Chapter 291 Fortunately, Nanjing (20) is a gift from heaven
The matter of expanding the selection and appointment of officials among the candidates has actually been the consistent purpose of the Practical School since the Gao Gong period, and has been promoted for many years. To a certain extent, the reason why the Practical School has been able to form its current momentum is also to a certain extent.
It has something to do with always adhering to this policy.
Saying this does not mean that many of the upper echelons of the Practical School come from the juren class. This is unlikely. After all, the tradition of the Ming Dynasty is there, as are the policy inertia and personal and group interests. Non-Jinshi will not enter the Hanlin.
Those who are not Hanlin officials will not be admitted to the cabinet.
You must know that the formation of this "unspoken rule", which later almost became an "explicit rule", was not because the emperor believed that only Jinshi had the ability to serve as a Hanlin scholar, and only Hanlin scholars had the ability to serve as an assistant minister. This was not the case.
In essence, these so-called "rules" are just "thresholds of public opinion" created by Jinshi and Hanlin officials to protect their own interests and exclude more competitors.
In this way, after years of word-of-mouth or various overt and covert public opinion influences, officials who are not from Jinshi or Hanlin backgrounds will psychologically dwarf themselves, and even themselves feel that they are not good enough and that they are not qualified to compete with others.
Jinshi and Hanlin compete for higher positions.
Over time, the Jinshi group and the Hanlin group consciously or unconsciously formed a small circle, or an interest class. Even if the authority is as high as today's Gao Pragmatic, he cannot suddenly stand up and say without any preconditions:
Hey, I think that Juren is a great talent, and I recommend him to join the cabinet to assist the government - not only will this cause public outrage, but even the "Juren" he mentioned will probably beat himself up and refuse to accept such a recommendation, or even
Yu thought that Gao Pragmatic was mocking himself, and then he was so ashamed that he simply killed himself to avoid being humiliated.
This is of course an extreme description and assumption, but the meaning is exactly that: when a social consensus has been reached, it is generally impossible to change it easily without intensifying conflicts and causing huge turmoil.
So, how did the Pragmatic School rely on "expanding the appointment of people" to expand the faction and eventually become more and more prestigious? This can be divided into two stages: high-gong and high-pragmatism.
Let’s talk about the “Gao Gong Period” first. In fact, this period is not only Gao Gong, but starts from Gao Gong and ends with Guo Pu and Zhang Siwei, who were followed by Xiao Gui and Cao Cao. Since the latter two basically continued Gao Gong’s policies,
So here we only talk about high arches.
Shortly after Gao Gong took office, he established a strict official inspection system in the Ministry of Personnel: "Grant each department a title, appoint a virtuous person, and determine the surname of Jueli." This was gathered once a month and handed over to the Ministry of Personnel, and Gao Gong personally reviewed it.
At the end of the year, all the records will be compiled into the Ministry of Personnel as the basis for deposing officials.
To govern the world, talents must be widely selected. Gao Gong saw that 70% of the world's imperial examinations (referring to the candidates) and only 30% of the imperial examinations (referring to the Jinshi), but the imperial court emphasized the imperial examinations and neglected the imperial examinations and tributes.
"Three and discarding seven" is a foolish move. We should promote scholars, promote people and use them at the same time. Only those who are talented should be considered and hired according to their talents.
However, when selecting people, he also advocated that "those who are over fifty years old should be given miscellaneous officials and should not be the heads of prefectures and counties." This is because the heads of prefectures and counties are the officials of local parents and have arduous responsibilities that must be borne by those with high energy.
.
He also believed that the country must accumulate talents. It would be too late to find qualified people when they are needed, so he put forward the theory of talent preparation: "Nowadays, for important officials, each one has pre-selected those whose talents are suitable for the job.
Three or two people are placed in similar places, waiting for the next time. If there is a shortage, there will be people there, and there will be no shortage of people."
He also openly recruited talents and clearly ordered the selection of ministers. "If there are any vacancies, they will be exposed outside the door so that the public can see them." Each minister can recommend candidates.
This approach is clearly targeted, because in the past, the promotion of officials by the Ministry of Civil Affairs was very secretive, and the promotion of only a few people was done very secretly. Gao Gongjin did the opposite, saying: "There are ministers in the hall, and there are officials in the department. They are all listed by name."
