics: the sophistication of overturning the clouds and the rain, the cliques and foxes, and the extreme lack of political foresight and moral principles-in fact, these are the general characteristics of scholar-bureaucrats for quite a long time. We described Li Fengji's three political operations in detail.But looking back at those things and those people, Yuan Zhen and Pei Du, Niu Sengru and Li Deyu, and the quarrel between Han Yu and Li Shen, is it an aboveboard political dispute?All of these are just a few examples among countless similar incidents.I believe that how many cruel struggles have been washed away by the endless years of going east, and the sand and gravel have been cleared and accumulated at the bottom of history.Only a few pieces were picked up by historians and kept in the pages of new and old Tang books. Party struggles without positions and principles have led to "clean and beautiful officials must have their own party; the choice of Huahua is not for others"-Chang'an in the misty haze is filled with the atmosphere of decadence and decay. It's been a weird late spring.The elites of the era are the first to degenerate and collectively degenerate.They are eunuchs at home, sycophants and dignitaries outside, cliques, sensuality, exhausting their scheming and wasting time for wealth like floating clouds.Up and down, fighting openly and secretly, reaping the benefits—— We are used to all this.What makes us depressed is that we can no longer see the resounding theme of galloping horses, nor the intimidating charm of a generation of ZTE emperors.There is no grand plan, epic and magnificent plot.Means become the theme, and the soul is thrown under the table. There are too many contradictory and complementary factors in the character of scholar-bureaucrats.But after Yuanhe Palace Change, these blemishes suddenly became so glaring.The ideal of benefiting the world has been lost in the political strife.In Shuli's rhetoric, the thinking of being alone is meaningfully explained.While advocating rationality, rationality is being unknowingly extracted from their political life, and replaced by narrow tit-for-tat, unprincipled agreement or opposition, and villainous faces at both ends of the head—living poetically , in order to hide an extremely wretched heart.What they have done, is there still a little impassioned atmosphere in the prosperous Tang Dynasty? "Life is so trivial that only philistine words and snobbish eyes remain." No wonder Wang Anshi, Su Shi, and Zhu Xi disdain them so much.Even Han Yu himself showed repentance in "Answer to Feng Su Shu".The good qualities shown when chanting poetry have not been transformed into political wisdom and aggressiveness-poetry has not achieved the beauty of the dynasty. Why not lean against the twelve fences of the east wind and look at a picture of birds scattered and fallen flowers.This is not only people's general impression of that spring - it depicts the landscape of Chang'an in the past 40 years. In the past 40 years, whether it is Changle Station or Qinchuan Station, the same decaying grass, the same westerly wind and thin horse, the same frustrated man, and the same Lige refurbishment, have been repeated and repeated.Chang'an is such a place where you can come and go when you come and go, and you can't come and go by yourself.The people who left the country sadly changed and changed: Yuan Zhen, Pei Du, Li Shen, Li Deyu, Li Zongmin, plus Niu Sengru... After leaving them, thirty years before and after were so thin that only time was left; A piece of history is so ugly and fragmented.Lack of redemptive words, lack of the spirit of persistence in the Tao, there is only a kind of inexplicable anxiety, pouring out hotly from the squeezed and deformed personnel structure. People who are fighting each other naively think that every gust of wind rises to destroy the other side.But when the wind comes later, they find that they are involuntarily falling into confusion and falling apart.No one has the power to control their own destiny, and the endless wind brings every living life to an unknown situation. Just looking back, the scholar-bureaucrats in the wind are already "thousands of fragrant souls cannot be recruited". The result of strife is being demoted again and again.After people left the building, the locked doors of the house were clearly a surly gesture of refusal to reconcile.There may be one or another unrealized political idea hidden in the backpack on horseback; on the road leading to the border town, there are so many people in "independence" and "combination aid", in "goodness" and "hypocrisy". "A soul in a dilemma.In the future, a gentle scum and a jester who doesn't know whether he is a doctor or a witch will make their debut in Chang'an.The elites of an era are wiped out in self-conflict, and this era is destined to lead the two villains to the deepest abyss... In "Zhuangzi·Zeyang", there is a country of Chushi, and the entire territory is in the left corner of a snail; in the right corner of the snail, there is a country of Manshi.They fought for territory... After witnessing the right and wrong in Chang'an, the poet Bai Juyi was tired of the life of intrigue.In the second year of Changqing, he asked himself to be released, and moved to the relatively clean Jiangnan.Looking back at Chang'an, he wrote the following lines: