(Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun)
Before the story begins, let's ask you a question.
If the officials of the Ming Dynasty wanted to step down, what were the two ways?
The answer is very obvious, one is to voluntarily resign, and the other is to be removed from office by the emperor.
However, in the dynasty of the Wanli Emperor, officials wanted to leave their posts, but they could not go on both roads, and they could only harden their official positions.
The reason is very simple, that is, the Wanli Emperor is lazy.
Some readers may say, lazy or something, I am also lazy, I think it is not a big deal.
It is true that the people of Pingtou are lazy and lazy, and it is harmless, but if Emperor Lao Tzu is a lazy person, the government will be completely chaotic.
To some extent, the author even believes that Wan Li is the most feared emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which is far more serious than the "murderous demon" Zhu Yuanzhang and the "war machine" Zhu Di.
(Zhu Yuanzhang)
Because Wanli has a very terrible weapon for the emperor, that is, laziness.
Say that he is lazy, and his mouth is unfounded, and we must come up with empirical evidence.
From the fourteenth year of the Wanli Calendar, that is, from 1586 AD, the emperor began various strikes, early on, folding not looking, the minister did not see, all day long stunned is unable to find people, the emperor does not go out of the door, the second door does not step, hard to live himself into an otaku.
And this situation lasted for nearly thirty years.
Thirty years of not going to the dprk, not working, not dealing with anything related to the operation of the country.
No matter how much the ministers pleaded and discussed, the emperor was a word, I was tired, I needed to rest.
It is true that Wanli's slack administration is actually for a reason.
The emperor ascended the throne at the age of ten, Chong Ling took the throne, and ten years before becoming emperor, the power of the dynasty had been in the hands of a man named Zhang Juzheng.
Zhang Juzheng was the first assistant, the emperor's home, the emperor's lord, and even the emperor's power, so for many years, the Wanli Emperor had been living in Zhang Juzheng's shadow.
An emperor without power cannot be called an emperor, but can only be called a puppet.
(Zhang Juzheng)
After Zhang Juzheng, although Wanli grasped the power and became an emperor with a single handle, he found that even if he held the power, he had many things that he could not do.
These things cannot be done by the Lord, including the matter of li reserves.
The emperor did not have a concubine under his knees, so he wanted to make his second son Zhu Changxun the crown prince, but according to daming's patriarchal succession system, when the emperor did not have a concubine, he should make the eldest son of the concubine the crown prince, so it is obvious that according to this provision, Zhu Changxun, who is the second son of the second son, is not eligible to be made crown prince.
The one who was really qualified to inherit the throne was Zhu Changluo, the eldest son of Shu.
But the problem was that the emperor did not like Zhu Changluo and was very stubborn to push Zhu Changxun to the throne of the crown prince.
In this way, the emperor and the ministers were at odds.
Whenever the emperor revealed the slightest idea of making Zhu Changxun crown prince, he immediately attracted opposition from the civil bureaucracy.
The civil bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty was not a joke.
Since the Ming Dynasty, the civil servants in the court have allied with each other and formed a very powerful political force, which can not only call the wind and rain in the court, but also always greater than the imperial power and influence the actions of the emperor.
Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, forced by the civil officials to stay in the Forbidden City, had to run out to travel every day, the Emperor Zhu Houxi, really had no way, had to cultivate immortals in the palace every day, trying to be clean.
In the ming dynasty, the situation was even more unoptimistic.
As long as the emperor mentions the change of the crown prince, the overwhelming opposition will reach his ears, just listen to the ministers singing the opposite tune, the emperor opened the daily cabinet to send a look, the eyes are also full of fierce criticism of their own words, and more ministers, when they meet the emperor, they will often hit their heads on the pillar, indicating that as long as you dare to make Zhu Changxun the prince, we dare to play with you.
(Zhu Changxun)
However, the Wanli Emperor was also a very stubborn and stubborn person, so even if the ministers were opposed, he still insisted that his ideas would not change, and he fought with these ministers and confronted them for more than ten years, during which the problem of Li Chu led to countless intricate political struggles, but the final result ended in failure.
The Wanli Emperor was desperate, and he suddenly found himself isolated and passive in the Ming Dynasty, and it was absolutely impossible to defeat this group of stubborn and pedantic courtiers.
In the end, the emperor chose to compromise, and Zhu Changluo became the crown prince, later Ming Guangzong.
But because of this incident, the emperor developed a very negative and pessimistic mood about daming's political atmosphere, and he began to live in simplicity, no longer asking about state affairs and even going to the end of the dynasty at all, and began to miss work straight.
He no longer met with any ministers, did not approve any of the notes, he wanted to turn himself into a transparent person in the Forbidden City.
I think that the reason why Wanli made such a move may not be simply a disappointment in politics, but also a kind of revenge against the civilian clique.
Since you won't let me decide everything, then good, I won't do anything in the future, I won't care about anything, I'll let you do it in a hurry.
(Ming Dynasty official)
The emperor did nothing, it seems that the impact is not large, because the affairs of the government have a cabinet, there are patrols at the border war, even if he does nothing, the officials of the Ming Dynasty can also keep the country in order, but there is only one thing, if the emperor does not participate, then the Ming dynasty will soon fall into paralysis, this matter is the appointment and dismissal of personnel mentioned at the beginning of our article.
Sesame petty officials and local officials do not matter, because local governors have certain personnel appointment and removal powers, and there is no need for the emperor to participate, but the Beijing officials are different.
The officials in Beijing, whether they were inaugurated, transferred, promoted or dismissed, needed to be personally confirmed by the emperor.
Now that Wanli has disappeared in the Forbidden City, the personnel work of the Beijing Division has not lasted for a few days, and it has begun to fall into paralysis.
How about a paralysis method? It is probably "people are stuck in the official, the official Cao is empty", that is, the appointment and dismissal of officials has entered a stagnant stage, the promotion of the official can not be promoted, the retired can not be retired, the dismissal can not be avoided, everyone you look at me and I look at you, can only stare at their respective posts.
This situation lasted until the forty-seventh year of the Wanli calendar, that is, in 1619 AD, and the personnel work in the court can be said to have completely collapsed.
Among the nine ministries of the Central Committee, only the Household Department and the Department of Communications and Politics have ministers, and the work of the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Punishment can only rely on the part-time work of the Household Minister.
The above departments are still good, after all, even if there is no chief, there are still people.
The military department, the official department, and the ceremonial department only have official seals, and there is no one to manage them at all, and the Inspection Yuan and Dali Temple are even more cattle, not only no one goes to work, but even the official seals of the people who do things are lost.
(Li Tingji)
The protagonist of our article, Li Tingji, appeared in this situation.
Li Tingji, a native of Quanzhou, Fujian Province, was born in the eleventh year of the Wanli Calendar, that is, the second place in the country.
It is reasonable to say that Li Tingji's examination results that year were actually the first in the country, and he should have been the first to be the first, but he put on a very eccentric personality, Shen Shixing took a look at the list of candidates, and the more he looked at Li Tingji, the more unpleasant it was, and the result was that he directly canceled his yuan results.
But fortunately, Comrade Li Tingji is a very optimistic and enlightened person, he did not have the psychology of revenge on society because his hat was robbed, but instead humbly went to the local area to work and did a lot of good things for the people.
He used to be in charge of the examination in Zhejiang, selecting talents and talents, and providing a group of very good talents for the country.
Later, because of his good work, he was transferred back to the Beijing Division as the Shangshu of the Ceremonial Department, and he cared for his subordinates very much, and he paid for the benefits of the employees of the Ceremonial Department at every turn.
Usually, there is nothing to hang out on the street, but whenever he encounters a beggar, he gives a lot of money and is very generous.
Although Li Tingji was a Rebbe Shangshu, the monthly Fenglu was only about sixty stones, which was not enough for him, who had always loved to be a great benevolent person.
Even if the money is not enough, the news that Li Tingji loves charity has spread for ten hundred times, resulting in the beggars in the Beijing division running to the door of Li Tingji's house every day to squat, as long as Li Tingji goes out, they have gathered around to ask for money, Li Tingji has no way, the salary is not enough to give, he will sell the house and sell the land to help the poor.