If you don't hear about it, why are you living here? I'm just trying to do what you want. I'll change it." So he asked people to carry the slip to the back hall and ordered people to uncover it in public, "even if the tomb master wanted to do something, he couldn't do it." For
When an official is deposed, Gao Gong will personally "tell him the truth", and those who are deposed will "be frightened into submission".
At that time, the horse administration and the salt administration were regarded as idle affairs, and the court took them lightly. As a result, people and affairs were lost, and "good governance was unknown." Gao Gong observed the situation and knew that the officials of the horse and salt administration were in a poor and cold place far away.
Because of the hardships, he proposed to appoint honest, honest and talented people in the province, and to increase the amount of payment. If he is outstanding, he will be promoted. His official position is high, and the horse and salt officials should be promoted by themselves, which is beneficial to the country.
Gao Gong also formulated and adopted many systems and measures aimed at strengthening the inspection and selection of talents.
In fact, it was divided into meetings where Jinshi lectured on the law, determined the rules for advancement and promotion, and discussed the rules for catching thieves."
These measures were approved by Emperor Longqing and implemented. As a result, there was a new atmosphere of excitement among all officials in the court and officials.
According to the old rules of the Ming Dynasty, the assistant ministers of the cabinet "if they are also responsible for the election, they will be the true prime minister, violating the strict prohibition of Emperor Gao." However, Gao Gong first served as a cabinet minister and then as the chief official in charge of the ministry for three years.
There will be criticism for violating taboos, but the achievements are remarkable and benefit the country. Later generations only know about Zhang Juzheng but not about Gao Gong. I really don’t know how to evaluate him.
Gao Gong took these measures, Guo Pu, and Zhang Siwei followed the rules. However, after Zhang Siwei, the court entered the Shen Shixing era, and the Xin School took over the power of chief assistant. Although Shen Shixing had insufficient authority, many times it was difficult to win over the Shi School.
has the upper hand, but the chief assistant still has the power that he should have.
Even though the civil service was most of the time in the hands of the Real School, Shen Shixing was still able to control the general trend of the court from the perspective of major policies, which made the Real School enter a certain low ebb in the appointment of Ju Ren as officials. However, Shen Shixing was limited by his own knowledge and had some opinions on the matter.
There were not many restrictions on positions that seemed unimportant but were actually very influential. Therefore, the Practical School still added many outstanding candidates to these positions during this period - for example, as mentioned earlier, Gao Gong was very
This is the aspect of horse administration that we attach great importance to.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Broadly speaking, the Ming Dynasty's horse administration was in shambles when Gao Gong took over, even though Gao Gong selected many young and capable candidates to enter the horse administration system
, itself could only pull this crappy Ma Zheng up to the point where it was barely usable. However, due to the smooth progress of Anda's tribute and the highly pragmatic Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd. began to get involved, the Ming Dynasty's Ma Zheng began to reverse quickly.
Decline.
Horse administration, horse administration, must first have horses, and then be able to govern. It turned out that horse administration was difficult to handle. On the one hand, of course, the team responsible for horse administration management was stretched thin, but the more important aspect was that there were really no horses.
After I answered the tribute, although Tumut was very willing to trade with the Ming Dynasty, they were not stupid and were not willing to sell the best horse breeds to the Ming Dynasty, not even male or female horses. They were often only willing to sell geldings.
horse.
Later, through the highly pragmatic "Economic Impact Plan", Tumut, from the top to the bottom, became more and more inseparable from the Ming Dynasty's various daily necessities trade, and further developed to the point where he did not have enough money to carry out trade.
It was said that there was not enough money, but in fact it was because his own goods were not enough. As a result, Gao Pragmatic launched the second phase of the plan and began to persuade Tumut to sell the mining rights of mines, salt lakes and other resources, as well as to sell various other "non-war horse" level
Horses, including male and female horses.
At this time, Gao Jingshi had already served as Minister of Yuan Masi in Liaodong and Jin Fuhai's military preparation. So under Gao Jingshi's operation, the court began to revitalize Ma Zheng, first of all, he piloted it in Liaodong. Because Gao Jingshi quickly won the battle of Liaonan
, recovered the Liaohe Hetao area and was promoted to governor of Liaodong, so this work was carried out very smoothly.
The revitalization of the Liaodong Racecourse started from the newly recovered Liaohe Hetao. There, Gao Pragmatic expanded at least half of the original pasture of the Huahua Department and established the new Liaodong Racecourse. From the beginning, he used horse breeds purchased from Tumed.
