Wang Shu was a famous courtier in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and the five dynasties of Zhengtong, Jingtai, Tianshun, Chenghua, and Hongzhi were rare in my eyes. The so-called nominees are basically people who can do practical things, and Wang Shu is a capable minister who runs on the front line all year round and "fights fires" everywhere for the emperors.
Every period needs people who can do things, but people who can do things often don't get a good ending. The reason is simple: you do things, and someone will definitely pick a mistake. Whether things are done well or badly, the scolding will never stop. Therefore, Wang Shu's decades of eunuch career, many great achievements, but it is difficult to rank among the top level of the imperial court, and even can not enter the cabinet, which is actually very interesting. We follow Wang Shu's resume, see the fermentation and intensification of various social contradictions since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and while being surprised by Wang Shu's vision and clever means, we also lament the difficulty of the situation and the speculation of people's hearts.
imperial palace
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > newcomers to the official field</h1>
Wang Shu was born in the fourteenth year of Yongle, zi zongguan, trumpet jie'an, Shaanxi Sanyuan people. The Wang family is a local noble family, with rich land and a well-to-do family. Wang Shu has been cultivated by the family because of his intelligence and sensitivity since childhood, hoping to make a breakthrough in the imperial examination. This is the common dream of China's feudal landlord families.
Therefore, after Wang Shu was enlightened, he was sent by his family to the county school to study. In the third year of Xuande, in order to ensure the quality of local students, the imperial court once dismissed a large number of students and stipulated the number of local students according to the administrative level. Wang Shu was dropped out of school because Wang Shu's enrollment was originally outside the planned enrollment range. However, only five months later, Wang Shu entered the county school again as a full student, which shows that the Wang family's local influence is extraordinary.
Myodai City
In the thirteenth year of orthodoxy, Wang Shu was admitted to the Jinshi examination and was selected as a Shu Jishi with excellent results, commonly known as "Chu Xiang". According to the general process, I became a Shu Jishi, and then I mixed seniority in the Hanlin Academy, familiarized myself with various official affairs, revised the history books of the imperial court, and had good luck, became a scholar of admonition, was recognized by the emperor, and may also ascend to heaven one step at a time. Of course, the old scholars who have been mixed in the Hanlin Academy for decades are also very popular.
However, only a year later, Wang Shu was appointed as the left commentator of Dali Temple, Zheng Qipin. The commentators of the Dali Temple are the officials responsible for judging the case. I have not found the specific month in which Wang Shu was appointed in the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, but according to my speculation, the number of Shujishi assigned to dali temple was most likely due to a major personnel adjustment in the imperial court or a vacancy in the ranks of officials. In the fourteen years of orthodoxy, the biggest thing was the "change of civil engineering", and a large number of officials who followed Emperor Yingzong's northern expedition were killed in Tumu Fort.
Ming Yingzong Zhu Qi Town
From the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, Wang Shu began his grassroots working career. Jingtai was promoted from Dali Temple to Deputy Director of Zuo Temple in three years, and from Liupin, he was still in charge of criminal cases. Jingtai was promoted to governor of Yangzhou for five years.
If Jingtai's three-year promotion is because Wang Shu's three-year period is over, the normal promotion given by the excellent assessment is given, then the Yangzhou prefect of Jingtai for five years is abnormal, and suddenly crosses from six pins to four pins.
First, Wang Shu has done a very good job in Dali Temple, which has been fully supported by historical materials;
Second, when Wang Shu was in Jingtai for four years, he once put forward his own views on business issues such as the law of criminal names, which were recognized and promoted by the high authorities after being reported to the imperial court, which was a plus for Wang Shu;
Emperor Ming Dynasty went on tour
Third, during the Jingtai period, because Emperor Zhu Qiyu of the Ming Dynasty compromised with the civilian-official clique for political approval, the rapid promotion of officials was not unique;
Fourth, Wang Shu should have hugged the thigh of a certain big man in the DPRK.
This big guy is probably a member of Li Xian's family. Why is there such speculation? In the early years of Jingtai, Yu Qian had been in charge of the military department, while Li Xian and Wang Zhi were in charge of the household department and the official department, and Li Xian and Wang Zhi were typical representatives of the civilian official clique at that time.
