In May of the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562), Yan Song, the first assistant of the cabinet, was deposed, and his son Yan Shifan was also beheaded shortly after he was imprisoned. The fall of the Yan party faction indirectly led to the fall of many of the great figures of the Jiajing Dynasty, and Hu Zongxian was one of them. Among the political parties, Hu Zongxian was repeatedly promoted for currying favor with Yan Song's righteous son Zhao Wenhua, and ministers of other parties in the DPRK and China also attributed Hu Zongxian to the Yan Party. At the end of the same year, Nanjing impeached Lu Fengyi on ten major charges, including embezzlement of military salaries, excessive tax collection, and party protection of Yan Song, and Ming Shizong dismissed Hu Zongxian from all his posts, remembered his old feelings, and allowed him to return home and idle.
Unfortunately, the political partisan struggle was a little cruel, and after two years, the political enemy and one party used the Luo Longwen case to frame Hu Zongxian for falsely drafting the holy will. In October of the forty-fourth year of Jiajing (1565), Hu Zongxian was escorted to Beijing, and only a month later, Hu Zongxian was humiliated in prison, leaving behind the death of "the sword buried in the unjust prison, the loyal soul around the white clouds", and then committed suicide. The struggles of the imperial court parties began one after another, and in the sixth year of Longqing (1572), Hu Zongxian was finally rehabilitated. During the Wanli Dynasty, he also posthumously honored Xiangmao.
Who is Hu Zongxian? Why was it that the traitor Yan Song's party could be rehabilitated by the imperial court? In fact, if we look back at history, we can get the answer.
In the seventh year of Emperor Zhengde of Ming Wuzong (1512), Hu Zongxian was born in Jixi County, the capital of Huizhou in Southern Zhili, and grew up in a well-off family since childhood, under the careful education of his father Hu Shangren and his mother Fang. In the seventeenth year of Jiajing (1538), he passed the jinshi examination and began to observe the government in the Punishment Department, and from then on Hu Zongxian began his career.
Hu Zongxian was influenced by his father Hu Shangren, and his loyalty was something he remembered throughout his life. In the nineteenth year of Jiajing (1540), Hu Zongxian was awarded the county order of Yidu County, the capital of Qingzhou, Shandong, by the imperial court, and when he took office, the local area suffered a plague of drought locusts that had been encountered for many years, coupled with the rampant banditry, which could be described as a poor life for the people. Hu Zongxian did not panic in the slightest, he adjusted the policy in time to actively respond, and successfully led the local people to survive the difficult natural disasters. For the robbers, he was both soft and hard to recruit and recruit brave men into the rebel army, which also coincided with his later countermeasures against the Wokou.
In the twenty-first year of Jiajing (1542), Hu Zongxian's mother Fang Shi and father Hu Shangren died one after another, and he returned to his hometown to observe the funeral for five years. After his comeback, in the twenty-eighth year of Jiajing (1549), he served as the inspector of Xuanfu Datong, and after taking office, he successfully resolved the mutiny of soldiers caused by the improper handling of Weng Wanda, the military governor of Bingbu Shangshu and Xuanda, and Hu Zongxian rectified military discipline and consolidated border defenses in these two years, making great contributions to the stability of the border of the Ming Dynasty.
At this time, the problem of the Ming Dynasty was becoming more and more serious, and in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555), a group of 72 Wukou landed in Zhejiang and swept Yanzhou, Quzhou, Raozhou, Huizhou and other places from west to east, totaling more than 80 days, according to the record: "After traveling thousands of miles, killing or injuring several or four thousand people. And the Ming Dynasty's defenders of the city almost all looked at the wind and collapsed, and they were powerless.
