"Future generations of eunuchs, who commit adultery, shall not be released to their own homes; after their death, they shall not be buried in the great house." Not from my will, not from my descendants. ”
This sentence is the last words of the northern Song Dynasty minister Bao Zheng. The gist is to admonish future generations that if they are officials, they must be honest and self-disciplined, and those who violate the law should be expelled from the family when they are born, and they must not be buried in the family cemetery after death. If future generations do not obey this testament, then it will not be after I have been saved!
Compared with those large-scale family trainings, Bao Zheng's family training can be described as short and short, and only discusses one point - incorruptibility.
Why did Bao Zheng, who was deified as "Bao Qingtian" in later legends, leave only such a family training? Is it related to the corruption cases he handled? Or is it due to family tradition?
The whole world is cloudy and I am alone
In the year of Bao Zheng's birth, he encountered a large-scale southern invasion by the Liao army. At that time, the second generation of the Northern Song Emperor Song Taizong had just died, and the successor Song Zhenzong was not very familiar with the situation, the Liao army took the opportunity to attack, the cavalry drove straight in, and most of the northern Song army could only retreat to the city and let its iron hooves ravage the land.
The Liao army once went deep into the Jinan area of Shandong Province, not too far from Bao Zheng's hometown of Luzhou, and if he continued to fight, then Bao Zheng might die in the war at a young age, or he might leave his hometown and become a displaced person.
Fortunately, the war was over. When Bao Zheng was five years old, Song Liao concluded the Alliance of Yuanyuan, and a hundred years of peace followed. Bao Zheng encountered a Taiping era.
Although the essence of the alliance is to pay people to eliminate disasters, for the Great Song Dynasty, this way is very hurtful, but on the other hand, the people of the Song and Liao countries did escape the scourge of war.
The difference between the Taiping era and the war years is too much. "I'd rather be a Taiping dog than a chaotic world", in general, of course, Taiping is far better than war, and economic prosperity and cultural prosperity are all things that can only happen in the Taiping era. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything, and the peaceful days of the feudal dynasty have been too long, and there will be some problems, such as the social atmosphere will gradually become extravagant and wasteful, and the corruption index of the official team will also rise significantly. In particular, the Northern Song Officials, who liked pleasure and held high salaries, quickly became corrupt officials everywhere.
Bao Zheng, who grew up in such an era, can be said to have been exposed to prosperity since childhood, and he has also seen the filth under the prosperity.
Bao Zheng's family lineage is still quite prominent, although his ancestors have no obvious career experience, but they are relatively rich and considered to be medium-sized landlords. When his father Bao Lingyi arrived, he began to go in and out of the DPRK and worked in a number of positions, including sensitive money and grain financial matters, and was quite incorruptible for officials, so that Bao Zheng, who came from a large family, was not born arrogant, but was deeply influenced by his father's words and deeds, and had a clear judgment of good and evil at a very young age.
Bao Zheng's tutoring was also very good, and his training in the Four Books and Five Classics had already begun, so Bao Zheng, who was well-gifted, was able to pass the examination at the age of twenty-nine and still ranked among the best. Shitu's first official position was a county order that was almost equal to six pins, which was rare at the time and had an immeasurable future. However, Bao Zheng temporarily gave up this splendid future because of the ancient adage that "his parents are here, not far away, and he must have a good time" and returned to serve his sick parents. It can also be seen from this that Bao Zheng is not a person who covets fame and fortune at all.
This suspension is ten years. Seven years later, his parents died, and Bao Zheng observed filial piety for three years, after which he stepped into his career again.
In this ten years, Bao Zheng, who seems to be far away from his career, has actually been thinking about how to be a future official, and wrote a poem to clarify the results of his thinking, including the sentence "Shame on those who leave no one behind", which means that officials cannot leave a curse to shame future generations. There is already a bit of the spirit of the opening sentence of the family training.
Bao Zheng had been an official for almost twenty-six years, and had worked in both the local and central governments, and at one point he had done quite a great job, reaching the level of deputy prime minister. Although in various legends in later generations, he incarnated as a detective who could judge various difficult cases, in history, judging cases was not actually Bao Zheng's main work, and more often, he existed as a counselor similar to Wei Zheng.
At that time, the emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty was Song Renzong, and the rule of the country could not be regarded as no party, and all aspects were very successful, as can be seen from the long list of titles after his death: Renzong Tianfa Dao Extreme Gong Quande Shenwen Shengwu Ruizhe MingXiao Emperor - all good words. Historically, the time of his reign was also known as "Emperor Renzong Shengzhi", which was really a peaceful and prosperous world. There are even records that the prestige of this Taiping Emperor made the Emperor of the Liao State greatly admired, and when he heard the news of his death, the Emperor of the Liao State wept bitterly, not only built a crown tomb for him in the far north, but also ordered future generations of the Liao Emperor to worship this Song Emperor as an ancestor...
