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Chapter 907: Seeing the Dragon in the Wild (Part 2)

The inconvenience between Emperor Wanli and the civil servants comes from a deep sense of powerlessness, which is even worse than when he was silent. Whether it was silence, whether it was fear or anger, the target was there. No matter how the other party covered the sky, he always knew who to attack.

He thought that after he went silent, the court would be his own world. He believed that in the past two years, his skills were considered brilliant. By provoking the struggle between the Jin Party and the Shen Party, Lu Shusheng, Wei Xuezeng, Tang Ruji, Sun Jian and other Shen Party bosses were dismissed one after another. Although Jin Party bosses such as Zhang Siwei and Wang Chonggu were also in the formation, a group of new forces such as Wang Jiaping, Yang Junmin, Liu Dongxing, and Yang Yikui also grew up. Moreover, Wanli also paid special attention to supporting officials who were not from the southeast and Shanxi, and they had reached the point of not asking about their abilities, but only looking at their hometown. However, the emperor grew up a strong sense of powerlessness, and he found that no matter what he did, he could not achieve the desired result...

For example, this year, Lu Guangzu Ding You, and the Ministry of Personnel did not have a minister, and Wanli planned to take the opportunity to replace him and clearly expressed his hope that a northerner would take over. However, the list of two people promoted by the court was Sun Jian and Tao Dalin.

Wanli knew the relationship between these two people and silence, so how could one of them be the position of Heavenly Official? He ordered the list to be re-elected, but the list presented did not change at all.

Even if the matter was frozen here, Wanli was still full of hope for victory because he still had the imperial edict in his hand - the so-called imperial edict means that the emperor directly ordered the appointment and removal of personnel or issued laws without the cabinet's discussion and recommendation, which was a shortcut. But strangely, under normal circumstances, the emperor rarely used the imperial edict to promote ministers, and the reason was shocking - the emperor was willing to give it, but the ministers refused.

On the surface, the officials are too highly ethical and are unwilling to take this shortcut in Zhongnan. Instead, they have to take root in the masses and gain widespread support before they can take office. But in fact, whoever does not want to take the shortcut is a grandson, but the unwritten rule of the civil servant group - one of them is that promotion can only be supported by colleagues, and those who rely on the emperor's orders will be despised by all officials.

This rule can be said to have nothing to do with silence, but rather a collective self-protection formed by the civil servant group that grew up under the oppression of unprecedented monarchy. Only in this way can the emperor be excluded from the appointment of officials be maintained in the relative independence of ministers and the fate of everyone will not be suspended by the emperor's thoughts.

But the emperor did not believe that everyone was so conscious. He believed that people were greedy and selfish, especially those who stood aside for a long time and were full of resentment. After searching among the ministers, he chose Li Youzi, a fellow villager of Zhang Juzheng. This Jinshi, who was in the 26th year of Jiajing, had been in the position of Ministers for more than ten years, and it was difficult for the emperor to make progress. In the eyes of the emperor, it must be difficult to resist the big seal falling from the sky. So he directly appointed Li Youzi as the official of the heaven with the imperial edict. Unexpectedly, Li Youzi did not dare to accept the imperial edict in the face of raging public opinion. He said in the memorial: "The court-recommended is a precedent for ancestors, and the wise men are expected to be the ones. Now the emperor ignores the public opinion and designates the ministers with the imperial edict, which is actually a disgusting person with the ministers, which is not done by the sage king." It is clearly stated that I will not take the official title granted by the imperial edict, and I did not point out Wanli's plan very implicitly... I just want to break this precedent, bypass the court-recommended, and take over the power of personnel.

Wanli was always embarrassed and angry. I said that Cheng Xian was the Constitution. How could you resist? So he made a stern reprimand, saying that if you don’t accept the order, you are resisting the order. What crime should you do if you resist the order? You should consider it yourself? Li Youzi was also in a row. He resigned one copy a day, and the emperor kept it all. A month later, Li Youzi, who never got the answer, actually left directly.

