The highly respected former first assistant Xu Huating actually begged Gao Gong to let him go?

Xu Huating confessed? This news really surprised everyone present - except for Gao Pragmatic.

It stands to reason that Xu Jie's family has been in power for many years and has a rich family, even if he later forced him to retreat from the high arch with his words, and he was too indulgent with his words, which caused Emperor Longqing to dislike him very much, but after all, he still belongs to the glorious Zhishi, retired and returned, traveled leisurely in the forest, and teased his grandson, so comfortable.

However, no one expected that in June of the third year of Longqing, the arrival of Hai Rui, the new governor of Yingtian, shattered this beautiful and comfortable feeling at once. The power of Haigang Peak belongs to the nuclear bomb level in the Ming officialdom, which everyone is aware of, but in fact, in the rectification of various affairs within his jurisdiction, the biggest and most severe stroke is the clean-up of land ownership, and this is the most harmful action to Xu Jie's interests.

What did Hai Jui do? Oh, Hai Rui said: Huating Gong, your family's field must be returned at least half.

How many fields does the Xu family have? I'm afraid only the Xu family knows this.

But in fact, most of Xu Jie's protégés and former officials know about Xu Jie's huge family property, and they also know where these family properties come from, but there are many people who do this kind of thing, and sometimes it even becomes an unspoken rule. So these upright gentlemen said one after another: The Xu family's family business is painstakingly managed by their own family, and it is a legitimate legal property, not the product of bribery or extortion. But this is not enough, it is too passive, so it is also said that Hai Rui is sloppy in handling the case, and blindly ordered Xu Jie's "more than half of the production" before he found out how much land he had, which was a major mistake. What's more, he even claimed conclusively that according to research, Xu Jie's actual land output was only 30,000 mu, not the legendary 180,000, 240,000 or 450,000 mu.

Well, if that's the case, according to the actual situation of the Ming Dynasty, a Zhishi Shoufu has only 30,000 acres of land for many years, so of course it can't be regarded as greedy, not only not greedy, but even honest - what, you said that Gao Gong has less than 3,000 acres of land? Of course, it was because the high arch was abnormal, and the entire six brothers of the Gao family (actually five people, one died early) added up to more than 10,000 acres of land in Xinzheng and the surrounding areas. As for saying that the Gao family has been an official since Gao Gong's grandfather Gao Kui, especially his father Gao Shangxian is Zhengde Gengwu Ke Xie Yuan, Zhengde Ding Chou Ke Jinshi, who once made Guanglu Siqing and has been an official for more than 20 years, these old things, everyone ignores them.

In fact, when Xu Jie was in the phase, nearly half of Songjiang's tax revenue went into his private pocket, and he eventually became a huge rich, what is the means? It turned out that after the local tax was collected, it first had to go through the Xu Mansion (I think it was because the Xu family had a large industry and occupied the main body of local taxes), and the taxes submitted by the local officials to the capital were actually directly raised from the Xu Mansion. And Xu Jie was skillful here, counting seven baht silver as one or two silver, and eating the difference himself, "Sinong can't distinguish it." - Is it impossible to distinguish, or is it afraid of the prestige of the current dynasty and dare not distinguish it? There's no way to know this. Anyway, this statement comes from Yu Shenxing's officialdom memoir "Gushan Bichen", and Yu Shenxing is said to be Zhang Juzheng's protégé, that is, the grandson of Xu Jie's disciples.

In short, the children of the Xu Mansion use dedication, trickery, transfer, flying, sprinkling, false hanging, and sending the village...... It is an indisputable fact that they wantonly embezzle state-owned assets and exploit the people in the townships and seize the farms and houses on which others rely for their livelihoods. And whether Xu Jie, as the head of the family, 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 is certain is that Hai Ruishi's understanding of Xu Jie, apparently tends to start from a negative point of view, and is dissatisfied with Xu Jie's greed. There is another thing here: when Hai Rui first took office, he once raised donations from local rich people because of the famine in Wuzhong, and under the deterrence of Hai Qingtian's prestige, the local rich still had to give face, for example, a wealthy official and businessman in Liyang directly donated 30,000 taels of silver, and Hai Rui went to Huating County to raise money, and Xu Jie, in desperation, reluctantly took out a few thousand taels of silver to deal with him - this is probably because Hai Rui himself was recommended by Xu Jie.

At that time, there were thousands of named family members in Xu's house, and Hai Rui suggested that Xu Jie's fake household registration be cut off, so that they could not continue to use the momentum to do evil, but Xu Jie actually expressed embarrassment and did not agree. These two incidents probably left a rather bad impression on Hai Rui, and even affected his attitude towards the Xu Mansion later. In addition, Xu Jie's brother Xu Zhi's bad deeds of killing the people were exposed by the villagers, and with Hai Rui's temper, it is impossible for him not to be angry.

