Chapter 32 Chapter 32 Political Leaders

After Chen Yubi's death, there were only three cabinet scholars left: Zhao Zhigao, Zhang Wei, and Shen Yiguan; but in essence, there were only two people—he and his assistant Zhao Zhigao had been sick and asked for leave all the year round, and did not care about political affairs—these two Strictly speaking, people are only "half cabinet ministers", because Shen has always been gentle, and his principle in dealing with things is to look at the meaning of "above", and he has no claims or actions; only Zhang Wei dares to stand up and say Just a few words, it's just that ability and courage are limited, and one person can only be seen as half, and there are only half cabinet ministers left in the entire cabinet.

And Emperor Wanli, who has not been in court for a long time, not only has no intention of selecting new cabinet ministers, but even wants to maintain the status quo of the cabinet that "exists in name only" - he is very satisfied with the status quo of the cabinet. No one would invade Zhang Juzheng's monarchy as he did when he was in power, and no one dared to nag and admonish him in front of him; he felt that he was a "complete emperor". The shadow left by Zhang Juzheng in his heart has completely disappeared. Now, the only thing he cares about, and the eunuchs will often call the eunuchs to ask about it is the income after the "mining tax" was opened and sent to the palace. The number of Huangyin, that's all; he didn't even bother to think about other things. In the early years, he would happily imagine the appearance and interior furnishings of his mausoleum, and even the content of the singing and dancing in front of him. Now, he can't even think about it. I didn't bother to think about it anymore, so I simply handed it over to Concubine Zheng to conceive it for him, and he spent most of his time enjoying the perfect feeling brought to him by the drug.

"Happy as a fairy" - Drugs did make him feel satisfied, but also made him more lazy day by day. This is the spring of the twenty-fifth year of Wanli. He has been enthroned as emperor for twenty-five years. In terms of age, he is only thirty-five years old, but he has lost his vigor and vitality. The voices of the people all over the country against the "mine tax" and the ministers' struggle for the appointment of the crown prince were not heard of under his deliberate isolation; When the war broke out, Yang Yinglong rebelled and served at other times, the tribes in Ningxia often broke out, and the barbarians in the Northeast often disturbed the frontier. This series of incidents exposed many problems and shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty in national defense and military affairs. He never had the idea of ​​paying attention to and improving, and of course he would never notice that a group of scholars in the south who were driven out of the court by him are gradually gathering into a new force of resistance, or that Nurhachi of the Jurchen tribe is Gradually grow Jianzhou that belongs to him——

His body is a bit fatter than before, but his skin is fairer because he doesn't see the sun all day long. The short beard on his lips complements his face and lazy expression, which fully explains his life of doing nothing all day long, and also It made his atmosphere closer to the "Taiping Emperor" praised by flatterers-it's a pity that the four realms of the Ming Dynasty were not peaceful at all. In the first month, although he did not go to court or manage politics, he was forced by an urgent matter to ask the eunuch to read a few volumes of memorials to him, and he also sent the eunuch to declare his will to the officials. It is about the Japanese invasion of Korea.

It is true that Yang Fangheng’s memorials could lie and pass the blame; however, North Korea was really powerless to resist the Japanese aggression, and faced with Yang Fangpump, these few high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty who were tasked with “Eastern Sealing” could not get any specific answers and assistance. , Simply sent envoys directly to Beijing to ask the Ming court for help. The matter was related to the face of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Wanli had to take some time to take care of it with the blessings and wine. He sent eunuchs to pass the decree to the ministers and ordered the relevant ministers to handle it carefully.

As a result, the "North Korea issue" became popular again, and the ministers who held the hawks and the doves once again launched a fierce debate, which also gave full play to the chattering arguments of the civil servants of this dynasty. The characteristic is that a problem has been debated for more than a month, before the conclusion of the solution is reached. Since the "Dongfeng" has failed, the doves who advocated the peace talks will of course be implicated. Well, this time, it was the turn of the main battle hawks to gain the upper hand. And since it took more than a month just to "debate the issue" before reaching the conclusion of "war", the Japanese army had already launched an offensive. The time is already very short; however, the ministers who are accustomed to verbal disputes have to waste a lot of time in selecting the general who will be in charge of "recruiting the Japanese": "It is foolish to think that brothers Li Rusong must be used again to recruit the Japanese— —”

"For the talent of a general, Dong Yiyuan should be recommended first—it must be Dong Yiyuan!" "Ma Gui is brave, why not apply it?" "Instead of using Li Rusong brothers, why not use his father Li Chengliang? There is a saying that 'a tiger father and a dog son', why abandon the tiger father and use the dog son?" "Why don't you order Wang Bao, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, to take care of it? He has the advantage of the location, so he can attack and defend—" With so many different opinions, everyone has a suitable candidate in their mouths, but no one has any specific understanding of this war in their hearts. Therefore, even though many candidates are mentioned in passing, they cannot make more in-depth proposals. These candidates came from suitable positions; moreover, Emperor Wanli couldn't bear to listen to all kinds of voices, and the ministers could only have a dry quarrel in private without any conclusions.

