At the age of 23, Zhang Juzheng went to Beijing to participate in the examination of the imperial examination.
He was confident about the exam. Known as a "child prodigy" since he was a child, as early as the age of 12, he took the child test in his hometown of Huguang Jingzhou, and became a blockbuster. At the age of 16, he passed the township examination and became a teenager.
Although he failed to enter the list 3 years ago, he did not leave the slightest shadow in the heart of Zhang Juzheng, who was proud and arrogant.
Competing on the same stage with the world's students, he has always been full of winning odds.
Sure enough, in this imperial examination, Zhang Juzheng ranked among the top and won the ninth place in the second division.
This year was the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing (1547), a year that was called the "year of dangda" along with the second year of Jiayou (1057) of Emperor Renzong of Song.
Since February of that year, more than 4,300 top students from all over the world have gathered in Beijing to participate in the examination. It wasn't until March, after a brutal selection of the temple, that about 300 people finally stood out.
In the following decades, a group of jingguo talents emerged from these 300 people, who shaped the face of Daming society politically, economically and culturally, thus achieving the myth of Jiajing's twenty-six years of jinshi list.
In this group, there are three first-class people: Li Chunfang, Zhang Chun, and Tanhua Hu Zhengmeng. Among the three people in the first division, Li Chunfang, who was ranked as the first rank, was the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty who had later formed a cabinet with Zhang Juzheng, and was given the nickname "Taiping Prime Minister".
Among the jinshi who were born in the same list, there are also celebrities who have influenced the trend of history: Yang Jisheng, the first tough man of Daming, Wang Shizhen, the leader of Daming's "later seven sons", Wang Daokun, a famous general who resisted the Wu Dynasty, and Yin Shidan, a generation of imperial teachers...
It can be said that the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing was a year of great explosion of talents in the Ming Dynasty.
Nowadays, people pay attention to Jiajing's twenty-six years of dragon and tiger list, probably because of Zhang Juzheng, but at that time, the earliest famous person in the world was the "tough guy" Yang Jisheng.
In the year of zhongjinshi, the 32-year-old Yang Jisheng made up his mind to try his best to serve the country.
At the peak of his career, the loyal minister opened the "angry scolding Yan Song" mode.
It was six years after the zhongjinshi, and in the thirty-second year of Jiajing (1553), Yang Jisheng had just been summoned back to Beijing from Didao (present-day Lintao, Gansu). Previously, as a soldier and a foreign lang, he was retaliated against by the other side for opposing the proposal of the great general Qiu Luan on the city of Kaima, stripped of his official position, and assigned a frontier official.
Soon, the powerful Qiu Luan successively exonerated Lu Bing, who were in power and opposition, and died in the political struggle. After qiu luan's defeat, Yang Jisheng, who had made meritorious contributions to impeachment, was able to recover.
▲ Daming "tough guy" Yang Jisheng. Image source: Network
After everything was ready, Yang Jisheng specially bathed and fasted for three days. After repeatedly weighing the pros and cons, he submitted to the Jiajing Emperor the "Please Curse the Thief and The Minister". This was a fiercely worded song in which Yang Jisheng counted Yan Song's "five adulterous and ten major crimes" and asked the emperor to severely punish such traitors.
According to Yang Jisheng, Yan Song, in addition to forcing the death of Xia Yan, the former head of the cabinet, in addition to forcing the death of Xia Yan, also planted his own eyeliner around the emperor, inside and outside. In line with the attitude of being responsible for the country and the emperor, he Yang Jisheng was willing to be a martyr of the Ming Dynasty, and only hoped that the emperor would be wise and able to listen to the advice of his subordinates.
Yang Jisheng scolded bitterly, but he also accidentally offended the Manchu courtiers, including the Jiajing Emperor.
In Jiajing's eyes, it was not Yan Song who scolded this "Please Curse the Thief", but himself. Because only the Dark Lord, there will be all the traitors around him.
