In the winter of the third year of Longqing, the situation changed, and Dai Fengxiang was given a piece of paper in the matter, which pushed Hai Rui to the forefront. He accused Hai Jui of harboring traitors, fish-meat doctors, and disrupting the government. Like a cold wind in winter, Hai Rui's career suffered a heavy blow and was reappointed to Nanjing Grain Reserve.
Hai Rui has only been governor of Wu Di for half a year, but he has won the hearts of the people. When they heard the news of his dismissal and departure, the people poured into the streets, crying and weeping, as if they had lost their loved ones. Families painted portraits of Hai Jui and worshipped him as a patron saint. However, Hai Rui's career encountered twists and turns again, and just as he was about to embark on a new journey, Gao Gong was in charge of the Ministry of Officials, and he was already dissatisfied with Hai Rui. He merged Hai Jui's position into the Nanjing Household Department, which put Hai Jui in a dilemma. In the end, Hai Rui chose to retire due to illness and returned to his hometown of Qiongshan. On the occasion of parting, he denounced the Manchu Dynasty as women, and his words were sharp, pointing directly at the evils of the times.
This time, Hai Rui has been idle at home for a full fifteen years. Different from other idle**, they may be able to express their affection for the landscape, or serve as the head of the academy and continue to inherit the way of the sages. However, Hai Jui's hometown is a desolate and miasma land, with no bridges and flowing water, only monotonous palm trees, raging waves and countless mosquitoes. Such an environment undoubtedly exacerbated his inner loneliness and depression.
Why was this loyal minister who was dedicated to the country and the people unable to integrate into the bureaucracy? Some people say with emotion that this is a disease of the times. In this collusive officialdom, it is indeed difficult for a "sand" like Hai Jui to fit in. But should we simply blame Hai Jui's solitude? Is there another reason hidden in his troubled fate?
GovernorYing Tian
In the third year of Longqing, in the spring of the south of the Yangtze River, Hai Rui set foot in this rich land as the governor of Yingtian. Nanzhili, the heart of the Ming Dynasty, was an important source of taxes and materials, and nearly a quarter of the country's wealth was gathered here. However, behind this prosperity, there is a deep rift between the rich and the poor and the injustice of servitude.
As soon as Hai Jui took office, he went deep into the people to observe the people's feelings. He watched as the people ceded fertile land to powerful families, while taxes and servitude ruthlessly oppressed the small, poor households. Suzhou, Changzhou, and Songjiang are the land of these three provinces, and there are many great families, who skillfully annex land, evade taxes, and pass on the burden to the weaker people. In this vicious circle, the people are getting poorer and poorer, and the state has lost a lot of tax revenue. Hai Jui knows that the strength of the country is closely related to the well-being of the people, and the crux of all this points to those deep-rooted families.
Years of experience as a county magistrate have made Hai Rui deeply aware that the root of the problem lies in the cowardice and incompetence of the local government. They are afraid of the power of the great families and do not dare to let go of the implementation of the state's policies. To this end, Hai Jui made it clear that no matter who it is, it must abide by the laws and regulations of the country. He is determined to start with Xu Jie, a retired bachelor, a descendant of Yangmingxue, and even the richest man in Jiangnan.
Xu Jie, a "decent person" who fought against Yan Song in the past, has now become a huge rich man in Jiangnan. His family used Xu Jie's influence to amass a huge fortune. His friend Wang Ji once persuaded Xu Jie to ask him to take care of his family, but he turned a deaf ear.
Faced with a huge wealth like Xu Jie, Hai Rui tried to discuss with him, hoping that he would take the initiative to return part of the land to alleviate the people's grievances. However, Xu Jie shirked for various reasons, and even used his influence to try to make Hai Rui**. He united with Li Chunfang, Zhang Juzheng and other important ministers of the imperial court, and even went directly to Beijing for help, using his connections in the Yanguan circle and the Xu family's network.
It was at this time that Dai Fengxiang suddenly attacked Hai Rui and launched a fierce ** against Hai Rui. He accused Hai Jui of bringing serious disasters to the local area during his tenure in Jiangnan, such as indiscriminate lawsuits and illegal judgments. Not only that, Dai Fengxiang also made a vicious personal attack on Hai Rui in an attempt to discredit his image.
