For a person who loves to read history, history is not just a stereotypical narrative, it shows the success or failure of dynasties, but also pays more attention to countless historical figures with distinct personalities, and those real and vivid historical chapters are also deduced because of the appearance of these people one by one. Although there are many emperors and generals recorded in China's thousands of years of history, what supports each period of history is more of a small person and some of their extraordinary performances. Therefore, even though they did not have the immortal merit of breaking new ground and pacifying the world, nor did they have the outstanding contribution of saving the people from water and fire and saving the country from danger, they could still make their names immortal. Yang Jisheng of the Jiajing Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty is such a figure.
"The wind blows the shackles all over the city, and the clusters compete to see the foreign langs." This is the poem that Yang Jisheng drafted on the way to the court trial, which is not only a kind of sadness and self-encouragement, but also a portrayal of the real scene. When he dragged his battered body to a trial that was doomed to injustice, although he wore a heavy and sinful shackle, because of the hero's awe-inspiring spirit of righteousness and the quality of sacrificing his life for righteousness, he burst out of a noble personality, which attracted everyone to watch and complain about it. At such a time, there is no one who does not desire the miracle to happen, that justice will be manifested, that the "hero" can be immediately freed from the shackles and regain the freedom and respect of life.
However, it is a pity that the peak loop of "leaving people under the knife" is the ending of the main drama, which often only appears in film and television literary works. Because the real history is objective and cruel, and Yang Jisheng's opponent is Yan Song, who is also famous in history.
In 1548 (the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing), Yan Song slandered Xia Yan, the head of the cabinet who had promoted him, in a framed manner, causing this upright and outspoken cabinet minister to abandon the city. As soon as Xia Yan died, the cabinet status and power he possessed were naturally replaced by Yan Song, who had been coveted for a long time. At this time, Yan Song was already 63 years old, originally, because the average life expectancy of the ancients was very low, so he could enter the cabinet at such an "advanced age" and master the government for twenty years, which should really be regarded as a good old age version of inspirational themes. However, because of his infamous historical evaluation, the "late completion of the great instrument" here is interpreted as a traitor to the country, old and not dead.
What is even more troublesome is that he also has an assistant and think tank with equal means, wisdom and energy, that is, his son Yan Shifan. The father and son of the Yan clan are united in one heart, and the severity of the disaster to the country is by no means summed up by "turning the hand into a cloud and overturning the hand as a rain", so some people in the DPRK simply call the father and son "big minister" and "little minister". Therefore, when Shen Lian impeached the Yan father and son, he even described the Yan family as a disaster with "the greedy nature is anointed, and the foolish heart is stubbornly stubborn to the iron stone". It is a pity that Shen Lian's blunt advice was exchanged for the fate of being dozens of scepters and degraded to farming outside the country.
Shen Lian left the capital with a sense of loyalty and righteousness and unwillingness. Shortly thereafter, he was relegated for impeaching Qiu Luan and writing "Please Boycott Ma Shi Shu". Yang Jisheng, who regained his usefulness with the defeat of Qiu Luan, also returned to the capital again with a sense of loyalty and righteousness. Within a year, four posts were transferred in a row, and this matter had to be shelved on ordinary people, which was really called "spring breeze triumph", but Yang Jisheng, the gentleman, did not have the happiness and joy of being regained and more reused, nor did he have the so-called "eat a trench, grow a wisdom" of knowledge and sophistication. On the contrary, although Shen Lian and others failed to impeach and suffered the unfortunate encounter of persecution in the future, he still used the martyrdom spirit of "moths to put out fires" and knew that "it could not be done", and resolutely and resolutely impeached Yan Song for "five major crimes of adultery and ten crimes", and counted his crimes of being good at monopolizing state affairs, bribery and adultery, forming parties for personal gain, and engulfing military salaries. He also bluntly pointed out to the emperor that the Manchu Dynasty was all traitorous to the Song Dynasty, and the power of the Yan clan was already greater than that of the imperial power.
Yang Jisheng's shangshu is different from any previous impeachment, which can be described as cutting to the heart of Yan's father and son, causing great panic and uneasiness among Yan's father and son, who simply hate Yang Jisheng to the bone and are eager to kill him and then quickly. The sensation caused by the government, the public and the people this time can also be said to be unprecedented, so the Jiajing Emperor did not immediately order Yang Jisheng to beheaded, but after the court staff, he was imprisoned.