Hai Ruiqi is known all over the world, fair-hearted and straightforward, and does not remember the old favor when dealing with Xu's related land lawsuits, only relying on the law (refer to the anti-surrender clause in the "Ming Law"), and even rejected the intercession of Li Chunfang and others, the first assistant at that time, which has been passed down through the ages, but because it touches on the interests of the wealthy family too deeply, it has been discussed by the times, and has been maliciously attacked by public opinion in the court.

However, just as Xu Jie and Hai Rui were at a stalemate over the issue of returning the land, another big bad news came to Xu Jie: on December 22 of that year, the emperor issued an edict to summon Gao Gong to return to the cabinet. Gao Gong was ordered to leave for Beijing immediately.

Gao Shipra, who accompanied Gao Gong all the way back to Beijing, of course knew the ferocity of Gao Gelao's return to Beijing this time, not only was the official reinstated, but also the cardinal of the heavenly officials in charge of the ministry, which shows that the emperor trusted him as before.

Gao Gong is a wealthy minister of the Ming generation, and Emperor Longqing can even be described as "named monarch and minister, like father and son". For the hidden loss of state-owned assets, Gao Gong has always hated it, so on the issue of rectifying the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River, Gao Gong and Hai Rui's basic position is completely consistent. However, Gao Gong himself also knew that because of his deep grudge with Xu Jie, if he supported Hai Rui, it would inevitably cause public opinion to criticize him for taking government for personal gain and communiqué for personal vendettas, which was also what Gao Pragmatic had previously advised him to avoid. Therefore, Gao Gong has many trade-offs in dealing with this matter, and does not support Hai Rui.

At this time, Yanlu's impeachment of Hai Rui became more and more intense, and the ugliest of them was Dai Fengxiang's dismissal in February. It is said that Hai Jui is greedy for personal fame and fortune, causing trouble to the law and discipline, and is completely out of the way of becoming an official. Allowing Diao people to arbitrarily sue the squires and unreasonably deprive others of their legal property, resulting in the folk rumor that "it is better to plant fertile fields than to sue for thinness". He also said that Hai Jui's other policies also had many drawbacks, and there were even crimes of "colluding with the Japanese invaders", "capturing the city", and "robbing the warehouse and cutting off the customs", resulting in "the luggage being blocked and the fireworks being cut off".

Well, this omission can be described as an exemplary classic of groundless rumors and slanderers - anyway, I'm a speech official, and I've heard about it.

However, what kind of person is Xu Jie, he himself has been in the cabinet for nearly 20 years, and he knows the trust of Gao Gong today, where will he pin his real hopes on the false accusations of the officials-besides, what kind of person Hai Gangfeng is, who in the whole world still doesn't know?

His only purpose in doing this is just to create such a trend, so that the emperor or simply let the Gao Gong faction see, even if I Xu is not in the center, there are still countless people who are willing to stand on my side, if you want to continue to make trouble, then let's make trouble slowly, if it goes on endlessly, although my reputation will be damaged, but you must not be able to stand it!

But Mingli is one thing, but in fact, how can Xu Jie not know the real situation at the moment? Behind Gao Gong is the emperor's unwavering support, his position in the cabinet has nothing to do with the name of the first assistant, the second assistant or the group of assistants, if a powerful cabinet scholar really has the iron heart to start a war with him, the outdated first assistant who has returned to the field, the final victor does not need to doubt at all. It's amazing, it's just that someone behind his back is said to be small-minded, coercive revenge, etc.-less than a piece of meat for someone who is taller?

Indispensable!

In the end, it was his Xu family who was really unlucky!

With Xu Jie's cunning and forbearance skills, there is actually only one choice left at this time: bow to Gao Gong and admit it.

So, there was this handwritten letter that Gao Gong received.

All the disciples looked at each other, and they were a little unsure of the teacher's appearance for a while. In the end, Han Ji couldn't help it first, bowed to Gao Gong, and said: "Master, Xu Huating treated you like that back then, now that his own ugly things have been exposed, he can't blame others!" Besides, the person in Haigang Peak is famous for only admitting death, and no one can persuade him, so why should we bother ourselves to get involved? It's better to let Hai Gangfeng check it out. ”

Gao pragmatic glanced at Han Ji quietly, and when he saw that he had an eager look on his face, he couldn't help but sigh slightly.

He knew that Han Ji was among the protégés of Gao Gong, and he had a higher ranking on the gold list at the beginning, but now the official position fell behind Song Zhihan, whose grades were not as good as his own, of course he was anxious, and now that Xu Jie's performance was soft, he naturally had a big handle to grasp, and of course he wanted to be beaten to death with a stick - beating Xu Jie, he would definitely not be beating him alone, how many protégés were behind Xu Jie? Aren't some of these people implicated? How many places will be vacated inside and outside the court after the defeat? Besides, once the prime minister decides to fight, then he, as one of the science and road officials, will definitely be able to make a big effort, so after the matter is over, he will be rewarded for his meritorious deeds, can't he Han someone move his position up?