In May of the fourth year of Wanshi, the national draft began. It was different from the old rules of drafting from civilian homes in the Northern Zhili region. For this draft, the imperial court sent a total of fifteen imperial envoys to conduct the draft in thirteen provinces in two capitals in accordance with the "De Rongyan"
The four basic qualities of "work" are selected, and the selection of beautiful girls who are virtuous, gentle, and beautiful, and the daughters of civil servants who are below the fourth rank and above the seventh rank of the imperial court are also among the candidates.
The ability to break the ancestral system of choosing the daughter of common people this time was the result of Zhu Yijun's vigorous struggle with the two palaces. Zhu Yijun summed up the Ming Dynasty, the princes were difficult to raise in the palace, and the emperor's heirs had a hard time. Taking Emperor Hongzhi as an example, Zhu Yijun told Chen
Empress Dowager Li urged the necessity of choosing a daughter of an official.
The most difficult thing for a prince in the Ming Dynasty was that of Emperor Hongzhi. Because his biological mother, Ji, was the daughter of a rebellious chieftain, she had no status or fighting skills in the palace. She was ordered to have an abortion by the favored Concubine Wan Guifei when she was just pregnant. Later, Zhang Min, the prison guard,
Under the protection, Zhu Youtang survived.
Because the Ji family did not dare to keep their own son by their side, Zhu Youtang ate in the palace as a child and experienced nine deaths before he grew up safely.
Xianzong later learned about this son and made Zhu Youtang the prince. Immediately afterwards, Ji, who had just been named Shufei, and Zhang Min, the eunuch who protected Zhu Youtang, died suddenly. Both of them were loved by Xianzong's favorite Concubine Wan Guifei.
Harmful.
Xianzong's mother, Empress Dowager Zhou, was worried that Concubine Wan Gui would attack the prince, so she personally raised Zhu Youtang in Renshou Palace until Emperor Hongzhi grew up and later founded the "Hongzhi Zhongxing".
Zhu Yijun changed part of the ancestral system in the draft because it was indeed because commoner women were limited by their education since childhood, and their vision and scheming skills could not compare with the daughters of officials - although he was confident that there would be no noble concubines in his harem.
But for the sake of future generations, it is better to break through the ancestral system.
Empress Dowager Chen and Li were both daughters of common people, and combined with their own personal experience of first entering Prince Yu's palace, they were persuaded by Zhu Yijun. However, Empress Dowager Li had some political qualities after all, and reminded Zhu Yijun to prevent his relatives from getting bigger.
Of course, Zhu Yijun had to guard against this. The draft edict clearly stipulated that once selected as a concubine, the immediate family members of the family above the concubine within three generations could not exceed the fourth rank in both civil and military life, and they were not allowed to lead troops.
In order to make up for the loss in the officialdom of the relatives' family, once a beautiful girl is a concubine or above, her father or brother will be awarded the second rank of Zhengfeng Dafu; if she is selected as a concubine, her father or brother will be given the first rank of Zide Dafu; if
If she becomes a queen, she will be granted the title of earl and issued a world certificate.
As the saying goes, "the entrance to the palace is as deep as the sea", the ancient royal draft was deeply hated by the people. During the year of the draft, a large number of early marriages often occurred among the people. Those who really did not have the conditions to marry early would quickly get engaged and submit the marriage contract to the government for record.
However, as soon as this draft decree came out, it also had great temptations for officials and wealthy businessmen below the fourth rank. As the glass ceiling for civil servants in the Ming Dynasty, the fourth rank had to overcome many difficulties. The treatment that the third-rank senior officials did not care about, the fourth-rank to seventh-rank officials did not care about the treatment.
There are still many officials who feel itchy in their hearts.
However, the wealthy businessmen, who have money but no status, are eager to have an official body to protect themselves, and their enthusiasm for participating in the draft is higher than that of the middle- and lower-level civil servant groups.
...
