Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 7 About Wang Yangming and Civil Officials
Zhu Houcong was very happy about Yuan Zonggao's apology.

Because this shows that Yuan Zonggao did not want him to be just a confused emperor who could be easily controlled by the bureaucracy, but even expected him to accomplish great things as an emperor.

Of course, it is not ruled out that Yuan Zonggao also made the changes for his own political interests, or even after seeing some of Zhu Houcong's true thoughts.

But this was not important to Zhu Houcong. What was important was that Yuan Zonggao was willing to change for him. For this reason, he took the initiative to suggest that he read the books of Wang Yangming and Luo Zheng'an to understand the new ideas of that era.

Zhu Houcong was very clear about Wang Yangming. He knew that the School of Mind he founded was a discipline that broke the ideological shackles of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism in that era. It was the beginning of independent thinking for people of that era to break away from Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism.

In Zhu Houcong's view, Yuan Zonggao's suggestion that he read Wang Yangming's book was probably intended to enable him to have independent thinking ability and not be disciplined by Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism to believe that the world can be governed well only by "preserving Heavenly principles and eliminating human desires."

Zhu Houcong also knew Luo Zheng'an. He knew that he was a materialist thinker who began to advocate that the world is material and to recognize that "reason" is the law of material movement and change in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty.

This person advocated political reform, and for this purpose put forward the political proposition that "there are laws that need to be changed, and they must be changed. If they are not changed, there will be no way to govern the country." Naturally, he was also a betrayer of Neo-Confucianism, but he also supported the idea of ​​reform.

Now Yuan Zonggao asked Zhu Houcong to understand these things. In Zhu Houcong's view, it must be to open up new academic horizons for himself and to help him find the ideological motivation and weapons for reform.

Zhu Houcong was also certain that Yuan Zonggao was advocating reform rather than testing him, otherwise he would not have told him all these knowledge.

You must know that these knowledge were still considered "heresy" in that era and were not accepted by most of the scholars in the world, especially when the officials in power were basically orthodox Neo-Confucian officials represented by Yang Tinghe.

Zhu Houcong believed that even if Yuan Zonggao was testing whether he had been exposed to these studies, he would not really let him know people like "Wang Yangming" and "Luo Zheng'an".

Because he is the future emperor, if the future emperor knows that he still promotes these subjects, no one knows what the consequences will be.

And now, Yuan Zonggao is willing to recommend these people's knowledge to himself.

There can only be one reason, that is, Yuan Zonggao, a Hanlin Jinshi who was demoted to the Prince Xing's Palace, wanted to reform himself and hoped not to follow Yang Tinghe's path!
Zhu Houcong could not help but begin to doubt that the historical Jiajing would show an extremely high level of power struggle and actively implement the Jiajing New Deal at the beginning of his reign at the age of 15. He might have the influence of Yuan Zonggao, the chief historian of the royal palace, behind this.

After all, Yuan Zonggao and Yang Tinghe are not of the same kind.

Although Zhu Houcong knew that the civil servants and literati would be his biggest challengers in strengthening the imperial power, and were the group that truly controlled the fate of the country and the nation in this era, Zhu Houcong had no intention of eliminating them, and of course he could not eliminate them.

Because civilian politics and civilian control of the military are the trend of the times.

Throughout history, they were the ones who were most active in pleading for the people, but they were also the ones who betrayed the people.

Fortunately, since ancient times, civil servants have not been a whole.

In fact, since the Song Dynasty, they have fought among themselves the most fiercely, whether for public interests or for personal gain.

Even during the era of eunuchs' monopoly in history, it was essentially a fight between one group of civil servants and scholars and another group of civil servants and scholars.

Although the king also played a role in this, if the civil servants had not always been difficult to unite, it would have been difficult for the king alone to instigate them to become enemies of each other, so that some civil servants would not hesitate to recognize eunuchs as their party leaders.

Therefore, what Zhu Houcong should do is to find and win over like-minded people among the civil servants and literati, and then form a basic base that is consistent with his own political interests.

Now, Zhu Houcong happened to know that there were few civil servants who shared his ideals, so naturally he needed to be more honest in front of Yuan Zonggao and reveal his true intentions.

So, after Yuan Zonggao said this, Zhu Houcong nodded and said, "Then please teach me these knowledge, I am willing to listen attentively."

Yuan Zonggao trembled slightly, then quickly bowed and said yes with excitement on his face.

He now wished he could write a letter immediately to Wang Yangming, Luo Zheng'an and others, telling them that the future emperor of the Ming Dynasty would learn the Taoism they advocated!

"In my humble opinion, the scholar who has deeply understood Yangming is Zhang Cong, who taught students at Luofeng Academy. His courtesy name is Bingyong, and his pseudonym is Luofeng. He is very proficient in etiquette and wrote the book "The Book of Rites". I will tell you about it today."

this day.

