This letter from Wang Xijue was slightly unexpected by Hai Rui.
Hai Rui and Wang Xijue actually knew each other. Wang Xijue was the second in the imperial examination in the 41st year of Jiajing reign. As one of the Three Tripods, of course he stayed in Beijing to edit the Hanlin Academy. In the 43rd year of Jiajing period, Hai Rui was promoted from the magistrate of Xingguo County.
The head of the Yunnan Department of the Ministry of Household Affairs also went to the capital.
However, at that time, Hai Rui and Wang Xijue were not familiar with each other. Firstly, Hai Rui was relatively "isolated" and did not often make routine visits among officials; secondly, Wang Xijue was famous and had a noble status. For Hai Rui's two
He failed all the examinations, and ended up being appointed as a candidate to replace him. He started as a county magistrate, took ten years to become a county magistrate, and took another six years to become the head of the Household Department.
If he didn't catch his eye, he wouldn't take the initiative to approach Hai Rui.
The intersection between the two of them occurred for about half a year from the end of the third year of Longqing to the middle of the fourth year of Longqing. At that time, Wang Xijue performed well during the official lecture at the Jingyan Festival, so he was favored by the then chief assistant Li Chunfang and others and wanted to promote him.
It was a pity that the number of officials in Beijing Middle School was full, so he was transferred to Nanjing Imperial College as a secretary, which was regarded as "examination and training".
Hai Rui became famous because of "Public Security Shu" and was promoted several times in the past few years. At this time, he happened to be released as the governor of Yingtian as the censor of Youqiandu.
Yingtian is roughly the part south of the Yangtze River in Nanzhili. It currently governs Yingtian, Chengtian, Suzhou, Songjiang, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Taiping, Chizhou, Huizhou, Ningguo, Anqing eleven prefectures and Guangde prefecture.
It was basically equivalent to southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui in later generations. From an economic point of view at that time, it was almost the strongest region in the Ming Dynasty.
In the early days, Governor Yingtian was stationed in Nanjing and lived in the Huitong Hall. In Chenghua, he built another office and moved out of the Huitong Hall. After Jiajing, he was stationed in Suzhou every time there was a storm, which was called Xingtai. During the period when Hai Rui was in office, he was basically stationed in Suzhou.
.(Note: In the second year of Wanli, in order to facilitate central dispatch, the Fu Office was moved from Nanjing to Jurong; in the original history, after the thirty-first year of Wanli, it was permanently stationed in Suzhou.)
At this point, the situation is very clear - Wang Xijue is the richest man in Suzhou, and he happened to return to Nanjing. What's more, it happened that Hai Rui was appointed governor of Yingtian to clear his father-in-law's land, and he was directly stationed in Suzhou. How could this not be possible?
Conflict?
Hai Rui cleared the land in Yingtian in order to cooperate with Gao Gong's recovery and then continued to promote a whipping method.
Let me briefly explain here that a whipping method was proposed by Gui E in the 10th year of Jiajing. At the end of the 3rd year of Longqing when Zhigao Gongqifu and Hai Rui were appointed governor of Yingtian, it had actually been around for forty years.
However, although it has been around for a long time, it has not been fully implemented in the Ming Dynasty, because the main feature of this tax law is to combine the land tax, corvee and other miscellaneous levies in various states and counties into one line, collect silver tael in one, and pay it per mu.
In this way, the tax system is greatly simplified, making it easier to collect taxes, and making it difficult for local officials to cheat, thereby increasing fiscal revenue. However, because only silver taels are collected, it has serious consequences in the commodity economy, especially in areas with underdeveloped currency circulation.
"Acclimatized".
Things that have both pros and cons, according to the bureaucratic habits at this time, probably only a few people are willing to try to promote it, while more officials tend to "doing nothing will be useless, but at least they will not be blamed", so they oppose promotion.
Of course, there were still reformists among the senior officials of the imperial court, such as Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and other important ministers, who strongly advocated the promotion of a whip method. However, although Gao Gong was the core figure of the reformists at this time and indeed advocated its promotion, his promotion was inconsistent with the original
Historically, Zhang Juzheng made a direct one-size-fits-all approach in the ninth year of Wanli's reign, which was different from "forced promotion across the country".
Gao Gong advocated the implementation of the plan one by one, and his idea was that the rich provinces should go first, the middle provinces would gradually follow, and the poor provinces would wait. Therefore, it is obvious that the Jiangnan area, the richest area in the world, that is, the jurisdiction of Yingtian Governor, must "dare to serve the world"
"First".
Of course, future generations will understand the benefits of simplifying administration, but the "ancients" may not understand it either. So why has such a simple thing not become famous 40 years after the whipping law was proposed?