Because Emperor Longqing injured his kidneys during his early years of sexual indulgence, he struggled to recuperate his body during the contest with his younger brother before giving birth to Zhu Yijun, which stabilized Emperor Jiajing's heart. Empress Dowager Li was under a lot of pressure at that time, and she was also frightened by the difficulties of Zhu Zai's heir.
In the system of the Ming Dynasty, below the queen, there were twelve grades: imperial concubine, concubine, concubine, concubine, Zhaoyi, Zhaorong, Jieyu, beauty, talented person, noble person, selected attendant, and lady.
This national draft was carried out on a grand scale under the strong support of the psychologically shadowed Empress Dowager Li and the foreign court. Five thousand girls were first selected at the local level and brought to Beijing together with their parents.
After arriving in the capital, the royal family will send internal officials and imperial envoys to select 300 people from the 5,000 people to enter the palace. After entering the palace, the Queen Mother will also organize a series of assessments, and then select 50 people from the 300 beautiful women to prepare for the palace.
A lady, choose an attendant.
Among them, the nine most outstanding girls will be crowned as the Nine Concubines at the beginning. Then the best among the Nine Concubines will be selected and made the Queen.
Zhu Yijun originally did not want to waste people and money so much, but Empress Dowager Li, the representative of the harem, and Zhang Juzheng, the representative of the imperial court, both disagreed with the emperor making his own decisions in such matters and lowering the standards for the number of draftees.
After all, the queen of the mother-in-law world will be selected from these five thousand people. Everyone in the court, inside and outside the palace, condemned Zhu Yijun for his wrong idea - Zhu Yijun could not be the general trend. In addition to agreeing on the selection of the queen, the nine concubines needed to be selected.
Apart from his opinion, there is no room for him to comment on other draft activities.
...
July at Zhuang's Qixia Villa in Suzhou is when the sun is blazing. The noisy cicadas do not bring tranquility to the garden dotted with strange stones and bamboos. Only the occasional breeze blowing over the clear pond brings peace.
It brings a bit of coolness to the people in Linshui Wood Pavilion.
In the wooden pavilion, there are green clouds and clouds in the sky. Zhuang Jingjia, who is wearing light green gauze and a lavender horse-faced skirt with flower mother-of-pearl waist, is holding a book and is drinking ice-cold sour plum soup to relieve the heat.
When she put down the azure Ru kiln soup bowl and gently shook the fan like a jade catkin, her graceful appearance was reflected in the gauze shadow in the pavilion, and paired with a pot of blooming gardenia on the small table in front of her, this girl
Just like it can only exist in the spring dreams of princes, princes and grandsons when they toss and turn, the beauty is unreal, but it also makes this summer garden intoxicated.
On the gravel road under the weeping willows by the pond, a little maid ran over in the hot sunshine with a big lotus leaf on her head. When she entered the wooden pavilion out of breath, one sentence changed Jingjia from the book.
Zhong called out.
"Miss, I heard from Jiang Ying beside the master that you are going to enter the palace!"
Jingjia was slightly surprised at first and opened her mouth. Her beauty made the caring maid Lu Yi beside her also jump in her heart. In her shallow culture that only knew a few words, she didn't know that two thousand years ago, someone had already described her family in this way.
The lady's beauty: her teeth are like rhinoceros, and her head is like a furry eyebrow.
Then Jingjia put the book on the small table and said with a smile: "My father loves me so much, why can he still let me enter the palace? You silly girl, you must have been deceived by Jiangying."
Lu Yi heard her affirmation and said a little uncertainly: "Miss, our family is not what it used to be - maybe there are people in the family who want to become rich and powerful in the royal family."
After hearing this, Jingjia smiled quietly and shook her head: "My father loves me the most, and he won't agree."
In the Tingyu Pavilion of the manor, Zhuang Yunchang, the actual helmsman of the Zhuang family, was frowning in meditation on the recliner. In the breeze brought by the banana fan gently swayed by his concubine Jiangxi, his heart was like the noisy cicada outside the pavilion.
, a mess.