There is also a detail, that is, when Wang Shu was the governor of Yangzhou, he once opened a warehouse to release grain without authorization. Although it is an urgent move to relieve the victims of the disaster, it undoubtedly leaves people with political control in the official arena.
Li Xian
But guess what, Wang Shu was not only not blamed, but in the fourth year of Tianshun, he was promoted to the right envoy of Jiangxi, and a proper local official of Zhengsanpin. After four years from Tianshun, Li Xian gradually became the leader of the courtiers in the dprk.
From the orthodox year of high school to the Sanpin grand member of Tianshun Year, in just twelve years, Wang Shu's promotion speed cannot be described as fast, if you say that he does not have the escort of the big man in the middle of the country behind him, I do not believe it. From the beginning of his term as a right envoy in Jiangxi, Wang Shu began to formally contact military affairs, because he quelled the Rebellion in Ganzhou under his rule.
As a result, everyone had a general impression of Wang Shu: this brother seemed to be able to make achievements in any position.
Ming Dynasty official
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="71" > was ordered in danger and made great achievements</h1>
In the eighth year of Tianshun, Zhu Qizhen, the restored emperor of Ming Yingzong, died, and the crown prince Zhu Jianshen took the throne, and changed the year to Become Emperor Mingxianzong. Also in the first year of Chenghua, the first Jingxiang displaced people's uprising broke out.
The problem of Jingxiang displaced people is a stubborn disease, which existed in the Yuan Dynasty. To put it bluntly, the people in other places could not live longer and wanted to flee the wilderness, so they all came to the Jingxiang area.
Because this place is relatively fertile in water and soil, and has mineral resources, and there are mountains on all sides, it is located in shaanxi, Henan, Hubei three provinces critical, belongs to the three regardless of the zone, the local government whiplash long, can not form an effective household registration management, displaced people gathered in this place is equivalent to in anarchic state, can evade taxes, forced labor.
refugee
Since the beginning of Jingtai, Daming began to have large-scale extreme natural disasters and various plagues, so in the first year of Chenghua, the displaced people in the Jingxiang area had gathered millions of people, becoming a huge time bomb. Now the bomb has detonated, led by liu tong and Shi Long, the leaders of the displaced people, and tens of thousands of displaced people have revolted.
At first, the imperial court sent several teams into the area to kill the peasant army, but all of them failed. When the war is not smooth, the voice of the hawks is smaller, and the voice of the doves is naturally louder. So the court decided to appease the displaced people. At this time, it was necessary to send a competent official to lead the matter, so Wang Shu's new appointment came down: he was promoted to the right deputy capital of the Capital Chayuan and went to Jingxiang to appease the displaced people.
Ming Army
This is actually a hot potato, when Wang Shu received the appointment, it coincided with the mother's funeral and wanted to refuse, but the attitude of the imperial court was very resolute: just you go, grab affection! So why is it Wang Shu again this time?
First, in the first year of Chenghua, Li Xian still had the greatest right to speak in the dynasty, and the new emperor Xianzong had not yet torn his face. Wang Shu, as Li Xian's person, went to do this thing, but also to accumulate political chips for Li Xian in the Chenghua Dynasty, relatively speaking, Li Xian's family would naturally give Wang Shu plenty of political resources.
Second, Wang Shu has experience as a local envoy and is familiar with people's livelihood issues. At the same time, he had suppressed peasant riots during his tenure, and he was also experienced, and the imperial court regarded Wang Shu as a counterpart.
Third, the imperial court did not really expect Wang Shu to be able to completely solve the problem of Jingxiang displaced people immediately, but needed a person with vision and business level to truly understand the problem of Jingxiang and report on the detailed situation before it could introduce follow-up measures.
When Wang Shu arrived in Jingxiang, he immediately began to appease the displaced people. However, on the one hand, there was a huge peasant uprising, and on the other hand, it was only a royal envoy of the right and deputy capital of the Metropolitan Inspection Yuan who was giving small favors, and the clear-eyed people knew at a glance that Wang Shu's set could not be accomplished.
Wang Shu also knew the problem and immediately reported it to the imperial court, saying that it was necessary to take a two-pronged approach, and that the imperial court would not only send troops to suppress the peasant army, but also introduce a series of measures to reassure the people, so as to solve this Jingxiang rebellion. That is, Wang Shu's report after the field inspection, Xian Zongcai finally made up his mind to take good care of the Jingxiang area and sent an army to quell the chaos, knowing that this time even the military department Shangshu Bai Gui himself followed the front line.