But in fact, during the reign of this Ming emperor, the corruption problem of the Northern Song Dynasty officials was extremely serious, and the most serious problem was that he could not solve the serious corruption problem at all, and even simply resigned himself to it - as long as you mix, anyway, this is a peaceful and prosperous world, and there is no shortage of money to make you greedy.
Can the prosperity of the Taiping Dynasty fill the appetite of corrupt officials in the world? Song Renzong may not think there is a problem, but there is one person who feels very problematic. This man is Bao Zheng.
When Bao Zheng was doing supervision work, he repeatedly directly proposed to Song Renzong and even criticized some corruption issues, and sometimes this criticism was so strong that it was dangerous to "reverse the dragon scales". For example, there was a corrupt official named Wang Kui at that time, who not only expropriated and violently everywhere he went, but also used cruel means to treat the people who rebelled, and even provoked an armed riot. As soon as Wang Kui was transferred away, the local people put on a lantern and sent the plague god away with joy. In this regard, the superiors not only did not investigate and punish him, but instead let Wang Kui be promoted one after another, and even gave him a number of important official positions to concurrently hold.
Wang Kui was obviously someone in the court. Previously, some people also reported and exposed him, but they all failed, and later the "interesting" people also learned from Song Renzong and resigned themselves to it. Bao Zheng launched seven consecutive charges against this bandit-like official. The reason why there were so many times was because Wang Kui didn't know where his skills came from, what kind of mysterious backstage he had found, and after every time he was accused, Song Renzong was playing a haha. He was too confused to do so, so he hastily removed two posts, and soon added more posts to him.
According to the rules of the Northern Song Dynasty officialdom, such an obviously very powerful official, Bao Zheng, you should not continue to entangle. But in Bao Zheng's view, it is precisely because you are such a corrupt official that I have to sue you. But in the end, there was still no sue, and Bao Zheng should be discouraged, right? No way.
The reason why Bao Zheng left such a family training was because of his emphasis on incorruptibility, so that he would not close his mouth because of the emperor's fainting, and he would fulfill his responsibility and obligation to be honest. Since then, he has still remained unchanged in nature, repeatedly "attacking" Song Renzong, and even sometimes arguing that the two junchens are red in the face and saliva spray on the faces of others.
In addition to the supervision work, those corrupt officials and dignitaries were even more upset when they heard Bao Zheng's name. Bao Zheng lived a clean and frugal life, his sleeves were clean, and bribery and gifts did not work. For those "ways to make money" of colleagues, they are deeply resentful. It should be noted that at that time, the corruption of officials was so serious that some things that oppressed the people turned into an open system in implementation, such as the miscellaneous tax called Kepi, that is, local officials could arbitrarily increase the amount of tax when collecting the regular tax, which flowed into their own pockets. Bao Zheng did not accept this kind of people's fat and people's anointing, nor did he tolerate those corrupt officials. After successfully persuading Song Renzong to dismiss the miscellaneous taxes in several regions, he then demanded the recall of all such corruption projects nationwide, which caused shock in the government and the public, and corrupt officials and officials all gritted their teeth.
When this upright and strict official served as the governor of Kaifeng Province, which was equivalent to the mayor of the capital, he taught those powerful people who did wrongs a good lesson with vigorous means. There are many powerful people in front of the Son of Heaven, and kaifeng is like this, these people like to be vassals and elegant, so they built many pavilions and pavilions on the rivers in the city, in order to play and play there, chanting poems against each other, and the result is that they block the river to the extent that when it comes to heavy rain, the river will form a flood, which is a great disaster.
Because of the noble status of the owners of these illegal buildings, successive mayors of the capital are very "interesting". Wait until the bag that is not "interesting" comes to the rescue and immediately dismantles it. Knowing that this was a tricky figure that even the emperor dared to criticize, the powerful and noble wanted to "handle things according to law" and took out the land title and said that it was approved by the imperial court. It was okay not to take it out, as soon as it was taken out, it was recognized by Bao Zheng as true and false, and then directly reported to the emperor, frightening the troublemakers to run to the palace and beg for forgiveness.
He was such an official, and the Northern Song Dynasty officialdom he experienced was so corrupt, it is no wonder that he would sternly warn his descendants not to violate the word incorruptibility in his family training. He was worried that his descendants would become corrupt officials in this environment!
Descendants pass on the good name from generation to generation
Bao Zheng had two sons, but the eldest son, Bao Sui, died early, and the successor was the second son, Bao Shou.
