At the end of September of the fifth year of Wanli, Tan Lun, the Minister of Civil Affairs, died of illness at the age of fifty-eight. Tan Lun had been reading poetry and books since he was a child. He had a keen mind, extraordinary intelligence, and a calm personality. In the 23rd year of Jiajing, he was a Jinshi and trained troops during his term as the prefect of Taizhou.
Resist the Japanese pirates, achieve three victories in three battles, and greatly enhance the military power.
Later, he led Liu Xian, Qi Jiguang, Yu Dayou and other famous generals to defeat Japanese pirates repeatedly. He successively oversaw the military affairs of Guangdong and Guangxi, inspected Shaanxi, Governor Ji Liao, and served as Minister of War.
Tan Lun was the most knowledgeable civil servant in the imperial court after Hu Zongxian. He could be said to be a tough minister and a loyal minister. In the fifth year of Wanli, Zhang Han resigned due to obstructing the reform. Tan Lun was appointed by Zhu Yijun as the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, with the title of Prince Shaobao.
However, less than half a year after taking office, he contracted an illness and died. Zhu Yijun was very sad about it. After discussing with Lu Tiaoyang and others, he posthumously awarded his crown prince Taibao the posthumous title "Xiangmin". Tan Lun's death was like breaking Zhang Juzheng's arm.
Zhang Juzheng of Jiangling heard the news of Tan Zili's death and felt sad for him.
At the beginning of October of the fifth year of Wanli, Li Youzi, who succeeded Tan Lun as the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, and Guo Chaobin, the new Minister of the Du branch, submitted a petition to the emperor to seize Zhang Juzheng's love and return to the capital to serve as director after his three-month vacation.
After two years of emperor's examination questions focusing on "true filial piety" and more than a year of publicity in newspapers, everyone in the imperial court understood that the emperor's determination to change the "Ding You" system had been long-awaited. Coupled with the high political pressure between the government and the opposition at this time, the argument for seizing love was not as strong as before.
It caused big ripples in the original space and time.
To be honest, officials in the imperial court were somewhat secretly happy about the emperor's change to the "Dingyou" system. Who wants to delay three years because of the death of his parents? How many three years can there be in an official career?
On Wuzi in October of the fifth year of Wanli, a comet appeared in the southwest. It was as bright as a lamp and several feet long.
"Mixed together, it caused the first large-scale party struggle in the Wanli Dynasty, and also laid one of the foreshadowings for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
The comet, later named C/1577V1, finally reached a position where people on earth could observe it after millions of years of journey. At this time in Europe, the Danish scientist Tycho Brahe discovered that comets are a kind of celestial body.
And it is outside the atmosphere. This discovery provided another small piece of material for Galileo Galilei's discovery of the "heliocentric theory", stimulating that young and talented brain and prompting him to focus more on astronomy.
In the Ming Dynasty at this time and space, the invention and popularization of telescopes had just begun. Due to the high political pressure and the atmosphere of white terror, the officials and censors were almost silent at this time. There were only a few memorials about the "Star Change", but
It was a false story, indicating to the emperor that the error correction mechanism of the Ming Dynasty was not down at this time and was still functioning.
As for the size of this effect, the officials said that it depends on the emperor's mood. If you want it to be big, it can be big, if you want it to be small, it can be small.
In these memorials, no one asked the emperor to repair the provinces, nor did they use mystical phenomena to express dissent. Instead, they asked the emperor to issue an edict, "to warn the ministers and ministers to practice their profession in order to eliminate it." Everyone responded one after another.
He said that the emperor was right, but we were wrong. We had not yet understood the essence of the emperor’s reform and were procrastinating in our work, which made God unhappy and sent a comet.
Zhu Yijun, who was raising his legs in the deep palace, once instructed the attendants to sort out all the records of comets in history, trying to logically prove the fallacy of the "comet disaster theory", thereby shaking the idea of "the destiny of heaven cannot be violated" and clearing away ideological obstacles for the reform.
Obstacles. Unfortunately, this "false proof" eventually turned out to be the opposite of his wish. The attendants used a large number of irrefutable facts from historical data to prove that the appearance of comets is indeed related to disasters.
The attendants on the emperor's side tried to counter-prove: Disasters are a normal state, and comets are a variable. The coincidence of the two does not mean that disasters and comets are related. After all, there have been many greater disasters and signs of national destruction in history.
Comet as echo.
This is a good way of publicity, but it is very easy to refute this argument: Who stipulated that "heaven" only uses comets to warn? Earthquakes, floods, and strange animals and plants are all warning methods!
