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The instruments used by ancient courtiers to address the emperor were collectively referred to as songshu. Throughout the history of the two thousand years of dynasties, the most famous one is Hai Rui's "Public Security Neglect" written to the Jiajing Emperor.
On February 1, the forty-fifth year of Jiajing (1566 AD), Hai Rui, a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty, presented a sharp-tongued "Public Security Neglect" to Emperor Ming Shizong, criticizing Jiajing for his superstitious belief in witchcraft, living a luxurious life, ignoring the government, and scolding the emperor for being mean and unkind, and fainting to the extreme.
In short, Hai Rui wrote and scolded Jiajing, scolding very fiercely, so fierce that the earth was crying ghosts and gods, and it was so fierce that there was no one who came after the ancients. Because he knew that his life would be in danger this time, Hai Rui bought a coffin before presenting the "Security Evacuation", bid farewell to his family, dismissed his servants, and arranged the future generations properly.
However, to everyone's surprise, Hai Rui did not die because of this, and the Jiajing Emperor, who was originally ashamed and angry, was actually touched by Hai Rui's integrity and loyalty to the country and the people after watching "Public Security", so he did not order Hai Rui to be killed until his death.
(Stills of the Jiajing Emperor and Hai Rui in "Daming Dynasty 1566")
The Jiajing Emperor was mercifully spared his death by the sesame petty officials, and Xu Jie, the first assistant of the cabinet, played an important role. Shi Zai, when the Jiajing Emperor decided to kill Hai Rui to relieve the hatred in his heart, Xu Jie advised:
"Hai Rui wants to be a bigang, so does His Majesty want to fulfill his reputation as a loyal subject?"
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The Jiajing Emperor pondered for half a moment and replied meaningfully:
"Hai Rui is indeed comparable to Gan, but He is not willing to be the King of Shang.
This conversation between Xu Jie and the Jiajing Emperor is very intriguing, obviously, Hai Rui wants to be a sage, and the Jiajing Emperor wants to be a Ming Jun, and the truth that Hai Rui can survive is that the two people are not fighting for a short time, but the name of the future generation.
As a generation of famous courtiers who have shaken the ancient world, Hai Rui has become synonymous with "Qing Officials" and "Virtuous Ministers", but even Hai Rui, who has a very good reputation, also has a controversial side, the first of which is "selling fame and fishing for reputation".
Hai Rui wrote "Public Security Neglect" to scold the Jiajing Emperor in the end is not selling fame and reputation? In this regard, the author will not express his views for the time being, leaving it to the reader to think for himself. The focus of this article is on the institutional issues behind this questioning.
(Stills of "Daming Dynasty 1566" Hai Rui)
The Ming Dynasty was a typical "Ming Song" system. The so-called "Ming Song", that is, all the music must go through the hands of the cabinet, not only the minister's song to the emperor must be issued in the cabinet, even the emperor's reply to the minister's instructions must be issued in the cabinet, and then a little spread, it is easy to know the whole world.
In this way, it led to a "cancer" in the ming dynasty's officialdom- the courtiers presented the song, whose ostensible readers were the emperor, but whose target readers were other officials, especially historical officials. The "Wen Death Advice" is no longer to persuade the emperor and KuangFu Sheji, but to leave a name for qingshi and sell his reputation.
In addition, the "Ming Song" system also has a drawback: it is convenient for party henchmen to work together to attack a certain target, take turns to slacken off, and impeach political opponents. As long as one person took the lead in writing the first impeachment recital, other people with common interests could rush to the top until the emperor had to believe that there was indeed a problem with this person, that he should be degraded, that he should be damned.
More importantly, the "Ming Song" system has a fatal flaw, that is, the publicization of the content of the song has made the ministers worried and afraid to say something. Imagine if the content of the performance involves the interests of other ministers, who is not afraid of being retaliated against and liquidated?
In order to solve all kinds of tumors, drawbacks, and defects brought about by the "Ming song" system, a new system came into being -- the system of dense folding.
(Portrait of the Yongzheng Emperor)
The so-called secret folding is to write the recital text on folded white paper, plus the folding of the special leather box. The cassette was equipped with two keys, one for the shangqu official and one for the emperor's safekeeping, and no one else could open the special leather cassette. Officials from all over the country wrote the secret letter and sent special personnel to the capital, without going through the post station, directly to the front of the palace, and handed it over to the emperor for personal approval.
