In fact, the problem of personal life style is not very big, many famous courtiers in history have the habit of living luxury, not only Zhang Juzheng alone. For example, there is a Peking opera called "Kou Zhun Strike Banquet", which tells that when the famous Minister of the Song Dynasty, Kou Zhun, was young, he liked to make a big ladder at home, and he called on a large number of friends and friends at every turn, drinking and playing together, and drumming music. His mother couldn't look at it anymore and criticized him, and he made up his mind to change from evil to righteousness and not continue to indulge himself.
There is also a celebrity, Zu Ti. This name may not be familiar to many people, but the two idioms of smelling chicken dancing and hitting water in the middle stream should be heard, right? He created it. He was born in a chaotic world, just in time for the collapse of the short-lived dynasty of the Western Jin Dynasty, a group of people dressed in crowns rushed to the south, Zu Ti knew that current affairs were difficult, every day when he heard the chicken crying, he got up to dance swords and learn martial arts, and later when others fled south with their wives and sons, he went up against the current to the Northern Expedition.
However, in his early years, Zu Ti was also like other noble princes of the door valve family that was popular at that time, and his life style was very luxurious, and he drank excessively and drank all day. Because these people are well-born, they don't need to work hard, and they can become high officials. If you can lie down and win, why do you have to work hard yourself? At that time, there were more famous people who were known for luxury, and Shi Chong was such a person.
But what Shi Chong left to future generations was only the legend of fighting with others to get rich, because he had no other more prominent deeds and contributions, and like other cloaked warriors at that time, he enjoyed life and made little contribution to the country and society. Zu Di was different, although he was not able to prevent the collapse and demise of the Western Jin Dynasty later, nor could he resist the arrival of the Wuhu Chaohua, but personally, he had worked hard after all, which was already rare in that era.
Therefore, the most important thing in evaluating a political figure is not to look at his personal character, but how he is politically, what he has done, how effective he has been, and the size of his contribution to the country and society. This is also known as the informality of those who achieve great things. If the contribution to the country and society is great, even if there is a loss of private morality, as long as it is not too serious, it is not too big a problem, but if there is no contribution to the country and society, and there is still a luxurious life, then the problem is relatively big.
Another important question is that as a high-ranking official in the imperial court, the style of life is luxurious, so the natural question is, where does your money come from? If there is no problem with the source of the money, it is fair and upright, and it is spent on its own money, it is not too much of a problem, at most it is a problem of personal morality and life style, but if it is money obtained from corruption and bribery, it is a serious problem of violating the law and discipline, and it must be investigated.
Zhang Juzheng, as the first assistant, made a great contribution to the Ming Dynasty. From Jiajing and Longqing to the Three Dynasties of Wanli, it was the critical period when the Ming Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline, and there were many domestic and foreign crises. Whether it is Jiajing or Wanli, they have not been in the ming dynasty for many years, and the country has accumulated many internal and external contradictions and crises, and it is necessary for someone to cheer up and carry out drastic reforms in order to continue the life of the Ming Dynasty. The financial problem, in particular, is a particularly serious problem at this time.
This is where Zhang Juzheng's contribution lies. With the support of Empress Li and the eunuch Feng Bao, he presided over the drastic reforms as the first assistant, and reformed the financial, personnel, and administrative systems of the Ming Dynasty, and made a relatively large contribution to the Ming Dynasty. In particular, he presided over a whip law reform, unified taxation, solved serious problems in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and increased the financial revenue of the imperial court, so that the Ming Dynasty still did not have a relatively large turmoil in the case of the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli Calendar.
But also during this period, Zhang Juzheng was in a position where various contradictions gathered, but his life was not proper enough, leaving a lot of excuses for his political enemies, such as his manipulation of authority, the appointment of private individuals, and the problem of corruption and bribery. However, after his death, when Wanli ordered the raid on his home, he actually did not copy much money from his home, indicating that he did not embezzle and accept bribes and accumulate wealth like Yan Song's father and son, and his extravagant life was paid for by his normal income and the rewards of the emperor and the empress, which in itself was not reprehensible.