Yang Shiqi went through the four dynasties of Yongle, Hongxi, Xuande, and Zhengtong, and for more than forty years in the cabinet, and his evaluation of officials was to the point, and he once commented on a person like this:
Emperor Taizong ruled the world for twenty-three years, and the ministers of culture and martial arts showed their talents, could achieve all things, and if they were dedicated, and their effectiveness was always unswerving, although their bodies were not there, so the rate of favoration was not weakened. The most prosperous person who suffered from his courtiers was Also a scholar of Wenyuange University and a scholar of Zuo Chunfang University, Hu Gongyou.
"Zuo Chunfang University Scholar Hu Gong" refers to Hu Guang.
Hu Guang, a native of Jishui, Jiangxi, was a member of the Jianwen Dynasty in the second year (1400) and successively served as a waiter, a right shuzi of Right Chunfang, a scholar of Hanlin, and a scholar of Zuo Chunfang University, who fought with Ming Chengzu on the Northern Expedition and entered the cabinet during the Yongle period. After his death, he was posthumously honored by Zhu Di as the Rebbe Shangshu (礼部尚書), with the courtesy name Wen Mu (文穆). This is also the first civil servant to be given a title since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang has always been jealous of the literati community, so he strictly controlled them, even the founding hero Liu Bowen, but only the title of "Bo", and his nickname "Wencheng" was only posthumously awarded in the ninth year of Zhengde.
So, as the leader of the Jianwen Dynasty, why was Hu Guang so valued by Ming Chengzu?
1. The initiator of the new monarch
In the second year of Jianwen, Hu Guang and his compatriot Wang Jingzhi participated in the temple examination, on talent, Zhuangyuan should be Wang Jingzhi, but Hu Guang's answer to the song has such a sentence: Pro-Domain Lu Liang, people's hearts shake, let Jianwen Emperor Long Yan great joy, in addition, from the appearance point of view, Wang Jingzhi is somewhat unassuming, how can The Ming Emperor Zhuangyuan Lang be extremely ugly? Hu Guangsui was hand-picked as a champion, and was given the name "Jing" by Emperor Jianwen, and was given the title of "Jing" (靖) by Emperor Jianwen, and was given the title of Hanlin Xiuzhi (六品).
After the Battle of Jingnan, Emperor Jianwen was defeated, and the night before Zhu Di, the King of Yan, attacked Yingtian, Wang Jingzhi, Hu Guang, Xie Jin, and Wu Pu gathered, and everyone vowed to make a decision------ city and martyrdom.
Ironically, the ugly-looking Wang Jingzhi returned home that night to be loyal to the country, while Xie Jin went to greet Zhu Di early in the early morning of the next day, and brought his fellow villager Hu Guang with his feet.
And Fang Xiaoru, as Emperor Jianwen's humerus minister and the leading elder brother of Shizi, when Zhu Di sent troops south, Yao Guangxiao had said not to kill him, because he was the seed of Jiangnan's reading. Immediately to win the world, the next is Wen Chenzhi Daming, only Wu Strategy, no Wen Tao is not OK. As soon as the seeds of reading are destroyed, it will be difficult for the world to return to the heart.
However, from Zhu Di's point of view, Fang Xiaoru is the seed of reading in the world, but since he cannot be used by me, and often circulates the pamphlets of my usurpation to achieve the sinister purpose of demagogizing people's hearts and poisoning Daming, wouldn't it be a trouble for him to keep such a person?
The purpose of killing Fang Xiaoru is not simply to kill him, but to show it to the readers of the world.
How did Hu Guang mix in yongle?
After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he successively recruited seven people into the cabinet, namely Xie Jin, Hu Guang, Yang Shiqi, Jin Youzi, Hu Yu, Huang Huai, and Yang Rong. What is more interesting is that these seven people are all literati of the Jianwen Dynasty.
Judging from the official ranks, these seven people have not changed much, but it should be pointed out that in the Jianwen Dynasty, Xie Jin, Hu Guang, Yang Shiqi and others were just seven small Beijing officials, and there was no place for them to speak in front of Tianzi.
After Zhu Di ascended the throne, Xie Jin, Hu Guang, Yang Shiqi, Jin Youzi, and Hu Yu were the first cabinet members, and although there was no change in the rank of officials, they all entered the Hanlin Academy and could take turns in the cabinet to participate in the advance of the aircraft. Its status and identity have changed radically from the previous dynasty.
In order to show his kindness to Jianwen's courtiers, Zhu Di accompanied Hu Guang, Jin Youzi and others in several northern expeditions and became Zhu Di's advisers to the army, and they either immediately discussed it or Le Shi Minggong. During the Northern Expedition in the twelfth year of Yongle, Zhu Di even ordered Hu Guang, Jin Youzi, and Yang Rong to teach the emperor's eldest grandson Zhu Zhanji, and throughout the Northern Expedition, Jin Youzi, Hu Guang, and Yang Rong formed a de facto "small cabinet."
