Yuan Hongdao's suffering as an official
After Yuan Hongdao became the county commander, he cried bitterly, and he once said such a short and profound thing as "the official Dao binds people" and so on. Every time he wrote a letter to a friend, he had to complain. How painful is it to be a county order? Yuan Hongdao said to his friend, "When I was the county commander, I was extremely ugly and indescribable. When the leader is a slave, the guest is a prostitute, the zhiqiangu becomes a doorman, and when he does things for the people, he becomes an old nanny. In one day, a hundred warm and a hundred cold, a yin and a yang, a bad taste in the world, I tasted it all. Bitter, bitter. He also said: "When I was the county commander, I was simply inferior to a cow and a horse." Why? Shangguan is like a cloud, passers-by are like rain, books are like mountains, money valleys are like the sea, and it is still too late to undertake inspection points day and night. When you see a Shangguan, you must have a pair of dirty bones, you must also have a smiling face when entertaining passers-by, and you must have a strong spirit in handling official documents. Oh, bitterness, bitterness. ”
Although Yuan Hongdao's words were somewhat exaggerated, they also showed the heavy daily business of a competent county. Yuan Hongdao likes the colors of lakes and mountains, reading tea, and writing poetry and composition. In addition, he has a lonely and arrogant temperament, does not like to greet him, and is naturally miserable for receiving and sending in the official field, kneeling to greet the official, and nodding his head. He sighed to his friend, "Can Ann bend over backwards for a long time, go to what is good and obey what is evil?" So he quit his job, went to the mountains and rivers to write poetry and composition, and lived a happy life like a crane.
Song Renzong's "Courtesy and Forgiveness"
One morning, Song Renzong told the attendants around him, "I didn't sleep well last night. The attendant asked the emperor why he was losing sleep. Renzong replied, "I'm hungry and want to eat roast lamb all night." The attendant was surprised and asked the emperor why he did not demote himself to the throne. Emperor Renzong sighed and said, "I have heard that whenever there is a rope in the palace, a routine will form outside." I was afraid that I would kill sheep every day outside for emergency because I wanted to eat roast lamb on a whim. In this way, the years are long, and there are many harmful things. I can't bear to kill me because of my momentary needs. ”
Another time, Song Renzong was walking in the palace garden, the weather was hot and thirsty. But he kept putting up with it. Back in the palace, he hurriedly said to the concubine, "The heat is dead, and the thirst is thirsty." Bring water to drink. The concubine brought water and asked him, "Why don't you drink it outside?" And to hold back your thirst? After drinking the water, Renzong said, "I have looked for several places without water, and I know that as long as I inquire, someone will definitely be criticized and accused for this." So I put up with it. ”
The history books comment that Song Renzong said, "Frugality and forgiveness, out of nature." From these two short stories, we can see that this statement is true. As an emperor, he was always vigilant not to let his needs become the source of bad government, so he preferred to suffer his own sins rather than set a precedent, which shows that he has indeed achieved "courtesy and forgiveness".
When you are an official, you should be a leader
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, he set up the post of envoy, and when he was first established, he was the highest administrative officer of a province, equivalent to the current governor. However, with the evolution of the times, the imperial court strengthened local rule, and specially set up posts such as governors and inspectors at the local level, and the power of the envoys was gradually weakened, from one to three, and sometimes became an indispensable foil. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Zhiyuan served as an envoy, which was a period when the power of the envoys was weaker. He had been a political envoy for a long time and knew how difficult it would be to make a difference in that position. He sighed to his friend, "The post of the clan xuan (that is, the envoy of the government) has long been derelict in his duties, and he cannot act like the thunder and vigor of the axe bearer, nor can he be like the twilight of the bamboo trumpeter, and everything is constrained. "In such a position, you want to do everything, but there is a lot of resistance; you want to mix up your life, and you want to go against your own nature; you want to retreat to the mountains and forests, and you are like a chicken rib, eating without meat and abandoning it." Hey, it seems that being an official is going to be a leader!