In history, the fifteenth year of Wanli was actually an ordinary year. What is the reason why the book of Wanli 15 years is so popular?What did the Ming Dynasty experience this year?
In history, the fifteenth year of Wanli was actually an ordinary year.
What is the reason why the book of Wanli 15 years is so popular?
What did the Ming Dynasty experience this year?
In the fifteenth year of Wanli, Ding Hai was the next year old, and on the surface, it seemed that the four seas were leveling and being plain.
And in fact, our Ming Empire has come to the end of its development.
Let's start with Emperor Wanli, the president of the Ming Dynasty!
The Wanli Emperor, named Zhu Yijun, was a pathetic emperor who was the nominal ruler of the empire, but in reality was only a symbol of authority in handling state affairs.
As a young man, Wanli wanted to make a career, and he began to read at the age of four, and when he was a little older, he read through various sage scriptures. Wanli is a complete pragmatist in governing the country, and when something goes wrong, he meets every day, hoping to come up with a good solution.
In terms of life, he was frugal and frugal, so frugal that people doubted that he was not an emperor who sat on the four seas.
After the three major battles of Wanli, until Wanli's death, the treasury was very abundant, and the silver deposit was ten million taels, which was equivalent to the agricultural tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty for five years. This is the accumulation of thick and thin, and the income and expenditure are measured.
The most talked-about thing about this Daming president is that he has created a record of not going to work for nearly 30 years.
We can say that Wanli is lazy, but to say that he doesn't do things, and that he is unreliable, it would be wrong.
Wanli has not been in court for more than 30 years, but he knows every move of the court better than anyone else, and he also firmly grasps the center of gravity of power in his hands. During this period, the country functioned normally, and there were no major mistakes, which was Wanli's political means.
As for why he didn't go to court in the past 30 years, it can be considered that this is Wanli's escape, he didn't do anything he wanted to do, and he didn't want to do it every day. As I get older, I just don't want to do what I don't want to do.
This was determined by the political environment at that time, the literati group was too powerful, and Cheng Zhu Lixue was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the ritual system was the largest at that time, even the emperor who was high above could not surpass it.
He has too many things to escape, and in this regard, Wanli was actually quite a failure to be the emperor.
The second is Zhang Juzheng.
Zhang Ju was the first assistant of Wanli, and he was one of the most prominent statesmen in the entire Ming Dynasty.
During his tenure as prime assistant, the trend of the whole country was clearly upward. To the emperor, he was a teacher, more like a father. It was under Zhang Juzheng's careful teaching that Wanli took over the Ming Dynasty in the first ten years.
Zhang Juzheng's tremendous power in his hands allowed him to realize his political ambitions, and he made drastic reforms, promulgated new policies, and tried to change the decadent atmosphere of the civilian clique, and at the same time straighten out the economy and strengthen the border military force, so as to truly enrich the country and strengthen the army, which gave the country a shot in the arm.
For this, the emperor was very happy and grateful to this teacher.
After Zhang Juzheng's death, the bureaucrats whose interests had been damaged under Zhang Juzheng began to liquidate Zhang Juzheng.
They turned out all kinds of accusations and incriminating evidence against Zhang Juzheng, although Emperor Wanli didn't believe it at first, but one thing after another was hammered out, he couldn't help but don't believe it, at that moment, Emperor Wanli's worldview collapsed, and he angrily ordered Zhang Juzheng's home to be raided.
Soon, something that surprised the deeply stricken emperor even more appeared, and the civil official clique continued to criticize him in the name of exhortation and morality, although he was the emperor, he could not compete with the civil official clique in front of him.
Because what they represent is the feudal ideology of etiquette and religion for thousands of years, and it is a huge and heavy moral outlook. When he found that he couldn't be the master of the crown prince, he finally chose a way of confrontation: from then on, he has been hiding in the deep palace and not going to court.
This confrontation lasted until the end of his life.
The third to appear was Shen Shixing.
Zhang Juzheng's fate, and Shen Shixing, who took over his position, saw it in his eyes.
Shen Shixing was also the emperor's teacher, and he was the one who taught him the longest.
Shen Shixing is not as sharp as Zhang Juzheng, he covers the sky with one hand, he knows how to advance and retreat and be an official. He knew that his ability was not as good as Zhang Juzheng, and he also knew that the emperor would not trust him as much as he trusted Zhang Juzheng.
He also knows that the balance of the civilian clique is the core issue concerning whether the country can continue to move forward.