However, since the policy has already focused on "war", the selection of the general should not be delayed for too long after all - another month has passed, and the matter has been delayed again and again, and the North Korean envoy has been guarding the court room every day. Begging, the situation of the flying report is getting worse day by day, Zhang Wei, the second assistant of the cabinet, can't stand it anymore, he personally went to find Zhao Zhigao who was hiding at home and "sick" him, and nodded his head reluctantly. He took the lead, sent a letter to Emperor Wanli, and drafted several candidates for the chief general of "conquering the Japanese" for Emperor Wanli to delineate.

The candidates on the list are generally based on the opinions of the ministers. While enjoying the drugs, the Wanli Emperor ordered the eunuchs to give one to the gentle music of "Jiangnanchun" played by female musicians. Tell him: "Ma Gui, Li Rusong, Dong Yiyuan—" There are fewer and fewer generals in this dynasty who can lead troops to fight. There is another condition attached to the candidates on the list, which is to be familiar with the situation in Liaodong——among the three, Emperor Wanli reluctantly agreed to use Magui In order to prepare the general officer of the Japanese army.

With a decree, the matter became a final decision; unexpectedly, a few days later, a new change occurred, this time it developed from the deepest part of Emperor Wanli's heart. It was when the eunuch was combing his hair. He looked at his own face from the bright bronze mirror. In the golden mirror light, his "imperial face" shone with light, which was like an illusion in the illusion. A golden statue of a god, extremely noble, looking at it made him think: "I am the son of heaven, the lord of the world—" Then, a subtle idea flooded into his heart, causing his heart to change. He began to think: "Appointing Magui is because I listened to the cabinet's words-this time, the cabinet must be arrogant, and it must be restrained!"