As a result, everyone knows that the peasant army was suppressed, and Wang Shu subsequently introduced various measures to appease the people, and finally put an end to this riot.
Of course, Wang Shu still used a series of means, such as ensuring the safety of the lives and properties of the displaced people, reorganizing the administrative planning of the Jingxiang area, repatriating the displaced people and attaching local citizenship to the dual use, and enriching the strength of the Ming army in the surrounding areas. These methods of Wang Shu are very useful, but they are not innovative moves, to put it bluntly, it is that the top level of the imperial court has given Wang Shu a high degree of power to act cheaply, coupled with Wang Shu's own spirit of hard work, which has led to such a situation.
Therefore, from the emperor to the courtiers, there was a new change in Wang Shu: this brother was suitable for emergency use.
Wang Shu
When Henan was stricken, Wang Shu went to Henan to relieve the disaster; the canal was blocked, and Wang Shu became the governor of the river; Yunnan was not peaceful, and Wang Shu went to Gubian, Yunnan; the tax in the Jiangnan region could not be paid, and Wang Shu went south to carry out tax reform.
The above few examples, casually come up with a single statement, are the topics that later generations of scholars are talking about, and they can be written with tens of thousands of words. But this is not what I want to focus on, I want to say the opening words of the article, Why did Wang Shu, such a capable minister who went everywhere to fight fires, not enter the core of the imperial court later?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="72" > bird as long as the bow is hidden, Jane in Dixin</h1>
Let's look at Wang Shu's resume in the Chenghua Dynasty. After the Jingxiang affair was over, Wang Shu went directly to Henan, where he was promoted half a rank at the time, from the right deputy capital imperial envoy of the Duchayuan to the left deputy capital imperial envoy. The matter in Henan was over, and the right attendant of the Nanjing Punishment Department was transferred. In the seventh year of Chenghua, Wang Shu governed the Caohe River as a waiter in the Nanjing Punishment Department, and became the first governor of the river in Daming.
In the twelfth year of Chenghua, Wang Shu patrolled Yunnan as a left deputy capital envoy, and then due to Emperor Xianzong's protection of eunuchs, Wang Shu was transferred to Nanjing and took charge of the Nanjing Metropolitan Inspection Yuan. In the same year, he was promoted to Nanjing Bingbu Shangshu. In the fifteenth year of Chenghua, he was appointed as the imperial envoy of the Nanjing Bingbu Shangshu and the left deputy capital to patrol Nanzhili. Twenty years after Chenghua, Wang Shu was sent to Nanjing by the Xian Sect again, and continued to be the Shangshu of the Nanjing Bingbu. In the twenty-second year of Chenghua, the Nanjing Bingbu Attendant resigned, and Emperor Xianzong directly added Wang Shu's name to the list, allowing him to be honored with the title of Prince Shaobao.
Seeing that no, even retirement was a trick played by the emperor to force him to leave. Why is Wang Shu's career so unsatisfactory?
First of all, after the death of Li Xian in the second year of Chenghua, the officials of Li Xian's family were suppressed to varying degrees.
This is normal, and if Emperor Xianzong wants to seize power, he must have started from his father's old courtiers. As a member of Li Xian's faction, Wang Shu naturally made Xianzong uncomfortable.
Secondly, during the Chenghua years, there were many subordinates.
Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshen
Don't just stare at the so-called "paper paste three pavilions old, clay sculpture six shangshu" to say things, Chenghua years or a number of capable subjects, like Wang Yue, ShangRui, Li Bing, Zhu Yong, and even the eunuch Wang Zhi, the ability is very outstanding. Although Wang Shu was excellent, Xianzong did not have to use Wang Shu.
Again, the king repeatedly advised, but the king did not like it.
Especially in the middle and late period of Chenghua, with the gradual stabilization of the internal and external situation, Xianzong gradually slackened his government. Wang Shu repeatedly asked Xianzong how to do it today and how to do it tomorrow. As I said before, Emperor Xianzong himself was a very pragmatic monarch, and he used Wan'an, a bureaucrat who ate vegetarian food, just for the sake of purifying his ears and for the court to be able to thoroughly carry out his personal will.