The reason is very simple: Although I understand the rationale, the more complicated the administration, the more opportunities I have as an official to interfere. Now you suddenly say that you want to simplify it. I have a stake in it, so how can I agree easily?
This is where resistance comes from.
Since the resistance was great, the knife had to be sharp, so Gao Gong sacrificed Hai Rui's dragon-slaying knife.
Of course, the Dragon Sword is well-deserved, but it is unrealistic to expect Hai Rui to single-handedly "clear out the evil atmosphere", so Hai Rui's actions are still very targeted - yes, he mainly targeted the young man who had just returned to his hometown after serving as an official.
Xu Jie, former chief minister of the cabinet.
There is no need to go into detail about this past event, only the incidental impact. Wang Xijue is the richest man in Suzhou. Although most of his property was inherited, the source of these properties is naturally inseparable from the unified style of the official and business groups at that time. What is "escape from the land"
, "strangely send", "fly away", "move hills", "change sections", "change books" and so on, none of them are missing, everything that should be included is included.
However, Wang Xijue has always been a smart man. He knew that his reputation and status in the officialdom at that time was not enough to compete with Hai Rui, so he kept a low profile deliberately and refused to get involved in this "fight between gods", lest it become a problem.
The mortals who suffered.
And Hai Rui did only regard Xu Jie as his primary target. Regarding some matters at Wang Xijue's family, he had also received complaints from some people (Note: Because Hai Rui encouraged people to redress their grievances, there were an astonishing number of similar complaints.
Not only against Wang Xijue), but instead of directly using national law, he wrote to Wang Xijue and sent a copy of all the complaints.
Hai Rui also used this method on Xu Jie, which was a kind of "courtesy first and then attack". Xu Jie also "gave face" at the beginning and returned some fields. Unfortunately, Hai Rui thought he had withdrawn too little.
The "return" of the land was purely a face-saving project, so Hai Rui wrote to Xu Jie again, asking him to return half of the land. Of course, Xu Jie refused, and the conflict intensified.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! As for Wang Xijue, Hai Rui adopted the same method, and the results were far better than Xu Jie's. Wang Xijue followed Hai Rui's request without saying a word,
He returned the fields pointed out in the letter, and even said in his reply that he had rarely paid attention to the situation at home because of his busy studies and official duties, and he did not know that these things existed. He himself was shocked and ashamed of this, saying that he would wait until he was so busy.
I will definitely conduct a thorough investigation in a few days to live up to Hai Gong’s kindness in reminding me.
As the second best person, he said that he was busy with studies in the past. This was a reason. Others didn't dare to say anything even if they didn't believe it. However, at this time, he was a Southern Supervisor, so it was a matter of opinion.
But Hai Rui had no time to pay attention to him. Since he was willing to quit the field, Hai Rui temporarily stopped his activities.
If things only come to this point, the relationship between Hai Rui and Wang Xijue can't be said to be bad, because at least neither party is at odds with each other.
Although Wang Xijue lost some fields, his family is not just a "powerful landlord", but a more typical Jiangnan chaebol who "get rich through business and then buy land." To a certain extent, the fields are just "investment real estate";
When business expansion cannot find a good direction or a good opportunity, it is used to "preserve the value of spare money".
Therefore, the loss is certainly a loss, but it neither hurts the muscles nor moves the bones. It is only a temporary pain in the body, and it will pass if you endure it.
Who knew that fate was not as good as fate. Although Wang Xijue avoided the most rumored attack, he was hit by a stray bullet when he left office.
This matter is really unlucky for Mr. Wang. After Hai Rui fought in Yingtian, he offended Jiangnan official circles. Although Xu Jie was unlucky, after giving a sum of money to his disciple Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng found Gao
Gong, go and make peace on behalf of your teacher.
Although Gao Gong heard that Zhang Juzheng had received money, considering that Zhang Juzheng himself advocated reform after all, the peace agreement for Xu Jie might just be due to the feelings of teachers and students that he could not refuse, so he decided to stop. There is a premise here, that is, Xu Jie
The weak uniformity also means that the Jiangnan gentry and officials have held their noses and accepted the implementation of the whipping method. Since Gao Gong's purpose has been achieved, from the perspective of reputation, he does not intend to torture people to death.
But this time, Hai Rui was tricked.
Gao Gong only cares about whether the policy implementation is smooth. Now that things are done and the wind has been released from Zhang Juzheng, Jiangnan officials breathed a sigh of relief and thought of revenge - of course not against Gao Gong, Gao Gong's holy family.
Tai Lung, they thought they couldn't handle it, their revenge was on Hai Rui.
So immediately after that, Hai Rui was impeached. Instead of one or two letters, a hail of bullets flew from the south of the Yangtze River to the General Affairs Department, entered the Department of Ceremonies, and were presented to Mu Zong's desk.