Later, some people counted Li Tingji's assets after retirement, and only counted a dozen or two pieces of silver, and the second member of the tangtang imperial court, after a lifetime of mixing, actually only had such a little money left, I have to say that he and the bare-chested Lord Hai Ruihai have a fight.
In the thirty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar, in 1606 AD, Li Tingji was finally transferred to the cabinet because of his excellent performance in the Ministry of Rites, but he did not know that he did not enter the cabinet, and when he entered the cabinet, he was shocked, he flipped through the list of officials served in the Beijing Division, and he was directly dumbfounded.
The total number of officials of the Ninth Central Department was only thirty-one.
This means that for a long time, everyone is actually overloaded with work, and one person is used as ten people.
Everyone was exhausted from their own work, and there was really no time for him to take care of it, but political affairs were not waiting for anyone, and hundreds of folds were continuously sent from the localities, and the emperor did not look at it, and could only stay in the cabinet in large numbers.
Although Li Tingji served in the cabinet, he did not have the power to approve the recital for the emperor, so even if he had the heart to solve problems for the emperor, he could only look at the mountain of folds every day.
(Cabinet)
The problems of the people were sent to the government and could not be solved, causing the people's resentment to boil over.
The folds of the local departments were sent to the central government, but they still could not be resolved, and the local officials also complained about the imperial court.
The officials of the Jingshi were repeatedly unresponsive, and they were even more angry, and they were very angry at the emperor's absenteeism and the ineffectiveness of the cabinet.
The ministers first came to scold the Wanli Emperor for being passive and sluggish, and secondly, they scolded the cabinet ministers for drinking and eating bags, and they could not come up with any good solutions to this situation.
The Wanli Emperor was cheeky and indifferent to the ministers' almost insulting advice, but Li Tingji felt very wronged.
It's not that I'm in a bag of wine, it's that I can't find where the emperor is, I can't find the emperor, how do I solve the problem?
Li Tingji was not the only one who could not find the emperor, the resentment and anger of the ministers had nowhere to vent, the cabinet became a scapegoat, and all the ugly words pointed to the cabinet, which made Li Tingji very unbearable.
The insults of the courtiers were endless all day long, and Li Tingji really could not resist it, so he decided to resign and not to work and go home to retire.
But he knew that according to the efficiency of the Wanli Calendar, it would take him three or five months to deal with his resignation, so he decided to sell his mansion in Jingshi and exchange it for silver for two weeks to help the poor, and he moved to live in a broken temple to show his determination to resign.
If a resignation is submitted and there is no response, then write five, five resignations without response, then write ten, ten resignations without response, then write twenty.
By analogy, our comrade Li Tingji lived pitifully in the ruined temple for five years, writing a full one hundred and twenty-three resignations, but still did not get a single and a half response from the emperor.
(Broken Temple)
Even if they resigned, the common people saw that the senior officials in the imperial court actually moved to the broken temple to live, and praised them one after another, and as a result, the reputation of "temple Blessing Pavilion Elder" did not go away.
Everyone has word of mouth that a minister like Li Tingji is a clean official and a good official, and such an official we must support him and let him remain an official until he retires.
Things developed to this point, and Li Tingji finally collapsed.
Thus, something happened that had never come before and no ancient person in the history of the Ming Dynasty- Li Tingji himself fired himself.
He was accused of leaving his post without authorization, and without the emperor's permission, he abandoned his official position and ran back to his hometown in Fujian overnight.
In this way, Li Tingji spent four years in his hometown in Fujian, until the forty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar, in 1616 AD.
But what is even more miraculous is that the Wanli Emperor did not pursue Li Tingji for dereliction of duty and did not tell other sins, but instead pursued the title of "Wenjie".
Li Tingji died, but the Ming Dynasty did not undergo any substantial changes because of his departure.
The officials began to become impatient, and began to live a paid life, and the Ming River was sinking and dead, and no one knew what direction and end the empire would go.
As for the Wanli Emperor himself, there was nothing to say.
Day after day, he shut himself in his room to sleep, with the attitude of "who dreams big dreams first, I know myself in life", waiting for one night and another night and dawn.