This article is written with reference to historical sources and personal opinions, and the relevant literature sources have not been indicated.
(Forbidden City Photography)
In the eighteenth year of Wanli, in 1590 AD, the Ming court carried out such a personnel transfer: Shi Kunyu, the minister who was originally in the Beijing Division, was transferred to Suzhou Mansion as the prefect.
Shi Kunyu, whose name is Ruzhong, is a native of Huangmei, Hubei, and the Hubu Langzhong he did at that time could not be regarded as an important position in the central court, but was delegated to the local prefect, that is, the chief official of a state, so this seems to be a promotion.
But in fact, this is a bright rise and a dark fall.
There is heaven above, and there is Suzhou and Hangzhou, although this Suzhou is rich, but after all, the emperor is far away, once you are sent to the place, your political resources will immediately become less, and the platform for you to display your ambitions will also become smaller, it is very likely that everyone will forget you, and if you want to kill back to the Fengtian Palace, it will not be easy.
But if you can work in Beijing for a long time, even if you are a Langzhong, a principal, an imperial history, and a matter of giving, then your connections, resources, and the things you can contact are completely different from those you have in the place.
For political speculators, the change from the central to the local level is of course not good, but for Shi Kunyu, it doesn't matter, and even, he is a little happy.
Because Shi Kunyu is a person who has a clean reputation as an official, he has an upright and upright personality, and he is a typical honest official.
For a person like him, if you let him be a Langzhong who can't speak at all in the court, he will only be sullen every day, but if he is delegated to be the chief official of a state, at least he will speak in Suzhou, and he can really benefit the people.
Shi Kunyu was an official, Zhang Taiyue has been dead for nearly ten years, we say that fate is destined by God, ability varies due to individual differences, as an official, of course, we can't everyone be Zhang Juzheng, but we at least have the right to choose to be Hai Rui.
(Shi Kunyu image)
Of course, Hai Jui is also not easy to do.
In Suzhou, there are many gentry of the noble family, they have a complex composition, there are rich families who have lived here for generations, and there are old cadres who have retired from the political arena, these people seem to have raised the joy of the countryside, but in fact they often gang up, oppress the people, occupy the land, evade taxes, so open fire, of course, they are still inextricably linked with the court.
For example, today today you see a Suzhou squire standing in the field dressed as a farmer, and he can send a letter to the cabinet in the evening.
In a word, there is someone above my brother.
For this kind of gentry group, ordinary people can tolerate it, but Shi Kunyu is a violent temper, and he will never be able to bear it, so as soon as he arrived in Suzhou, he vigorously governed these local tyrants and inferior gentry who oppressed the people, and also made remarkable achievements.
But it is clear that the interests of the gentry are a piece of cheese that has been gnawed for many years, and whoever touches this piece of cheese is likely to be retaliated against.
Sure enough, after Shi Kunyu finished rectifying the squire in Suzhou, a man named Li Lai quickly stood up.
Li Lai, the word Yuanfu, a native of Jiangxi Yandu, was the governor of Yingtian at the time.
This governor of Yingtian was very powerful at that time, he could directly manage almost all the prefectures, counties and townships in the south of Nanzhili, and even radiate from Nanjing City, and he could manage wherever he went.
When Shi Kunyu was cleaning up these illegal squires in Suzhou, Li Lai also happened to be the governor of Suzhou, Li Lai and Shi Kunyu didn't fight each other, and impeached Shi Kunyu without saying a word, and directly sent Shi Kunyu to prison, on the grounds that "tampering with the treasury of Wu County", it was really a great crime, not to mention that I directly let him squat in the class room, even if I cut him down, it was very reasonable.
Wu County, a county under the jurisdiction of Suzhou Prefecture, has a lot of taxes, and is very rich in the yamen, Li Lai means that Shi Kunyu, as the chief official of Suzhou, took advantage of his position to embezzle all the money in the yamen of Wu County.
