introduction
Horizontally, it is a peak on the side of the ridge, and the height of the distance is different. I don't know the true face of Lushan Mountain, but I am only in this mountain. - "Title Xi Lin Bi"
One day in 1059, during the fourth year of the Northern Song Dynasty, the judge of Kaifeng Province received a bizarre lawsuit. An old lady surnamed Liu accused her nephew Liu Baoheng of not learning any techniques, colluding with idle people in society, and embezzling the inheritance of the Liu family's ancestors.
The old Liu family was a well-known local gentry family, and its member Liu Baoheng contracted to run a winery in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. Here's how it all started. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the state apparatus incorporated wine production into the state system and became a state-owned enterprise. But the downside is that government officials with extremely inefficient administration and corruption cannot operate the distillery rationally, and the quality of the products is extremely poor, and there is no market. The helpless government had to contract the winery out and collect the contract fee every year.
The state delegated power, and the business community boiled over. Every powerful businessman wants to take over the distillery. At that time, the system was "punching", which was equivalent to the current auction system. For those unsuspecting businessmen, as long as it is a piece of meat, it is necessary to grab the head and break the blood. The result of this phenomenon is that the final winner cannot make ends meet in the operation and owes the government rent. The defendant in this case could not escape such a fate, and lost about 1,000 yuan in a few months after taking over. Then the government officials came to collect the bills. Faced with the urging of the state apparatus, Liu Baoheng had no other choice but to buy a house to pay off his debts.
Liu Baoheng may not understand in the end that a farce because he had no money to sell his house actually led to the impeachment of two three envoys, the impeachment of the son-in-law of the prime minister, the criticism of the ruling Song Qi, the impeachment of Bao Zheng by Ouyang Xiu, the dismissal of two three envoys, and the demotion of a large county Zhizhou. Seeing this, the reader is probably a little confused, isn't this a very normal process? Why did the old lady sue her nephew to the government? The reason is that Liu Baoheng is not the bloodline of the Liu family, so the Liu family must have some reservations in the major right and wrong. The decision made by the government is that Liu Baoheng's house is invalid, and everything returns to its original position.
But in the process, the officials in charge of the case discovered a root cause. The person who bought Liu Baoheng's property was Zhang Fangping, the third division who was responsible for recovering the rent. However, Zhang Fangping, who thought that he had picked up the leaks seamlessly, did not get away with it. Instead, it fell into the hands of Lord Bao Zheng.
At this time, Lord Bao, who was in charge of the imperial history, was as selfless as ever, and not only impeached Zhang Fangping, but also rebuked the then chancellor Fu Bi, saying how he could let such a person serve as the third envoy. Then the courtiers followed suit and impeached the poor Third Counselor. The ending can be imagined, this third division envoy was exiled to the border as an official, and this incident also became a nightmare that he would never forget for a lifetime.
Everyone thinks this matter has just subsided? No, this is just the beginning of a series of official changes. Later, the newly appointed Third Division's envoy Song Qi, the younger brother of the chancellor at the time, was once again impeached and removed from power by Bao Zheng. It turned out that this Song Qi thought that he had a solid backstage, and when he was a local official, he did not think of making progress, became corrupt, and spent money like flowing water. Can such a person escape the eyes of Lord Bao? Leaving aside how such an unrestrained man can be competent in the work of financial management, such appointments are not allowed by the rules of the prime minister today. So Song Qi's ass left the capital before he could sit still.
After these two impeachments, Song Renzong was a little impatient. So he directly appointed Bao Zheng as the third envoy. But this appointment, which seemed to solve the current problem, angered Ouyang Xiu, a Scholar of Hanlin. His view was this: As an imperial historian, it is your duty to examine the qualifications of officials, but it is not a very absurd thing to take office yourself after the officials of the three divisions have stepped down? If this head is opened, then the official field of the Northern Song Dynasty will become a hunting ground where everyone is at risk.
After Lord Bao learned of this menacing impeachment, he took the opportunity to clean up his home and submit his resignation. At this time, Song Renzong probably thought that this matter could not be deeply involved for too long, so he did not follow Ouyang Xiu's advice and promulgated his appointment of Bao Zheng again. Later generations of people will not know what happened at that time. And the purpose of Ouyang Xiu's impeachment this time is not obvious. Whether it was out of concern about the official atmosphere of the Northern Song Dynasty or for their old friends, we do not know.
This wave has not been flat and has risen again. Here, because the case involving Liu Baoheng in buying a house has not yet been conclusive, the son-in-law of Prime Minister Fu Bi has been involved again. What's going on? It turned out that this Feng Jing was a neighbor of Liu Baoheng when he lived in Kaifeng. Maybe he wanted to squeeze a sum of money into this rich family, or maybe he really had no money, Feng Jing once came to find Old Liu to borrow money, there was not much liquidity but he did not dare to offend Yangzhou Zhizhou, and Lao Liu, the son-in-law of the prime minister, lent feng Jing a valuable silverware from his family. Feng Jing, who knew that this matter was very uncolored, took the initiative to apply for demotion. He did not expect that this incident would cause him to be moved to Luzhou as an official. epilogue
Life is impermanent, and things are irregular. The fates of several people who seem to never coincide would be linked in this way. It's like a butterfly that flaps its wings in the Amazon rainforest and unleashes a tornado in Texas two weeks later. References:
"Title Xi Lin Bi"
History of the Song Dynasty