Stirring for four hundred years: Empress Hu did not come to Hu lai to advise like a stream, and Zhang Puhui did not blindly follow the faithful and blunt

This article is the 505th in a long series of articles, "Four Hundred Years of Turmoil"

Although Empress Dowager Hu did not have a long-term plan to govern the country, when it came to major state affairs, she was not a self-absorbed person, and she was quite belly-bound and could listen to different opinions.

When the Northern Wei Dynasty was first established, the people did not use coins, and it was not until the reign of Yuan Hong that they began to mint Taihe five-baht coins, and sent money workers to mint them in the workshop. If there are people who want to mint money, let them go to the casting furnace of the country to cast it, and copper must be refined, not mixed.

During yuan ke's reign, he recast five-baht coins and forbade the use of substandard money in china. Soon, due to the different money used in Luoyang and various prefectures and towns, commodity goods could not be exchanged and circulated.

In the first month of the sixteenth year of the Tianjian (517 AD), Shang Shuling and Rencheng Wang Yuancheng wrote: "The money that prohibits the passage of money has clear provisions in the law, referring to those thin, chiseled coins, and there is no other restriction." It is estimated that the coins used in all the states of Henan are not prohibited, but they must be banned, and the minister is deeply confused. In addition, Hebei has no new money, and the use of old money is prohibited, so it has to be replaced by fine silk and coarse cloth, but they are narrow in size, insufficient in scale, and unconventional.

He asked the imperial court to order all states and towns, whether it was Taihe money or newly minted five-baht coins, as well as ancient coins, all that had been used in the localities, even if there was a difference in size, to pass together, and the difference between the noble and the low was equivalent to the price. In this way, goods can be circulated at sea, both public and private can be traded, and there will never be a backlog of property. Those who specialize in minting small money, chiseling money, stealing coins, turning large money into small money, and using all kinds of counterfeit money are all punished according to law. ”

Empress Dowager Hu ordered his opinion to be agreed, but due to the lack of coins in Hebei, the people still bartered, and coins could not circulate in the market, which affected the Economy of Northern Wei.

At that time, there were many people in northern Wei who were pretending to be military merits, and Shang Shu Zuo Cheng Lu Tong consulted the merit books of the officials, and reviewed them, and found more than three hundred people who had fraudulently taken official positions, so he played: "Please concentrate the merit books of the officials and the second bureau of the central soldiers, check the documents reported by the examination, and copy two copies, one in the official department and one for the military bureau." In addition, those who kill the enemy in the army who can be promoted to one level or more are ordered to issue certificates to the Taiwan Military Department, and the certificates are separated from the middle vertically, one copy is handed over to the meritorious person, and one copy is sent to the menxia province to prevent tricks and tricks. Empress Dowager Hu followed his advice.

Subsequently, Lieutenant Yuan Kuang wrote a letter requesting that the internal and external appraisal books since Yuan Ke ascended the throne, the documents of the official's appointment, the merit records of the middle soldiers, and the highest and lowest lists in the previous appraisals be taken out in order to verify the people who had committed meritorious service and thief officials, and Empress Hu also approved his request.

Yuan Cheng has a different view on this, he believes: "The law is most afraid of complexity and harshness, and the governance is noble and simple in Qingping. If you know that there are people who have taken advantage of official positions, they only need to take a book, test the authenticity, and bring them to justice. How could all the archives of Shangshu Province be transferred to the Imperial History Terrace for examination, to find old accounts for more than twenty years, and to trace faults like this, who could bear such a guilty responsibility! This is really something that a virtuous dynasty should be taken with caution. ”

Eventually, Empress Dowager Hu ordered a halt to the prosecution. Because many of Yuan Kuang's suggestions were not adopted, Empress Dowager Hu feared his resignation, so she made him the general of Zhendong and later the Prince of Dongping.

On April 12, 518, the seventeenth year of Tianjian (518 CE), Empress Dowager Hu's father Hu Guozhen died, and the Northern Wei court gave him the posts of false Huang Yu, Xiang Guo, and Du Du (都督) and other military and Taishi officials, and was given the title of Duke of Taishang Qin, buried with special gifts, given clothes and honor guards, and buried the coffin of Empress Dowager Hu's mother, Emperor Fu, with Hu Guozhen, as Taishang Qin Xiaomujun.