Dai Fengxiang's performance is like a bombshell, which has caused a huge ** in officialdom. Soon, the officials made adjustments to Hai Jui, and this incident became the famous "Hai Jui dismissal" incident in history.
(2) The power of one man against the gentry class
When Dai Fengxiang, as a big family in Songjiang, was intertwined with his identity in the matter, Hai Rui's reform measures were already destined to affect him. Dai Fengxiang's ** is not only a provocation to Hai Rui, but also a voice for the interests of Xu Jie and other scholars. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, and among the scholars and doctors, the Xu-style super-wealth is not unique.
Zhang Dai's uncle Zhu Shimen, a name carries the glory and wealth of the family. His father, Zhu Geng, was a university scholar, which enabled Zhu Shimen to rely on his family background and buy a wide range of farms and houses, with rich collections. From Qin Tong Hanyu to Zhou Ding Shangyi, from the lacquer of the brother kiln to the factory box Xuan furnace, all of them show the prosperity of their family wealth, and they are even compared with Yan Song.
In addition to the scholars, the vassal kings and eunuchs also amassed great wealth. Although the political and military power of the feudal lords was weakened, the economic power remained solid. The king of Shu and his clique occupied half of the Chengdu Plain, and the governor of Sichuan was deeply worried about this. The king of Zhou in Kaifeng and the king of Qin in Xi'an also annexed a large number of lands, causing the people to complain. Some feudal lords were even granted permission to run the salt industry, and the speed at which they accumulated wealth was staggering.
The assets of eunuchs and lords were mainly concentrated in Gyeonggi. During the period of Ming Wuzong, the eunuch Gu Dayong easily obtained hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in the name of land exploration, and his power and wealth can be seen.
In the Chongzhen period, the situation of the dynasty was even more worrying. Mao Jiuhua described: ".In the house of the powerful, there are hundreds of servants, and the traitors take advantage of the situation to surrender, and the people receive their fish and meat. Governor Lu Xiangsheng even played the emperor directly: ".The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, and the rich are about the marrow of the poor. This is not only a challenge to Hai Jui's reform, but also an interrogation of the entire Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty had several adjustments in taxes, and the general trend was to include more land, but land was gradually concentrated in the hands of a few. Tax arrears have become the norm, and the transfer of wealth has become the norm. As a result, the treasury is becoming increasingly empty, and the lives of the people are becoming more and more difficult. However, the national treasury has not gained much from the benefits brought about by the great social and economic development, and the benefits of the people are also limited. This kind of declining finances and poor people are a phenomenon that did exist after the great economic development of the Ming Dynasty, although it seems to be a contradiction, but it is an unavoidable true portrayal of that era.
In this context, Hai Jui's "impartial law enforcement" is actually not only to resist the resistance of the scholar class, but also to deal with the accumulated shortcomings of the entire society. Even though it is such predicaments and challenges that reflect Hai Rui's persistence and courage. But his single-handedness in trying to reverse the fate of the entire dynasty seems to be a little thin.
What's more, Hai Jui's "own strength" is not entirely out of justice, which is the core reason why he cannot be accepted by the entire bureaucracy.
Readers may think that the author is appalling. How can a Qing official, who is rare in a thousand years, be said to be a person who cannot enforce the law impartially? Listen to me.
(3) In the Ming Dynasty, the rule of law or virtue?
Hai Jui not only deeply understands the importance of the law, but also adheres to the principle of impartiality in the process of law enforcement. However, as a civil servant who was deeply influenced by the Confucian classics, he also attached great importance to the guiding role of ethics in daily life. In his writings, he made it clear that all human actions, even the tiniest ones, can be summed up in two moral categories, good and evil.