Bao Shou was bao zheng's old son, and when bao zheng died, Bao Shou was only five years old. Although the family was not prosperous, but the Bao family portal was quite large, according to the customs at that time, it was not a problem to pass one or two heirs to Bao Zheng, but the fact was that the funerals after Bao Zheng's death were very cold, and there was no record of relatives and friends coming to help. It is probably related to the fact that these relatives of Bao Zheng once used bao Zheng's name to do evil in their hometown, but they were severely punished by Bao Zheng. It seems that not only has the family training set up by Bao Zheng not been accepted by these people, but even the minimum affection of relatives has not retained a few points, which is really regrettable.
But Bao Zheng has a good daughter-in-law. Bao Zheng's daughter-in-law is a member of the Cui family, and after the early death of her husband, that is, Bao Zheng's eldest son, she did not lack the conditions and opportunities to remarry, but she seemed to be unable to bear to see such a clean and good official die alone, voluntarily staying in the Bao family, and even regarded the young Bao Shou as her own, raised him hard, and carefully taught him not to forget his father's teachings.
However, Bao Shou did not have a hungry and cold childhood. Because when Song Renzong came to mourn this old minister, he found that although he was in a high position and authority, he was so poor, leaving orphans and widows, which was even more pitiful, and when he could not bear it, he rewarded a lot of property, and directly let the young Bao Shou enjoy the official treatment of his brother.
Compared with his peers, Bao Shuo, who was able to become an official from an early age without examination, can be regarded as a "second generation official", but he will not grow into the same "second generation of officials" who are corrupt and degenerate at that time, because his sister-in-law who guarded him has always admonished him and guided him with the spirit of his father, especially his father's family training.
The Northern Song Dynasty took talent and paid attention to the imperial examination, and officials who were directly inherited like Bao Shuo were actually not valued by the imperial court, but only a special treatment in terms of economy and reputation. However, Bao Shou was helped by his father's former friend, Prime Minister Wen Yanbo. This Wen Yanbo was a senior court official who had been an official for nearly fifty years after four dynasties, had profound political wisdom and extensive network of contacts, especially a humble temperament, treated people and things with a very sage style, and gave a lot of guidance to Bao Shuo, and was a good teacher for him. And Bao Shou, who was able to serve as a local official after becoming an adult, did not disappoint when he really stepped into his career, and as soon as he took office, he showed a clean and solemn Bao style, neither putting up the shelf of "second generation official", nor greeting people, and at the same time making some political achievements, he also won a good reputation for himself.
Under the recommendation of many people, Bao Shou was transferred to the DPRK as an official, and after a period of investigation, he was released again, with many political achievements, and the breeze came, all of whom praised this as "after the famous courtiers"! Unfortunately, this good son, who had the style of a father, died in a hurry at the age of forty-seven, when he was still on his way to his post. In addition to the documents appointed by the imperial court and some books, the money part of the relics was only more than forty copper coins!
At that time, officials in the Northern Song Dynasty were generally corrupt, and history called "eleven honest officials, nineteen greedy officials", that is, nine of ten officials were greedy. Even in a county order of a small county, seven or eight large ships were loaded with gold and silver treasures for moving. Before his death, Bao Shui, who was in charge of a state's money and grain affairs, only carried such a pitiful amount of copper money with him.
Such a good son, after his death, was not buried by his father's side. He didn't violate the family discipline! It is precisely because he strictly follows, and can even be said to carry forward, Bao Zheng's family training that he is so poor that after his death, his family has no money to send his body back to his hometown for burial! It was not until his children and grandchildren grew up that they collected money and buried their father back in their hometown.
Bao Zheng's grandson Bao Yongnian is also a good descendant who has deeply won the spirit of family training. Although this descendant did not do any high-ranking official, all of them were around the county level, but the clean and honest name was widely known. Because of the benefits to the local people, when he was transferred, the people spontaneously got up to send off, pulled their carriages and horses, and did not give up, this classic ancient people's farewell to good officials will happen to him, because the people feel that this person is really worthy of Bao Zheng' post: "After Bao Gong, I believe that there is a virtuous grandson!" "It is lamentable that this descendant of the Bao family also left quite early, and died in his forties, otherwise with his talent and incorruptibility, there should be further development in the political arena of the Northern Song Dynasty."
When Bao Yongnian died, he was also extremely poor, and history called it "no relics", and his funeral matters were only buried with the help of relatives and friends. Since then, the descendants of the Bao clan have all been officials for generations, and the generations have been clean and honest, and have always kept in mind the legacy of their ancestors, and the word corruption cannot find any room for rooting and sprouting in this family. To this day, this spirit has become part of the Chinese nation's culture of honest government, and Bao Zheng has evolved from an official in charge of supervision to a well-known representative of justice.
(The content is authorized from "The Story of China's Excellent Family Style", published by China Founder Publishing House in 2022)