Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 16 Xu Jin, Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of War

"Mr. Liu, you died tragically. Fortunately, thanks to the emperor's great grace, you have been posthumously named Grand Protector, given the posthumous title of Zhongxuan, and given sacrificial silver. Alas! Your soul may rest in peace!"

At this time, in front of Liu Daxia's roadside memorial shed, Xu Jin, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, was crying bitterly.

After a group of officials persuaded him for a long time, Xu Jin's mood finally calmed down a little and he was helped into the sedan chair. However, as soon as he returned to his official sedan chair, the tears in Xu Jin's eyes disappeared instantly, and his eyes only looked in the direction of the Forbidden City.

At this time, Xu Jin saw a piece of paper flying into his sedan chair. He opened it and saw only the words: "Meet at Xianle Teahouse on Xuanwumenli Street."

So Xu Jin immediately changed his clothes, had his sedan chair landed in a secluded place, and headed towards Xuanwu Gate with a few followers.

As soon as they arrived at the teahouse, General Liu Jin came to greet them personally: "Minister Xu, how are you?"

Although civil servants and eunuchs were often irreconcilable, it was actually common for civil servants to make friends with eunuchs in private.

Xu Jin still cares a lot about this relationship with Liu Jin.

It's not just because Liu Jin has the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty behind him, but also because he has recently become somewhat interested in Liu Jin's idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor, that the empire needs a strong monarch to recreate the Yongle era of prosperity.

Xu Jin felt that Liu Jin was an ambitious eunuch. Every time he talked to Liu Jin, he was not talking about how he wanted to be the seal holder of the Imperial Household Department, but about what he wanted to do to the Ming Dynasty and its people.

Sometimes, Xu Jin felt that if Liu Jin had a man's thing, he would probably be the Wang Anshi of the Ming Dynasty.

Even eunuchs could have such ambitions. Xu Jin sometimes felt even more frustrated when he thought about the court officials who were becoming increasingly corrupt just for the sake of fame and reputation.

The Ming Dynasty was not the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, after the mid-Ming Dynasty, as the court's control over popular thought was greatly reduced, many scholars and officials were able to actively think about society and the people, including their own lives, and even had a certain degree of tolerance and acceptance of heretical ideas.

Otherwise, Wangxue would not have emerged, and the ideological trends of the late Ming Dynasty would not have been developed.

Today's literati no longer consider themselves merely servants of the emperor as they did in the Qing dynasty. They also consider themselves the masters of the country, and many of them have their own sense of social responsibility.

Xu Jin was such a person, and also an ambitious man, so he was very interested in the Loyal Emperor Society organized by Liu Jin.

Because he found that Liu Jin's Zhongjun Society had clear views on society and the emperor, and it also let Xu Jin know the concepts of "nation", "country" and "citizen" for the first time. If it weren't for the fact that the organizer Liu Jin was a eunuch, he would have taken the initiative to apply to join as a minister.

But Xu Jin doesn't know yet that this was all done by Zhu Houzhao at Liu Jin's request. As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houzhao intended to liberate the minds of the Ming people. Once a person has no thoughts, he will be like a walking corpse, only caring about his own selfish interests and desires and letting himself go towards depravity. If the people of a country have no thoughts, the entire nation will have no soul and motivation to move forward and will go backward and decline.

History has proven that backwardness leads to being beaten, and backwardness in science and civilization stems from backwardness in thought. Many people in the Ming Dynasty, especially those who had mastered knowledge, namely the literati, were promoting the progress of people's thought, and Zhu Houzhao wanted him to come earlier, so he proposed to open a precedent for associations to promote ideas.

As an emperor, Zhu Houzhao naturally had his own selfish desires and would naturally choose ideas that were beneficial to himself, which could also be said to be brainwashing theories. Therefore, he asked Liu Jin, Zhang Yong and others to organize the Loyalty to the Emperor Society, which taught everything from court officials and eunuchs to the lower classes of people and people in the martial arts world.

Without further ado, Xu Jin discussed with Liu Jin for another half an hour about the topic of state power distribution and land annexation. When he wanted to continue the discussion, Liu Jin interrupted him and said, "The result of the imperial recommendation has come."

Liu Jin's words brought Xu Jin back to reality. Xu Jin was ambitious and enterprising, so he naturally had a desire for power and position. In the past few days, he was most concerned about the selection of the Minister of War. When he heard what Liu Jin said, he said directly, "I would like to hear the details."

Liu Jin handed him the list and said, "I copied this from your majesty's desk. Wang Hua, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, and you are the two final candidates recommended by the court. Your majesty has not yet decided who will be the Minister of War. But you should know that in terms of seniority, Wang Hua is the top scholar and has served in the Imperial Academy and the Eastern Palace. If your majesty wants to choose you, the only thing you can compare with Wang Hua is your loyalty!"

Liu Jin took out the application form and the program of the Loyalty Society and said, "If you really want to serve your country, please join this society, because I, Liu Jin, don't want someone who only wants to get promoted and make money to be the Minister of War."

Xu Jin understood what Liu Jin meant. Naturally, he had to become a member of the Loyal Emperor Society in order to get Liu Jin's help and become the Minister of War.

Xu Jin first took the outline of the Zhongjun Society and looked at it. On the title page, there was only one sentence: "If you are afraid of death, do not join our society. If you want to get promoted and make money, find another way."

"Your society is indeed different from other literary societies. They only care about fame and fortune in the imperial examinations, but your society directly abandons these selfish desires, and your awe-inspiring righteousness leaps out on paper. I, Xu, am also a loyal minister, not a coward. Otherwise, I would not have killed the Tartars alone when I was the Liaodong Censor! Xu will apply to join now!"

As Xu Jin spoke, he took the application form with great enthusiasm, picked up the four treasures of the study beside him, and began to grind ink to fill in the file and the reasons for application.

"Mr. Xu is indeed a righteous man. It is a blessing for the Ming Dynasty to have an official like you. Please write our Liu Jin's name as the introducer." After Xu Jin finished writing the application, Liu Jin took it and said, "I will submit your application, and our Zhongjun Society will assess you. If you pass the assessment, your application will be approved. You will have to pay a membership fee at that time."

Xu Jin thought that the way to join the Loyal Emperor Society was very novel. As the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, he applied to join, but not only could he not be directly accepted, but he had to be assessed and after the assessment he had to pay membership fees.

Xu Jin sometimes wondered if Liu Jin and the emperor behind him were intentionally using this opportunity to sell official positions and titles, developing some kind of society in the name of it, but actually just wanted to sell the position of Minister of War, because he had recently heard that the current emperor loved doing business, and even set up some kind of Royal Industrial Company, which sold something called soap under the name of the royal family, and the business was booming, but it was not like what a king should do.

Xu Jin wanted to test the waters, so he asked directly, "May I ask, Eunuch Liu, how much is the club fee? I want to prepare it in advance."

"You don't need to prepare any money. It's only one or two taels of silver, payable once a year. You, Minister Xu, can't be unable to pay even one or two taels of silver. If you can't, we can lend it to you!" Liu Jin said.

Xu Jin couldn't help but smile awkwardly: "That's not the case." At the same time, he was secretly surprised in his heart: "Pay once a year, only one or two taels, and you can get a position as the Minister of War? It's too cheap, right? Or are they not selling official positions at all, but really want to do something?"

(End of this chapter)