Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 509: The Censorate to be greatly changed
The so-called Zhejiang Party is, of course, a political group composed mainly of people from Zhejiang. However, not all officials from Zhejiang are members of the Zhejiang Party, and not all members of the Zhejiang Party are from Zhejiang.
The former is represented by Wen Tiren, who was from Wucheng but was not a member of the Zhejiang Party. The latter is represented by Li Dai, who was just promoted to one of the three assistants of the cabinet.
He was from Henan, but as a close confidant of Shen Yikuan, the early leader of the Zhejiang Party, he was an undoubted general of the Zhejiang Party.
Many years ago, Li Dai, under the instruction of Shen Yiguan, used the imperial examination to attack the Donglin Party. After being strongly counterattacked by the Donglin Party, he had no choice but to retire. After resting at home for many years, he was reappointed as the Minister of Personnel in Nanjing: this position had nothing to do except evaluating the idle officials in Nanjing every six years. It was a purely sinecure.
He originally thought that this was the end of his life: he was already over 60 years old, and after a few more years he would retire. But who knew that a pie would fall from the sky, and the emperor would directly let him join the cabinet!
As an experienced bureaucrat, he understood immediately after a quick thought: the emperor was playing imperial tricks.
There is no doubt that after this cabinet adjustment, the Imperial Teacher Party has already occupied an absolute advantage in the court. Although the Imperial Teacher Party will naturally stand with the emperor because of their origins, as a monarch, he cannot accept that there is only one party in the court. Appropriately introducing officials from other parties or non-Imperial Teacher Party into the court is a choice that a qualified emperor must make.
After realizing this, Li Dai immediately set out from Nanjing without any reservation and went directly to Ningbo Prefecture in Zhejiang.
Here is the tomb of Shen Yikuan, the former leader of the Zhejiang Party. Li Dai's move is to publicly reveal his identity: Although I am from Henan, I am a member of the Zhejiang Party, and I want to take over Shen Yikuan's mantle!
"Greetings, Brother Tongda."
"Hahaha, after seeing the report in Jinling Daily, I decided to go to my brothers' meeting to pay respect to my father."
"My dear brother, you are so perceptive. Alas, Duke Wen Gong was too cautious back then."
"Well, that happened decades ago. There's no need to talk about it anymore."
The so-called wise and virtuous brother is Shen Yiguan's eldest son Shen Taihong. He was also very talented. If he developed normally, he might not be able to guarantee a first-class Jinshi, but he would definitely have no problem getting a second-class Jinshi. But the bad thing was that when Shen Yiguan became the prime minister, he was still just a juren.
In order to avoid being attacked by political enemies when Shen Taihong passed the imperial examination in the future, Shen Yiguan directly asked for a position as Shangbao Cheng (a position responsible for managing the emperor's seals): According to the practice of the Ming Dynasty officialdom, scholars and juren could take the imperial examination indefinitely before obtaining an official position in the court. Once they had an official position, they could no longer take the imperial examination. And officials who were not imperial scholars, except for anomalies like Hai Rui, generally speaking, would not break through the fifth rank until they died.
Therefore, Shen Taihong's career was completely ruined. After keeping the imperial seal for Wanli for several years, he had no choice but to return home in disgrace.
After accompanying Li Dai to complete the worship at Shen Yikuan's tomb, the two went down the mountain and returned to the Shen family's ancestral home, where the Shen family's servants prepared a delicious meal.
"Congratulations, brother. You will make great achievements when you go to Beijing to join the cabinet."
"Ah." Li Dai gulped down the wine in his cup and said, "My dear brother, you should know that the imperial tutor's party is now in power. If I go, I will just be a decoration. When the time comes, my colleagues will hinder me and the emperor will not trust me. This is very uncomfortable."
"Haha." As the son of a former Zhejiang Party leader, Shen Taihong had good insight. He knew that Li Dai was being hypocritical, but as someone whose family was too involved with the Zhejiang Party, Shen Taihong had to tolerate the hypocrisy and try to speak more proactively.
"In my opinion, although the Imperial Tutor Party is a party, it is not monolithic. People like the Prime Minister may not be liked by Sun Kaiyang and Xiong Feibai. And a nerd like Zhang Junyi may not be loved by a practical person like Yuan Keli..."
"My dear brother, what you said is very true. However, these people have been with the emperor for 16 or 17 years. There may be some internal conflicts, but if they really encounter external enemies, they will quickly unite as one." After picking up the wine pot and pouring wine for Shen Taihong, Li Dai said, "Everyone understands that this time the emperor appointed an old man like me to establish an opposition party to the Emperor's Party. This party does not need to be too powerful, but it must restrict and clamp down on the Emperor's Party. It must also stand up when necessary and clean up the mess if the Emperor's Party does something bad. Therefore, this requires this party to have some specific ability to do things."