After reading Yang Jisheng's long text sprinkled with more than 5,000 words, The Jiajing Emperor's blood pressure had rushed straight to the door of his head. Before Yan Song could act, Jiajing ordered Yang Jisheng to be thrown into prison and given a hundred rods.
In the face of the emperor's indiscriminate heavy responsibility, the court was in an uproar.
Lu Bing, the Jinyi guard, was also on yang Jisheng's list of "adulterous beggars", but before the execution, Lu Bing told his subordinates that they must save Yang's life.
At that time, Yang Jisheng's friend found a pair of snake bile. It is said that after eating it, the courage is multiplied and can withstand this deadly beating. But Yang Jisheng rejected him, saying, "Jiaoshan (Yang Jisheng calls himself Jiaoshan) has his own guts, so why bother with snakes?" ”
Shi Zai, after a hundred sticks, Yang Jisheng "two legs are swollen and thick, and they can't move forward and backward; swollen and hard, they can't flex and extend." Stop holding the two of them, work hard, and go to jail without a foot."
In prison, he suffered a traumatic attack and woke up in the middle of the night in pain. But he just smashed the porcelain bowl and took the fragments in his hand to cut off the rotten flesh. The flesh was cut and the tendons were hung up, and he cut it off with his hands.
The jailers who were watching him from the sidelines had long been frightened and scattered, but Yang Jisheng was at ease.
Even so, Yan Song was still unwilling to let go of Yang Jisheng.
Under Yan Song's interrogation, Wang Xueyi, a servant of the Punishment Department, planned to fabricate Shangfeng's instructions and dispose of Yang Jisheng as soon as possible by hanging. In the end, due to insufficient evidence, it failed to succeed.
During Yang Jisheng's imprisonment, his old people and colleagues did not give up on rescuing him. Among them, the one who contributed the most was Wang Shizhen, who was in the same family as Yang Jisheng.
Among the 26-year-old jinshi in Jiajing, 22-year-old Wang Shizhen was the youngest and had the best family. He was born in the famous "Taicang Wang Clan" of the Jiangnan family, and his ancestor Wang Wei and his father Wang Chen were all famous courtiers of a generation and had made great contributions to the country.
When the Wang father and son saw that Yang Jisheng had been severely punished for impeaching Yan Song, it was difficult to hide their resentment and grief. When Yang Jisheng was imprisoned, Wang Shizhen was the only one among the tongke jinshi who ran for his help.
But Wang Shizhen's redress not only failed to save his friend's life, but even paid a greater price.
Yan Song's father and son single-handedly covered the world, even if Lu Bingli protected, Yang Jisheng was still unable to escape death. Before his execution, in addition to his wife Zhang Shizhen, who accompanied him, was his good friend Wang Shizhen.
In order to comfort Wang Shizhen, Yang Jisheng finally left him a last word: "Yuanmei (Wang Shizhen character Yuanmei), there is no need to do this, death is what it deserves, why be afraid of death?" ”
After saying this, Yang Jisheng died at the age of 40, when Jiajing was thirty-four years old (1555).
The departure of his friend made Wang Shizhen unforgettable for a while. However, greater grief is yet to come.
Due to the dissatisfaction caused by the Qunchen courtiers who had killed Yang Jisheng, Yan Song did not dare to attack Wang Shizhen, who was angry with the book business. However, Yan Song turned his head and stared at Wang Shizhen,the father of Wang Shizhen, who was supervising the border military affairs in the DPRK and China, and instructed his henchmen to frame his defense dereliction of duty.
▲Wang Shizhen stone carving. Image source: Network
Just as the Tatars crossed the Great Wall to threaten the Jing Division, the Jiajing Emperor, who heard the news, directly gave Wang Chen a holy decree: "All the generals are beheaded, and the commander of the main army, Gu De, is attached to the light ceremony." ”
In order to save his father's life, Wang Shizhen could only resign from the government in a letter, and took his younger brother Wang Shimao to kneel in front of the Yan Mansion and pray for the grace of the cabinet elder.
