In April of the forty-fifth year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1566), Fengyi County, Yuanzhou Prefecture, Jiangxi, the Yuan River was green and the mountains were green. But an old man who lived here did not care about this charming scenery, and his time was running out under the heavy attack of hunger, sickness, and grief, and he thought that if history gave him another chance to choose, he might .......
Starting from the end and ending in the path
When Yan Song was born, the Yan family was not a wealthy family. Gaozu Yan Mengheng did not accumulate much property, and although his grandfather and father bought some land, his family was still poor, so that he could not afford to pay for Yan Song's schooling. Yan Song lost his father at the age of 16 and spent his teenage years in the lonely cold. Decades later, when he had already soared, he still recalled with emotion: "The minister was involved in the world and started cold", "Sixteen and lost, the trace of loneliness, and the grandfather raised him as an adult." Even at the beginning of his tenure as an official, he still had no way out of poverty, and the poems "The family was poor and thought of quinoa, and the cold was so cold that he wanted to wear clothes", "An official family is full of diseases, and several mouthfuls of family food and old poverty" truly describe his "first and poor" situation. In the direct lineage of Yan Song, since the ancestor Yan Mengheng, the Shi Gong has been interrupted for three generations, seventy or eighty years.
Jiangxi's rich humanities and strong feudal cultural atmosphere made his grandfather's education of Yan Song never relaxed, until his father's deathbed, he still remembered and instructed him to "I will be the first to become my will".
Hongzhi was eleven years old, and Yan Song was 19 years old. In one fell swoop, he ranked sixteenth and won the exam. In the eighteenth year of Hongzhi, the 26-year-old Yan Song was admitted to the second rank in the Junior Rank. The Ministry of Science and Ceremony will select 303 Jin Shi on a trial basis, and Yan Song will be ranked 38th. After holding the palace examination, Yan Song won the second place in the second class (the fifth in the palace examination sequence), and then was selected as a Shujishi and entered the Hanlin Academy for further study, "Chucai Guan Pavilion". In the second year of Zhengde (1507), Shujishi completed his studies and was awarded the Hanlin Academy's editing, Zhengqipin. He finally jumped over the dragon gate and stepped into the ranks of the eunuchs.
Seclusion creates momentum and paves the way up
Yan Song did not go straight along this promotion map, but made a big detour. In May of the third year of Zhengde, his grandfather Yan Ji died of illness, and he took leave to return to Li to mourn. In June of the following year, his mother died of illness and continued to worry at home. According to the feudal rite system, his descendants could be removed and reinstated after three years (actually twenty-seven months), but Yan Song lived in his hometown for eight years and did not return to the dynasty. He built a hall at the foot of Mount Jun and on the side of the Palace of Learning, named "Junshan Hall", "Facing the Mountain Calendar, Beautiful and Neat", "Planting Grass, Delaying Books, Hairpins and Crests, Idle and Crisp", and actually lived a life of seclusion.
The reason is because the Zhengde period was one of the most violent periods for eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty. In the early years of Zhengde, the eunuch Liu Jinzhuo chaotic imperial government, "Gu ordered all the ministers and repelled them all", "advised the officials and Taiwan ministers, and exhausted the hoe", "The prison of the North Gate suddenly rose, and the calamity of the gentry was particularly fierce". In Beijing, officials who did not follow Liu Jin were either killed or degraded thousands of miles away.
In the fifth year of Zhengde, after Liu Jin was accused, the situation of eunuch dictatorship did not change. "The regime is still inside, Wei Bin, Ma Yongcheng and others are in charge of the dynasty, and the two rivers north and south, and Chu Shu robbers." In addition to Mink Yingting, Dudu Jiang Bin, Jinyi Wei Qian Ning and other Yu Qian Ning were rampant, and Qingliu was calamitous. "Emperor Wuzong travels like a day, not caring for state affairs, and people rise up at the same time for a while, Qian Ning is lucky with brocade, Zang Xian is lucky with a good person, Jiang Bin and Xu Tai are lucky with border generals, Ma Ang is lucky with his female brother, calamity flows in China and abroad, and there are several ruins in the Zongshe."
This is the situation in front of Hanlin Xinjun Yan Song. If the scales are broken, the calamity will fall; Attachment to the refuge will leave the annals of history. He did not have the temperament and courage to dare to fight fiercely, and he also retained the mentality that ordinary scholars did not want to be with eunuchs, so he had to temporarily leave the political whirlpool, return to the fields, wait for the situation to improve, and then go out and return to the dynasty. This can not only avoid the flames, but also win the reputation, which can be described as the best of both worlds.