Since this year, one of the most embarrassing things in his mind is that the cabinet has usurped his monarchy—he flashed two sharp lights from his eyes that were brighter than bronze mirrors, waved his hand, and called an eunuch to come over and explain After a few words, he was ordered to deliver an order to the cabinet immediately. The eunuch clearly conveyed his will: to appoint Shandong Youcanzheng Yang Gao as the censor of the capital, and to manage North Korea's military affairs. It was such a simple sentence, but all the ministers were dumbfounded. It took a while to express their opinions: "Yang Gaofang's dereliction of duty Hou Kan - the ministerial meeting has not yet been resolved, why, why should he be promoted first?" "Dereliction of duty, not guilty and promoted, how will you convince the public?" Yang Gao was a Jinshi in the eighth year of Wanli. He didn't have any special talents, but he was very good at drilling. Therefore, after serving as county magistrates in Nanchang and Lixian County, he jumped up. He became a censor in 2000; something happened again, he was first transferred to Dali to judge affairs, and then moved to Shandong to participate in the council and guard the Liaohai Road; in this position, he finally had a decent performance, that is, following Dong Yiyuan Went to Mount Mo on a snowy night, raided the camp of Mongolian fried flowers, and got a lot of gains, so he was promoted to the position of deputy envoy; then he was responsible for reclaiming more than 130 hectares of barren land, and was promoted to participate in politics. Unexpectedly, when he was in politics, he made a lot of omissions-not long ago, there were rumors in Liaodong that Chaohua and Buyantu were about to move again. After returning from a defeat, he has always been disheartened. He really wanted to take the opportunity to wash away the shame of defeat, so he strongly advocated attacking; just at the beginning of the year, Li Rumei took him out of Zhenxi Fort for a sneak attack, but he was defeated again. Li Rumei herself was seriously injured in the bloody battle when she came back from a broken army, so the Ministry of War decided not to punish her; Yang Gao was a civil servant, and administrative responsibilities were unavoidable, so he was waiting for punishment in Beijing. And even Yang Gao himself didn't expect that, at this time, Emperor Wanli not only didn't punish him, but even promoted him to an official position—— "Officials who dereliction of duty, not guilty but promoted - from now on, everyone simply dereliction of duty!" Almost the vast majority of people secretly muttered in their hearts that the promotion system and the reward and punishment system were all fake—of course, the courtiers never imagined that this personnel order was just a subtle move by Emperor Wanli. It's just a political trick played under psychology! Three days later, a new decree came down again, and the astonishment, doubts, and dissatisfaction of the ministers subsided a little; ", and appointed him the governor of Ji, Liao, and Baoding's military affairs, and the management of the Japanese. Xing Jie is talented and popular, and this personnel order is more convincing; however, due to these emotional changes and entanglements, his appointment was delayed until the end of March, when he actually led the army to set off It was already April when we "aided Korea and fought against the Japanese". In Liaodong in April, the sun was warm and the grass was growing and full of vitality. When this army of tens of thousands passed by, it brought a whirlwind-like upsurge. In order to carefully observe the situation of this huge army, Nurhachi specially changed into civilian clothes, mixed among ordinary hunters and traffickers, and contacted the lower-ranking soldiers in the team without showing a trace-he made money like a teeny Like the people of Xiaoli, they brought some ginseng, leather and other items with them, and lingered near the place where the army camped overnight, waiting for the soldiers who sneaked out for a walk to appear, waiting for the opportunity to sell these items to them, and also took the opportunity to take the opportunity. Chat with them casually. Of course, his purpose is not the same as that of ordinary people, to make money; the work of collecting information has already been handled by a group of special personnel under his command, but after some consideration, he still decided to refit the horse himself; there is no other reason. It was he who thought that this would give him a deeper understanding of the Ming Dynasty. The experience of staying in Li Chengliang's residence for six years has given him a comprehensive understanding of the habits of the Han people, and he is very handy in using it. He lowered it a bit, and even sold it at half the price. In this way, many people were immediately attracted to buy from him; After finishing the business, he entertained these "customers" who shopped with him to drink. After three drinks, almost everyone "talked about everything" to him. The soldiers are most concerned and concerned about war and rations, and of course the topic cannot be separated from these two aspects; especially rations, which have a more direct impact on the soldiers, are the most talked about. A soldier named Jiang Dabiao told Nurhachi: "Fortunately, we sent Master Xing to be the governor later, and he was able to pay the salary; otherwise, we would have to go to North Korea hungry. How could we have no money to follow you?" Buy these ginseng and mink fur!" Nurhachi was not very familiar with the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, and he never knew about Xing Jie, and it was not easy to ask about "Master Xing". Jiang Dabiao’s words led Jiang Dabiao to continue—he said to Jiang Dabiao with a smile on his face: “What kind of words are you talking about! Just relying on your army from the Celestial Dynasty to march to North Korea with such majesty, how can you have no money to buy us? What about small native products in Liaodong?” Jiang Dabiao sighed and said: "That's because 'Yang' has not seized all the power! Who doesn't know who has been sent to the Liaodong camp from Shandong? Who doesn't know? Brothers, if the food and wages of the brothers are taken from him, one cent The silver is only four cents, and a bucket of grain is less than five liters—what the court gave us, we don’t even have half of it!" Nurhachi said skeptically, "This—isn't this a corrupt official? In the world, there is such a thing?" As he said that, without waiting for Jiang Dabiao to answer, he immediately asked again: "This official dares to detain you like this, isn't he afraid that the court will find out?" Jiang Dabiao sneered and said, "Master Wanli has not been in court for ten years, how would he know? Our brothers were sent here and there to fight battles here and there, and no one came to ask how many people died. Well, who still thinks whether we are full or not?" Nurhar asked again: "Could it be that there are