It's not just Gao Pragmatic and the people around him who are worried, the Xin School, the Practical School, the Neutrality School, all of them are worried because of the emperor's "order" yesterday. With today's meeting between the emperor and the cabinet ministers, the first
One boot has already landed, but everyone is obviously waiting for the second sound of the boot landing.
"Boots Falling to the Floor" is a fable. This word was often seen in various media before the pragmatic spirit passed through the Ming Dynasty. This story tells that there used to be a young man living upstairs in the bedroom of an old man, and the young man often returned late at night. Enter
Fang took off his boots and threw them heavily on the ground. There was a bang, which shook the whole house, and woke up the old man downstairs from his dream. Then there was another bang, and the other boot hit the ground heavily, and the old man tossed and turned again.
Looking for dreams.
Over time, the old man developed a conditioned reflex and had to wait until two rings were heard every night before he could fall asleep. Once the old man couldn't bear it any more, so he went upstairs to protest to the young man. Only then did the young man realize that his arbitrary behavior had hurt others, so he kept talking
Promise to make corrections in the future.
The next night, the young man returned to his room late at night, and there was another "bang" sound, and one boot fell to the ground. The old man held back his anger and waited for the other boot to fall, but after waiting left and right, there was no sound, but
I didn't dare to sleep peacefully, for fear of a sudden "bang" coming unexpectedly.
But this sound never occurred to his mind. The old man stayed up until dawn and suffered from insomnia all night. When he went upstairs to inquire with suspicion, he found out that it was the young man who threw down a boot according to his old habit. Then he suddenly remembered the old man's protest and quickly put the second
The boot was gently placed on the ground without making a sound, but unexpectedly it caused the old man to lose sleep all night.
In later generations, after many major government decisions were made, the media often used the term "boots to land" to describe it. What does it mean? In fact, "waiting for boots to land" is an eager, wait-and-see mentality.
Before a new policy or economic indicator is introduced, people already have expectations for the policy or performance. For example, the most sensitive thing is reflected in the financial market, that is, the early buying and selling of securities, causing the early release of the effect. Since then,
, on the contrary, after the New Deal is officially introduced, it may cause policy or economic results to deviate from the theory on which the policy is based.
At present, the officials of the imperial court are waiting for their boots to fall. They can simply go through the following steps:
In the beginning, the emperor suddenly announced the establishment of the Dingnan Protectorate in the form of an imperial edict without consulting the cabinet. There were two biggest problems with this matter: First, the imperial edict itself bypassed the cabinet, causing great embarrassment to the cabinet -
Please note that this is by no means just a cosmetic embarrassment, in fact it represents a serious shakeup of the cabinet's status.
Why do you say that? Because if you understand it from another angle, it is that the imperial power is trying to bypass the de facto highest political body of the civil service group and directly issue top-level administrative instructions.
So if it succeeds, what does it mean? It means that the cabinet is completely emptied out by the imperial power, and it means that the civil servant groups, large and small, that are actually led by the cabinet will no longer have any degree of "deliberative power" - let alone decision-making power.
They will be left with only enforcement rights.
As we all know, the civil service group did not have any political power during the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Almost all major issues were decided by the two powerful emperors Taizu and Chengzu. After a long period of fermentation and a series of changes, the civil service group gradually fought for
to a certain level of political power, as well as the right and status to exercise decision-making power in place of the imperial power in very specific periods (such as when the emperor is young, when heirs are extinct, etc.).
It should be noted that China's monarchy under Confucianism has never been and should not be controlled by the imperial power. This issue has already been explained, so I will not go into details. The simple statement is: the most perfect system under Confucianism is the emperor and the scholar-bureaucrats.
The world - you, the emperor, cannot really be a "lone husband".
Therefore, the civil service group will never tolerate this situation. This is the reason why for the first time in recent years, all members of the cabinet, regardless of faction, threatened the emperor by resigning. Similarly, it is also the reason why Gao Pragmatic Lian Gaoming
The reason why they all had to resolutely refuse.
What does "no one can betray his own class" mean? This is it.
You are not the emperor, so if you betray your own class and empathize with the emperor, are you sick? But more importantly, it doesn’t matter if you are sick. The problem is if what you do harms everyone of your class
People, then you are cutting yourself off from the "people"!
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic refused to accept the decree on the spot, so the cabinet collectively knelt down and resigned.
Should the Dingnan Protectorate be established? Not important! At least it is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that everyone in the government and the public believes that the emperor cannot bypass the cabinet and issue orders!
The former is nothing more than a specific matter, or even just a "foreign affairs" that does not involve the "Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces" in the core area of the Ming Dynasty. So it is whether it is the establishment of a Protectorate, a Dutong Envoy, or a Jiedu
It doesn't matter what it is, at least it is not worth mentioning in the face of the fundamental matter of "the emperor and the scholar-bureaucrats share the world"!
