Today is the sixteenth day of the first month of the first year of Longqing. For the government government mén, it is also the real beginning of the new year. On this day of the year, the chief and deputy officials of the 18th government will gather in the Wenyuan Pavilion to receive the performance appraisal of the previous year from the various ministries, and the cabinet will hold a meeting to summarize the past year. Looking forward to the new year, every year, no exception.

Just over halfway through, the cabinet was already moving in the room, the red robe was dazzling, and the high-ranking officials in Beijing had already arrived. At such a high-level meeting, the cabinet ministers did not dare to hold it, so they came to the court room early to talk to the ministers about family life, cheering feelings, talking and laughing, and it was very lively The chūn festival has passed, but the adults seem to be still immersed in the festive atmosphere. Give them a pick-me-up. It was also one of the intentions of this meeting.

Before you know it, it's past time. Xu Ge Lao and Yang Bo did not appear for a long time, which was almost impossible for Yuan Weng, who had always been punctual, and everyone couldn't help but speculate, not knowing what happened.

After waiting for a while, just when the adults couldn't help but send someone to see what was going on, they finally heard heavy footsteps sounding from the mouth of the room.

The adults said, "It's finally here," and they all quickly shut up. is sitting in danger and waiting for Yuan Weng's drive. However, the only ones who appeared in front of them were the second assistant Li Chūn Fang and the heavenly official Yang Bo. Both of them are very unsightly, and it is obvious that something big has happened.

The two adults stood still in front of everyone, and Li Chūnfang coughed lightly and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, today's meeting is presided over by this official and the Duke of Puzhou, and Yuan Weng will not participate. ”

"Why?" Zhao Zhenji immediately said loudly: "It's okay to see Yuan Weng in the morning." ”

"Because," Li Chūn Fang said, "I just received it." A stamped from the celebrant. He said in a slow and heavy tone: "It was Hu Kezuo who gave Zhang Qi in the matter and impeached the first assistant of the cabinet, and the General Administration Department has copied it to all the officials, and you can see it when you go back." ”

"This, this ......" Chao Fang was in an uproar, and the officials never imagined that "the first news of the beginning of this year" turned out to be that Shoufu was impeached by the officials!

"Quiet." Yang Bo's loud voice sounded, and he calmed everyone down and said, "Isn't it just an impeachment?" The old man has hundreds of books on his back, doesn't he have any? Put all your heart in your stomach, Yuanfu is just responding to the situation as usual, can the emperor keep it then? And use your blind heart. ”

He was right, and there was a full house. Which one hasn't been involved? Which hasn't been bounced? Even Li Chūnfang, who is known as an honest man, has been impeached more than ten times. Now that Yuan Weng has been impeached, it really doesn't matter a big deal.

However, everyone is still deeply uneasy, they have all climbed to the current high position after countless political struggles, how can they not have the ability to know the elegance of listening to the strings and songs, and knowing the autumn solstice by watching a leaf? They can all feel that this seemingly ordinary impeachment is actually anything but unusual...... It stands to reason that this kind of impeachment of Shousuke, if there is no real evidence, has always been left in the middle and will not be made public. Not to mention. This is the first day of the new year, the common people are doing business, and they are talking about a good fortune, why does the emperor want to find this bad luck?

"If you don't feel at ease", seeing that everyone's expressions were still worried. Yang Bo said again: "Then we will write our own books when we go back to refute the absurd words of Zhang Qi!" ”

"Yes" Zhang Qi. The means are despicable, and the intentions are vicious! Immediately, an official chimed in: "We can't let him blind the Holy Hearing and wronged Shousuke!" "Before I saw what Zhang Qi's bullet stamped looked like, this one first buttoned him such a big hat" but attracted a chorus.

So there was no need to hold this regular meeting, all the adults were in high spirits, and they were ready to go back to the government to write a chapter to speak for the first assistant, lest they fall behind others and make Xu Ge think that he had two hearts.

一凵一"

The first auxiliary value is in the room.

Xu Jie leaned quietly on the recliner, and the sunlight came in through the window lattice, "The light in the room is very good, but his whole person is buried in the shadow, and he can't see the expression on his face clearly." I could only see him holding a notebook in his hand, but he didn't look at it, "just being there and being still."

This is the first bullet of the year, and the damage and blow to Xu Ge Lao are far more than the princes in the court expected. Because Xu Jie knew very well that if the emperor still had a little love for himself. Even if you don't choose to keep this piece in the middle, you should at least ventilate with yourself first, right? This is the minimum respect for him as a prime minister.

