Li Mi's death is a loss to Emperor Dezong, but also a great loss to the empire. However, Dezong was lucky.Because besides Li Mi, God also prepared another wise prime minister for him. He is Lu Zhi. As early as the fourth year of Jianzhong (783 A.D.), that is, during Dezong's exile in Fengtian, Lu Zhi assumed the responsibility of a prime minister as an ordinary Hanlin scholar.At that time, many major policies of the imperial court came from Lu Zhi's planning, and Dezong also obeyed his advice. The promulgation of "Zui Ji Zhao" is a typical example. Therefore, Lu Zhi at that time was generally hailed as the "inner minister".

However, after the vassal rebellion was put down, Emperor Dezong alienated Lu Zhi intentionally or unintentionally. Because Lu Zhi is straightforward, his words are always too aggressive, which often makes Dezong very upset.Every time Lu Zhi spoke up, Dezong would feel that his precious self-esteem was hurt.In addition, a group of courtiers who are jealous of the virtuous and capable are often buzzing in the ears of the emperor, and it is not the arrangement of Lu Zhi.Therefore, even though Lu Zhi possesses both ability and political integrity and is highly popular, he has never been destined for the position of prime minister.

After Li Mi's death, Dou Can, Minister of the Household Department, and Dong Jin, Taichangqing, succeeded as prime ministers.Dou Shen is self-willed and arbitrary in everything, but Dong Jin is a good old man who only promises, so the power of government and government naturally falls into the hands of Dou Shen alone.Dou Shen not only monopolized power, but also condoned a group of cronies to embezzle and accept bribes.Dezong warned repeatedly, but he ignored it.Dezong couldn't bear it, so he had to depose him in April of the eighth year of Zhenyuan (792 AD). As soon as Dou Shen was demoted, only Dong Jin, the prime minister in name only, was left in the court.In order to get the imperial government back on track as soon as possible and eliminate the bad influence left by Dou Shen, it is necessary to find an upright, wise, and highly respected person to be the chief prime minister.

Until now, Dezong didn't think of Lu Zhi, who had been through hardships with him. In April of this year, Lu Zhi, who had been neglected for ten years, finally ascended to the position of prime minister that should have belonged to him long ago. The political ideals and enthusiasm for serving the country buried in his heart for many years finally had the opportunity to be put into practice, and Lu Zhi naturally went all out.Just a month after worshiping, Lu Zhi asked Dezong to reform the central government's official selection system, that is, to devolve the personnel power originally under the sole responsibility of the prime minister to various government agencies, and let the governors of each Taiwan province recommend talents to serve as subordinate officials. However, on the letter of appointment, the position and name of the recommender must be indicated, so that the performance of the recommendee can be inspected in the future, so that the recommender can be rewarded and punished accordingly.

The reason why Lu Zhi implemented this personnel reform was to avoid problems such as nepotism, domineering over government affairs, and low administrative efficiency caused by the excessive concentration of prime minister's power; To a large extent, the administration will be made open, the possibility of black-box operations and power rent-seeking will be eliminated, and the best efforts will be made to recruit talents based on their talents. By doing so, Lu Zhi obviously greatly weakened the power that originally belonged to the prime minister. And at this moment, to weaken the prime minister's power is to weaken his own power.

From this point alone, it is not difficult for us to see Lu Zhi's open-mindedness and selfless character, and it is not difficult to see his clear, rational and honest spirit as a ruler. Whether ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, the easiest way to judge whether a ruling person (or ruling group) is qualified is—in order to safeguard the interests of the country, society and the people, is this person (or this group) willing to use the right hand of power to cut off power? The left hand of power?Or take a step back and say, are you willing to subject the power in your hands to strict constraints and supervision?

This requirement seems high, but if we look at it from the perspective of modern political civilization, it is actually only the most basic requirement for those in power.Because the attribute of power is public and never the private property of a certain person or group; no matter how this person or group obtains power, they are only "agents" of power, not "owners". Although Lu Zhi didn't understand modern political civilization, he acted according to his own conscience, which coincided with the basic spirit of modern political civilization to some extent.The reason why Lu Zhi is willing to weaken the power in his hands is because he does not regard power as his own private property.Therefore, in order to safeguard the interests of the court and the country, he is of course willing to find a more effective, reasonable, transparent, and fair way of operating power.Even if this method is to cut off his left hand with his right hand, even if it hurts his personal interests, Lu Zhi will not hesitate.