The contrast between Fang Xiaoru and Hu Guang and others makes the meaning obvious, and in one sentence it is "those who follow us prosper and those who oppose us perish."
2. Establish a science system
If you only rely on the "letter of submission" and get into a high position, it is inevitable that you will underestimate Zhu Di and Hu Guang.
Turning to history, we will find that all great dynasties have a common feature: they have made achievements in literature, or in the field of thought.
Qin merged with the world, and in the face of great strife, Qin Shi Huang promoted the law and suppressed Confucianism, unified the writing and various regulations, accelerated the weakening of the consciousness of the princely states, and rapidly rolled out the county system in the original Six Kingdoms region.
In this process, the Qin state did not make much achievements in the field of literature, but it created the idea of the unity of all generations, and this consciousness also became the program for which later dynasties struggled.
Entering the Han Dynasty, after several generations of Confucian development, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty arrived, Dong Zhongshu finally put forward the idea of "deposing the Hundred Schools of Confucianism", and Confucianism began to usher in the first wave of development climax.
From the end of the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty, along with the confrontation between various places, the cultural field was also a mess, until the Tang Dynasty, it ushered in a new peak of development. Tang Dynasty can be described as a watershed of classical culture, from the founding of the country in 618 to the chaos of Anshi, this hundred years is the stage of rapid expansion of Tang Dynasty culture, even Muhammad said that "although learning is far away in China, it should also be sought", Datang has become the center of world culture, the real "mountains and rivers exotic wind and moon in the same day"!
After the Anshi Rebellion, "the hearts of non-my races must be different" rose again, Buddhas and Taoism weakened, and people once again examined Confucianism, but confucianism at this time has changed from "expansion" to "contraction", from "export" to "domestic sales".
This influence was very far-reaching, and the division of the Tang Dynasty brought about cultural divisions, and hedonism became a typical feature of the two Song Dynasties. "The warm wind smoked the tourists drunk, and hangzhou was directly made a state of Bizhou."
After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty inherited this hedonism and carried forward the miscellaneous drama, in addition, it also established the Cheng Zhu Lixue, which was born in the Two Song Dynasties, as an official science.
It can be seen how much influence the doctrine of past dynasties has had on various dynasties.
From Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the Ming Dynasty until the Battle of Jingnan, in the past few decades, the Ming Dynasty has not systematically sorted out various schools and doctrines, and even followed the practices of the Yuan Dynasty, such as Cheng Zhu Lixue and miscellaneous dramas.
Of course, the reasons for this are very complicated, one is that Zhu Yuanzhang suppressed the shizi in Huaixi and eastern Zhejiang, and later Zhu Di took the throne and killed the readers represented by Fang Xiaoru.
For example, during the Yongle period, an official named Zhang Pu committed an accident and was imprisoned, and he had a cellmate named Yang Shan, who was the one who later welcomed Emperor Mingying's Zhu Qizhen back to Jingshi from The hands of Wa La. Zhang Pu and Yang Shan stayed in prison for a long time, so they told Yang Shan something, and there was still a collection of Fang Xiaoru's writings in his home.
As a result, Yang Shan denounced him, and because of his "meritorious service", he was directly released and reinstated as an official, while Zhang Pu was sentenced to a beheading.
These decades of turmoil have led to a sharp decline in the status of the literati, the literary world has become dead, and the situation of various factions in history has ceased to exist.
Zhu Di was an aspiring emperor who wanted not only martial arts, but also wenzhi. Therefore, Zhu Di's accession to the throne marked the beginning of the construction of the cultural system by the Ming Dynasty.
Hu Guang's grasp is the "Complete Book of Sexual Theory", "Four Books" and "Five Classics", these books are officially promulgated, they have become the skeleton of the Ming Dynasty, the founding work of the Ming Dynasty's system of governance science, and it is also the standard work of the Imperial Examination at that time, which is known as the "system of taking the soldiers" in the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty.
Through some series of operations by Hu Guang and others, the seeds of reading in the world sprouted again. The importance of this to Daming is self-evident, and after Hu Guang's death, Zhu Di broke the "ancestral system" and gave him a nickname.
epilogue
Hu Guang is a person with a complex image in history. During the Battle of Jingnan, he met with his colleagues to die, but later succeeded in attaching himself to Xinjun, which was a typical "disloyalty" in the eyes of Confucian disciples; later, when accompanying the Northern Expedition, Hu Guang, Jin Youzi and Yang Rong got lost, and Jin Youzi fell off the saddle again, and the saddle was broken, Yang Rong gave him his saddle, and he sat directly on the horse.
Hu Guang saw this, was in the desert land, afraid of accidents, so he threw down the two of them and went away on his own, leaving a reputation of no responsibility.
However, on the whole, Hu Guang's tendency to attach himself to Zhu Di after the Battle of Jingnan did lead some courtiers to submit, and in addition, he also contributed a lot to the development of Ming Dynasty science and imperial examination, which made him a key figure in the fate of the Ming Dynasty's civil servants.