However, the Yan father and son within the wall turned a deaf ear, and even when they saw Wang Shizhen fainting in front of his own door, Yan Shifan, the "Little Cabinet Elder", also specially ordered the family Ding to drive the two away, so as not to disturb the purity of the palace.
The Wang brothers, who lost the opportunity to save their father, finally waited for the bones of their father Wang Chen.
Wang Shizhen was furious, and for the rest of his life, he vowed to fight the Yan father and son to the end.
Frustrated in the official arena, Wang Shizhen, with a tired body, turned to the literary world.
As a talented man who stood out from the imperial examination, Wang Shizhen's literary name resounded throughout the time. Long before his father's accident, he formed a poetry club with Li Panlong, Wu Guolun, Xie Hazel, Xu Zhongxing, Liang Youyu, Zong Chen, and other six people in Beijing to advocate the cultural retro movement, and was called the "Last Seven Sons" of the Ming Dynasty literary circle by posterity.
They pursued clarity in terms of cultural retro and opposed the "Taige style", which was the stylistic brushwork that required candidates to standardize the answer sheets when the Ming Dynasty opened the discipline to take scholars. According to official regulations, students must adopt the "Taiwan Cabinet Style" to ensure that they are in order to work hard. If you do not operate according to the regulations, even if you are full of economy, you will fall behind sun mountain.
The emergence of the "Taige style" has, to a certain extent, erased the wind and bone of the calligraphy art since ancient times.
▲ Ming Dynasty Taige style masterpiece "Jing Zhai Zhen". Image source: Network
Therefore, for this style of "a thousand people with one side, one word and one word", Wang Shizhen put forward a methodology for combining talents and ideas to create.
He believes that "thinking is the use of talent, adjustment is the realm of thinking, and style is the boundary of tone", as long as a person has the talent of a keen and beneficial country, he should not be restricted in rules and regulations.
He also advocated that the method of combining talents and ideas should fall on the structural sentence patterns and literary rhetoric throughout the text, so that the works can show the flexible brilliance of human nature. This is the so-called "Wen bi Qin Han, poetry will flourish Tang".
However, Wang Shizhen was not familiar with the other six people at the beginning, nor did he have any contact. The marriage of the "Later Seven Sons" began with a poet named Li Xianfang.
Interestingly, Li Xianfang, who is only one word away from Li Chunfang, is also a jinshi of Jiajing's twenty-six years. The two were about the same age, thirty-seven or eight years old at the time of zhongju.
Before the middle lift, Li Xianfang had been immersed in the poetry world for many years. It is said that he was able to write poetry at the age of 16, "before the first time, the poetry was very Qilujian, before Li Yufeng (Li Panlong)". After zhongju, while the Beijing division was waiting for the appointment of officials, Li Xianfang and Li Panlong and others "formed a society to give chants and push each other".
According to Wang Shizhen's recollection, he knew as early as when he was a soldier that there was a plum (Li Xianfang) from Shandong among the same subjects, who wrote poetry that was the best in the world. Therefore, after zhongju, Wang Shizhen inquired in many ways and made friends with Li Xianfang.
It is precisely because of this that Wang Shizhen finally came together with Li Panlong and reached a consensus that "the text is below Xijing, and the poetry is disdainful from below Tianbao".
Later, as Li Xianfang moved south to serve in Xinyu (新虞, in modern Xinyu, Jiangxi) Zhi County, the convener of the "Seven Sons Sect" slowly became Wang Shizhen. Since then, in this position, he has been thriving for more than twenty years.
But Wang Shizhen was never able to let go of his hatred for Yan's father and son.
In the "Later Seven Sons" where poetry is prevalent, whether he creates literature, opera, novels or historical biographies, he will take out this "enemy family" and lash out to vent the hatred in his heart.
Therefore, in later generations, people often take the name of "Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng", the author of "Jin Ping Mei", and insist on attaching himself to Wang Shizhen. Because, Yan Shifan's small character "East Building", the big official who is a bureaucrat, a bully, and a rich businessman in "Jin Ping Mei", is named Ximen Qing. The east building to the west gate, how neat. Unfortunately, such a debate still has no answer. In the record of the true identity of "Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng", only one person named "Twenty Gong" revealed in the trek written for the "Golden Bottle Plum" that this work was "a giant apartment speech for the World Temple (Jiajing)".