Investigating its essence, Dong Zhongshu's "theory of induction between heaven and man" is nothing more than a means of restraining the imperial power. Because it is logically self-consistent, to overthrow this theory must be scientifically accomplished and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Zhu Yijun wanted to use the records of historians in the past dynasties who were influenced by the thought of telepathy to prove that comets had nothing to do with disasters. This was equivalent to using the historian's knife to cut their handle.
Even in the 21st century when science is flourishing, there are still many people who believe in the theory of interaction between heaven and man. The most typical example is the major disasters in 1976. Zhu Yijun, who has traveled back to the Ming Dynasty, thinks of this year and still murmurs in his heart.
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Therefore, Zhu Yijun, who felt that he had a long way to go, could only make an appointment with Zhu Zaiyu, put forward some ideas about comets to him, and asked him to organize astronomy experts from the Royal Academy of Geosciences to verify them.
In addition, some articles discussing the relationship between comets and disasters also appeared in newspapers in the two capitals. The arguments between the pros and cons were endless, but for Zhu Yijun, it was better than nothing.
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The love dispute between Huixing and Zhang Juzheng did not cause political turmoil, but it was because now the emperor used a knife to kill Wushuang - no one dared to make a sound like a horse and a stick.
But this does not mean that the implementation of the emperor's reform edict was smooth sailing. On the contrary, because the assassinations of the emperor and Zhang Wenming triggered a nationwide major case and the ensuing mass arrests, the grassroots ruling class represented by the landlords and gentry,
Many people have become ignorant and have not even understood the content of the reform, so they have begun to resist the implementation of the reform policy.
They have too many means of resistance. The implementation of any county government is inseparable from the propaganda and leadership of the gentry elders. As long as they collectively avoid the county officials, they can make everyone
Most of the county administration has been suspended.
Not to mention, many squires also control the county schools through their own children. If the county magistrates want to complete the "civilian governance" assessment, it is an unbearable burden for the county magistrates to receive negative evaluations from the students of the county schools.
By the end of October, the number of arrests in the fifth year of Wanli had exceeded 50,000, and nearly a thousand wealthy gentry had their families ruined. Their in-laws and old friends could contact more than half of the gentry in the country. Out of fear of the Jinyiwei rebellion, a large number of people were imprisoned.
The resistance to the reform at the grassroots level of the empire was huge - many local officials were squeezed out from above, and they were ready to die.
In the fifth year of Wanli's reign, the Ming Empire was brewing with a torrent of chaos, and people were panicking and not knowing where to go.
These intense pressures, on the one hand, prompted some insightful thinkers and scholars to consider the future of the country; on the other hand, they also stimulated a nationwide discussion - the assassination of the emperor and the tragic death of Zhang Wenming were no secrets, and were accompanied by two events
Various gossips and rumors, and the contents of the reform were also spread to every corner of the empire.
Of course, the one who bore the brunt of the greatest pressure was the Jinyi Guards headed by Wang Tong. Wang Tong had already obtained the emperor's consent to move the high-ranking family members of the Jinyi Guards away from their homeland on a voluntary basis, changing their identities. He himself moved into the pro-military Duwei Mansion.
Day and night, he directed this biggest case since Taizu.
Yang Junqing, a fellow Jinyiwei stationed in Nanjing, could not move his home. Under overwhelming pressure, Yang Junqing, who had repeatedly tortured Dong Jianxiong in person to no avail, finally understood that it was time for the Yang family to take sides.
Should we adhere to the position of standing with the majority of the squires and redress injustices? Or should we stand as the emperor and eliminate opposition voices based on whether we oppose the reform? This is a question involving the life and death of the family.
And Yang Junqing finally saw clearly why the emperor was not as determined as Zhang Juzheng to find out the real culprit behind the murder of Zhang Wenming. Zhang Juzheng wanted to avenge his father's murder. Of course, the more accurate the target of revenge, the better; the emperor had to go through Yinan and Yi.
The two major cases in Beijing removed opponents of the reform from the ruling class and served as a warning to the rest. Therefore, the real culprit behind the Zhang Wenming case might as well be kept vague.
Therefore, under the command of Yang Junqing, the Jin Yiwei in the southern part of the empire kept following the clues to find out the truth about Zhang Wenming's case; Wang Tong, the commander of the Jin Yiwei stationed in the capital, ordered the Jin Yiwei at all levels to collect lists of those who opposed the reform - the Great Purge was approaching