Hu Zongxian was promoted by the imperial court to the position of Inspector of Zhejiang by the Imperial Court, and the Imperial Court hoped that he could make meritorious contributions to the issue of resisting the Wu Dynasty, and Hu Guiqi's "Hu GongXingshi" recorded: "On this trip, do not capture Wang Zhi, Xu Hai, and Jing Dongyu, and vow not to return to Beijing." But after arriving at the local area, Hu Zongxian also deeply felt the arduousness of the problem, the local soldiers were disciplined, weak, and poorly equipped, and when faced with well-armed and scrappy Wokou, frantic retreat was the only thing they could do. Hu Zongxian vigorously carried out rectification by means of strict rewards and punishments, and the military appearance and military discipline of local officers and men began to improve, and morale gradually recovered.
Unlike other Qingliu ministers in the DPRK, Hu Zongxian was strict with himself and had a clean wind in his sleeves, he knew how to be flexible and good at power techniques, so he could seize the opportunity to rise in the official field. In the thirty-third year of Jiajing (1554), Zhao Wenhua, the right attendant of the Ministry of Works, went to Jiangnan to supervise coastal military affairs in the name of worshipping the sea god, Zhao Wenhua was the righteous son of Yan Song, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Hu Zongxian understood that as long as he had a good relationship with Zhao Wenhua, his career would be smooth. Therefore, Hu Zongxian tried his best to please, Zhao Wenhua wanted wealth, he gave money, Zhao Wenhua was greedy, he offered a room of beautiful women. Sure enough, when Zhao Wenhua returned to Beijing to resume his life, he made a strong recommendation to Hu Zongxian, and Yan Song also included Hu Zongxian in his sphere of influence, and naturally promoted him.
At the same time, Hu Zongxian also knew how to curry favor with Ming Shizong, the highest power holder of the empire, who advocated Taoism and liked Qingzi and Xiangrui, which is well known. For this purpose, Hu Zongxian has donated various symbols of auspiciousness, such as white turtles, white deer, and five-colored ganoderma lucidum. He also recruited Xu Wei, Tang Shunzhi, and Tian Rucheng in his own shogunate in order to present himself to Emperor Mingshizong.
Hu Zongxian has operated several times and naturally gained something. In the thirty-fifth year of Jiajing (1556), Emperor Ming personally promoted Hu Zongxian to the post of Left Attendant of the Military Department and Governor of the Imperial Household, and added the Viceroy of Zhizhe, the Viceroy of Zhejiang, The Governor of Zhejiang, Nanzhili, and Fujian.
Hu Zongxian not only pleased his superiors, he was also a very talented person. He Qiaoyuan, a historian at the end of the Ming Dynasty, once praised Hu Zongxian: Hu Zongxian's inclination with the Yan Party was not for the sake of fish and meat for the sake of the people, but for the purpose of establishing meritorious deeds, because of this, his hypocrisy and bitterness are worthy of respect.
It was said earlier that the Jiajing Dynasty's Wokou had reached the point of burning eyebrows, and after Hu Zongxian took office, the problem of Wukou was well resolved. First of all, Hu Zongxian vigorously inspired the able people of Wen Tao and Martial Strategy in various places, and reused them in a timely manner, and the two famous generals of the Anti-Wu Dynasty, Yu Dayu and Qi Jiguang, who were well known to posterity, were recommended and reused by Hu Zongxian. At the same time, almost all the important leaders of the forces of the Wu bandits were arrested at this time, Xu Hai committed suicide by throwing water, and Xu Hong, Chen Dong, Ye Ming, Xin Wulang and others were captured alive.
In the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing (1560), Hu Zongxian was promoted to bingbu Shangshu (兵部尚書), and concurrently served as the right capital of the imperial history of the capital Chayuan. A year later, he added the title of Shaobao and restrained the general soldiers of seven provinces, including Jiangxi, and his power could be described as extremely powerful. There is an old saying: "Success is also Xiao He, and defeat is also Xiao He." "Only one year after Hu Zongxian was promoted to Shaobao, in the forty-first year of Jiajing (1562), Yan Song fell, and Hu Zongxian was listed as a Yan Party, so naturally it was difficult to escape the doom.
Historians of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties talked about qian: "Since then, the southeast has been spared hundreds of years, and all of them have been the merits of Hu Zongxian's reconstruction. ”