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From Yongle to the Wuzong Zhengde Dynasty, there were no signs of an expansion of cabinet power and the restoration of the power of the former prime minister. However, in the more than a month after Emperor Wuzong's death, a cabinet scholar who wanted to become a powerful minister appeared, and perhaps he wanted to restore his power. In the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao died, because he had no heirs and did not appoint a crown prince during his lifetime, and there was an heir crisis in the Ming Dynasty. On the occasion of Emperor Wuzong's death, Emperor Wuzong's mother, Empress Zhang, the cabinet scholar Yang Tinghe, and the eunuch forces of the Inner Court jointly made a decision: in accordance with the ancestral system of "brother and brother" in the "Emperor Ming Ancestral Training", Zhu Houxi, the son of Emperor Xiaozong's younger brother Xingxian The Prince Zhu Youxi, was made emperor.
Ming Wuzong
During the imperial vacuum of the Ming Dynasty, Empress Zhang had the idea of bowing to the government, but this idea that did not conform to the ancestral system was resisted by the cabinet Yang Ting and these people, and it was abandoned. Yang Tinghe, an old minister who had gone through the three dynasties of Emperor Xianzong, Emperor Xiaozong, and Emperor Wuzong, wanted to create a fait accompli of power in the cabinet before the new monarch took the throne. In Empress Zhang's will, the government was actually shelved, "all affairs are to be punished by the heir to the day", which may be a choice after the failure of the curtain attempt, after all, the new monarch will be in power sooner or later. Of course, the highest authority during the vacant period of the throne is still the empress, "when there is a major emergency, the yamen will temporarily play the role of the empress dowager."
Yang Tinghe wanted to expand the power of the cabinet, of course, he could not directly conflict with the imperial power, but relied on the imperial power. Yang Ting and Zhu Houxi, who opposed the succession of the outer domain, relied on the imperial power of the dead Emperor Xiaozong, and Emperor Wuzong, who did not cooperate with The Wenchen, did not have much resources, and Yang Tinghe tried to use Emperor Xiaozong's yu wei to blackmail the new emperor. Before entering the city of Beijing, Yang Tinghe instructed the Ministry of Rites to formulate a set of etiquette for the crown prince to enter the city, hoping that the new prince would choose a day to ascend to the pole after entering the Wenhua Hall from Dong'an Gate as the crown prince. Yang Tinghe's move was to force Xinjun to admit that he had succeeded him as the son of Emperor Xiaozong and entered his own routine from the beginning.
Yang Tinghe
Zhu Houxi is a very assertive person, and the routine of this ulterior motive is to look at the fire and reply: The will allows me to inherit the throne, but does not let me inherit the heir. Zhu Houxi insisted on entering the imperial city as an emperor, otherwise he would not enter the city. Yang Tinghe's first step of the plan encountered a hard nail, and Empress Zhang came forward to turn around and issued a decree: "The heavenly throne must not be empty for a long time, the heir has arrived at the palace, and the internal and external civil and military officials can be persuaded to advance on the same day." As a result, Zhu Houxi became the Jiajing Emperor.
Zhu Houxi's reputation as the son of King Xing, and later after inheriting his father's throne, has always been very good, and he is the leader of the near branch clan. After three dynasties, Yang Tinghe, who was about to become an old minister of the four dynasties, was also a capable person. If the monarchs and subjects were united and harmonious, the political situation of the Ming Dynasty would certainly improve. However, from the very beginning, Yang Tinghe was paranoid about wanting emperor Jiajing to continue emperor Xiaozong's incense, ignoring emperor Jiajing's feelings for his parents.