Fortunately, although the emperor refused to meet with the cabinet ministers that day, the next day, that is, this morning, he still accepted an audience with the cabinet ministers. It is said that he listened carefully to the advice of the cabinet ministers and expressed his willingness.
Take back your life.
Is the matter over now? No. Because the emperor was not willing to go back on his word. His actual attitude expressed at that time was: he understood that the cabinet refused to endorse it, and he understood that the Sixth Section rejected the imperial edict.
Eh? This seems to be the same thing. Aren’t they all withdrawn and the imperial edicts become void?
Otherwise, these are completely different things. If the emperor himself withdraws the decree, it means that he admits that he, the emperor, did something wrong in this matter, so he had to withdraw it voluntarily.
But he did not do so. He only expressed his understanding that the cabinet refused to endorse it and suggested that the Sixth Section could reject the edict. What does this approach mean?
It means that the emperor still attaches great importance to the ancestral system. You see, the ancestral system allows the cabinet to refuse to endorse the imperial edict when it disagrees with it. Now that the cabinet has done so, I will accept it, right?
You see, the ancestral system has given Liuke the privilege to refute the imperial edict. Now that Liuke has done so, do I admit it?
I respect the ancestral system very much, and I respect the ministers and workers of the world very much!
In this way, he not only avoided the behavior of changing orders every day, breaking his own words and damaging his prestige as an emperor, but also expressed his understanding and respect for the civil servant group. It was a perfect operation.
However, just because the emperor was able to operate perfectly under the huge political pressure of all ministers knocking on the door, all the officials in the capital became more and more nervous. Because this meant two things: first, the emperor had already planned,
He had already anticipated the cabinet's reaction and had already prepared countermeasures; secondly, the emperor had become proficient in these political methods, which were originally the best skills of the civil servant group.
Then based on these two points, and then considering the character of the emperor, the officials immediately realized: this is not the Mu Temple, but the return of the World Temple.
The late Emperor Longqing was a "bullying" emperor. Although he laid the foundation for many major events during his reign and completed feats such as paying tribute to Anda and opening the sea. However, in terms of his ruling style alone, he was a
He was "easy to bully", and the civil service group never thought he posed any threat to them.
Yes, he relied heavily on the Shi School and Gao Gong, but whether it was the Shi School or Gao Gong, it was also a part of the civil service group! Mu Miao still delegated power to the civil service group to rule as the civil service group hoped.
ah!
But Jin Shang's current behavior is different. When he came up with the matter of "establishing the Dingnan Protectorate", even the intended Protector Gao Pragmatic himself did not know the news, and he had already anticipated the reaction of the cabinet and Gao Pragmatic himself.
He calmly accepted the moves of the ministers and achieved all the goals he wanted to achieve in the process.
He did not really intend to establish the Dingnan Protectorate now, but it turned out that the Dingnan Protectorate failed. However, through this matter, he clearly made a mark for Gao Pragmatic in front of the whole world.
In theory, this cake is absolutely in line with the ideals of the civil service group: reward for merit and reward.
However, things are not that simple. The civil service group is indeed united when facing pressure from the imperial authority, but when the emperor prefers a certain party to give gifts, it will arouse the jealousy of others. Because of jealousy, they will oppose, even if the opposition fails, they will
I will always keep an eye on you and be ready to find mistakes.
In other words, after the emperor took action like this, everyone knew that the emperor was going to "confer" the entire Southern Xinjiang to Gao Pangshi. It's hard to say what other people from the Practical School thought of this situation, but it was obvious that the Xin School would never
Happy, other neutrals may not be happy either.
If you are not happy, then you have to find faults and look for trouble. The premise of these is to implement tighter surveillance of Gao Pragmatic's every move, and even strengthen surveillance of every move in southern Xinjiang to strive for discovery.
question.
As a result, Gao Pragmatic had to be more cautious, and Southern Xinjiang did not dare to make any rash moves, but the emperor completed control of the overall situation without spending a single soldier.
At the same time, he "recovered his life" in a way that was completely in line with the ancestral system, minimizing the loss of his prestige - in fact, it was not even reduced, because it was common for the emperors of the Ming Dynasty to even be criticized, except for the "second ancestor"
In addition, how many emperors have not been banned from the Holy Will by the cabinet, the Sixth Section, etc.?
But in doing so, he went back to solve the fundamental reason why the cabinet threatened him, that is, the emperor did not obey the ancestral system, ignored the cabinet, etc.
This emperor already has the same Machiavellian skills as Emperor Sejong Jiajing, and the cards in his hand far exceed those of Emperor Jiajing in the early stages of his succession. How big a threat is this to the civil service group?
It's hard to estimate, but at least Wang Xijue believes that the emperor will not end in an anticlimactic manner. This time the application of tactics must have a more obvious and clear direct result, and this result... he thinks that it will most likely fall on himself, or the Heart School.
