Chapter 33 6. Defense and counterattack in "moral warfare"

"Yi Jian Zhi" records a story about Zhu Xi, a Neo Confucianist in the Southern Song Dynasty.When Zhu Xiren promoted Zhedong Road Prison, he had a conflict with Tang Zhongyou, who was then the governor of Taizhou.Zhu Xi impeached Tang Zhongyou's "eight deadly crimes", including breaking the law and disturbing the people, embezzling and abusing the people, raising money for death, and stealing official money, etc. It doesn't sound good anyway.Not to be outdone, Tang Zhongyou also impeached him, and the two fought.Behind this matter is an academic dispute. Tang Zhongyou was a famous scholar at that time and the founder of the "Jinhua School". Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism represented by him had serious contradictions.

The mid-Northern Song Dynasty was another golden stage in the history of Chinese philosophy and thought after the "Contentation of a Hundred Schools of Thought" in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods.There are advantages and disadvantages to academic development. A free academic atmosphere will produce good ideas and philosophies. At the same time, it is easy to form cliques when used in officialdom.In addition, academies are also a political force. The more famous academies in the Song Dynasty included Bailudong Academy, Shigu Academy, Yingtianfu Academy, Yuelu Academy, Songyang Academy, and Maoshan Academy.Private colleges are usually controlled by the government and become semi-government-run.Academies can be controlled, but academic thinking is difficult to grasp, especially in the relaxed political environment of the Song Dynasty, various schools of thought emerged, such as Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism, and then became a political force.Zhu Xi's confrontation with Tang Zhongyou stems from this complex.

"Yi Jian Zhi" said that Zhu Xi did not hesitate to abuse prostitutes in order to achieve the goal of overthrowing Tang Zhongyou.At that time, there was a famous official prostitute in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, who was called Yan Rui.Zhu Xi made a fuss about her and asked Yan Rui to frame Tang Zhongyou, saying he had committed adultery with him.Zhu Xi didn't expect that Yan Rui, a famous prostitute, was a hard-headed person, and no matter how intimidating or lure she was, she couldn't do it well.Zhu Xi came to be ruthless, and directly tortured him to extract a confession, trying to beat him into a trick. He kept beating him for two months, and he was almost beaten to death.Yan Rui is more ruthless than him, even if I was killed, I wouldn't do anything immoral to slander others.Yan Rui would rather die than follow, and said generously that although she is a lowly prostitute and has abused the prefect, the crime does not deserve death, but it is true or false, how can she falsely slander the scholar-bureaucrats!This is the source of "a saint is not as good as a prostitute".When things got serious, and when it came to Song Xiaozong, the top leaders could see clearly that scholars were fighting for leisure, and they had nothing to do when they were full.Zhu Xi no longer took care of the case, and Yue Lin handled it.Yue Lin is Yue Fei's son, he acquitted Yan Rui and expelled him.Yan Rui, who had endured all hardships, later married into a wealthy family and became the concubine of a certain royal family.

There are many doubts about Zhu Xi's abuse of prostitutes. Many scholars believe that "Yi Jian Zhi" is purely fictional, but no direct evidence of fiction can be found.Regardless of the truth of the matter, we can clearly see that Zhu Xi used moral weapons when attacking his political opponents.Tang Zhongyou may have been inspired by Zhu Xi, and he also used moral weapons when fighting back.The headlines of the tabloids at that time reported a shocking news-Zhu Xi's adultery with his daughter-in-law. The earliest newspaper in China is called "Di Bao", which is presumed to have been born in the Western Han Dynasty.The Western Han Dynasty followed the system of prefectures and counties in the Qin Dynasty, and each prefecture had its own local office of the capital, which was called "di".Each county residence has an office director who is responsible for the transmission of government orders between the central government and the counties.Oral transmission of information is usually inaccurate. In order to solve this problem, the official came up with "Di Chao". The decree was copied in multiple copies and passed on to the offices of each county in written form, which gradually evolved into Di Bao. The Song Dynasty Di Bao was called " Chaobao", called "Beijing News" in Ming Dynasty.The morning newspaper is sponsored by the director of the Central Academy of Music, with a serious face and many taboos, such as disasters, military affairs, unapproved memorials, and so on. "Laoxue'an Notes" records a story about officials reading newspapers and discussing.One day, the headline on the front page of "Di Bao" broke the news that "Lingnan county governor was impeached for illegality", and the headline was similar to "A certain mayor in Lingnan was sacked, and the relevant departments are investigating", and the content was vague and ambiguous.Some officials who commented on the news pointed out that this person must have a background.When the officials asked why, he said that the real investigation is only when there is a result, and "under investigation" means that there is no investigation.The officials understood and laughed.The mansion newspaper in the Song Dynasty was too far away from the common people due to many taboos, so it was not popular, so the tabloid newspaper came into being among the people.

The gossip, sex incidents, official anecdotes, etc. reported by tabloids are very close to the lives of ordinary people, and have a large market among the people, gradually forming a tool of public opinion.For this reason, the government once cracked down on illegal publications such as folk tabloids.In the first month of the 15th year of Emperor Xiaozong Chunxi (1188) of the Southern Song Dynasty, the official issued an official order: "I have recently heard that people who do not succeed, write rootless words, called tabloids, spread both at home and abroad, and confuse people. If there are people like this, they should be married again. The officials of the tabloids they accept will implement the decrees. Make Lin'an Prefecture always aware of the prohibition and do not violate it." This time Zhu Xi was attacked by the tabloids. As an attack, tabloids described Zhu Xi, the master of Neo-Confucianism, as a monochromatic demon, who first committed adultery with his daughter-in-law, and then fought with Tang Zhongyou for jealousy, and killed the famous prostitute Yan Ruiyunyun.Although there is no direct evidence that Tang Zhongyou is behind the scenes, you must know that Tang Zhongyou's school is also very powerful, and there are hundreds of fans.What is even more doubtful is that the news period reported by the tabloids was when Tang Zhongyou and Zhu Xi were attacking each other.Under the oppression of powerful public opinion, Zhu Xi chose to resign.

The events that happened to Zhu Xi are similar to the events of Ouyang Xiu described in the previous article, and they all use morality to attack and counteract.It can be seen from the disguise of morality that the loss of officials is nothing more than the result of a struggle of interests, whether it is their own interests, the interests of the team, or the interests of imperial power, etc. However, in the process of competing among many elements of interest, morality often As an effective breakthrough, it is used by political experts from all sides.Zhao Guangyi, king of Jin, served as governor of Kaifeng for many years, and his political power in the capital became stronger day by day, to the point where Zhao Kuangyin looked sideways at him.One day he died suddenly, and he was passed on to his son, so his status might not be guaranteed.Zhao Kuangyin then put forward the theory of moving the capital, and advocated moving the capital to Luoyang on the grounds that Kaifeng had no danger to defend.This is a move to effectively weaken King Jin's power, and once it succeeds, the effect will be extremely obvious.Facing the second brother's attack, Zhao Laosan only said one sentence, and easily resolved the power struggle. Zhao Guangyi said that An Tianxia is in virtue but not in danger.Zhao Kuangyin couldn't refute what Zhao Guangyi said, and he didn't have enough strength to refute him, because he held high the banner of morality.What we have always regarded as a noble moral spirit is nothing more than a fighting tool in the officialdom.Don't talk about morality with officials, they only talk about interests.