The following plot is a familiar routine: Hai Rui defends himself, but as a foreign official, he cannot stay behind closed doors like Gao Pragmatic did in this slander case, he still has to do his work.
This time, Hai Rui's self-defense coincided with the timing of the Beijing inspection. So Hai Rui did not bother the two masters about anything, and wrote a "Discussed Self-defense" and wrote thousands of words eloquently.
Defend yourself.
Originally, this had nothing to do with Wang Xijue, because Wang Xijue kept a low profile during this period and would never confront Hai Rui. Who would have thought that while sitting at home, the blame came from the sky, and Hai Rui was impeached for many inexplicable "trivial matters"
, his temper got stronger, and he gave a relatively detailed explanation and evidence on a lot of trivial matters in his self-defense.
I accidentally mentioned a sentence here: "Wang Xijue saw that he had turned to the North Division and carried his sedan chair directly into the Second Division. If he caused harm in the middle way, he would be punished for thirty years."
It stands to reason that Hai Rui's self-defense and resignation essay lasted several thousand words, and answered at least dozens of false accusations, while Wang Xijue's essay only contained twenty-four words in total, which is really nothing.
According to Emperor Mu Zong's habit, he probably didn't pay much attention to it, and it didn't bother him at all.
But who is Wang Xijue? He values fame and wings more than pragmatism. Naturally, he was furious when he heard this.
What is this thing about? When Wang Xijue was promoted from Nanjing Imperial College to Beijing Imperial College, he probably felt that he was going back to Beijing again and was about to be re-employed (Gao Gong meant that he was promoted to Beijing), so
It's a bit bloated, "carry the sedan chair straight into the second division" - the airs are a bit big.
It's not really a big deal to be a little more arrogant, but the trouble is that something happened in the middle of the road, causing "harm in the middle" - Hai Rui didn't specify what harm was caused, but he probably injured someone. So, Hai Rui
The bearer who was carrying the sedan was arrested and beaten thirty times.
In the eyes of ordinary people, this matter is naturally a trivial matter. After all, the person who was beaten was just a sedan bearer, and Wang Xijue himself was not injured at all.
But that's not how the accounts were settled. Although this slap was a slap on the bearer's butt, in Wang Xijue's opinion, it was like a slap on his own face!
What's more, if you fight, you will fight. This great thing will be circulated in the local area for a while, and after a while, everyone will forget about it. But you should never, absolutely should not, should not write this matter in the memorial.
go!
Write it into the memorial, and it will be archived in the imperial court. This face of my Wang Xijue will be written into the history books with just a slap from you!
It's tolerable, but what can't be tolerated! Liangzi was formed in such a magical way.
It was common for Hai Rui to offend people, so he didn't care at the time. He learned about it from others later, but he didn't take it too seriously - anyway, he had plenty of lice and no worries about debts.
As good as Wang Xijue.
From then on, Wang Xijue never had any contact with Hai Rui, either public or private. Therefore, when he suddenly received Wang Xijue's letter today, Hai Rui naturally smelled something strange in it.
Hai Rui read the letter, but found that it was written more implicitly than Gao Pragmatic's letter. Not only did it not mention past grudges, it didn't even mention the word "Nancha".
There is only one sentence in Wang Xijue's letter, which is almost without any salt, that is quite suspicious: "The south of the Yangtze River provides nearly half of the world with just one corner of the Yangtze River. The officials, gentry and people have been suffering from harsh governance for a long time, and all industries have withered. How can it last long?"
Although Hai Rui was upright, his uprightness was not slowness. He soon realized that what Wang Xijue wanted to express was in this seemingly general statement.
Jiangnan has heavy taxes. This is true when looking at the entire Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty itself was a dynasty with very light taxes, and the taxes in Jiangnan were based on the agricultural level, especially grain output, during the Hongwu period.
Nowadays, times have changed. The main force of Jiangnan's economy has long been no longer the production of food, but has shifted to sericulture and silk production, papermaking and printing, porcelain and shipping. At the same time, the commercial aspect has developed rapidly because there was almost no taxation before. Private commerce is extremely prosperous, and even
What was later called the "germination of capitalism" appeared.
Under such circumstances, it is sheer lies to say that in Jiangnan, "the officials, gentry and common people have been suffering from harsh governance for a long time, and all industries are in ruins".
Withered? What has become of withered? Withered has it reached Qinhuai, which is ten miles away?
You bullied me into being blind!
However, just like one of Sir Humphrey's famous sayings, "I am talking about my position and it has nothing to do with the facts." Wang Xijue's words are naturally also talking about his position. As for the facts... that is not important.
Hai Rui figured this out and couldn't help but sneer: "I'm not afraid of death, so why should I be afraid of death?"
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PS: Has anyone guessed the true intention of Wang Xijue’s letter?