There is no doubt that this is a qualified ruler. Of course, Dezong saw clearly Lu Zhi's purpose of carrying out the above-mentioned personnel reform, as well as Lu Zhi's frankness and selflessness in this matter, so he quickly approved the reform plan. The imperial edict was promulgated. However, only a few days later, someone repeatedly made small reports to Dezong, saying that the people recommended by the governors of various Taiwan provinces were the product of bribery for personal gain and not real talents.When Emperor Dezong heard this, he quickly told Lu Zhi in private: "From now on, the appointment and transfer of officials in Taiwan and provinces are all up to you, and don't leave it to the heads of departments."

After Lu Zhi heard the words, he immediately wrote three memorials. The first memorial said: "Since the founding of the country, there have been regulations in this dynasty. The selection of officials above the fifth rank shall be selected by the prime minister, and the officials below the sixth rank shall be selected by the Ministry of officials. Then the emperor approves and appoints. The collegiate system of prime ministers and the system of public selection have been abolished, and powers are exercised independently for personal gain, so even those with outstanding conduct and learning cannot be promoted or appointed without the consent of the prime minister at that time. This is the long-standing maladministration.”

The second memorial said: "Since His Majesty promulgated the edict on personnel reform, only a dozen or so talents have been recommended. When evaluating their qualifications and popularity, they are not inferior to their colleagues; examining their virtues and talents, they have not found any stains. Failure. However, some people with ulterior motives criticized casually and misled the emperor's judgment. This shows how difficult it is to make the employment system fair and transparent! The minister suggested that those critics should make specific accusations about who took bribes and who favored others, and then Hand it over to the relevant departments for strict review to judge whether it is true or false. If it is true, the recommender will be punished; Do you know all the talents? If all the officials are selected by the prime minister himself, the prime minister will inevitably turn to the governors of Taiwan and provinces for advice. In this way, the public selection becomes a private recommendation, and the sunshine government becomes a black box operation (Yi There will be more cronyism, and the abuse will become more and more serious. Therefore, since ancient times, as long as personnel reform is implemented, it will touch the interests of many people, so it is impossible not to be slandered."