In this contest between kings and subjects, the fifteen-year-old Jiajing Emperor did not show weakness, won the title of empress dowager for his parents, and finally incorporated his father, Zhu Youhuo, who had never been an emperor, into the imperial line of the Ming Dynasty and became Emperor Ruizongxian; his living mother Jiang Shi became Empress Zhangsheng, sitting on an equal footing with Empress Zhang. In the battle for honor of the jiajing emperor's parents, Yang Tinghe's position was only one from beginning to end: forcing the Jiajing emperor to recognize his parents, recognize Xiaozong as his father and Empress Zhang as his mother, and change his parents to uncles and uncles.
In order to force the Jiajing Emperor to obey, yang Tinghe repeatedly threatened to resign shortly after Jiajing took the throne, and repeatedly asked for retreat, either once a month, or three or four times in January. Yang Tinghe's followers Jiang Mian, Mao Ji, Mao Cheng, Qiao Yu, Lin Jun, and others also repeatedly begged for retirement. The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty and the emperor resigned and asked for zhishi, which was not their sincere words, but just a means of blackmailing the emperor.
In this game of kings and courtiers known as the "Great Ceremony", Yang Tinghe did not win, and the Jiajing Emperor finally agreed to Yang Tinghe's resignation request in the first month of the third year of Jiajing after more than two years of experience. Without Yang Tinghe's imperial court, the Jiajing Emperor could let go, his father was the Emperor Kao, his uncle was the Emperor Bo Kao, and the father and son Could not come chaotically!
In the storm of the "Great Ceremony Discussion", Yang Tinghe not only had difficulties with the new monarch at every turn, but also cracked down on the different opinions inside and outside the government and the opposition, revealing the appearance of a powerful minister. In the "Great Ritual Discussion" controversy, Yang Tinghe was obviously opposed to the emperor, but he dared to disregard his status as a courtier and openly said that "those who dissent are adulterous and evil, and should be beheaded." The Jiajing Emperor had dissenters, could he also be beheaded? Yang Tinghe obviously did not take the new jun seriously, and his eyes might only have the emperor who had died.
Ming Xiaozong
Of course, at the beginning of the ceremony, Yang Tinghe and others did not use killing methods against opponents, but transferred them out of the capital. After Yang Tinghe announced that he would be "beheaded" those who held different great rituals, Zhang Xuan, a scholar of guan zheng, was not afraid of power and expressed an opinion that was completely opposite to Yang Tinghe's proposition, "The emperor entered the throne and was not a person, and he was like Han Lai and Song Yingshu. Zhang Xuan was finally transferred to Nanjing to take up an idle post, which was still considered to be the mercy of his subordinates.
Another habitual means used by the Ming Dynasty's civil servants was to stigmatize political enemies, as long as they were at odds with themselves, they were traitors and evil villains, and this trick Yang Tinghe also used easily. For example, after the official Wailang Fang Xianfu shangshu opposed Yang Tinghe's claim of a great gift, Yang Tinghe's followers "", "then the sacrifice of the husband to the adulterous evil, to the point of not returning to the past." The devotee is a beggar of dumen". Huo Tao, the chief of the military department, made the "Great Ceremony Discussion", which also expressed opposition to Yang Tinghe's propositions and was also regarded as a "heresy." Zhang Xuan and Gui Cao, two new officials who supported the Jiajing Emperor, were also impeached by Yang Ting and dozens of officials manipulated by Yang Ting, saying that they were "endowed with sexual treachery and evil intentions."
Zhang Xuan
Another characteristic of the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty is that they are full of hostility, obviously they are readers, but they shout and shout all day long to kill. In the great ceremony, Yang Tinghe and a party threatened to kill the opposition at every turn. Yang Tinghe talked about it, but did not really come. After Yang Ting and Zhi Shi, the Yang Pai civilian officials really wanted to kill people. The new upstarts Zhang Xuan and Gui Cao were transferred to Beijing after Lao Yang retired, and the courtiers of the Chinese actually tried to beat them to death en masse. Zhang and Gui were indeed in danger when they first entered the DYNASTY, and after they withdrew from the DYNASTY, the two "feared that there would be servants and went to hide from the home of Guo Xun, the Marquis of Wuding."