▲ Pan Jinlian. Image source: Screenshot of film and television drama
Although the relationship between the creation of "Jin Ping Mei" and Wang Shizhen is still unclear, another traditional Kunqu opera called "Ming Feng Ji" is inseparable from him.
In this great drama, Wang Shizhen not only referred to the ten ministers who vigorously opposed Yan Song as "double loyalty and eight righteousness", but even copied a large number of key figures in the Jiajing Dynasty, such as Xia Yan, Xu Jie, Yang Jisheng, Zou Yinglong, and Zhao Wenhua, in the script, and used political struggle events to link up and expose the ugly faces of Yan Song and other Jiajing Dynasty traitors.
The Book of Ming Feng was written in the years after Jiajing in Longqing (1567-1572), and looking at the world, if it were not for Wang Shizhen or his protégés, who would dare to overturn the case of the previous dynasty and create a creation?
Speaking of literary creation, if we talk about who among the twenty-six years of Jiajing's twenty-six years of soldiers knows how to sing in a shallow and low voice, it is estimated that Wang Shizhen will also say: Wang Daokun, who came from a family of Hui merchants, recognized the second, and no one dared to compete for the first.
Just when the "Later Seven Sons" led the literary retro, Wang Daokun launched a call in his hometown and established a "New Anshi School".
At that time, in Wang Daokun's hometown of Huizhou, most people used going out to do business as their main means of livelihood. With the budding of capitalism, emblem merchants made a lot of money outside. And "most of the merchants learn poetry", the singing and trend of merchants and literati, so that these Huishang families learn poetry and poetry prevailed.
Except for a small number of vassals and elegant people, most of the emblem merchants want to use this way to get their families rid of the image of the last class, in the hope that future generations will be in the middle of the ranks and shine on the lintel.
Therefore, when Wang Daokun, the "proud son of the Imperial Examination", called out, Wang Daohui, Wang Daoguan, and others in the family who were familiar with literature and ink gladly agreed and exchanged psalms with them.
In order to give a scene to his friend and colleague Wang Daokun, Wang Shizhen also specially summoned the literati and scholars between the three Wu and Zhejiang provinces in the name of Wen Kui to collectively go to Huizhou to discuss and exchange ideas. In his own territory, Wang Daokun summoned famous talents from the countryside to come to the battlefield. The two sides win or lose each other, but they also learn from each other's strengths and complement each other's weaknesses, which is a good story for a while.
Wang Daokun is not only famous for his writing, but also his artistic creation is also outstanding.
Since the rise of the Song Huizong era, the "Southern Opera" has gone through vicissitudes at that time, and through the improvement of the skills of "Qu sheng" Wei Liangfu, it has gradually developed into the mainstream opera style of miscellaneous opera - KunLu.
Under the cultural pressure since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the creation of miscellaneous dramas has generally focused on the three major themes of "immortals", "filial piety" and "festival women", and few works have paid attention to the present. Wang Daokun started from the ancient frustrated aristocrats and high-ranking cultural figures, and around these figures or launched the mythical dream of "flowing clouds, several degrees of extinction in the morning", or showing the court officialdom of "provoking for no reason, provoking the situation".
In "Journey to the Five Lakes", Wang Daokun writes that during the Spring and Autumn Period, Fan Li assisted the Yue King to destroy Wu Gongcheng and retire, and returned to seclusion with Xi Shi. In "Luoshui Sorrow", he also remembers that Cao Vegetation returned to the fiefdom one by one, and met Luoshen as if he were lost. All of this is the manifestation of his initial experience in the official arena after feeling the coldness of the world, his state of mind, and his search for authenticity.
Perhaps for Wang Daokun, the change in his identity brought by the imperial examination is just Fan Li's "big dream of coming to the big dream" in "Five Lakes Tour", which will eventually disappear after a lifetime of smoke clouds.
