Gao Cai's judgment on the Fan family was very accurate. After receiving the news that the Gao family in Xinzheng intended to acquire the Fan family's iron mines, the Fan family did not hesitate to send out the most promising young man in the family, Fan Shouji, and set out the next day after learning the news.
Go straight to Xinzheng and talk in detail.
Fan Shouji, named Jieru, was born in Guxian, Weichuan. He was born in the 23rd year of Jiajing and was elected in the 4th year of Longqing. He was twenty-six years old, not too early, but not too late either. It was just that before that, he had already taken the provincial examination.
Failed three times.
Fan Shouji came here this time, of course, not just because he wanted to discuss business - the current head of the Fan family is Fan Shouji, Fan Shouji's eldest brother, and Fan Shouji has the final say in business matters. Fan Shouji is actually only responsible for studying and taking exams, and strives to do well.
Official.
These were all told by Gao Cai to Gao pragmatism. From this, it can be seen that the main reason why Fan Shouji came to Xinzheng was not to discuss business.
What else could be the reason? Naturally, he is on good terms with the Gao family. Gao Pingshi's nickname of "Xiaoge Lao" may not have spread to Henan yet, but he was taken to the capital by Gao Gong last year and was carefully trained by his side.
Now it has become the companion of the prince who is less than ten years old. Just these two sentences are enough to make anyone aware of Gao Gong's intentions.
The eunuchs in power are all because of their close relationship with the emperor, while the civil servants in power are a little more complicated, but they also need the support of the emperor. The prince, the crown prince of the country, Gao Pragmatic has been with the prince for a long time since he was less than ten years old. Once he is on the gold list,
After naming the prince, there is no need to doubt his future when the prince succeeds to the throne.
After all, the Fan family is also a powerful family. How can we not have such foresight? And if a powerful family wants to be promoted to a noble family, the key lies in whether any of the descendants of the family can serve as officials. Therefore, Fan Shouji came here in the name of discussing the ownership of the iron mines, but in reality he was
I came here under the banner of the Township Party to see if there was any chance I could attach myself to the Gao family.
However, Gao Pragmatic feels that it remains to be seen whether he will accept the Fan family's dependence.
In fact, when Gao pragmatic returned to Gaolaozhuang from Gaocai, he carefully recalled the information related to Fan Shouji, but after much deliberation, he could only remember a little bit: this person had presided over more than one event in the original history.
He passed the Jiangnan Provincial Examination, served as Minister of War, and finally became Prime Minister of Qin Tian Jian. In addition, he seemed to have improved the calendar during his tenure as Qin Tian Jian. It should be said that this person should be a capable official.
But what impressed Gao pragmatically the most about Fan Shouji was that this man seemed to be a die-hard opponent of Zhang Juzheng in history. In particular, Fan Shouji strongly opposed Zhang Juzheng's land policy.
Gao Pragmatic still doesn't know the reason for Fan Shouji's objection. In other words, he doesn't know whether Fan Shouji is against Zhang Juzheng's clearing of his father's land, or whether he is against Zhang Juzheng's indiscriminate implementation of a whipping law across the country.
If he is opposed to clearing the land, then Gao Jingshi believes that he and Fan Shouji will definitely disagree in the future, because Gao Jingshi is well aware of the dangers of hiding the land; but if he is just opposed to the indiscriminate promotion of a whipping method, then he is somewhat like-minded.
mean.
Based on Gao Pragmatic's experience in his previous life, I cannot say that the "one size fits all" policy is necessarily a bad policy, but it will certainly not be the best policy because the country is so large and the actual situation in each region is different.
How can there be so many policies that are “one size fits all”?
If nothing else, at least history has proven that a whip method was effective in Jiangnan, and when it was forcibly promoted in Shaanxi, Chuang Wang was finally created.
The prosperity of Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty was just a step away from entering a capitalist society. The whip law completely abolished all physical taxes and only levied silver. For the Jiangnan region, it was a system that was extremely suitable for its social productivity. It was certainly a good policy.
However, Shaanxi is barren. In the early days of Wanli, when the natural disasters were not particularly serious, they could barely survive. By the end of Wanli and even in the following decades, the natural disasters became worse every year, and the people could not even pay taxes in kind.
, the imperial court also asked them to pay money, so that these ordinary people would be exploited a lot by the government and local powerful people in the process of exchanging silver for silver. If this did not cause the government to force the people to rebel, it would be simply unreasonable.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic has always believed that Zhang Juzheng's reforms should be viewed separately. Some of them are feasible, especially those policies inherited from Gao Gong. Most of those policies are mild reforms. Although the effect is not dramatic at first glance, as long as you persist
If you continue to implement it, it is like giving a medicine to a weak person who has been ill for a long time to strengthen his body and strengthen his vitality. Although the medicine does not cure the disease and has immediate results, as time goes by, the weak patient's energy and spirit can slowly recover.
But Zhang Juzheng, for some unknown reason, gave a few doses of strong medicine to a disease that clearly required slow medicine, and the result would definitely be that the patient was weak but not replenished.
During the prosperous years, Ming Dynasty could still resist with the remaining power of two hundred years of orthodoxy, and even showed a comeback. However, once the situation suddenly changed and natural disasters occurred, this seemingly strong body suddenly collapsed.
Investigating the reason, Gao Pragmatic always felt that Zhang Juzheng might not want to let Gao Gong excel in his work, and he wanted to surpass Gao Gong's reforms and Gao Gong's political achievements wholeheartedly.
After all, according to a large number of records of this era, people at that time especially liked to compare Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng. Under such circumstances, it was almost impossible for Zhang Juzheng to say that he had no desire to win. But Gao Gong was defeated by his conspiracy.
How could he, as a victor in political struggles, be willing to lose to Gao Gong in terms of political performance?
This is urgent!
But Zhang Juzheng may have forgotten that running a big country is like cooking small dishes.
When cooking fresh food, if you use too much force, it will become rotten; if you use too much heat, it will become mushy!
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic has always not advocated the use of strong medicine during the Long-Wan period. He believes that reforms at this time can only be gentle and tonic, and strive to spend thirty to fifty years to gradually improve the "physique" of the Ming Dynasty and restore it to vitality. This
The idea is similar to that of Emperor Taizong of the Red Dynasty who asked to put aside arguments and focus on economics.
The economy is like a person's physical condition. When faced with sudden weather changes, a person with a good physical condition can ignore it because his immunity is strong and he will not get sick at all. But another person with a weak physical condition may be affected by it.
Therefore, if you catch a cold, you may have a fever, and if you have a fever, you may get complications. If there are too many complications, you may die directly.
The difference is so huge.
In the history of Ming Dynasty, the natural disasters of the Little Ice Age were similar to the change of weather and cold weather. If Ming Dynasty had good health, there would actually be many solutions. However, Daming's health status at this time was already very poor, and Zhang Juzheng's few untimely doses
Not only did the weak nature of the body fail to be strengthened by the strong medicine, but it also overdrawn a lot of vitality, so the result was doomed: complications occurred one after another, and in the end, the disease could only be treated without any treatment.
Unless it is already the Chongzhen period and the situation we are facing is that Liaodong has been completely lost, and even the city of Beijing has been invaded by troops from time to time, or it is even like the situation in Nanming, where only half of the country is left to survive and the rule is in jeopardy, then we can consider taking a strong medicine.
Simply fight fire with fire and fight against the odds, and maybe you will be able to survive and become a new person.
So in the final analysis, Gao Pragmatic needs to observe whether Fan Shouji will be an enemy or a friend in the future.