no decent people in the Ming Dynasty to expose such things?" Jiang Dabiao said: "Why not? It's just that it's useless—in the Ming Dynasty, who didn't know the phrase 'officials and officials protect each other'? Let's take this as an example. Our Lord Xing is certainly a good official, and we also know about this time in the army. The thing is, it’s just that what’s so easy to do with someone who is a minister of the same family? You can only turn one eye and close one eye, and it’s a blessing for us brothers to make him less deductible!” Nurhachi took a sneak peek at him, seeing that his face was already blushing because of his emotions, so he stopped taking the initiative to speak, and tried his best to let Jiang Dabiao and others complain about Yang Gao, express all the grievances and dissatisfaction in their hearts, and curse as much as they want— ——Jiang Dabiao spoke freely for a full hour, but his harvest was extremely rich. From Jiang Dabiao's words, he not only understood many problems in the army of the Ming Dynasty, but also had a preliminary understanding of the actions of "Yang Gao"; the next day, he summoned his "Five Tiger Generals" and The younger brothers came to talk and analyzed them carefully: "Use such a person as a high-ranking official, lead troops out, and go to fight in foreign countries-the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are really asleep!" However, he went on to say: "I heard that 'Master Xing' is a good official who has won big victories in other places. Maybe he can win a battle this time when he is sent to North Korea-we should pay more attention to him. Maybe, after he wins the Korean War, he will be sent to Liaodong as an official!" After many years of experience in many things, his sensitivity to politics has almost doubled compared to before. Therefore, although he is not very familiar with the internal political situation of the Ming Dynasty, he often tries his best to collect as much as possible. As for the officials sent by the Ming Dynasty to Liaodong, he certainly paid more attention to it because they were directly related; therefore, while he was thinking about it, he said to Shuerhaqi : "This year's tribute, you should go to Beijing; go there, and inquire about the affairs of these two officials along the way!" Shuerhaqi nodded at first, but then he turned embarrassing: "To inquire about the news, don't you need to spend more money? Brother has always been frugal—" Nurhachi said with a smile: "If you can get back the money, of course you don't need to be frugal; even if you spend all the money on the goods on this trip, as long as you ask for information, I will never blame you!" Shuerhaqi breathed a sigh of relief first, but then he raised a question: "These two officials are only going to help North Korea fight the war, why does the eldest brother take them so seriously?" Nurhachi was silent for a long time, then looked around at everyone present, and then slowly let out a long breath and said: "Have you ever thought that if Li Chengliang is still the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, we and the Nine Allied Forces will fight against each other in Gule?" How will the battle in Shanshan change? The characters of these two officials are different, and who will be sent to Liaodong in the future is very important!" Shuerhaqi blurted back: "It's still very early?" Before he finished speaking, E Yidu quickly reached out and pulled his sleeve, signaling him to stop talking; fortunately, Nurhachi just pretended not to hear this sentence, and continued to assign other people's tasks; until the end of the meeting, everyone left together When he came out, E Yidu quietly pulled Shuerhaqi aside, and said to him in a low voice: "Master Baylor always thinks far away, even if we can't think of it for a while, don't contradict him—— After all, he is the head of Jianzhou!" Although Shuerhaqi also knew that he had made a mistake in his heart, he refused to admit defeat in his mouth. Instead, he said angrily: "I am his own brother, what can't I say?" As he spoke, he strode away with his head held high and his chest held high, making his forehead extremely embarrassed and stunned there; it was not until Bao Heli and An Fei Yanggu surrounded him that he He sighed and said, "How come you are a real brother, and you don't always agree with each other when you talk?" His expression and tone clearly showed uneasiness, and it was obvious that his partners felt it; after a while, he added: "Although I am not as good as Nurhachibeile, I can take care of things in the future." The prediction was very accurate, but judging by Er Baylor's attitude, I don't know when there will be a 'fight'!" He Heli comforted him: "In the future, let's pay more attention and try our best to solve it!" As Nurhachi's son-in-law, he is a close relative, and like Er Yidu, he was also worried about the estrangement between the two brothers; the next day, he even made an excuse to talk to Nurhachi in order to learn from Nurhachi's subtle reaction. His attitude towards Shuerhaqi was observed everywhere. How did you know that Nurhachi didn't mention Shuerhaqi at all—his attention seemed to be focused on only two key points, that is, the Hulun Fourth Division and the Korean War; the two talked for more than an hour, but he still couldn't grasp The topic turned to Shuerhazi. He failed even after trying several times like this, and he couldn't help feeling somewhat frustrated: "It seems that I don't understand him at all—" He suddenly discovered that Nurhachi could marry his daughter to him, but he would not tell him what was hidden in his heart; The relationship is not only a subordinate, but also a close family member, but Nurhachi is the same, he will not tell them all his thoughts; especially in recent years, the content of Nurhachi's conversations with everyone is all "official affairs", and rarely touches personal matters— —He feels that Nurhachi has begun to create a spiritual distance with everyone. Thinking of this level, his mood fluctuated for several days, and finally, he reluctantly found a conclusion to calm his emotions: "Perhaps, as the head of a department, he must have his own identity and position." !" The current size of the Jianzhou Department has expanded by more than ten times compared to when he first arrived in Jianzhou. As the head of the Jianzhou Department, Nurhachi really had to adjust himself in order to lead this rapidly expanding tribe—but, he But he can't help but miss the past. At that time, everyone talked with each other and talked about everything, and there was no distance between each other-however, after thinking about it, he overturned his "nostalgia"-after all, the whole Jurchen's vision is bigger than the individual's Friendship is much more important. "Master Baylor said long ago that the first thing he wants to do in his life is to unify the Jurchens and merge them into a big country like the Ming Dynasty!" And when he thought about it, the haze in his heart disappeared.