He mentioned that as a magistrate and a magistrate, he was able to quickly judge the merits of most of the litigation cases, accounting for about six or seven percent of the total. However, for more complex cases, he needs to think carefully. When making decisions, he follows the criteria of: ".Whoever is suspicious of litigation shall give in to his brother rather than his brother; Rather than bend to his uncle, he would rather bend his nephew. Rather than bend to the poor, rather than to bend to the rich, rather than to bend to the stupid, rather than to be stubborn. Things are fighting for the industry, rather than succumbing to the small people, rather than succumbing to the eunuchs, in order to save the evils. Things are arguing about appearance, rather than succumbing to the eunuchs, rather bending to the small people, in order to survive.
It is not difficult to see that Hai Jui's use of such a spirit to enforce the law is actually entirely based on the instructions of the "Four Books", not from the law in today's sense. In other words, Hai Jui's interpretation of the law has always been inseparable from traditional ethics, and the organization is not capable of dealing with complex factors and multiple relationships. The more Hai Jui adheres to this spirit, the more far away it is from the law. Of course, this also exposes the long-standing difficulties of the Ming Empire in terms of system. That is, the empire only governed the people according to ethics by people who had read poetry and books, and they could not improve the judicial system, let alone protect human rights.
Hai Jui's rectification of the locality, to a certain extent, is indeed to crack down on the gentry and help the poor people. But it is clear that his final approach is not supported by the law, and is more based on ethics and handling the case according to his own understanding. Even if he really follows the law, he is still following the "old Hongwu system". However, two hundred years have passed since this product, how can it adapt to today's society?
At the beginning of the founding of this dynasty, Emperor Taizu Hongwu rectified the social order with a thunderous force and severely punished the wealthy gentry, which once made the land problem that lasted for 2,000 years be temporarily quelled. However, as time went on, after the middle of the century, the problem resurfaced and became more acute. Loan sharks took advantage of the situation and colluded with local bullies to lend high sums of money to yeoman farmers, with staggering interest rates. Many borrowers lost their land and became debt slaves due to their inability to repay. Although the imperial court explicitly imposed a cap on interest rates and allowed borrowers to redeem the land at the original price within five years, these regulations were never enforced.
Hai Jui is determined to change that. He did this not only to uphold the dignity of the law, but also to defend the sanctity of morality. From his anthology, we can see his firm desire to curb the excessive occupation of land by the rich and narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. This belief drives him to be bold and fearless. Therefore, he did not hesitate to accept a large number of applications for returning the land, and pointed the finger at the powerful Xu family.
However, Hai Jui's approach may have been too aggressive. If he can adopt the strategy of punishing one and setting an example by publicizing typical cases such as the Xu family to deter those who use the rich to bully the poor, instead of chasing and beating every case, he may be able to strike a balance between leniency and strictness. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm was so hot that he set up two days a month to take on such cases, resulting in a mountain of cases that were difficult to manage.
Moreover, the evil of usury is not limited to the rich and their **. In the days before the credit system was established, yeoman farmers with a little savings would also lend money to relatives, friends and neighbors for interest. This was extremely prevalent at the time, further exacerbating the gap between the rich and the poor in society.
Hai Jui was overconfident in handling these lawsuits. He did not conduct a thorough investigation of the facts of the case, nor did he announce legal norms, let alone set up a special agency to investigate the case and hear arguments. Therefore, his defeat was already preordained.
Hai Jui enshrined the principles advocated by Emperor Hongwu as a golden rule, and forbade the manufacture of luxury goods by the people. He was bent on agriculture and pursued the past, emphasizing".The two Han Litian filial piety brothers and the meaning of the family love each other, but the intention, only the people tend to it, a return to the industry, and the force returns to the true and pure”。However, neither he nor Emperor Hongwu realized that social prosperity could not be achieved by relying solely on political pressure and moral propaganda while ignoring the power of the technological economy.
Although Hai Jui was a fair and honest man with a strong sense of responsibility and justice, his actions caused public outrage and even threatened the stability of the entire bureaucracy. At the end of the fifteenth year of Wanli, Hai Rui's death relieved the personnel in Beijing, because his departure meant that they no longer had to worry about the hero who had made enemies everywhere. Hai Jui's curtain call also marked the end of the moral politics of the Ming Dynasty.