The Tang Dynasty's famous minister Wei Zheng was known for daring to speak out and speak directly, and was deeply relied upon by the emperor.
In the seventeenth year of Emperor Taizong's reign (643 AD), Wei Zheng died, and Tang Taizong was greatly saddened and announced that he would quit the dynasty for five days to mourn Wei Zheng.
Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Wei Zheng to be buried, but Wei Zheng's wife Pei politely refused.
Pei's reasoning was that Wei Zheng lived a simple life and held lavish funerals, which was contrary to the "aspirations of the dead".
Pei and his family went out of the city in a small cart carrying Wei Zheng's coffin and held a simple funeral. Emperor Taizong of Tang summoned hundreds of officials of Wenwu and Wu, went out of the city to send them in a line, and personally wrote an inscription for Wei Zheng.
Tang Taizong praised Wei Zheng as "using copper as a mirror, you can sort out your clothes, you can use history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall; with people as a mirror, you can know what you have gained and lost... Now that Wei Zheng has passed away, I have lost a mirror! ”
Two years later, in the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, Tang Taizong Li Shimin led soldiers and horses to pro-government Goguryeo, and thousands of soldiers were lost in this battle, and 78 out of 10 warhorses were killed.
Tang Taizong was very remorseful and said infinitely sentimentally, "If Wei Zheng were alive, he would have stopped me from this action." ”
Wei Zheng was an official, and he never left a decent family property in his lifetime, only an old house with a plaque of "Julu Hall" hanging inside.
The "Chronicle of Jin County" records that Wei Zheng's home only had some agricultural tools such as pickaxes, donkey camel racks, and hand spinning wheels.
Although most of Wei Zheng's descendants served as officials in the middle of the dynasty, they all inherited his family style of "abstaining from extravagance and inspection, refraining from self-denial and diligence".
The Zizhi Tongjian records: "Wei Zheng's grandson was very poor, so he gave the first quality money to people. ”
Wei Zheng's descendants all lived a simple life, and in the fourth generation, during the tang xianzong years, the Wei family fell in the middle of the road, and Wei Zheng's grandson Wei Zheng drank porridge, not to mention thick, and the thin soup and water could not drink it.
There was no way, Wei Chou wanted to find some silver for life, the family was surrounded by walls, and he couldn't find anything valuable at all, so he had to mortgage the house of his ancestral home to the rich in exchange for a little living expenses.
Pinglu Jiedu made Li Shidao learn of the news, and he was very sympathetic to Wei Chou, and asked the imperial court for instructions, saying that he was willing to pay for it and redeem the house of lao Xiangguo.
Tang Xianzong Li Chun ordered Bai Juyi to draft an edict, and Lao Bai sent a wild grass: "This is a matter of face to face of the imperial court, and it is a major event that encourages the ministers to be diligent and serve the country, and it should be redeemed by the imperial court." ”
After Tang Xianzong read the Cao Zhao, he was very satisfied, and he was accurate!
In the leap march of the fourth year of Yuan He (813), the imperial court gave Wei Chou 2,000 taels of money and gave him to redeem his ancestral home.
At the same time, he solemnly informed Wei Chou: No mortgage, no sale!