Yuan Zonggao then explained the new knowledge to Zhu Houcong in Zhongzhengzhai.

What surprised Zhu Houcong was that the first person Yuan Zonggao mentioned was Zhang Cong.

This future reformer who had spent the first half of his life gathering students and giving lectures was now in the capital awaiting the palace examination.

This made Zhu Houcong more certain that Yuan Zonggao, Wang Yangming, Zhang Cong and other civil servants and literati should be from the same faction.

This school can be regarded as the betrayers of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, or the reformists formed since the Zhengde period.

The reason why this group emerged is that since the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the social economy has undergone significant changes, especially during the Zhengde period. In particular, the Zhengde emperor himself was very rebellious against tradition, so he did not strictly control his thoughts and his behavior was very eccentric.

This also led to major changes in the thinking of civil servants and scholars, and the emergence of reformists.

Historically, this change began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and reached its climax in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The climax was such that all kinds of new ideas emerged one after another, and figures like Wang Fuzhi and Gu Yanwu emerged. It is considered by many to be another climax period in the ideological and cultural field of Chinese culture since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. However, this climax came to an abrupt end after the Qing Dynasty consolidated its rule.

Yang Tinghe and other civil servants and scholars formed another faction.

They have always been the guardians of the old system and the old order and are conservatives.

They are the ones who are in power at the center now.

Historically, they have had absolute advantages since the Hongzhi period and remained powerful during the Zhengde period.

Especially at the end of Zhengde period after Zhengde abandoned Liu Jin.

Today, they are at their peak.

Historically, their decline did not begin until the accession of Emperor Jiajing.

Even by the beginning of the Wanli period, their power had fallen to its lowest point in history, but they would make a comeback in the middle and late Wanli period.

Then, after the Qing Dynasty's rule was consolidated, they completely restored their original ruling status among the Han scholar-official group and became a tool for the Qing emperor to consolidate his rule.

In short, every time the local landlord economy prospers, they become stronger and the reformers decline.

And every time the commodity economy becomes active, they become weaker and the reformers become stronger.

Today, with the rapid growth of the internal population and towns, the rapid development of the commodity economy, the great geographical discoveries and the opening of new sea routes, as well as the Little Ice Age climate change, it is naturally time for the reformers to rise and the conservatives to decline.

That is, a new group of civil servants and scholars began to emerge in large numbers who supported reform.

In particular, because of this change, if the Mongols in the north invade frequently again and the Japanese invasion in the south becomes more rampant in the future, more and more people will advocate reform.

This can be seen.

Zhu Houcong, who is about to become the supreme ruler of the Ming Dynasty during this period, will have an unprecedented opportunity for reform. He should take advantage of this situation and, based on the reforms of the Zhengde Dynasty, carry out some reforms to make the Ming Dynasty truly strong and no longer vulnerable to climate change, where the Han people all over the world would be enslaved by other ethnic groups again or even forced to shave their heads and change their clothes!

As long as he doesn't get lazy and give up halfway, but starts to practice Taoism wholeheartedly like Jiajing in history.

In that case, he would only become an obstacle to the Ming Dynasty's resurgence, and even the reign title was used as a joke, saying "Jiajing Jiajing, every family is clean."

Now Zhu Houcong has not yet entered Beijing to become emperor, and he is still surrounded by his own people.

He also took this opportunity to ask Yuan Zonggao to explain to him some new knowledge and new ideas, some of which he might find it difficult to hear when he attended the daily lectures in the imperial court when he became emperor in the future.

Yuan Zonggao was also happy to take this opportunity to instill in Zhu Houcong more content that conservatives such as Yang Tinghe did not want Zhu Houcong to know.

Therefore, during the period before the ministers who welcomed him to the throne came to Anlu, Zhu Houcong studied very hard and Yuan Zonggao also taught very hard.

The more this happened, the more Yuan Zonggao felt that Zhu Houcong was the ideal leader for him to realize his dream of reform, and his desire to change the world became more and more active.

For this reason, when Yuan Zonggao was completing the task assigned to him by Zhu Houcong, he specially called his younger brother Yuan Zongkui to his study and instructed him:

"Send those precious wines you collected in the past to Wang Bingxian and say that they were given by the prince."

Yuan Zongkui was greatly surprised: "Didn't you say that you would rather die than give up these famous wines that have been stored in the cellar for many years?"

In order to suppress his inner restless desire to pursue career achievements, Yuan Zonggao had developed many hobbies over the years, including drinking, sex and gambling, and he was even obsessed with them. So Yuan Zongqiu was very surprised by his order.

"Luckily, we are living under the rule of a ruler like Yao or Shun. We should hope to live a few more years. So from today on, I will stop drinking."

As Yuan Zonggao spoke, he glanced at the stunning concubine he had bought with great expense to satisfy his ambitions, and gritted his teeth and said, "Stop gambling and stop being greedy!"

(End of this chapter)