prosperous age

"Snapped."

A pure white teacup was smashed hard onto the ground, breaking into pieces with a crisp sound.

"master."

Lu Bu quickly entered the duty room, glanced at the broken pieces of the teacup on the ground, and hurried out again. He quickly came back with a broom and dustpan and quickly swept away the debris on the ground.

After cleaning the floor, Lu Bu quickly made another cup of tea for Wei Guangde.

This time, Wei Guangde did not pick up the teacup and smash it to the ground again, but sat there quietly, not knowing what he was thinking.

It had been nearly half an hour since Wei Guangde returned from Zhang Juzheng's duty room, but he was still upset.

Yes, Zhang Juzheng rejected Wei Guangde's suggestion and still insisted on banning private academies.

At the same time, Zhang Juzheng did not have a clear attitude towards the request to choose another target and let He Xinyin go.

It is really because He Xinyin has become too popular in recent years. He has been constantly hosting and participating in various lectures, and has spared no effort to promote and spread the ideas of the Taizhou School, many of which include remarks expressing dissatisfaction with current politics.

A mere juren actually belittled the cabinet ministers so harshly. Not only was Zhang Juzheng unhappy with him, but Wei Guangde actually felt a little uncomfortable.

But since it happened among the common people, Wei Guangde just turned a blind eye and didn't pay much attention to it.

After all, for someone like He Xinyin, he wouldn't care even if you asked someone to say hello to him.

In his eyes, people from the Taizhou School were no different from a bunch of lunatics.

But even if he was dissatisfied, Wei Guangde still had to take appropriate care of him for the sake of their fellow townsman.

"Go out and pass on a message."

Just when Lu Bu was about to leave the duty room, Wei Guangde suddenly called him and said.

Lu Bu immediately stopped and walked back.

“Send someone from outside to the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War to invite Minister Tan and Minister Jiang to come to my house tonight.

By the way, Minister Wei of the Ministry of Justice is also invited to come.

When you come back, go to Section 6 and find Zhou Shouyu, and come to my place in the evening."

Wei Guangde quickly reported several names, either powerful figures in the court or people who had some relationship with He Xinyin.

Among them, Zhou Shouyu, who is currently serving as the Minister of Rites in the Sixth Department, is from Yongfeng and is a genuine fellow villager of He Xinyin.

The other three people are the ones who can speak for He Xinyin after the incident. Wei Guangde is unsure about what to do and plans to discuss it with them.

After all, this time is different.

In the past, Zhang Juzheng had to make some concessions for his sake, so there was still room for maneuver.

This time, when Zhang Juzheng said "there can only be one voice, no other voices", Wei Guangde knew that things were going to be difficult.

If Jiangxi officials insist on protecting He Xinyin, they will inevitably have to fight against the Prime Minister's faction.

Although Wei Guangde didn't want this to happen, he called Tan Lun and Jiang Zhi to discuss it, and Wei Shiliang also had to make preparations early in the Ministry of Justice.

"There can only be one voice." In fact, many politicians in later generations have said this, and Wei Guangde can understand it to some extent.

Only in this way can we ensure that government orders are passed down from top to bottom and that government policies are implemented smoothly. This is especially important for the reform measures that Zhang Juzheng is promoting.

If someone else had been the target, Wei Guangde wouldn't have cared about his life or death.

However, since it involved people from Jiangxi and was specifically pulled out as a target by Zhang Juzheng, Wei Guangde had to intervene.

Otherwise, he would have a hard time explaining himself in front of his fellow villagers.

After dealing with a few memorials, Wei Guangde felt that he was not in a good state today, so he did not continue working. Instead, he left the cabinet early and returned to his own residence.

At night, the attendant Zhou Shouyu was the first to enter the Wei Mansion, followed by Wei Shiliang, Jiang Zhi and others. They were all invited to the study to chat for a while. It was not until Tan Lun walked into the room that Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji to clear the area outside and not to leave anyone else behind. He would guard the place himself.

At this point, everyone in the room lost the relaxed and harmonious atmosphere and became serious.

Although I don’t know why Wei Guangde called them together, there must be something going on.

Especially Zhou Shouyu, his position is special, and under normal circumstances he would not participate in this place, but Wei Guangde still called him here, so it must have something to do with him. At this moment, he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.

"Shan Dai, what are you doing today?"

Tan Lun asked directly.

Wei Guangde was silent for a moment before he began to explain to everyone the contents of the memorial drafted by Zhang Juzheng, "Revising the Old Regulations and Instructing Educational Affairs to Revitalize Talents."

"How can this be possible? Banning lectures is fine, but they also want to ban and destroy academies. Does Zhang Jiangling really want to make his own decision in the literati community?"

Zhou Shouyu reacted the most strongly and spoke out loudly immediately. After all, he was still a clerk in the Ministry of Rites, and this memorial was almost a shot directed at the Ministry of Rites.

Of course, others were also extremely shocked after hearing the measures in the memorial. Not everyone among them could hold their own when it came to teaching, let alone banning academies. This was a decision that no scholar could support.

“I have also said that the ban on lecturing is acceptable. The previous dynasty had already issued an edict, which only prohibited the education commissioner from participating in lecturing, but did not prohibit civilian students from participating.