On the head.
His own family knew his own affairs, and the emperor was unwilling to "rectify the country's foundation as soon as possible," but the Xin School was the main force in calling for "the country's foundation to be rectified early," so the emperor was definitely dissatisfied with the Xin School in this matter.
Of course, Wang Xijue knew very well that when the Practical School—especially Gao Dang of the Practical School—controlled most of the important affairs of the court, it was almost impossible for the emperor to suppress the Xin School to the end, but he would definitely retain the airs of the Xin School and exchange opinions with others.
They have some important supervisory powers to ensure that the real school does not get out of control and that the court will not become a single-voice hall of the real school.
However, as one of the two pillars of the Xin School, he still has to constantly test the emperor's bottom line, that is, the emperor's standard for judging the "balance between the DPRK and China", because only in this way can the Xin School gain more rights.
As for his insistence on early rectification of the country's foundation, this matter is not as superficial as what Princess Zheng and others thought. In fact, the early rectification of the country's foundation was not of great personal benefit to Wang Xijue. What was remarkable was that he gained some prestige at that time.
.
The real reason why he did this was to satisfy the political needs of the Xin School: Xin Xue is a practical study of morality. If you don’t insist on moral correctness, you will be doomed! Can a tree with rotten roots still survive?
This is just like if the Practical School cannot do things, or if the things they do cannot change anything, and the court should be poor or poor, and should win or lose the war, then won't the Practical School also be doomed?
What is political correctness? This is it. Political correctness has existed in all times throughout the ages and is by no means exclusive to future generations.
Don’t you know that indulging certain ethnic groups will lead to many serious social problems, as well as economic, cultural, political, military and other problems? Of course they know, but if they don’t continue to adhere to Bai Zuo and the Holy Mother
If they don't go on, they might be finished first! It's better to die as a Taoist friend than to die as a poor Taoist. The threat of the opposing parties is greater than the threat of national decline - just look at the Donglin Party in the late Ming Dynasty to understand this truth.
A regime that is about to fall has always had similar troubles, that is, "I know what the problem is, but I can't change it, because once I change it, I will be finished first."
This principle was summarized by later scholars as "what cannot be done" under the entanglement and suppression of interest groups. It is like the "Jiangnan gentry's tax resistance in the late Ming Dynasty (not necessarily violent tax resistance)" in the original history. It could not be solved at all in the late Ming Dynasty because a large number of people in power
They are all members of the Jiangnan interest group.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, this matter came to a temporary result, but the reason was that the upper Tatar ruling class at that time did not have much interest entanglement with the Jiangnan gentry. Jiangnan's failure to pay taxes was their interests, so they could not be polite.
Local suppression. A certain second-place finisher was stripped of his honor just because he failed to pay a penny in back taxes, so that the world said, "The second-place finisher is not worth a penny."
Then what? In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the Jiangnan tax resistance once again became the mainstream, and the rescue was declared ineffective: because at that time, the interests of the upper ruling class and the Jiangnan gentry had been tied up, and it was impossible to take action on themselves.
The reason why the Practical School was able to forcibly clear land in Jiangnan was partly because of Hai Rui's blessing, and partly because Gao Gong was not the chief minister from Jiangnan. The same reason why it was able to collect commercial taxes in Jiangnan - Gao Gong
The pragmatic leader is the Northern Business Alliance, not the Southern Business Alliance. He has no psychological pressure to suppress the wealthy gentry and wealthy businessmen in the south.
Moreover, he is highly pragmatic. As a time-traveler with a relatively limited sense of belonging in this era, he values national interests much more than anyone else in this era, so he took the lead in paying a large amount of taxes.
After weighing the pros and cons, other northern business giants found that even if they paid taxes, they would still earn more by being more pragmatic, so they had no choice but to agree to pay taxes. In this case, the legitimacy of the southern business gangs' refusal to pay taxes almost disappeared.
All.
Therefore, to be able to complete so many reforms when the Ming Dynasty has been founded for more than two hundred years and various interest groups are complicated, to put it bluntly, whether it is Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng in history, or Gao Gong and his generation in this era
, it can only be a beginning, and most likely it will not be complete.
Only Gao Pragmatic has this ability, because he can not only lead others to create and harvest more wealth, but also be able to give up some of the benefits that he could have obtained on his own at a level that transcends the limitations of the times. If it were someone else, he would always be able to do something about these two things.
If not, then you will have to give up halfway.
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PS: In the past half month, I have carefully studied some of the world economic history of the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, as well as the historical development process of the United States leading to the current situation, so that this chapter almost went off topic... but to be honest
, the current situation of the Midi Empire is really very similar to that of the late Ming Dynasty. My personal opinion is that they are basically hopeless (it is actually a metaphor in this chapter) - even though they are still very strong now, who would think of the Ming Dynasty before Sarhu?