Draft horses and other non-war horses, and later started to breed war horses with the captured war horse stallions of the Chaohua Department - of course, he also had private means to obtain war horse stallions from Tumut, Nenhorqin and even Yehe tribe.
In short, the "New Horse Policy" started from this, and Ming Dynasty truly began to have its own breeding base for various types of horses. This required a large number of manpower, and it was not limited to horse breeding professionals, but also included a large number of managers.
Professionals are actually easier to deal with. As long as the Ming Dynasty is willing to spend money, many Mongolians who have a hard time are willing to raise horses for the Ming Dynasty - let alone raising horses. There are many cavalry generals and generals who have taken refuge in the Ming Dynasty. Who are the frontier troops of various ministries?
How many "Da Bings" (the original meaning is Tatar soldiers, but in order to make it less ugly, it is written as Da Bing)?
What a joke! Be it Li Chengliang, Ma Fang, or Wu Sangui in original history, who among the more powerful frontier commanders doesn’t have an elite cavalry force filled with a large number of Mongolians?
There are always people in later generations who like to go on the line and mention ethnic conflicts at every turn. In fact, there is no concept of "nation-state" these days, so why are there so many ethnic conflicts? When the Ming Dynasty did not do well in its internal affairs, there would be a large number of Han people "
"Come to the north"; when the grassland is severely affected and people starve to death, a large number of Mongolians will "commit to the south".
It’s extremely difficult to survive. What kind of barriers are there between ethnic groups? Not to mention the highly pragmatic habits that everyone understands: If you give me enough money, follow me.
Therefore, the prosperous Liaonan Racecourse has become one of the good places for the Practical School to invest a large number of people to take turns to gain experience and qualifications...
Since it is said to be "one", of course there is not only one such good place. To give a few examples: When Gao Pragmatic first promoted the privatization of military industry, he had a not very "capitalist" approach, that is, he asked the court to go to these places.
Private military companies appoint supervisors to monitor the flow of military products and to monitor corporate finances. Of course, this is mainly to supervise tax payments.
In short, the more pragmatic reforms there are, the more places the court needs to employ people, but these employment places often do not need to send an official with a Jinshi background to serve, so the Practical School began to use juren in large numbers.
Juren are also scholars, even considered outstanding, and most of them have family influence behind them. Therefore, in this way, the Practical School has not only become a strong supporter of the Juren class in the officialdom, but has also invisibly won over them.
Massive local forces.
The Xin School is increasingly unable to cope with the competition from the Practical School. This is not only caused by the suppression of the high pragmatic personal status and authority, but also by the overall defeat in grassroots official circles.
Until now, the core base of the Xin School is still Jiangnan Shilin, but they are really hopeless in "floating on the surface" and have not discovered that the power they can rely on does not actually cover the entire Jiangnan Shilin, but only
The top class of scholars in Jiangnan are those scholars who have won Jinshi or who think they will win Jinshi sooner or later!
Excessive elitism has allowed the Xin School in the officialdom to take its path narrower and narrower, completely breaking away from the bottom—not just the people at the bottom, but even the scholars at the bottom. At this time, if it does not decline, who will?
However, Gao Pragmatic still felt that it was not declining fast enough, so he launched a new offensive in conjunction with the Nanjing Imperial Palace renovation project, which was this "Please use the public to recruit people to consolidate the Western Regions".
Although Gao Jingshi limited it to the "Western Regions" framework, there are actually many discerning people in the court, and they are already familiar with Gao Jingshi's operations - the Western Regions must be just a pilot project. When the pilot in the Western Regions is successful, they will find that this method is indeed
If it is effective, it will be promoted nationwide sooner or later in the future.
Just imagine, under the operation of high pragmatism, the Practical School has completely become the backer of Juren, and Juren accounts for 70% of those qualified to be officials. Once this policy is rolled out across the country, the Pragmatic School will be the main force in the court.
Are there any opponents?
However, Zhu Yijun, who has everything going smoothly now, does not look that far ahead. In other words, as an emperor who has become the Saint King of Zhongxing, he doesn't care much about these things now. Now, he just wants to see the problems in the Western Regions solved quickly, and Qian Qian
Don't make a big fuss, or become a sore that continues to bleed for Ming Dynasty, so he was very happy when he saw this memorial. He felt that being pragmatic was being pragmatic, and he was always the loyal minister who specialized in helping him solve problems.
.