However, the emperor used this rude way to send this bullet to the court, which was tantamount to giving him a resounding slap in the face. This time, after passing through a chūn section, it was easy to mention the jīng spirit. All of a sudden, it hit the bottom, but it also woke Xu Jie up completely.

Once the illusion of the emperor was shattered. Xu Jie immediately walked out of the misunderstanding of being cited yòu, and re-watched the situation of the DPRK. He knew that the reason why he had fallen to this point was because the Hu Zongxian case at the end of last year was an important reason. But it's not the root cause. If you really want to go back to the roots. This is actually due to the sequelae of his battle with Gao Gong. At the time, he seemed to have won a big victory, but in fact he lost both. Because with the ouster of Gao Gong, Longqing's dissatisfaction with him is also brewing.

Hit that after that. His life was not so easy. The original obedient emperor. Now everything has to be fought for. But he thinks he has the big picture. Every time I unceremoniously push back. As a result, the emperor became more and more stiff, and the emperor's dissatisfaction with him gradually fermented, and then after the political cháo at the end of last year. The misunderstanding between the two sides deepened. The contradiction has also reached its peak!

It's ridiculous that he was paralyzed and careless because of the emperor's consistent weakness, and he believed the words of eunuchs such as Chen Hong and Feng Bao, but instead of paying attention to easing the relationship with the emperor, he also asked people to put pressure on the emperor. The clay figure still has three points of soil, and Longqing is also an emperor, so of course he will be completely enraged. This Mingfa is a manifestation of the emperor's dissatisfaction.

After figuring out the cause and effect, Xu Jie felt very resentful! He read Zhang Qi's bullet chapters one by one, and the emperor actually listened to this kind of slanderous rumors. How could he not be bored, helpless, and even angry?

Zhang Qi said that he served Jiajing and attached Yan Song, which Xu Jie could not deny. It is true that he has written Qingzi for a long time, but that is only a means to cover up his dislike of metaphysical cultivation and to protect his position; He also catered to Jiajing's proposal to build the Wanshou Palace in his later years" and ordered his son Xu Xianjian Dao, but the county was mainly to bend Yan Song's momentum and strive for Yan Song's initiative: he did marry Sun NV to Yan Song's grandson as a concubine, and he was respectful to Yan Song, but it was just perfunctory and unrequited. In that era when the strict party was arrogant and killed. As a second assistant, if you don't do this, "I'm afraid that I would have been harmed by Yan Song's father and son a long time ago, how can there be a person who preserves justice, and the last move is possible for Yan to succeed?"

Zhang Qi is also a person who came from the Jiajing period, and Longqing was also silent during that period of tyrannical imperial power and tigers and wolves, how can you not know the complexity and sinister situation at that time? And what minister did not survive by taking the marginal route like himself?

Now they want to attack themselves with it. How can you not let Xu Jie's teeth be cold?

But what chilled him the most was their denial of "Jiajing's Testament".

km said fairly that Xu Jie's greatest contribution in this life "is not to endure for many years, and to defeat Yan Song's party in one fell swoop." Rather, it made a great contribution to the smooth transition of the regime between Jialong, the recovery of the country's vitality, the cleaning up of people's hearts, and the laying of the foundation for grass reform, which no one can erase. You must know that under the long-term extremely selfish, absurd and tyrannical rule of Emperor Jiajing. At the time of his death, the imperial court was faced with a situation in which the state affairs were weak, the border defense was urgent, the people's livelihood was haggard, natural disasters were received, people's hearts were moved, and disasters spread all over the country.

Xu Jiezhi served as the first assistant. Witnessing the difficult times, but shouldering a heavy responsibility. If you want to turn the tide of the tide, you must turn the tide and clean up people's hearts, so that you can sort out the clues, and then make the right decisions. Seek to save the day. He knew very well that there was only one way to achieve this difficult goal. That is to use the "Jiajing Edict" to "openly express remorse and give a complete denial to his various absurd acts from his accession to the throne to his death, so as to announce that the absurd and tyrannical rule has come to an end, and the era of abandoning the old and drawing for the new has come!"

In doing so, it was absolutely considered from the perspective of the fundamental ruling interests of the Ming Dynasty. The first is to use the self-blame and correction of the first emperor "to restore the authority of the court and the emperor: the second is that the incumbent ministers in power can hold high the "Edict" and "take a series of measures immediately to carry out the last order of the first emperor" to remove the old and cloth the new anyway, and sweep away the absurdity of the Jiajing period in the name of Emperor Jiajing. In fact, this is also for the first emperor, the last deception of the world, making people feel as if he still had the heart to repent and the courage to blame himself in the moment before his death, so as to alleviate the resentment that prevailed in the hearts of his subjects and restore their confidence in the court and the emperor a little.