Wanli finally believed the evil and had to order the court to hold another court recommendation, but the ministers did not buy it. They claimed that the court recommendation was legal and valid, and the emperor should choose one of the two people. Both sides held one side and refused to let go. As a result, Lu Guangzu had been resigning for half a year, and the position of heavenly official was still empty, and the ministry was under the charge of the left minister Wang Xijue.

It was not just the candidate for the Minister of Personnel? In July, Lu Diaoyang passed away and Wanli ordered the ministers to elect candidates to the cabinet. When he saw the list of ministers recommended, he almost overturned the table.

Because the two names on the list are Tao Dalin and Sun Jing.

These ministers who were full of loyalty to the emperor, even though they knew that they were the candidates for the Minister of Personnel, were so angry that they even wanted to recommend these two people, which was obviously not up to him. He put the appointment on hold again, and the same was true for the six people in the cabinet anyway!

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Wanli couldn't understand. Shen Mo had obviously been defeated, and most of his military and political gangs were cut off, and the rest were gone, leaving the rest. Why did he still feel suffocating and powerless?

The answer is in history that has not yet gone. Although he has read the records of the ancestors, he cannot recognize or is unwilling to accept the reality that he sits on the throne that the ancestors have sat on, but his power is different from that of his predecessors.

His ancestors, every word and action, were regarded as a golden rule, and were unyieldingly implemented by their ministers, and even regarded their words and actions as absolute moral standards. However, he grew up under the education of his ministers. His scope of responsibility was recognized by these civil servants, and any behavior beyond the scope of recognition would be regarded as an unjust act and would be collectively opposed by civil servants.

Although this change remains implicit in form, it is actually unambiguous. The reason is that the founding emperor founded the dynasty and also established a civil servant system as an administrative tool, which is the core of power of this country. However, today's civil servants have long been mature, and they have long taken over the actual power from the emperor. They are the powerhouses of this country.

The emergence of every official requires more than ten years of hard study, and then the most harsh selection... Don't listen to those who are frustrated in the imperial examinations, because they can't eat grapes. This is just that the grapes are sour. This is just that they have the qualifications to be an official. After becoming an official, they still cannot relax. In addition to regular inspections, if they are not careful in their daily lives, they will also lead to impeachment from censors. If they are not careful, their future will be ruined. Under such harsh conditions, they have to make achievements to climb up step by step. Shen Mo's climbing speed is already at its limit, and it took nearly twenty years to be qualified to stand in front of the emperor.

Most people cannot make so much contribution, and thirty years will be considered fast. If they are not top social elites, they will never be able to get this step and will be eliminated by the fittest. Fortunately, such a group of people have never been united and have devoted most of their energy to each other. If they work together and want to drive the emperor off the throne, it will be no difficulty.

The emperor became the supreme emperor just because he happened to be born in the imperial family and happened to be his father's eldest son when he died, and he was not determined by survival of the fittest. Moreover, the teachers who established their views on their own are the ministers who became elites. Ministers will naturally shape the future emperors according to their needs - all they need is a monarch with a plain personality as the representative of the destiny of heaven, and his task is to represent the legitimacy of their power, and to make impartial rulings when politics cannot be resolved. They should be the most skilled in invisible.

To put it bluntly, the emperor is better off without any opinion and never interferes in specific government affairs. He only needs to practice various etiquette frequently to demonstrate the legitimacy of the dynasty's rule of the country. He is the best emperor. Therefore, the emperors after Chengzu, whether they were Renzong, Xuanzong, Yingzong, Jingzong, Xianzong, Renzong, were basically carved like a mold, and they could restrain their desires, remain humble and gentle, and be at the mercy of the civil servants. The more they did this, the more the civil servants praised him as a wise ruler, and the more they were bound to the point of being at the mercy of the ministers.

Even Emperor Zhengde, who is famous for his debauchery and indecent, has always pursued personal freedom. He only tried every means to escape the rules and regulations that bound him and hate the old man, but never thought of destroying him. In the final analysis, he was also a student taught by the old man, but his adolescence was too long and his rebellious spirit was too strong...

The only exception is Emperor Jiajing, a wild child who inherited the throne from a vassal king, who had not received a day of royal education and was naturally not immersed in a humble and gentle factor. In his eyes, the emperor was the supreme authority, without any obligation of self-repression. He hoped to be able to control all power without any restrictions.