Therefore, he immediately called Gao Jingshi to visit him and asked him in detail about the usefulness of this method. Gao Jingshi was also unambiguous and serious, and introduced the relevant situation to the emperor from beginning to end.
Gao pragmatic explained to the emperor that the necessity of expanding the selection and appointment of officials in the Western Regions that he emphasized in his essay was actually in response to the current problems of uneven talent distribution under the imperial examination system and the lack of talent in border areas. Focusing on this core issue
, Gao Pragmatic made a detailed analysis for the emperor:
First, the number of imperial examination scholars is insufficient: Although the imperial examination system of the Ming Dynasty selected a large number of talents for the country, the number of Jinshi scholars is still insufficient compared with the vast territory and the numerous demands for official positions. Especially in remote areas like the Western Regions, it is possible to
There were even fewer Jinshis assigned, which resulted in vacancies in local official positions and limited governance capabilities.
Second, Jinshi were unwilling to go to the border areas: even those who passed the imperial examination were often unwilling to serve because the Western Regions were located on the border, had difficult conditions, and were far away from the center. This personal subjective wish was in line with the imperial court's demand for talents in border areas.
The contradiction between them makes the Western Regions inevitably face the problem of talent shortage.
Third, the opportunities and challenges of Juren: Compared with Jinshi, although Juren's performance in the imperial examination is considered excellent, it is often difficult to obtain official positions in the mainland because competition is too fierce. Therefore, they are more willing to accept appointments in border areas.
I hope that by demonstrating my talents in the governance practice of the Western Regions, I can gain recognition and promotion from the imperial court.
Fourth, the enthusiasm and adaptability of juren: Since it is difficult for juren to become officials in the mainland, they often have greater enthusiasm and enthusiasm for appointments in the Western Regions. In this way, they will be more willing to go deep into the grassroots, understand local people's conditions, and use their own abilities
Knowledge and ability to solve practical problems. At the same time, due to their relatively low political status, Juren are more able to put aside their status and establish good relationships with local people, which has a positive effect on maintaining border stability and promoting local development.
Fifth, the governance ability of Juren: Juren have shown high cultural literacy and governance ability in the imperial examination, but because they have Jinshi and even Hanlin as reference, they are unlikely to be too conceited and feel that they do not need to continue studying. Therefore.
In a special environment like the Western Region, they are more likely to use their expertise to solve problems unique to border areas, such as ethnic relations, border security, and economic development, through innovative governance methods and strategies.
Sixth, the court's encouragement and reuse: By expanding the selection of officials and appointments in the Western Regions, the court can provide these ambitious people with a stage to show themselves. At the same time, the court can pay more attention to those candidates who have performed well in the border areas.
and promotion, in order to encourage more talents to be willing to devote themselves to border construction.
Gao Pangshi finally concluded that his speech was actually calling on the court to face up to the problem of talent shortage in the border areas. By expanding the selection and appointment of officials, it not only solved the urgent problem of talent shortage in the Western Regions, but also provided opportunities for those who had difficulty in becoming officials in the mainland.
Juren provides opportunities for development. This strategy can not only improve the governance level of border areas, but also stimulate the enthusiasm of juren and cultivate and reserve more talents for the long-term development of the country.
When Zhu Yijun saw Shu Wen, he thought it was a good idea. After hearing Gao Jingshi's detailed analysis and explanation, he was even more overjoyed. He stood up and walked to Gao Jingshi, patting him on the shoulder and saying hello.
"God has given me daily renewal, God has given me daily renewal!" Zhu Yijun patted Gao Pragmatic's shoulder hard, but his head had already turned to the other side, and said to Chen Ju: "Chen Ju, take it to the Chief of Ceremonies to approve the red, and Fan Yuanfu played it
, everything is accurate!"
Chen Ju accepted the order and left with a pile of memorials. As soon as he left, Zhu Yijun stopped smiling a little, walked back to the throne and sat down, frowned and asked pragmatically: "What is the situation in Japan now?"
This question was a bit too sudden. Gao Pragmatic was stunned for a moment and said in surprise: "Why did the emperor ask this?"
Zhu Yijun himself also looked puzzled and said: "The Japanese envoy came to the table today and said that the Japanese King Yuan Ieyasu wanted to send an envoy to study in our Ming Dynasty. If it is just for ordinary study, then that's it. Give them a few places for Imperial College students.
It doesn’t hurt. The problem is, he made it clear that he hopes to allow Japanese students to enter the Ming Military Academy to study...Have you ever heard them mention this matter?"
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