Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Consequences of Infighting

North Korea has had a close relationship with China since ancient times. For thousands of years, no matter what the name of the country, the name of the dynasty, or who the monarch is, it will not affect the substantive relationship between the two sides. In the 25th year of Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, Li Chenggui, who was originally a general of the Goryeo Kingdom, overthrew the Goryeo Dynasty, took the throne himself, and changed the country's name to "Chosun". In terms of diplomacy, it paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty and declared itself a vassal, and the domestic governance was quite stable. There were no large-scale wars in the past two hundred years, and the lives of the people were very prosperous and peaceful.

Only in politics, there have been minor ups and downs in the past two hundred years; it turned out that Li Chenggui founded the country with warriors, formed a new political group that opposed the old forces, and consolidated the royal power; the third handed down to Sejong, because he was wise and advocated Wenzhi During his reign, in addition to working hard for the welfare of the people, he also set up the Hall of Jixian to train students, thus promoting the prosperity of culture, and also began to produce the atmosphere of "study and excellence will lead to official duties"; after several generations, the monarch, The third force besides the honored ministers - Shilin.

However, in the previous few dynasties, the forces among the three were still "contained and balanced", and there were only occasional phenomena of one ebb and flow, and no major disputes occurred. The start of the dispute began in the era of Chengzong—the cultural relics system completed in the era of Chengzong, and the new political group that was reused by him to undertake this important task was the "Scholar School"; Because of Zong's attention, he was able to recommend many disciples to serve in the court, and took an opposing position with Lu Sishen, Xu Juzheng, Liang Chengzhi, Han Minghui and other ministers who were in power at that time.

The ideal of Shilin is to build a society full of righteousness and morality, respect academics and speech, and achieve the goal of building a country with culture; therefore, their political belief is to establish a system governed by scholars, and reject autocratic kingship and prime ministers The central system—this kind of concept is of course in conflict with the original vested interests. Fortunately, because of Chengzong's protection, the two sides did not cause fierce conflicts on the surface. However, in the era of Lord Yanshan, the situation was different; Lord Yanshan wanted to implement an autocratic monarchy, so he hated the Shih Lin who had developed a considerable influence, so he vigorously suppressed it; " and the ten-year "Jiazi Disaster", the number of scholars who were killed and exiled was so large that they almost disappeared from the political arena.

However, Mr. Yanshan himself lost the hearts of the people because he suppressed the ministers and scholars, killed too much, lost morality and morality, and caused some Confucian officials to launch a coup and support Zhongzong to replace him as king. After Emperor Zhongzong ascended the throne, he reused Shilin again; as a result, the power of Shilin gradually rose again, and once again fell into a vicious circle of power conflicts with the king and ministers; in the 14th year of Zhongzong, tragedy happened again—— —In "Ji Mao Shi Disaster"; a large number of scholars were killed and expelled.

However, the power of the honored ministers who excluded Shilin could not be exclusive for too long; after the death of Zhongzong, his two different sons Renzong and Mingzong successively established, which caused a struggle between the two foreign relative groups, and then another In the process of "Otosi Shi Shi Disaster", Shilin could not be implicated; the final result is that the strength of both sides has been weakened a lot. The situation of such political struggles did not improve slightly until Mingzong passed away and the current king Li Yan succeeded to the throne. Because the Shilin is different from the structure of honored ministers and foreign relatives, the personnel and number are limited to a small number of specific objects, but it is a large group of scholars, and through the educational organization of academies and township agreements, it can go deep into the people and take root, so it has a unique A solid social foundation; when the power struggles of ministers and relatives weakened both sides, Shilin still had a large number of scholars to supplement, so when the opportunity came, they re-emerged on the political stage.