It just so happened that he could be regarded as the emperor with the highest IQ in the Ming Dynasty and political talent that his predecessors could not match. With his supreme wisdom and power, he believed that he could control everything without anyone's help, and he thought he had done it alone. But history can prove that he was wrong! No matter how strong a person is, he cannot fight against social laws. All those who dare to challenge the rules will be punished by the rules, without exception.

The Yan family father and son had quietly stole his power, and when he treated them as puppets, he also became their puppets. In the late stage of his life, he had clearly received the powerful counterattack. His desires had been suppressed, and his power was taken away-Xu Jie and the civil servant group he represented had already surpassed all the powers in the world, including the imperial power of Emperor Jiajing.

It was Emperor Jiajing's rebellious actions that made the ministers no longer fantasize about the emperor and regarded the game with the imperial power as a major matter related to survival. The civil servant group's pursuit of the minister's power has changed from unconscious to conscious, which directly means that the emperor's era is about to end and the civil servant's era is about to come. But Xu Jie is just the builder and pioneer of all this. If he wants to truly achieve this, the road is tortuous and long. However, with the joint efforts of his successor and Jiajing's successor, this process has been greatly shortened.

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Emperor Longqing's Duangong Wuying almost gave up the power of the country. His son Wanli ascended the throne at the age of eight. Before the eighth year of Wanli, he had no chance of state affairs, which gave civil servants a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The two chief ministers after Xu Jie, Gao Gong and Silence, one was enterprising and bold in power, and the other was good at dancing, and they were the best at winning people's hearts. The two of them succeeded one after another, and in more than ten years, they replaced the supreme emperor and became the true ruler of the empire.

More than ten years, a generation, such a long time is enough to make many things take for granted. So when he left office silently, the civil servant group still had to hold on to the authority tightly, rather than handing it back to the emperor. Over the years, civil servants have formed a powerful force, forcing the emperor to sit on the throne to reject his personal will when dealing with government affairs. Emperor Wanli could not resist this force, because his authority was born from the fall of all officials, and the regime he could actually control was very meager. Nominally, he was the emperor, but in fact he was controlled by court officials, and there was no way to do this...

But this does not mean that the emperor will accept his order. At least Emperor Wanli will not. He aims to defeat the young master who has defeated the greatest powerful minister in history. How could he be at the mercy of the ministers? He has always hoped to use Zhang Siwei again. Zhang Siwei had long been looking forward to it. After more than a year of silence in his hometown in Puzhou, he felt that the limelight had passed, so he wrote to the emperor, implying that he had regained his fighting spirit. Wanli understood it and issued an imperial edict to restore him. Zhang Siwei was worried that there would be more dreams at night, so he hurried to go on the road as soon as he received the order. However, halfway through the way, an obituary came from his home that his father, who was still alive a few days ago, died inexplicably... Zhang Siwei had to go home to attend the funeral.

Emperor Wanli was chilling. He felt that he was facing an unfathomable night. In that darkness, there was a devastating force that was enough to hurt himself. In order to protect himself, in addition to struggling with ministers, he also spared no effort to cultivate the power of eunuchs, hoping that the eunuch army could grow and grow and become a wall for him to shelter from the wind and rain.

That's why he favored these incompetent guys so much, even for fear that they would not be arrogant enough and could not control those ministers who were arrogant.

Therefore, an incident occurred in Nanjing where the people resisted the imperial eunuch. Not only did the emperor not blame Zhang Qing, but he took the opportunity to arrest Sun Yan, who had long disliked him, to Beiyuan, and even wanted to force him to commit suicide, just to kill the chicken to show the monkey. As a result, the eldest son was born, and the empress dowager ordered a general amnesty in the world, allowing Sun Yan to escape. However, the death penalty was avoided, and the living crime could not be escaped. Wanli personally wrote the edict of "send it back to his hometown and never use it", which completely sealed the man's way back to his hometown!

At that time, Wanli felt a little happy, but the consequences were something he could never have imagined.
Chapter completed!
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