Making meritorious achievements will be the first step for Wang Daokun to move towards Fan Li's road. In addition to his status as a poet and a play, he is also a well-known generation of generals.
Wang Daokun lived in the Jia (Jing) Long (Qing) Wan (Li) era, which was the peak period of the Invasion of the Southeast Coast by the Wukou Pirate Group, and the people suffered greatly. During his tenure as Commander of Yiwu County, Wang Daokun began to recruit a group of local township soldiers for Qi Jiguang, a famous general who resisted the Wu Dynasty, organized regimental training, and went to sea to resist the enemy. This ace unit later became the famous "Yiwu Soldier" under the training of Qi Jiguang, and played an important role in the Jiajing War of Resistance against the Wu Dynasty and the Wanli War of Aid to Korea.
With the formation of Yiwu soldiers, Wang Daokun also formed a deep friendship with Qi Jiguang. Qi Jiguang was three years younger than him, and the two lived and died together for nearly a quarter of their lives.
▲Qi Jiguang. Image source: Screenshot of film and television drama
In the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562), Wang Daokun, who had been promoted to Fujian Bingbei Dao, was invaded by the Wukou, and Ningde, Fuqing and other places were in a hurry. At this critical moment, Qi Jiguang led eight thousand soldiers to come to the rescue. Subsequently, Qi Jiguang led the battle, Wang Daokun dispatched for his staff, and the two cooperated seamlessly on the battlefield.
Before the battle began, the two men who understood the spirit specially drew out their swords and broke the two points, thus swearing not to live up to the Fujian military and people.
Three years later, after the victory in the Battle of Pingwu, Wang Daokun was so happy that he directly wrote ten poems to Qi Jiguang, "General Qi Entered Fujian and Broke the Thief", one of which read:
Qin Chuan was stubbornly supporting a thousand groups, and Han Jie recruited seven divisions.
Sima Chuan was not required to go west, and it was known that it was the Fubo Army in the south.
With the military merits of the Southern Expedition and the Northern War, Wang Daokun also entered the center of the empire in the late Jiajing period and sat in the military department.
At this time, with the fall of Yan Song, the political situation of Daming was undergoing earth-shaking changes.
Wang Daokun's fellow subject, Zhang Juzheng, has taken the relationship between Xu Jie, the first assistant of the cabinet, and has been in a smooth step. At the recommendation of Xu Jie, Zhang Juzheng entered the Yu King's Mansion and became the attendant of the future Great Tomorrow.
At that time, when he entered the Yu King's Mansion and gave lessons to Zhu Zaiquan, the Yu King, there was Also Zhang Juzheng's tongke Yin Shidan. But compared to the former's preparation for a springboard promotion, Yin Shidan was much more dedicated.
During the lesson to Yu Wang, Yin Shidan, who was from the land of Qilu, was upright. When dealing with Yu Wang, everyone only promised, but he did not show affection. Even during the winter and summer vacations stipulated by the royal family, he also wanted Yu Wang to "never quit at four o'clock". However, behind the strict educational requirements, Yin Xueshi also cared for Yu Wang, who had long been trapped in the contradiction of "two dragons cannot meet".
Speaking of this scene, Zhu Zaiyuan, who became emperor many years later, is still quite grateful.
In the forty-fifth year of Jiajing (1566), after taking a large amount of Dan medicine continuously, the Jiajing Emperor died. The third prince, Zhu Zaituo,the Prince of Yu, was elected by the secretaries of state as the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and was the Emperor of Longqing.
▲ Ming Muzong Zhu Zaituo. Image source: Network
After Jiajing's death, Zhang Juzheng, who was still in the Yu King's Mansion, was urgently summoned by Xu Jie, the "Bole", to draft a will. Subsequently, with the status of an old vassal of King Yu, Zhang Juzheng was able to enter the cabinet and enter the decision-making level of Daming. Xu Jie, on the other hand, had always been unkind to the new emperor, and soon after Long Qing came to power, he was deposed and retired home.
