Xu Huating, the highly respected former chief minister, actually begged Gao Gong to let him go?
Did Xu Huating give in? This news really shocked everyone present - except Gao Pragmatic.
The incident between Hai Rui and Xu Jie is a long story. It stands to reason that Xu Jie has been in power for many years and has a rich family. Even though he later forced Gao Gong to retreat with his words, he was too indulgent in his words, which led to Emperor Longqing's disapproval of him.
I am very unhappy, but after all, it is still an honorable official career. After retirement, I can return to my hometown, roam in the forest, and entertain my grandchildren. It is very pleasant.
However, no one expected that in June of the third year of Longqing, the arrival of the new governor of Yingtian, Hai Rui, suddenly shattered this beautiful and comfortable life. The power of Hai Gangfeng was at the level of a nuclear bomb in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty. This
Everyone knows it, but in fact, among the rectifications of various affairs within his jurisdiction, the largest and most severe one was the cleanup of land ownership, which was the most harmful to Xu Jie's interests.
an action.
What did Hai Rui do? Oh, Hai Rui said: Mr. Huating, at least half of your family’s land must be withdrawn.
How much land does the Xu family have? I'm afraid only the Xu family knows this.
But in fact, most of Xu Jie's disciples and former officials knew very well about Xu Jie's huge fortune and where it came from. However, with more people doing this kind of thing, sometimes it would even become
It is an unspoken rule. So these honest gentlemen all said: The Xu family's family business was painstakingly managed by themselves. It is a legitimate and legal property and is not the product of bribery or extortion. But saying this is not enough, it is too much.
Being passive, they also claimed that Hai Rui was careless in handling the case. He blindly ordered Xu Jie to "retire more than half of his property" before he could find out how much land he owned. This was a major mistake. What's more, he even claimed with certainty that according to the
Research shows that Xujie’s actual farmland is only 30,000 acres, not the legendary 180,000, 240,000 or 4.5 million acres.
Well, if that's the case, according to the actual situation of the Ming Dynasty, if a chief minister who has been an official for many years has only 30,000 acres of land, then of course it cannot be regarded as greedy. Not only is he not greedy, he can even be regarded as incorruptible - what, you say
Gao Gong only has less than 3,000 acres of farmland? That is of course because Gao Gong is abnormal. Besides, the entire six Gao family brothers (actually five of them, one died young) have more than 10,000 acres of farmland in Xinzheng and surrounding areas.
As for the Gao family, they have been officials since Gao Gong's grandfather Gao Kui, especially his father Gao Shangxian, who was the Gengwu Branch of Zhengde and the Yuan Dynasty, and the Dingchou Branch of Zhengde. He was the minister of Guanglu Temple and served as an official for more than 20 years.
, everyone ignored it.
In fact, when Xu Jie was in aspect, nearly half of Songjiang's tax revenue went into private pockets, and he eventually became a wealthy party. What was the method? It turns out that after local taxes are collected, they first have to go through the Xu Mansion (presumably because the Xu family has a large property and occupies a large area
The main body of local taxation), the taxes submitted by local officials to the capital were actually raised directly from the Xu Mansion. Xu Jie cleverly used seven bahts of silver as one or two silvers, and ate the difference himself, "
"Sinong can't tell the difference." - Is it because he can't tell the difference, or is he afraid of the power of the powerful people in the dynasty? There's no way of knowing. Anyway, this statement comes from Yu Shenxing's official memoir "Gu Shan Bi Chen",
Yu Shenxing is said to be a disciple of Zhang Juzheng, that is, a grandson of Xu Jie's disciple.
In short, the children of the Xu family used various fraudulent means such as offering, sending, moving, tricking, spreading, hanging, sending to the village, etc., to embezzle state-owned assets, exploit the people in the countryside, and seize the fields that others relied on to make a living.
, is an indisputable fact. As the head of the family, whether Xu Jie has always been kept in the dark, or whether he knows it and acquiesces or even secretly supports it, only Xu Jie himself knows.
The only thing that can be determined is that Hai Ruishi's understanding of Xu Jie was obviously from a negative perspective, and he was dissatisfied with Xu Jie's greed and stinginess. There is another thing here: when Hai Rui first took office, he suffered from famine in Wuzhong
When raising donations from local wealthy people, under the shock of Hai Qingtian's reputation, the local wealthy people still had to give face. For example, a wealthy official and businessman in Liyang directly donated 30,000 taels of silver, while Hai Rui went to Huating County to raise funds, and Xu Jie was in
In desperation, he reluctantly spent several thousand taels of silver to deal with him - this was probably because Hai Rui himself had been recommended by Xu Jie before.
At that time, the Xu Mansion had thousands of registered family members and was ostentatious. Hai Rui suggested that Xu Jie remove those fake household registrations so that they could no longer use their reputation to do evil. Unexpectedly, Xu Jie expressed embarrassment and refused to agree. These two things,
It probably left a very bad impression on Hai Rui, which even affected his later attitude in dealing with affairs in the Xu Mansion. In addition, Xu Jie's brother Xu Zhi's misdeeds of harming the people were exposed by the villagers. With Hai Rui's temper, he could not help but
It is impossible to be angry.