The Jiangnan Zhuang family all originated from the Mi surname of King Zhuang of Chu, which originated from Hubei. Zhuang Yunchang is not the same family as the Pilingzhuang family, which became famous in later generations. Instead, it was descended from Zhuang Ji, a famous poet in the Western Han Dynasty, and spread out in Wuxian County, Suzhou and other places.
Ye, it has been passed down for more than 1,600 years. However, in the Zhengde, Jiajing, and Longqing generations of the Ming Dynasty, the family had not produced a Jinshi for many years, and the highest academic qualification was Juren.
At this time, the eldest son of the family, Zhuang Yunchang, also named Shouchang, passed the provincial examination in the 37th year of Jiajing. He was an early candidate, at the age of only nineteen. However, there were tears all over him under the golden list. It was not until the second year of Wanli that Zhuang Yunchang passed the exam.
He still suffered repeated defeats. At this time, he was already thirty-seven years old and still a civil servant.
In the third year of Wanli, Zhu Yijun used Xu Jie's family in Jiangnan as a breakthrough point, and cooperated with the big killer weapon of newspapers to kill several monkeys, and the banker was among them.
Although Zhuang Yunchang is not the head of the clan, he is definitely a smart man. At first, due to information asymmetry, he did not understand the emperor's intention to deal with Xu Jie, thinking that it was still the aftermath of the struggle between Xu Jie and Xu Jie in the Longqing Year. But as soon as the newspaper came out, he
The mind immediately returns to clarity.
Then he tried his best to persuade the elders in the clan to give up their land and gain fame, and he succeeded in avoiding the trouble of breaking up the family. After the family of Wang, Dong, Gao, and Zhou were broken down, Zhuang Yunchang's status in the clan
Like a rocket, soaring straight into the sky.
After this incident, as the eldest son of the clan, he had gained the actual leadership over clan affairs in addition to the field sacrifices and clan sacrifices that he was originally responsible for.
In the past, he got married after winning the imperial examination, and first had a son who died in infancy. Later, at the age of twenty-three, he got a legitimate daughter, whom he loved like a pearl in his palm. After that, although his wives and concubines gave him three more sons and two daughters, none of them had this legitimate eldest daughter.
Women are loved by him.
Zhuang Jingjia's name was taken from the Book of Songs - "Qiu Weiwei, Bian Dou Jingjia", describing the girl's cleanliness and beauty, and Zhuang Jingjia lived up to her name. Although she was raised in a boudoir, no one knew her, but she was known to all the relatives and female family members she met.
Her appearance is as shy as a flower closing in the moonlight, as if a fish is sinking and a geese is falling.
At this time, Jingjia was already fourteen years old, and she should have made an engagement long ago. However, Zhuang Yunchang, dominated by his reluctance, always wanted to find a husband for his legitimate daughter who was impeccable in all aspects. Her daughter's reputation gradually spread.
Afterwards, Zhuang Yunchang could not find any of the handsome young men who came to Zhuang's house to propose marriage, whether they were wealthy, handsome or both.
Last year, the emperor's pen tip lightly circled. Although the banker was saved from catastrophe, it also sounded a deafening alarm for Zhuang Yunchang. Regardless of whether you have a house that has accumulated good deeds for thousands of years, or a person who is famous for his poetry and prose, in front of the imperial power,
Not of much use.
Even if you become the leader of the literary world, if you make a mistake once, you will be in a state of eternal destruction. Isn't Wang Shizhen the most obvious example?
But in the Ming Dynasty, there was a kind of person who, as long as he did not rebel and rarely participated in the army and politics, he could live with the country and enjoy wealth and honor for many generations. That was honor and nobility - and the queen's family must be granted the title of earl. This is also an iron rule.
The recent draft edict that reached Jiangnan also proves this point.
Therefore, Zhuang Yunchang, who was reminded by the government to report his daughter's information, fell into confusion and entanglement - for the sake of his family, did he really want to push Jingjia, whom he regarded as a treasure, into a palace that eats people without spitting out their bones? Or should he start from the place he had already chosen?
After selecting the backup son-in-law, quickly choose one and sign the marriage book first?