After Xu Jie left, the first assistant seat of daming's cabinet was vacant. Long Qing personally named li chunfang, the leader of Jiajing for twenty-six years, was able to stand out and become the boss of the cabinet.
Before Longqing ascended the throne, Li Chunfang was a champion and prepared for a long time at the side of the Jiajing Emperor. Jiajing liked to cultivate, and the chancellor's writing of green words for the emperor to sacrifice the heavens became an essential skill for promotion. Li Chunfang, as a champion, wrote a good green word. It is said that when Jiajing gave himself the title of "Tianchi Fishing", he once sent the emperor two hymns: "Arch the pole stars as jade bait, and the hanging crescent moon as a silver hook." ”
Li Chunfang is worthy of being a high talent, and a few figures have created an atmosphere of outstanding stars and moons, and Jiajing is very satisfied with this.
In exchange, it was Li Chunfang who "moved from bachelor to authority, and where there were six moves, he did not try to be pushed by the court", thanks to Jiajing's favor, and his official position rose straight up.
But in the Longqing era, Li Chunfang's good luck seems to have come to an end.
Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong among the cabinet ministers, although the water and fire are intolerable, but the position of the two is surprisingly consistent in dealing with Li Chunfang: this person is not suitable to be the first assistant.
Looking at the friendship of the same list of jinshi, Zhang Juzheng directly found Li Chunfang and advised him to accept it when he saw it. A large number of people are old, occupying the most important official positions in the imperial court, but they do not do practical things, they can only write and write green words, where is their face? It is better to hand over the power of auxiliary government to those who do practical things!
When Zhang Juzheng said that the person who did the practical work was referring to himself.
Li Chunfang also understood his embarrassing situation, and after comparing the dismal ending of Xu Jie's impeachment and removal, he took the initiative to hang up the crown and leave.
Li Chunfang is gone, but Zhang Juzheng still has not been able to sit in the coveted position of the first assistant in the cabinet. Sitting in this position is the high arch of his nemesis. With the assistance of Gao Gong, the Longqing Emperor lifted the sea ban and allowed a huge amount of silver to flow back to the Treasury of Daming through maritime trade, supporting the "Longqing New Deal".
Although Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng have many constraints, from the perspective of the national level, Zhang Juzheng knows that he has more important things to do.
In the fourth year of Longqing (1570), the Tatar khali khan once again invaded Datong in an attempt to ascend the throne as emperor. At this critical juncture, Zhang Juzheng learned that the grandson of Uttar Khan had hanaji and his grandfather liked the legendary Mongolian woman "Three Ladies" at the same time. Under the persecution of his grandfather, He defeated Han Naji and prepared to attach it.
Zhang Juzheng hurriedly wrote a letter to Wang Chonggu, who was then the governor of Shanxi, asking him to temporarily intercept the Mongols so that the court could negotiate with the Khan of Uttar Khan.
At the urging of Zhang Juzheng, Emperor Longqing would hand over Han Naji's gang to The Khan of Lida, and grant him the title of King of Shunyi, allowing him to marry the Third Lady. In exchange, Qata Khan renounced his claim to the throne.
Such a bloody business, Li Da Khan promised to do so. At this point, the northern border of Daming was slightly safer.
With the withdrawal of the Mongols, The Longqing Emperor's health deteriorated, and he died prematurely two years later due to excessive indulgence.
Zhang Juzheng ushered in the peak moment of his life.
With the favor of empress dowager Li, the biological mother of the successor emperor, Zhang Juzheng pulled down the high arch that had occupied the position of first assistant for 5 years, sat on it himself, and finally became a generation of famous faces.
In view of the continuous deficit of the Ming Dynasty treasury since the Zhengde period (1505-1521), Zhang Juzheng measured the land for the whole country as soon as he came to power and re-compiled the land fish scale atlas. After Zhang Juzheng's rectification, by the eighth year of the Wanli Calendar (1580), there were 7013976 hectares of fields in the country, which was nearly three times more than in the fifth year of Longqing (1571). Behind this is the result of Zhang Juzheng's vigorous crackdown on tax evasion and tax evasion by local tycoons and inferior gentry, and the annexation of cultivated land.