"I understand what you mean, brother." Shen Taihong cooperated and took out a small book from his sleeve. "This is the list of relevant personnel written by my father before he died. Now I will give it to you."
"Thank you!" Didn't he come all this way just to get the list in the hands of the former party leader? With this, he could barely gather the Zhejiang Party together again. Well, how about gradually absorbing Henan people in the future, and slowly cultivating the Henan Party on the corpse of the Zhejiang Party?
"Brother, you are not even fifty yet, right? Do you want to work again? I have seen that the emperor has never been picky about the types of people he employs. What's wrong with being a juren? Cao Sanxi is still a commoner !" - Since you gave me this list so readily, do you have any requests of your own? Do you want to be an official again?
"Hahaha~" Waving his hands, Shen Taihong rejected Li Dai's advances very straightforwardly: "Nowadays, the tide of the times has risen, and I have decided to devote myself to the business. My Shen family now owns two salt mines, a small coal mine, three silk mills, and a shipping company... I am busy with these things every day, so how can I have the energy to return to the court. Moreover..."
"and?"
"Brother, don't you think it's strange that the emperor made this adjustment by sending someone as hot-tempered as Xiong Tingbi to the Ministry of Justice, and instead letting Zhao Yan, who is not a member of the imperial tutor party, take charge of the Censorate?"
"Strange? What's so strange about that? Although the Metropolitan Censorate is not as powerful as before, it is still responsible for investigating and impeaching officials. The Imperial Tutor Party is in power, so they can't hand over the supervision to the Imperial Tutor Party, right?"
"Brother, your analysis is good, but I think the emperor has a hidden agenda in sending an old revolutionary like Zhao Yan to the Censorate. In the future, I'm afraid it will become increasingly difficult to be an official, so I won't get involved in this mess."
…
Shen Yikuan, who had been the Prime Minister for so many years, had raised a really good son. While Shen Taihong and Li Dai were negotiating, Zhao Yan, who had hurried back from Huaibei, was reporting to Zhu Youdong in the Qianqing Palace in Beijing.
According to the law that the economic base determines the superstructure, since the end of the Tang Dynasty, Shaanxi's ecological degradation has led to the shift of China's political and economic centers to the east and south. As a result, starting from the Song Dynasty, Shaanxi's glory finally disappeared.
The decline in political and economic status has caused the people's livelihood in Shaanxi to gradually lag behind the eastern and southern provinces. As a result, the proportion of scholars in Shaanxi is much lower than that of Zhejiang and Nanzhili, which are strong provinces in the imperial examination. Without a large number of scholars, there are naturally very few Shanxi Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty's joint examination every three years. Even if they pass the Jinshi, the ranking is not very good, and they are often not eligible to be selected as Shujishi.
This is normal. It is difficult for a group to continue its glory without a base to guarantee it.
In short, because of the backward economy, there has never been a "Qin Party" in the court of the Ming Dynasty. Officials from Shaanxi are born "lonely ministers" to the emperor.
As for Zhao Yan, he was from Yan'an, Shaanxi. After he passed the imperial examination in 1587, he spent more than 30 years in the political arena, all in the border areas: wherever there was a rebellion, he was sent there to put out the fire, and he was indeed good at putting out fires.
Over the past thirty years, although his official position has gradually risen to the third rank, the promotion speed is really too slow compared to his hard work.
"Your Majesty, when I received the notice from the court, I was shocked. Since I entered the officialdom, I have basically been involved in military affairs. I have held the title of Imperial Censor, but I have never really worked as one. Moreover, the Wenxiang Sect is about to rebel, and I have been watching them for so long, and now I suddenly give up..."
"Hahaha, Zhao Qing is an honest man. Come, sit down first. Fang Zhenghua, serve the tea."
After Zhao Yan sat down, Zhu Youdong said, "Mr. Zhao, don't worry about the Wenxiang Sect. Even if there are hundreds of thousands of these chickens and dogs rebelling, they can still be defeated in one go."
"I am not worried about winning or losing. I am just afraid that some officers will wantonly kill people for military merit. Your Majesty, except for the main culprits, the rest of these believers are ignorant people. There is really no need to..."
"Hey." He stretched out a hand to stop Zhao Yan from speaking: "Mr. Zhao, my new army never rewards merits based on the number of heads, so you can rest assured on this point."
"Oh, that's good. Then, Your Majesty, can I take this job in the Censorate? I have no disrespect for Your Majesty , but with my personality, I really can't be a censor."
"Hahaha, what kind of personality is Zhao Qing?"
"Your Majesty...I am a practical person. I have always looked down upon those censors who only nitpick and find fault all kinds of small faults of those who do things. This, this actually wants me to be the chief censor. Your Majesty..."
"Hahaha, Zhao Qing, this time I saw that you only know how to get things done, so I asked you to reform the Censorate!"