Hai Rui was known to the world as an honest and upright person. When handling the land and land lawsuits related to the Xu family, he did not remember old grudges and only relied on the law (refer to the anti-donation clause in "Ming Code"), and even dismissed the chief minister at that time.
The plea of Li Chunfang and others has been passed down as a legend through the ages, but because it deeply touched the interests of the wealthy family, it was discussed in the public opinion and was often maliciously attacked by public opinion in the court.
However, just when Xu Jie and Hai Rui were in a stalemate over the issue of returning their fields, another piece of bad news for Xu Jie came: on December 22 of that year, the emperor issued an order to summon Gao Gong to return to the cabinet.
Gao Gong obeyed the order and immediately set off for Beijing to take up his post.
Gao Pingshi, who accompanied Gao Gong all the way back to Beijing, certainly knew that Gao Ge Lao's return to Beijing was so fierce. Not only was he reinstated, but he was also the cardinal in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which shows that the emperor still trusted him as before.
Gao Gong was an expert in financial management in the Ming Dynasty. He and Emperor Longqing could even be described as "a monarch and a minister, with the same affection as father and son." Gao Gong had always hated the hidden loss of state-owned assets, so when it came to rectifying the wealthy families in Jiangnan, he
The basic positions of Gao Gong and Hai Rui are completely consistent. However, Gao Gong himself also knows that due to his previous deep grievances with Xu Jie, if he fully supports Hai Rui, public opinion will inevitably arouse criticism of him for using private interests to manage politics and avenging private revenge. This is also
Gao Pangshi had previously urged him to avoid it. Therefore, Gao Gong dealt with the matter in many compromises and did not fully support Hai Rui.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! At this time, the impeachment of Hai Rui became more and more intense. The most ugly one was the accusation of Li Ke against Dai Fengxiang in February.
Shangshu. Shu said that Hai Rui was greedy for personal fame and wealth, disrupted the law and discipline, and was completely unqualified for being an official. He allowed unruly people to sue the squires arbitrarily and unreasonably deprived others of their legitimate property, which led to the popular saying among the people that "it is better to sue for thinning than to plant fat fields."
It is also said that Hai Rui's other policies also had many shortcomings, including crimes such as "colluding with Japanese pirates", "capture cities", "robbery treasuries and cut off passes", leading to "baggage blockage, fireworks cut off", and so on.
Well, this statement can be said to be based on groundless rumors and a classic example for those who spread rumors and slanders - after all, I am an official, and I only report things based on what I have heard.
However, what kind of person is Xu Jie? He has served in the cabinet for nearly twenty years, and he is well aware of the trust placed in Gao Gong. How could he place his real hope on false accusations from officials?
Besides, who in the world doesn’t know what kind of person Haigang Feng is?
His only purpose in doing this is to create such a trend that the emperor or simply let the Gao Gong faction see that even if I, Xu, are no longer in the center, there are still countless people willing to stand on my side. If you
If we want to continue to make trouble, then let's make trouble slowly. If the trouble continues endlessly, my reputation will be damaged, but you will not be able to suffer much!
But it's one thing to show off one's horses, but in fact Xu Jie doesn't know the real situation at hand? Behind Gao Gong is the unswerving support of the emperor, and his position in the cabinet has nothing to do with the first assistant, second assistant or group assistant.
With his name, if a powerful cabinet bachelor is really determined to start a war with him, a has-been chief minister who has retired from office, there is no need to doubt the final winner. It's amazing, but he is said to be narrow-minded and selfish behind his back.
Revenge or something like that - losing a piece of flesh to someone better than him?
Indispensable!
In the end, it was the Xu family that was truly unlucky!
With Xu Jie's cunning and forbearance skills, there was actually only one choice left at this time: bow to Gao Gong and give in.
Thus, there was this handwritten letter that Gao Gong received.
All the disciples looked at each other, and for a moment they were a little unsure about their master. In the end, Han Ji couldn't help it, bowed his hands to Gao Gong, and said: "Master, Xu Huating treated you like that back then, now that he
If your own scandal is exposed, you can't blame others! Besides, Haigangfeng is famous for only accepting death, and no one can persuade him. Why should we ask for trouble and get involved? It's better to let Haigangfeng investigate.
Already."
Gao Pingshi quietly looked at Han Ji and saw the eager look on his face, and couldn't help but sigh slightly in his heart.
He knew that among Gao Gong's disciples, Han Ji was originally ranked higher on the gold list, but now his official position fell behind Song Zhihan, who was not as good as him. Of course, he was worried. Now that Xu Jie wanted to give in, he naturally had a lot of leverage.
But if you catch him, of course you want to beat him to death with a stick - Xu Jie will definitely not be beaten to death. How many disciples and former officials are behind Xu Jie? Are there any of these people who are implicated? After he was beaten, the whole court was inside and outside.
How many positions should be freed outside? Moreover, once the master decides to start a fight, then as one of the scientific and technical officials, he will definitely be able to contribute a lot. After this is done, rewards will be given based on merit. Couldn't someone like him, Han, move up a position?