Therefore, Shen Shixing was neither willing to offend the emperor nor lose the hearts of the courtiers, and it was with this mentality of compromise and left and right that he became a grass on the wall in various interests.
The grass was eventually attacked by the civilian clique, and he had to resign and go home.
The fourth place is Hai Jui.
Hai Jui is a thorn, but as a member of the civilian clique, he is also a man who dares to challenge the rules.
Hai Jui is most famous for his courage to speak to Emperor Jiajing, and his move to bring a coffin to the palace.
Hai Jui is an extreme person, he meticulously implements the Confucian and Mencian scriptures, but from beginning to end he is used as a gun by the civilian bureaucracy, who regard themselves as Confucian and Mencian dogmas, stand on the moral high ground, and do only things for their own benefit.
It's not that Hai Jui didn't know this, but in the context of the time, he couldn't escape the moral shackles of the civil and official clique and the moral framework of the sage's words.
However, from the cultivation of the personal level, Hai Rui is undoubtedly great, he just can't jump out of the ideological pattern bound by the times.
Like Hai Rui, Qi Jiguang is also a person with extremely high pursuits.
Personal ability and glorious achievements are also a strong stroke in history.
Qi Jiguang has made outstanding achievements in his life, defended the motherland with enthusiasm, has outstanding military and leadership skills, and is a great national hero.
However, Qi Jiguang's army is already a private army in nature, which has a great conflict with the military system of the Ming Dynasty, and it is precisely because of this that the whole set of measures he implemented in Jizhou has broken the foundation of the Ming Dynasty's civilian officials to suppress military attachés, and has been strongly dissatisfied by the civilian clique.
In addition, he and Zhang Juzheng were too close, which made his evening bleak, and he died of illness in his hometown after being removed from his official position.
Finally, there is Li Zhen.
Li Zhen is an extreme person who can't be more extreme, and at the same time he is also an extremely contradictory person.
Li Zhen struggled all his life for the emancipation of individuality and freedom of thought.
He despised traditional authority and dared to criticize it. He has been stubborn and difficult since he was a child, and he does not believe in learning or faith. His ideas, such as equality between men and women, restrictions on the power of the monarch, were considered heretical at the time.
Under the foolish ideology and orthodoxy of feudal society, he was the first person to publicly stand up, stand on the opposite side of morality, and overturn the case for Qin Shi Huang and Cao Cao.
What do you want from a seventy-year-old man?It was Li Zhen's last sentence when he passed away. He was a special figure in the history of Chinese feudalism, and his theories were not holy and illegal, and they were outright heretical.
It is such a heretic, on the one hand, he rejects tradition and despises those false Taoists and hypocrites, and on the other hand, it is difficult to break with the traditional ideas inherent in his heart.
In the end, he chose to commit suicide in prison.
Although everything seems to be calm in the fifteenth year of Wanli, the orbit of the empire has been derailed.
All kinds of evils and contradictions are constantly expanding, and no matter how hard and thrifty the emperor is to govern the country, or the ministers' drastic attempts at reform, they are no longer helpful.
I could only watch as the imperial edifice of the Ming Dynasty slowly tilted until it fell.
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2] Fan Shuzhi, "The Biography of Wanli".
3] Mingyue "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty".
4] "History of the Ming Dynasty", "Ming Hui Yao", "Ming Shilu".
5] 100 cultural relics of the Ming Dynasty tell the Wanli Emperor: the super "otaku" who has been in the dynasty for 28 years;Zhou Ran |National Humanities HistoryIssue 18, 2011.
6] Tang Bo;Memoirs of the Wanli Emperor |Geography |Issue 8, 2008.
7] Yu Sili;The paster in the wind and rain of the Ming Dynasty - read "The Biography of Zhang Juzheng" |Adolescent Health"|Issue 4, 2022.
8] Zhang Xin;A review of the research on Shen Shixing, the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty cabinet in the past 50 yearsJournal of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology: Social Sciences Edition |Issue 1, 2022.
9] Li Chen;Qingguan Hai Rui Eternal frost wind washes twilight smoke |National Humanities HistoryIssue 2, 2023.
10] Huang Youquan;Qi Jiguang and Qi Jiajun from the Perspective of Military Sociology: Also on the Causes and Governance of the Southeast Military Disaster during the Japanese RebellionJournal of Taizhou University|Issue 1, 2023.
11] Su Lufeng;Li Zhen's three "razors" |Integrity Lookout|Issue 16 of 2022.
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