The Ming Dynasty was sparse
And Wang Shu is said to have gone up sixty times in succession, from state affairs to the emperor's life style, and everything had to be interjected. It is the so-called "two capitals and twelve parts, and only one king forgives". Therefore, Wang Shu, who liked to advise, made Xianzong more and more impatient.
Finally, wang shu and the eunuch clique had strained relations.
When he first went to Yunnan, Wang Shu fell out with Channing, a town eunuch in Yunnan, and incidentally triggered a wave of struggles between the civilian official clique and the eunuch Wang Zhi in the DPRK, and the civilian clique was defeated. Although Wang Shu had made remarkable achievements in Yunnan, he only stayed for nine months, and in the end Channing was still protected by Xianzong.
Later, when Wang Shu was working as a soldier in Nanjing, Channing was also a town eunuch in Nanjing.
Eunuch image
The history books say that Channing and Wang Shu reconciled at that time, but this statement is obviously untrue. You can check out Wang Shu's Shangshu twenty years after Chenghua, and many of the things involving eunuchs and officials Wang Shu hated it deeply, which led Tonjong to make up his mind to ask Wang Shu to leave.
In the twenty-second year of Chenghua, Wang Shu was forced to pay tribute. This year, he was seventy-one years old. If the story ends here, Wang Shu will retire in his hometown in peace, which is not a good ending. However, a few years later, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming ascended the throne and recruited Wang Shu back to the imperial court, this time no longer letting him serve as a firefighter, but directly taking up the official Shangshu. I can imagine what kind of excitement Wang Shu felt in his heart when he received this edict to reinstate him. It is also thanks to the good health of the old man, if there is a cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, an accident will happen if he is excited.
Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty
The official Shangshu was no smaller, and his title was "Heavenly Official", the first of the six ministries. It is reasonable to say that Wang Shu should be quite satisfied, but some people in the middle of the dynasty say that Wang Shu has strong ability, rich experience, old qualifications, and is too tired to do Shangshu, so he should enter the cabinet. This made Emperor Xiaozong and Liu Ji, then the first assistant of the cabinet, uncomfortable. Liu Ji did not say for the time being, Xiaozong's mentality was actually worth playing.
For Emperor Xiaozong, the use of Wang Shu was not only a political gesture to change the political atmosphere of the Chenghua year and to be close to the courtiers, but also a political posture that hoped to establish his own political framework through the appointment of Wang Shu.
Although the rumors of Wang Shu entering the cabinet may not have come from Wang Shu, Emperor Xiaozong obviously had a grudge in his heart, because even if the new monarch succeeded to the throne, he did not like to be pointed out.
However, we also noticed that Wang Shu, who was an official of shangshu, became more and more "outspoken" in the dynasty, often refuting Filial Piety in person, especially some important personnel appointments, and would quarrel with the emperor. For his colleagues, Wang Shu often put on the appearance of an old predecessor, which sometimes makes people feel very impolite.
In the sixth year of Hongzhi, because of an ordinary grand plan (official examination), Wang Shu was caught by political enemies with old "pigtails", and Emperor Xiaozong also borrowed a donkey and allowed Wang Shu's request to resign. Until the third year of Zhengde, Wang Shu died at the age of ninety-three.
The teenager listened to the rain song upstairs, and the red candles dimmed. In the prime of life, listening to the rain passenger boat, the river is wide and the clouds are low, and the broken geese are called the west wind. And now listening to the rain monks, the sideburns have been stars also. Joy and sorrow are always merciless.
The Ming dynasty official Shangshu Jia Crown Prince Taibao, posthumously gifted Tejin, Zuo Zhuguo, and Taishi - Wang Shu, and finally became a member of the core decision-making circle of the Beijing Division in the twilight of his life, but did not want to leave the scene after a few years. I wonder, for Wang Shu, was it in the Hongzhi Dynasty to guide the rivers and mountains to come to the waves, or in the chenghua year to run on the front line to sweat? But no matter what, Wang Shu, the old minister of the middle of the Ming Dynasty, was remembered by history.
Talk about the family, talk to relieve boredom.
Asahi Twilight, exclusive original.