Although these reform measures were opposed by many ministers, from the perspective of financial management for the country, Zhang Juzheng sorted out a confused account of the empire.
Later, in the face of the Japanese drama of the court struggle, Zhang Juzheng also engaged in a set of "officials to rule the examination" method, with "respect for sovereignty, teaching officials, and believing in rewards and punishments", specializing in solving the behavior of imperial court officials in competing for power and seizing power and corrupting the law.
But while strictly demanding others, Zhang Juzheng is also greedy alone.
▲Zhang Juzheng. Image source: Network
At that time, everyone in the DPRK knew that Zhang Juzheng had two major military protectors, one was to resist Qi Jiguang, and the other was to guard the border Li Chengliang. In order to reassure the central government of the Ming Dynasty, these two famous generals did not give gifts to Zhang Shoufu. In Qi Jiguang's letter to Zhang Juzheng, we can also see a generation of famous generals who humbly call themselves "Qi Mou, a small lackey under the door", and their glorious heroic image is judged by two people.
On such a beautiful day, Zhang Juzheng did not have the blessing to enjoy it for long. In the tenth year of the Wanli Calendar (1582), he died of exhaustion at the age of 58.
With the death of Zhang Juzheng, the merits he had created single-handedly were also pulled out by the Wanli Emperor.
Just a few days after his death, Zhang Juzheng was ordered by the emperor to raid his home, cut off his official rank, and forced to seize the seal book and the four generations of commandments given before his death, and show the world with a crime.
For a time, the spit stars insulting Zhang Juzheng flew all over the sky.
In the end, Wang Shizhen, who was still in the same branch, did not care about his previous suspicions, and stood up to say a fair word for Zhang Juzheng: "Since there are ministers, everything has been done to the end; if you return to the king with ease, who is like my father?" Justice, the heart, the first discipline; sweep the dice, and start with the people. ”
This year, Wang Shizhen was 57 years old.
After the Jiajing political disaster, Wang Shizhen returned to the dynasty twice, and under the care of Zhang Juzheng, he oversaw Yun Yang. But the two are not the same people after all. After witnessing Zhang Juzheng's family bullying Gangneung Zhi County, Wang Shizhen wrote to Zhang Juzheng asking him to enforce the law impartially. However, Zhang Juzheng was selfish, and the two broke up since then.
For the rest of his life, under the pressure of Zhang Juzheng, Wang Shizhen had an unusually difficult life.
With the fall of Zhang Juzheng, none of this mattered.
Because, this year, Wang Shizhen also received a piece of good news, his young son Wang Shiqi won the first place xieyuan in the Ying Tianxiang examination.
The Wang family has a successor in the inheritance of the career!
Whether this is joy or sorrow, Wang Shizhen does not know. Born in Keju, he had been cultivating all his life, but in the end he was only adapted to reading and cultivating himself, and he could not see through and had no interest in the power struggle of eryu and self-deception.
In the eighteenth year of the Wanli Calendar (1590), with the death of Wang Shizhen, the imperial talents on the list of Jiajing's twenty-six years of advancement were also withering away. An era has quietly come to an end.
References: [Ming] Shen Defu: "Wan Liye Was Edited", Zhonghua Bookstore, 1989 [Ming] Wang Shizhen: "The First Auxiliary Biography of the Cabinet Since Jiajing", Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House, 2016 [Ming] Wang Shizhen: "Four Drafts of Yizhou Shanren", National Library DocumentAtion Center, 1992 [Qing] Zhang Tingyu: "History of Ming", Zhonghua Bookstore, 1974 Qiao Gen: "Ming Dynasty Huizhou Writer Wang Daokun Prose Art Characteristics", Journal of Jixi University, 2011 No. 1 Zhang Shuming: Study on the Shangshu of the Ming Dynasty", Master's Thesis of Shandong Normal University, 2019 Yu Peng: "Research on the Twenty-Six Years of Jiajing", Master's Thesis of Inner Mongolia University, 2016