Chapter 22 Section 6 scolding the emperor

In February of the forty-fifth year of Jiajing (AD 1566), after serving as the head of the household department for a year, Hai Rui took up the "swearing the emperor book" that made him famous for thousands of years, that is, "Speaking out the first thing in the world". Emperor Jiajing can be regarded as a typical "faint emperor".He has a strong personality, acts absurdly and stubbornly, and never compromises with ministers.He loves alchemy, and in order to refine the elixir of life, he even tortured the maids in order to obtain the raw materials.The maids were desperate and tried to strangle him with ribbons while he was asleep, but the ribbons were tied into knots in panic and Jiajing was able to survive.However, he didn't learn a lesson from this incident, instead, he intensified his efforts, simply moved out of the palace, stopped going to court, and concentrated on practicing.The ministers fought desperately at first, but they couldn't compete with the "hard-hearted" emperor.

You know, when the emperor came to the throne, he had 180 people in the court in a fit of anger, and 17 of them were beaten to death.After many people were dismissed from office or even sentenced to severe punishment, the voices criticizing the emperor disappeared, "no one who dares to speak out about current affairs".More ministers favored the emperor, offered auspiciousness to the emperor, and wrote Qing Ci for the emperor's practice. The court was filled with the smell of cigarettes inviting immortals to set up altars. However, Hai Rui entered Beijing, and the lifeless political situation was destined to be broken.When he was a magistrate, the sky was high and the emperor was far away, so he had no chance to care about court affairs.But now, when he came to the political center of the empire, he was presented with piles and piles about the emperor's injustice and the government's deteriorating government.His moral values ​​and sense of responsibility made it impossible for him to remain silent.Hai Rui only recognizes the laws of nature, not the situation.The emperor is "sexy", and his "sex" is even more rigid.The emperor has no way, the courtier said bluntly, for Hai Rui, it is as simple as having five fingers on the left and right hands.

Of course, Hai Rui is not a person who doesn't understand the world.He is fully aware of the consequences of this memorial, it is not just dismissal, but it is very likely to kill him.Even though I am willing to sacrifice my life for righteousness, there is still an 80-year-old mother in the hall, and her knees are still empty. As the only son of the Hai family, it is a great crime to have no offspring. This should be said to be the reason why Hai Rui handed in this memorial only one year after entering Beijing.Historians have never mentioned this period of hesitation about Hai Rui.However, it is conceivable that this time must be the most intense, cruel and protracted time in Hai Rui's life in which "heavenly principles and human desires" "fight in the chest".Throughout Hai Rui's life, with his fiery personality and impulsive personality, he has never made such a difficult decision.

Hai Rui's Beijing official is really not easy.First of all, most of the daily work is fictional stories, without any real content.Sitting in the office, most of the time is wasted.Looking back, he still missed the days when he was so busy in the county that he hit the back of his head with his feet.Another one, he couldn't get along with his colleagues.These people are masters of dawdling. After a cup of tea is brewed, they start to gossip.Hai Rui was never able to get in the way, and was always on the sidelines. In fact, he hated these people from the bottom of his heart.When they were doing things, they were used to being slippery, giving favors along the way, taking food and taking what they had to do, but Hai Rui insisted on following the rules.Therefore, Hai Rui got stuck in many links.Gradually, Hai Rui became very isolated.

It was during his days as a Beijing official that Hai Rui had a holistic understanding of the political situation in the empire.The whole empire is rotten.In his view, the root of the problem lies with the emperor, and the solution naturally lies with the emperor.The emperor is the foundation of the world and the model of the world. "If one person is upright, everything in the world is upright." When it comes to Hai Rui's letters, people always talk about Hai Rui's blunt statement that the emperor has no way. Quoting, but few people pay attention to the words in the last paragraph of the memorial:

Your Majesty sincerely knows that fasting and sacrificial offerings are useless. Once you feel remorse, you will be in charge of the court, and you will discuss the interests of the world with the prime minister, attendants, and officials, and wash away decades of mistakes. All the ministers also have to cleanse themselves of the shame of the prince for decades, and place themselves in the ranks of Gao, Kui, Yi, and Fu. Why worry about the world and ignore everything?This is just for His Majesty to cheer up. If you don't read this passage, you can't understand Hai Rui, nor can you understand Emperor Jiajing's gentle attitude towards Hai Rui.In this passage, Hai Rui told Emperor Jiajing an ancient myth: the human spirit determines everything, and the world is in chaos, only in the emperor's thought.As long as the emperor cheers up and handles everything according to the sage's words, the world will soon become the legendary great harmony and prosperity, the people will soon live and work in peace and contentment, and the emperor will naturally become a great emperor like Yao and Shun.

This impossible myth has supported Hai Rui's life and also supported the Chinese nation through thousands of years of hardship.Hai Rui, a born idealist, is so naive, so transparent, so naive that one cannot help but be moved. The reason why Emperor Jiajing didn't kill Hai Rui was because he saw Hai Rui's sincerity from these words, and he saw Hai Rui's fistful heart held high.Hai Rui wrote this book not to vent his anger, nor to make a name for himself. He really did it for the emperor and the world.He scolded fiercely because he loved deeply.What Hai Rui said, in the eyes of the emperor, was completely in line with the way of a sage, and his momentum was undeniable.Therefore, the emperor's reaction was so contradictory:

The emperor was furious and arrived at the land. He looked around and said: "If you hold on to it, there is no way to escape." The eunuch Huang Jin said from the side: "This man has a reputation for being an idiot. When he heard that he was sparse, he knew that he would be disobedient." When you die, put a coffin in the market, marry your wife, and treat your crimes to the court, and the child servants will run away, and those who leave nothing behind will not escape." The emperor was silent.After a short period of time, I read it again and again, every day, in order to move my breath, those who stayed in China for several months.Taste said: "This person can be better than Gan, but I am not Zhou'er."

Jiajing put Hai Rui in prison, but he couldn't make up his mind to kill him.