Zhang Puhui, the counselor, believed that the father of the previous empress was not called Taishang, and that the name taishang could not be added to the courtiers, and wrote his views, and none of the attendants dared to inform him.

It happened that when digging a tomb for Hu Guozhen, he encountered a solid stone, and Zhang Puhui secretly said: "There is no two days in the sky, there is no two lords in the country, Taishang is from above, and the empress dowager calls her order an order, and places it under the emperor's edict in order to follow the principle of the three subordinates." Now that situ is enshrined as Taishang, I am afraid that there will be a reason for violating the edict. Zi Yue: 'It will also be righteous!' Now the tomb had to be changed because of its shallowness, perhaps because the gods of heaven and earth used it to admonish and enlighten the empress. ”

Empress Dowager Hu personally came to Hu Guozhen's residence and convened an extensive discussion among officials below the level of five pins. The princes and ministers all obeyed her wishes and rushed to accuse Zhang Puhui, but no one could convince him.

Finally, Empress Dowager Hu sent YuanCha to announce the order to Zhang Puhui: "What Shuo did was the will of Filial Piety. What you are saying is the truth of loyalty. The ministers have already made up their minds, and you can't be so cruel as to deprive you of a piece of your heart. If you have any insights in the future, don't be embarrassed to say them. ”

Not long after, Shang Shusong asked the people to collect the Mianma tax, and Zhang Puhui wrote again: "Emperor Daowu abandoned the big bucket, removed the long ruler, and modified the heavy scale, in order to love the people and reduce the tax. Because the army and the state needed cotton hemp, they increased their income by eight or two cottons in the silk tax and fifteen pounds of hemp in the cloth tax, and the people paid more than two taxes because of the calibration of the scale, and they all paid enthusiastically.

But since then, the confiscated silk and cloth have grown and widened again, and the voices of the people complaining have spread inside and outside. The prime minister did not know so he deposed the Mianma tax, and then Shangshu wanted to re-collect it because of insufficient use, which was undoubtedly untrustworthy to the people. The people paid for the goods, some of which had to pay an extra hundred baht for a pound, but they did not hear that the relevant departments punished the state and county officials according to the law; and the quality was slightly worse, the head of the family was convicted, and the three long plants were planted, so the silk cloth in the warehouse exceeded the prescribed size by a lot.

However, when the chancellor accepted the robes, everyone was willing to have a long, wide, durable, and strong ruler, and I had never heard of anyone returning to the government because of the extra standard size. If you want to re-levy the Mianma tax, you must first calibrate the scale and ruler, and clearly stipulate that the use of the large scale and the ruler is strictly prohibited, and it is not allowed to let it go, so that the world knows that the Second Saint loves the people and respects the law, then the Filial Piety Emperor's moral government will reappear in the world. ”

In view of Yuan Xue's preference for hunting and having fun in the garden, not personally handling the affairs of the court, excessively respecting the Dharma, and entrusting state affairs to the relevant departments, Zhang Puhui wrote another letter of exhortation: "To do irrational posthumous merit, to consume the people's property, to reduce the number of courtiers, to deprive manpower, to worship idle monks, to build temples and palaces on a large scale, to pursue ethereal and unrealistic returns, to let the ministers kowtow outside, and the monks to play inside, this is a violation of etiquette, a violation of the times, so that people and gods cannot be at peace."

The subject thought that instead of practicing all day long to beg for refuge from disaster, it would be better for the people to focus on raising their parents so that the world would be peaceful and there would be no disasters. It is hoped that the Lord will cherish the prestige, set an example for the world, pay sincere respect to the heavens and the earth and the ancestors, personally participate in the ceremony of synodic, pay homage to the first saints, devote himself to cultivating the land, cut off the gorgeous ornaments of the monks' temples as appropriate, restore the hundred officials and officials, and the temples that have already begun to be built must be simple and economical, be completed quickly, and those that have not been built should not be built again. ”

Soon, Yuan Xue ordered that the etiquette of enshrinement of the ancestors be discussed, and from then on he received the chancellor once a month, which was the result of Zhang Puhui's advice.

Zhang Puhui also wrote a book commenting on the gains and losses of current politics, and Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Xue put him in the Xuanguang Hall so that he could criticize the current politics at any time.

No matter how much performance composition Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Xue did at this time, at least they could maintain a tolerant posture and make concessions in moderation, which was worth affirming.