The third memorial said: "Today's prime minister must be the governor of Taiwan Province in the past; today's governor of Taiwan Province must be the prime minister of the future, but the official position has changed, and the way of doing things will not change immediately. In this case, how can When you are the governor of Taiwan Province, you are not able to select one or two subordinates. Once you are in the position of prime minister, you have the ability to select thousands of officials? Therefore, if you want to make the best use of your talents, the supreme leader must select ministers and ministers. Minister Zaifu selects middle-level officials, and middle-level officials select lower-level officials—there is no better method than this method of layering responsibility. In short, when selecting talents, the wider the contact, the better; when evaluating their ability and performance, the criteria are The more refined the better. This is the right way to employ people.” Lu Zhi's three memorandums are factual and reasonable, and he has thoroughly analyzed the pros and cons of the employment system. I believe that as long as he is a clear-headed emperor, he will definitely adopt his suggestions and continue to implement the reform of the personnel system. However, Dezong's head was not clear. No matter how earnestly and rationally argued by Lu Zhi, he still insisted on recovering the former edict and abolishing the new policy. Although Dezong had no choice but to promote Lu Zhi as prime minister due to the current situation, he still disliked him very much.In Dezong's view, all the bright spots on Lu Zhi's body seemed too glaring. Taking the quality of "cleanness" as an example, it is logically said that it is an out-and-out advantage. There is no leader who doesn't like the integrity of his subordinates, but Dezong just doesn't like Lu Zhi's integrity. In the spring of the ninth year of Zhenyuan (793 A.D.), Emperor Dezong sent someone to tell Lu Zhi, saying: "Qing is too cautious! I refuse all kinds of donations, for fear that things will not work out, such as whips and boots, and there is no way to accept them." injury." (Volume 234) You are too honest and cautious!I'm afraid it's unreasonable for you to refuse all the gifts from all kinds of people. Small things like riding whips and boots are no big deal even if you accept them. When Lu Zhi heard this, he couldn't laugh or cry. Facing such a foolish emperor, he could only take the trouble to present the facts and reason again: "Even if an official accepts a bribe, even if it is only a foot of cloth, it is considered a crime and must be punished (according to the laws of the Tang Dynasty, for a person who guards himself and steals, he will be beaten forty for a foot of cloth." If you accept bribes and break the law, you will be hit with a hundred sticks per foot of cloth). Even low-level officials are strictly prohibited from accepting bribes, let alone a prime minister who is the head of a hundred bureaucrats, how can he open the door of convenience? Once the door of bribery is opened, desire It must swell, first it was riding whips and boots, then gold and jade; there are all kinds of temptations in front of you, but how can you not be chaotic in your heart! Since you have received and made friends with others in private, you have to satisfy his requests, so the trickles converge into Rivers, rivers flood and cause disasters! Furthermore, if you accept something from someone A but reject something from someone B, then someone B will definitely complain; The prime minister is suspicious?" I don't know if Lu Zhi's reasoning convinced Dezong, anyway, just from the point of "encouraging the prime minister to accept bribes", saying that Dezong is a foolish emperor is not wronged him.Leaving aside how severe the laws of the Tang Dynasty were for corruption and bribery, even without these laws, an emperor should have a deep understanding of the truth that "a dike of a thousand miles is destroyed by an ant's nest". When Taizong Li Shimin learned that an official had accepted a piece of silk as a bribe, he was furious and planned to cut off that person's head. Unexpectedly, the current Emperor Dezong did the opposite and actively persuaded the prime minister to accept the bribe.If Emperor Taizong knew about it, how would he feel about it? Although Dezong only persuaded the prime minister to accept some small things like riding whips and boots, as Lu Zhi said, once the door of convenience is opened, whose desire will not swell?Since riding whips and boots can be collected "by order", why can't gold and jade be collected "by order"? As the saying goes, one can see the whole leopard at a glance.With an emperor like Dezong Li Shi, the possibility of the Tang Empire returning to a peaceful and prosperous age is probably very small, if not zero. Lu Zhi was very unfortunate.What he embraced was the ideal of assisting the Holy Lord, but what he encountered was the reality of a confused emperor.As the prime minister under Dezong, Lu Zhi was destined to be unable to do anything. During Lu Zhi's career as prime minister for less than three years, most of his suggestions and suggestions to criticize the current problems were not adopted by Dezong.Lu Zhi's enthusiasm and grand ambitions can only be turned into piles of thick memorials piled up on the emperor's imperial case, and then they are stuffed into the long-standing and voluminous palace archives, waiting for the dust to cover and the termites to attack decay. It was not until many years later that someone with a heart compiled Lu Zhi's memorials into a volume and named it "Lu Xuangong Memorials", which was passed down to the world, and later generations were able to glimpse a kind of clear and transparent political wisdom from those yellow manuscripts , And feel a kind of personality strength that is super noble and clean. During the Zhenyuan Year, which was as dark as a long night, and in the chaotic history of the Middle Tang Dynasty, although such wisdom and personality power did not illuminate that era, the light they emitted was enough to brighten the eyes of future generations looking back at history.Although most of the remonstrances were not adopted, Lu Zhi still refused to give up his principles to cater to the emperor.The left and right cronies advised him not to always make direct remonstrances, and the words of remonstrance should not be too sharp.Lu Zhi smiled lightly, and said, "I just want to live up to the emperor at the top, and live up to what I have learned at the bottom, and I don't care about other things!" Lu Zhi could ignore his personal gains and losses, but Dezong couldn't ignore his dignity as the emperor. For Li Shi, Lu Zhi is no different from a mirror that allows people to see everything clearly. He always sees his own shortcomings and ugliness in front of this mirror again and again, which makes the emperor not only a Feeling ashamed, and even angry.In contrast, Pei Yanling, who was then the minister of the household department and judged Duzhi, made the emperor very fond of him. Li Shi always felt at ease with him, just like when he was with Lu Qi back then. And this Pei Yanling was recommended by Lu Qi when he was in office.