Zhao Prison, this is really a place that makes people smell different, but for Yang Jisheng, it is the "second entry palace" in his life, and he has already experienced the horror of Zhao Prison once when he impeached Qiu Luan before. However, compared with the last time, this time he went to prison again, but it was more dangerous, because he endured two consecutive times a total of 140 sticks of court staff (according to Ming history statistics, there are not a few courtiers who died under the court staff in the Ming dynasty). Yang Jisheng was already severely injured after being beaten with 40 sticks for the first time, so when he had to hit another 100 sticks only two days later, his friend Wang Yu was worried that he would not be tortured and would directly die, so he tried to get a pair of snake bile and let him eat it before he was tortured to reduce the pain. But the tough Yang Jisheng refused, saying that "Jiaoshan has its own guts, why should the snake bile", so he only drank one drink, "so he talked and laughed and went to the church to be beaten" .
When I saw this, the image of a "tough guy" had jumped on the paper. Although, in ancient Chinese history, tough guys are often full of jianghu flavor, representing the happiness and vengeance of the warrior style, but here, Yang Jisheng, as a courtier, is stunned to deduce the courage and fearlessness of "tough guys". And in the back, his behavior makes some "tough guys" can't help but be in awe.
And Yang Jisheng was finally tortured too heavily, and on the night of his imprisonment, he "fainted and unconscious... Suddenly and dead, suddenly Su, like sleeping and waking up...". Although he gritted his teeth in the middle of the night and used the tip of the tile to bleed a dozen cups, he barely supported the death. However, the harsh environment, coupled with the lack of timely treatment and recuperation, made his injuries worsen rapidly, and his legs were "ulcerated like small urns after a few days, poisonous gas attacked, mouth and tongue sores, unable to eat and drink, and the situation was in danger." In this case, in order to get a glimmer of life, he actually used broken porcelain pieces to cut off the rotten flesh from his hips and legs a little bit, more than three pounds, and then painfully cut off the two residual tendons on his legs.
It is impossible to imagine what kind of willpower and endurance he had to complete this kind of "surgery" that challenged the limits of the human body on his own. It should be noted that these acts were not carried out in a bright and sterile operating room, but in a dark and gloomy prison with the dead bodies of cockroaches and rats without any disinfection measures or anesthesia. According to Shi Zai, the jailer who stood by the side holding the lamp when he was cutting his own flesh was so frightened that his hands and feet trembled, and at one point he could not hold the lamp in his hand and almost fell to the ground. You must know that the people who can work in such a terrible place as Zhao Prison are by no means timid, but even the "ghost messengers" in this hell on earth are about to be frightened by Yang Jisheng, and they can't stand steadily, and even exclaim: "Guan Gong cut the flesh to cure the poison, not like the old father who cut himself." It can only be said that Yang Jisheng's strong performance that is different from ordinary people has far exceeded the normal range of human senses, so it is almost appalling.
Yang Jisheng is not afraid of death, and serving the country with his body is his life's wish. However, whenever there is a glimmer of life, he never gives up easily, so that he has an almost "fierce" attachment. From the suicide note he left for his wife and children before his execution, we can see his reluctance and concern for his family. He was not at ease with his fierce wife, afraid that he would follow the martyrdom, so he knew everything about it; he was not at ease with his two young sons, both because he was afraid that they would not be able to become talented, and that the brothers would be easily disjointed in their feelings in the future because they neglected the cultivation of their elders, and even after their sons married their wives, the details of their marriage were taught and advised one by one, and the words were moved by affection. It can be said that as a husband, he has deep feelings; as a father, he is well-intentioned.
Not only for his family, but also for his teachers, friends, and people under his command, he also has feelings and righteousness. When he was paralyzed, he not only served soup medicine every day, but was also willing to endure the hardships of starvation and freezing, day and night, and traveled hundreds of miles to seek medical treatment. When he was living in the temple to study and the chief monk was unfortunately infected with the plague, he was scared away by everyone else, and his brother urged him to return quickly, but he was willing to risk being infected, and resolutely stayed behind to take care of the sick monk, "providing food and drink for himself, asking for medicine, and sleeping together for twenty days at night." He once built a school, dredged the river, developed a coal mine, let his wife Zhang Zhen teach textile technology, and in order to support local education, he used his own Feng Lu to buy land for the students, and when the cost was insufficient, he even sold horses and his wife's jewelry to make up, so the locals respected him as "Father Yang".
It can be seen from this that although Yang Jisheng's life was short, he truly achieved the loyalty of the king, the sincerity of the people, the filial piety of the teacher, the righteousness of the friend, and the affection of the relatives. Looking back at the year when he was 10 years old, when his father laughed at himself with "no wine is a poor lord" because he did not have wine to entertain guests, Yang Jisheng blurted out a sentence: "You'er is a famous courtier." "Perhaps this moment has foreshadowed the fate of his life." And the night before his execution, on the wall of the prison, he left behind the ten big characters of "iron shoulders bear morality, hot hands to write articles", and together with Yang Jisheng's name, it was praised by all generations.