Under the secret folding system, the emperor seems to stand in god's perspective, see everything clearly, and control everything. The content and approval of the secret fold, the whole process, all the information, only the emperor and the shangshu courtiers knew, if there was a word leaked, it was the crime of killing without forgiveness.
The essence of the secret folding system is to establish an information channel exclusively between the emperor and a single courtier.
The secret folding system began in the late years of the Kangxi Dynasty and was completed in the Yongzheng Dynasty. The Kangxi Emperor was the inventor of the secret folding system, but it was the Yongzheng Emperor who really applied it to the extreme.
For the courtiers, it was a privilege and an honor to directly give the emperor a secret fold. Yongzheng not only improved and refined the process of the secret folding system, but also greatly expanded the scope of courtiers who could be folded secretly, allowing and encouraging central and local officials with more than four pins to directly hand over the secret fold to the emperor.
To make an intuitive comparison, during the 61-year reign of Kangxi, there were only more than 100 officials with folding and playing things, while Yongzheng reigned for only 13 years, but the number of officials with folding things reached more than 1200. In the Kangxi Dynasty, the secret folding system was only auxiliary and had little impact on politics, while in the Yongzheng Dynasty, the secret folding system gradually became the mainstream, and its impact on politics was extremely significant.
(Yongzheng Chaoshu with Zhu Pi)
The Qing Dynasty's system of secret folding weakened the tumors, drawbacks, and defects brought about by the Ming Dynasty's "Ming Song" system--the content of the shangqu was unknown to the historians, so they could not sell their reputation; the content of the shangqu was unknown to colleagues, so it was inconvenient to attack political enemies; the content of the shangqu was unknown to other officials, so there was no need to worry about retaliation.
In addition, the secret folding system also has the following important roles.
First, promote officials at all levels to supervise each other and inform each other.
Taking provincial-level units as an example, the governors, envoys, envoys, and Daotai all had the right to give the emperor a secret fold. No matter what happens in this province, do you dare to report it to your lord? If you don't report it, the envoy will also report it, and if the envoy doesn't report it, there will be an envoy and a platform. The secret folding system makes it almost impossible to deceive and conceal, because Yongzheng's attitude is very clear, rewarding those who report, and those who conceal death, no one dares to joke with their own heads. Moreover, it must be reported truthfully, otherwise, once the situation reported by officials at all levels is different, the emperor can easily find out who is lying, and in the end it will still be a death.
Second, open up the way of speech and accept advice like a stream.
Yongzheng only stipulated the form of the secret fold, but did not limit its content, so officials at all levels could not only report to the emperor through the secret fold, but also give suggestions and suggestions to the emperor. Therefore, the emperor can directly hear the voices of grass-roots officials and people, which has important guiding significance for his formulation of policies and guidelines.
Third, it has greatly improved the efficiency of work.
The dense folding system eliminates the cumbersome intermediate links, on the one hand, it realizes the timely delivery of the upper situation, and on the other hand, it also realizes the rapid release of the upper situation.
All in all, the secret folding system makes the decree fully embody the will of the emperor, and makes the monarchy absolute and centralized power reach its limit.
(Yongzheng Emperor spoof picture)
In order to achieve absolute secrecy, the Yongzheng Emperor stipulated that officials must finally return the secret seal with Zhu Batch to the emperor himself. Therefore, there are still tens of thousands of original archives of the Yongzheng Dynasty stored in the Palace Museum, the most important of which is the secret fold with the Imperial Pen Zhu Batch, which is undoubtedly the most valuable historical material.
And now we like to hear those "Yongzheng quotations", such as the most famous
"Shuo is such a man
"I don't know how to hurt you", "I miss you very much"
Etc., these are the Yongzheng Emperor's personal comments on the secret fold, not the ridicule of Yongzheng by later generations.
Of course, although the secret folding system is as good as it is, the "Mingquan" system still has its existential value, and it is impossible to be completely replaced.
Resources:
History of the Ming Dynasty, Records of the Qing Dynasty, Draft History of the Qing Dynasty