Of course, this is impossible, because Shi Kunyu is a very, very typical Qing official, it can be said that he is honest to the bones, and it is impossible for him to corrupt the court for a dollar, and besides, take 10,000 steps back and say, since you Li Lai have put Shi Kunyu in prison, you must at least come up with evidence of Shi Kunyu's corruption, right?
(Li Lai's image)
Whether it's an account book, cash money, or a piece of land, you have to come up with the same, right?
Li Lai spread his hands, I really can't take it out, but if I can't take it out, it doesn't mean that you are not guilty.
Anyway, shoot first and then investigate, to ensure that there is not a single unjust, false and wrongful case.
Li Lai not only sent Shi Kunyu to prison directly in Suzhou, but also reported the matter to the imperial court.
The prefect embezzled public funds, this is a big deal, and the case soon alarmed the Wanli Emperor who was in a state of sleep, after all, it doesn't matter if anything else, but if anyone steals their money, Wanli will definitely not be happy.
The emperor was furious and immediately arranged for Chen Weizhi, the imperial historian, to investigate whether Shi Kunyu was corrupt.
This investigation is indeed problematic.
Shi Kunyu's body is too upright, a person like him, only he helps the people and is sympathetic to widowhood, you will never find any stain on him in the officialdom.
Chen Weizhi checked left and right, up and down, and checked for more than a month, but no evidence was found.
It stands to reason that Li Lai should be released when he finds out this, but the problem is that the ministers in the court are more guilty of muttering about this matter, and few of them stand up to say a fair word for Shi Kunyu, because the ministers know that Li Lai's identity is not simple, he is very hard backstage in the officialdom, and Li Lai's backer is Shen Shixing, who was the first assistant of the cabinet at the time.
Shen Shixing's ancestral home is Suzhou, and he is inextricably linked with the local squires in Suzhou, and many of the squires in Suzhou are related to Shen Shixing.
If it's just Li Lai himself who wants to rectify Shi Kunyu, then it's okay to say, a governor of Yingtian, offended and offended, Li Lai was originally falsely accused, he didn't take advantage of it at all, Shen Shixing liked and dilute the mud the most when he was an official, he would definitely not pull the sidelines, he would only abandon the car to protect the handsome.
(Mingshenzong Zhu Yijun portrait detail)
But then again, in case Shen Shixing is not only Li Lai's backstage, but also the backstage of the Suzhou gentry, and Shi Kunyu's behavior of punishing the squire in Suzhou happened to touch Shen Shixing's fundamental interests, so Li Lai's false accusation against Shi Kunyu is just that Shen Shixing is using Li Lai as a gunman, if you speak for Shi Kunyu at this time, it will be a little bad.
Isn't that great? This Wanli Emperor lives in seclusion all day long, he always does not want to go to the court for four weeks a month, the government affairs of the Ming Dynasty rely on the cabinet team to preside, and the cabinet leader is Shen Shixing, you offend Shen Shixing, you do it with him, it is indispensable to depreciate Lingnan, and come to exclude and suppress one-stop service.
Such examples are not uncommon, Huang Dacheng accused Shen Shixing of having problems with his work attitude and character, and was dismissed, and Huang Zhengbin, the secretary of the cabinet, had already impeached Shen Shixing for being a good man on the surface, but in fact, he secretly excluded his colleagues and suppressed his ministers, and as a result, he was also dismissed.
Everyone knows which is more important.
Of course, there are those who dare not speak, and there are those who dare to speak, at that time, an imperial historian named Li Yongzhong made a generous statement, pointing the finger at Shen Shixing, saying that it was no problem to investigate Shi Kunyu for so long, and the cabinet didn't hurry up to release Shi Kunyu, isn't this entirely the collusion between Shoufu Shen Shixing and Governor Li Lai to deliberately frame Shi Kunyu?