So he took the opportunity of Ding Xuan to live in his hometown for a long time in the name of recuperating from illness. Although he tries his best to avoid his true motives, his mentality of escaping struggle is still revealed in his poems. During this period, he made many friends with famous people. During his tour of Jiangxi, the famous psychologist Wang Shouren visited Yan Song in Junshan and wrote a plaque for Junshan Hall. University scholar Wang Wei sent a letter to the rural residence, "looking forward to the East Mountain, famous in the North Sea", Yan Song asked him to write an inscription for the Junshan Hall, and Wang Wei gladly ordered the pen. In the "Inscription", there is the phrase "to seek virtue, the world will prosper". Yan Song then named his son after the character "Shifan". Wang Wei also presented him with his collection of poems, Yuntai Compilation, by Zheng Gu, a poet from Yuan Prefecture of the Tang Dynasty, recorded in the Secret Pavilion of Guanzhong. He "came from the school, and it was a false lack", and Fu Zi engraved it. Famous scholars such as Zhan Ruoshui and Huang Wei are also Yan Song's friends.
Yan Song's social activities not only established his important position in the cultural world, but also expanded his political influence. His friends Li Mengyang, He Jingming, Wang Tingxiang, Wang Wei, Wang Shouren, Cui Mill and others were not only knowledgeable, but also clean, and in the early years of Zhengde, they were persecuted for resisting Liu Jin, or sent to prison, or sceptered, or degraded, and the name of direct advice spread widely. Yan Song travels with them, giving people the impression that he is also a warrior fighting evil. The support of these benevolent people made him shine suddenly.
Taking advantage of the rise, power has never let go
The only good news Yan Song received during his seclusion was that the emperor died the following spring after falling into the water shortly after his southern tour. Since Emperor Zhengde had no children and no brothers during his lifetime, under the consultation of Yang Tinghe and the Empress Dowager, Zhu Houxi, the son of Emperor Hongzhi's younger brother, was only sixteen years old, to inherit the throne. Since Emperor Jiajing did not ascend the throne in a way that was a brother and brother, Yang Tinghe originally asked the emperor to recognize Emperor Hongzhi as his father, but Emperor Jiajing thought it was contrary to ethics. The Great Gift Debate, which had been debated for nearly two decades, broke out. Yan Song was keenly aware that the opportunity that belonged to him might have arrived.
Yan Song worked as a shangshu in Nanjing for five years, when he was almost a flower jia. In May of the fifteenth year of Jiajing, with the efforts of Li Shi, the head of the cabinet, and Xia Yan, Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, Yan Song was transferred back to the Beijing Division, and became the Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites and the Hanlin Bachelor of the Prime Minister's History Museum. Xia Yan may not know that ten years later, it was Yan Song, who was promoted by himself, who personally sent him away, making the Ming Dynasty even more corrupt. In the Great Ceremonial Incident, Yan Song unswervingly stood on the side of the emperor, and since the emperor and Emperor Taizong were both minor sects who inherited the throne, Emperor Jiajing was undoubtedly happier to compare the emperor's biological father to Emperor Gao and the emperor himself to Emperor Taizong Ming. So he favored him even more, and even called him not Yan Song but only Zhong in the edict.
Yan Songming Sejong also liked. One day, Sejong gave the Shen perfume leaf crown to Yan Song and other ministers, and then Yan Song would wear this crown every time he went out to the dynasty, and specially wrapped it with light gauze to show solemnity. Seeing this, Sejong liked Yan Song more and more.
Promoted to Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, Yan Song began the road of traitor. The sycophancy's character is more and more obvious, the ugly acts of corruption and bribery also occur from time to time, and the increase in feudal power often means the deepening of the degree of corruption, and once the power is in hand, it is necessary to use it to further expand the power and extract property in order to become rich. In the six years from Jiajing's fifteenth year as Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites to twenty-one years after he entered the cabinet, the imperial history of the northern and southern capitals launched several waves of powerful attacks against him, but all of them passed the pass due to the protection of the emperor. In front of the Jiajing Emperor, who was stunned for his own use, Yan Song, as one of the Nine Qing, either bowed down to the prince and obeyed the will, thus seeking favor: or he was straightforward and blunt, and thus was reviled, and could no longer be like before, with both ends of the rat head and watching from the wall.
Yan Song had only one choice - to flattering the emperor at all costs, attacking those ministers who made the emperor uncomfortable, and helping the Jiajing Emperor amass wealth for himself.