At the beginning of King Li Zhan's ascension to the throne, a large number of scholarly scholars were used, forming scholarly politics; but after a long time, disadvantages appeared-the number of scholarly officials was large, but the official positions of the court were limited. The phenomenon of you scrambling for each other has arisen, and party struggle has formed. At first, the dispute was about the position of "Chon Lang" - in the official system of North Korea, "Chon Lang" has a low position, but he has the power to select officials, and those who have served as Quan Lang are often promoted to prime ministers , so everyone wants to fight for this position; and this position is recommended by the resigned, and the channel is quite narrow; earlier, Jin Xiaoyuan was recommended because of his literary name, but Shen Yiqian was recommended because he was a powerful minister and had Although Jin Xiaoyuan was appointed as Chan Lang, he had a grudge against Shen Yi in his heart. When he left, Shen Yiqian's younger brother should have been recommended as his successor, but Jin Xiaoyuan refused; Later, the grievances in their hearts came to the fore, and the two openly turned against each other and attacked each other; and the officials in the court also voted for one of the camps because of their original friendship, congeniality or interests, and soon formed two camps. Factions and groups with clear barriers; the confrontation between the Easterners and the Westerners began to establish, and spread from the officials who were officials in the court to the scholars of the whole country; Waiting for the relationship to return, it was split into two parties, East and West, and a fiery and hidden literary struggle was launched.

And the result of fierce internal fighting is that the "fisherman gains benefits" and the outsiders are taken advantage of... When Japan's Toyotomi Hideyoshi has clearly demonstrated his aggressive ambitions and actively built warships, prepared weapons, and food; a group of insightful people headed by the Confucian Li Er felt the crisis of "the storm is coming", so He shouted loudly, reminding the ruling and opposition parties to pay attention to the movements of Japan, and suggested to King Li Yan to raise 100,000 troops to strengthen national defense. However, because Li Er is a "Westerner", this sense of urgency was ridiculed by his opponent, Liu Chenglong, who is an "Eastern man", as a flat turmoil and nonsense; Such a boycott cannot be put into practice.

Then, Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent people to Tsushima, saying that he wanted to discuss the matter of "false way into the Ming Dynasty". King Li Zan also sent people to apply for employment, went to Tsushima to meet the Japanese envoy, and then went to Japan. In order to maintain the balance of power between the Eastern and Western factions, he chose Huang Chongji, a Westerner, as his envoy, and Jin Chengyi, an Easterner, as his deputy, to go to Japan together. When the two returned to the court, King Li Yan summoned them in person and inquired about the situation in detail; Huang Yunji first made a report saying: "The Japanese envoys are polite on the surface, but in fact their attitude is very tough; The atmosphere of preparations for the war was very strong. The army was mobilized and trained in batches. The craftsmen were all conscripted to work in the mountains. The common people complained all the way that the craftsmen were conscripted. It is not enough to pay all the shells and cloth, and the days are getting more and more sad-all these phenomena, in the eyes of the minister, are really worrying. It seems that the day when Japan launches an offensive is not far away. !"

How did you know that the deputy envoy Jin Chengyi immediately upheld his basic position of "opposing for the sake of opposing" and refuted Huang Yunji, saying: "I didn't see those situations-Huang Zhengshi fabricated the facts, made up lies, and made alarmist remarks; his purpose is to It's just shaking people's hearts and making the whole country panic, so that he can profit from it!" The words of the two people who went to the same place were completely different, so that King Li Yan couldn't tell right from wrong at all, so he had to ask again: "How about Toyotomi Hideyoshi?"

Huang Yunji replied: "His eyes are twinkling, and he seems to be courageous and wise; his shape is like an eagle, vicious and domineering, and his ambition of 'false way and enlightenment' is very obvious!" But Jin Chengyi said: "His appearance is like a monkey, his eyes are like a mouse, he doesn't look like a hero at all; what's more, Japan is narrow and poor, so how can it have the strength to attack Ming!" In this way, King Li Yan couldn't make a judgment at all, so he summoned the ministers to discuss, but the opinions of the ministers were still two factions with clear barriers. They were all spent in the noisy and emotional disputes, and no decision was made; and in the selfish heart of King Li Yan, he also believed that Japan would not really send troops. He didn't pay much attention to Japan's decision, and listened to the chattering and arguing of the ministers of the two factions-until the Japanese army crossed the strait and attacked the territory of North Korea.

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