For such a question, Shen Shixing, who has always been scheming, also has his own explanation, he said, first of all, this matter is not groundless, not only should the governor of the sky report Shi Kunyu corruption, but Zhou Yingao, the magistrate of Wu County, also jointly signed a guarantee, I am the first assistant, my attitude is to deal with it impartially, but if you suspect that I have a problem, then I will simply stop this first assistant, and I will directly sue the old man and return to his hometown.
(Shen Shixing, portrait, detail)
Regardless of whether Shen Shixing participated in the persecution of Shi Kunyu or not, his move was indeed quite high.
Wanli was busy with slacking off government, of course, it was impossible to dismiss Shen Shixing, so the emperor hurriedly comforted Shen Shixing, saying Why is this so, you better do it well.
The emperor is very satisfied, Shen Shixing is also very satisfied, and Li Lai is also very satisfied, because now this matter nominally belongs to the stage of research and judgment, but in fact it is over, as long as the case drags on day by day, Li Lai is confident that Shi Kunyu will be imprisoned to death.
However, there is one person who is not satisfied, and this person is Yuan Keli, the governor of Suzhou Prefecture.
Yuan Keli, known as Liqing, a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty, has the reputation of one of the top ten Qing officials, and is also a national hero and a famous general of the anti-gold resistance.
Of course, this is Yuan Keli's later honor, Shi Kunyu was a fledgling when the case occurred, but he was in his twenties, but although he was young, he was enthusiastic and dared to be the first, at that time he was a pusher in Suzhou, and he belonged to Shi Kunyu's subordinates, he knew Shi Kunyu's character very well, and he completely witnessed the birth of this unjust case.
People say that to be an official, you must know how to think twice, to think about peace, to see if you can still be in a safe position after doing something, to think about change, to know how to be with the light, to know how to follow the trend of officialdom, to think about retreat, to know how to be cautious in words and deeds, and to protect oneself wisely.
The way to be an official seems to be among them.
Yes, one is the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, and the other is the governor of Yingtian, they joined forces to deal with a small prefect, if Shi Kunyu is not the kind of particularly clean official, then he is very likely to be defeated by this kind of strong pressure and strong political suppression, even if he catches a little flaw in your Shi Kunyu, it can be infinitely magnified into the crime of killing the head.
(Yuan Keli statue)
Or, even if you are not guilty, it is not impossible to kill you, because someone has already researched the "trumped-up" crime.
There are more powerful officials in the court, and they all choose to keep their mouths shut, you Yuan Keli is a small pusher, how can you have so much courage to compete with Shen Shixing and Li Lai?
Aren't you afraid that you will never recover?
Confucius said: Don't ask if you can do anything, only ask if you should do it.
An official who is honest and honest, punishes the strong, and loves the people like a son is persecuted for no reason and is in prison, Yuan Keli does not allow himself to stand by and watch, this has nothing to do with guts, Yuan Keli is only to practice the justice in his heart, he thinks, this thing should be done.
Therefore, Yuan Keli wrote a letter for Shi Kunyu with clear facts and sufficient evidence, which strongly proved that Shi Kunyu was really wronged, and Shi Kunyu was acquitted soon after. (The four counties push the public to pen, and the public stretches out all the grievances)
What's even more interesting is that after Yuan Keli's copy of the song was sent, it not only made Shi Kunyu feel wronged, but also caused a subtle butterfly effect in the dark, and soon after, Shoufu Shen Shixing stepped down and returned to his hometown, and Li Lai, the governor of Yingtian, also took the initiative to resign four days after Shen Shixing stepped down.
The west wind is setting, the remnant sun is shining at night, I don't know what the expression on Shen Shi's face will be when he returns to his hometown in Suzhou.
Resources:
Suzhou Prefecture Chronicles, Suzhou. Suzhou Prefecture
"History of the Ming Dynasty, Volume 218" is the 106th biography
"Records of Emperor Daming Shenzongxian" volume 237
LIU Yingying,BAI Yanbin. An analysis of the personality factors and causes of the first assistant Shen Shixing of the Wanli Dynasty. 《CNKI》，2009