However, this kind of rudder reversal, which is almost a complete reversal of the case, requires a lot of risk and political courage. Because by doing so, not only did he offend the first emperor who had just breathed his last breath, but he was also bound to be guilty. All the civil and military ministers and scholars who catered to flattery and invited favor and power in the Jiajing Dynasty. It will even give the world the impression that he is ungrateful and slanders the emperor to protect himself.

But after Xu Jie's weighing, he still did it without hesitation, among them, of course, he whitewashed himself. The meaning of buying people's hearts, but the most important thing is to conform to the principles of heaven and the hearts of the people, and do the duty of an old minister and the prime minister of the two dynasties.

"One ......", "......", "one 、......", "......", "one 、......", "one 、......", "one 、......", "one...... One, one"......

But now, those people are attacking him with the "Edict", and it would be good to say that they don't know the truth. However, they all came from that era and deeply enjoyed the benefits brought by the "Edict...... Zhang Qi is the official and Long Qing is the emperor, which happens to be the two who benefit the most.

This kind of behavior of reversing black and white and scolding his mother while eating nǎi, how can it not make Xu Jie get angrier and angrier the more he thinks about it? If he didn't make a defense and refute it, he was afraid that he would be embarrassed and get sick.

The dignity of the Prime Minister is inviolable. So that day. Xu Jie wrote a long letter and presented it the next day, and Emperor Zhou also defended himself to the Manchu Dynasty.

Regarding the question of Emperor Qu Qiandi and the drafting of the "Edict". Xu Jie argued: "At the beginning, I didn't have the ability to admonish the first emperor, and I was not the only one who bent things. The original intention of the "Edict" was not to slander, but to save the hearts of the people of the first emperor, to establish kindness for the present, and to stabilize the court. , for the question of Jiāo with Yan Song, before Gong and then 倨. Xu Jie defended: Although Wei Chen and Yan Song were both auxiliary ministers, his position was higher than that of the minister, and he was older than the minister, how could the minister disobey what he did? But Wechen did not blindly obey, and for some of his misdeeds, Wechen had repeatedly advised and mediated from him. Later, Yan Song was defeated, which was the result of the impeachment of the imperial history, the public trial of the legal department, and the holy judgment of the first emperor, could it be caused by the attack of Weichen? As for saying that the minister and Yan Song are in-laws, but the ancients had a saying that the country was the most important thing and the righteousness killed their relatives. According to Zhang Qi's accusation, should Weichen ignore the righteousness of the monarch and ministers, and put the friendship of personal relatives and friends first? The minister does not think that this is the way of a gentleman. Regarding the problem of accusing him of ignoring side affairs, Xu Jie defended: "Only the prime minister in ancient times can manage the military and politics at the same time. By the time of the Song Dynasty, the prime minister could no longer participate in military affairs. And our dynasty removed the prime minister, set up six secretaries, and entrusted the military affairs to the military department. The role of the Cabinet is only to vote. Just as the duty of a Kodao official is only to advise. As a cabinet minister, Wechen abides by his own work.

As soon as the border matters are approved by the Ministry of War. Whether the middle walk is effective or not, the responsibility lies with the governor and other border ministers. It's not something that Wechen can do on his behalf. If it is played according to Zhang Qi, wouldn't the minister be acting on behalf of him. This is really incompatible with the duties of the ministers. Besides, the battle of the right guard last year was a great victory unseen in a hundred years, I don't know, where did the abandonment of side affairs come from? At the end of the debate, Xu Jie, in accordance with international practice, expressed his wish to beg for rest. The emperor did not approve it, and issued an order to comfort Xu Jie, asking him to work in peace.

At the same time, the ministers unfolded against Zhang Qi, who risked the world's disapproval. Written and punished. Even several ministers couldn't hold back and joined the ranks of impeaching Zhang Qi. At one time, there were more than 30 bullet stamps. Longqing issued an edict to severely reprimand Zhang Qi and transferred Zhang Qi out of the capital as a severe punishment.

However, the courtiers were still angry, and Yang Bo, the secretary of the ministry, played and dismissed Zhang Qi from his post. Yang Bo's recital is very important, and Zhang Qi seems to be unable to escape his fate.