But the implications of banning this academy are too huge, and I am firmly opposed to it.

Some people down there are really too active, using the academies to gather people for lectures and stir up academic disputes."

Wei Guangde said this, in fact, everyone knows that the following about the School of Mind and the School of Principle, in Jiangnan, has already been a mess.

"Many of these people have radical ideas and used the gathering to criticize the imperial court, especially attacking Zhang Jiangling's strategy in recent years.

In fact, everyone has their own opinion on whether the performance evaluation system is good or not. For the imperial court, the performance evaluation system is naturally good.

But for officials, the performance evaluation system has become a shackle around their heads.

There is also the matter of land reclamation. It has just started and people are already cursing at us, saying that it is a waste of people’s money.”

Speaking of this, Wei Guangde couldn't help but shake his head slightly.

People are all selfish, but anyone with a little shame should know that what they did to the land before is only to be corrected now, yet they still shamelessly oppose it.

"But this is not the most troublesome thing."

After several people listened carefully to Wei Guangde's words, Wei Guangde said again, "Zhang Juzheng has already made cracking down on lectures an important part, and banning academies is to prevent these people from using their professor status to give lectures in the name of teaching in academies.

The target he chose was He Xinyin of the Taizhou School."

"what?"

This time, Zhou Shouyu still had the biggest reaction.

Zhou Shouyu was no stranger to He Xinyin. After all, he was a local and could be considered his senior.

In his early years, He Xinyin was the top scorer in the Jiangxi provincial examination, but he became fascinated by the philosophy of mind and studied under Yan Shannong, accepting the influence of the thoughts of the Taizhou School.

Because He Xinyin's ideas became more radical and he and his teacher Yan Shannong eventually had different interests, a few years later he returned to his hometown of Yongfeng County to preach and teach, and established the Juhe Hall in his hometown, starting his independent scholarly career.

A stubborn person like him, naturally, like Jin Da and others, could not stand Yan Song, who was encroaching on the power of the government at that time. Even Lan Daoxing's bad behavior towards Yan Song was influenced by He Xinyin.

Why did Lan Daoxing do this? In addition to the secret lobbying by the Prince Yu's Mansion, Lan Daoxing's good friend He Xinyin was also one of the people who lobbied him.

Therefore, after Lan Daoxing's death, Yan Shifan did not intend to let He Xinyin go easily, and directly sent people to kill him.

Prince Yu's Mansion acted very secretly, and even if the Yan family knew about it, they would not dare to do anything to Prince Yu or other officials.

But he was just a scholar from the folks, even if he was from the same village, but the knife had already been chopped towards the Yan family, so Yan Shifan would naturally not be polite to him anymore. Jin Da and the Yan family were not on good terms, so the Yan family just asked him to stand aside and let it go.

But He Xinyin wanted to destroy the Yan family, so naturally he would not let them down easily.

In order to avoid being hunted down, He Xinyin had to travel to Fujian, Jiangxi, Xiaogan, Hubei, and Chongqing to give lectures and preach, promote the ideas of the Taizhou School, and advance the process of popularizing Confucianism.

It was also this time that earned him great fame.

After all, there were too many people in the world who were dissatisfied with the Yan family at that time. Some people privately attributed the greatest achievement of overthrowing the Yan family to He Xinyin, which made him very popular and invisibly strengthened his influence, allowing him to quickly become the leader of the Taizhou School.

"You mean, Zhang Jiangling is going to take action against He Xinyin?"

He Xinyin has a huge influence in the literati circle today. He is also a native of Jiangxi. Although his political ideas are somewhat criticized and worth discussing, it must be said that he is also one of the leading figures among Jiangxi literati of this era. Therefore, even if his fellow townsmen in the court know that his ideas are problematic, they still have to come forward to protect him.

Jiang Zhi frowned and said this at this time, then fell into deep thought.

"Sunqing, what did you think of?"

Seeing this, Tan Lun asked suspiciously.

Jiang Zhi glanced at Wei Shiliang and said with a wry smile: "Gongfu should have heard of it too."

Wei Shiliang nodded slightly at this time, indicating that he knew about this.

Wei Guangde also became interested and asked, "I wonder what you are talking about?"

Wei Shiliang smiled bitterly and said, "It happened ten years ago. At that time, I had just entered the court and joined the Ministry of Personnel. It should be around the 43rd year of Jiajing, and I had just returned from a diplomatic mission to Korea."

It turns out that after Yan Song's downfall, he returned to the capital, not to take part in the imperial examinations, but to give lectures and vigorously promote the ideas of the Taizhou School of Yangming's Learning of Mind.

At that time, Xu Jie, Zhang Juzheng and others went to listen.

For this reason, later generations said that Xu and Zhang were both followers of the School of Mind. In fact, it was because they seemed very keen on participating in lectures on the School of Mind that people mistakenly believed that they were followers of the School of Mind.

During that lecture, He Xinyin's Taizhou School pushed Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind to an extreme.

As a result, Zhang Juzheng, who had almost figured out the philosophy of mind, and He Xinyin, who had "gone astray", had some arguments.

"I heard later that He Xinyin once asserted that 'Mr. Zhang will definitely be the prime minister, he will definitely be the first to teach and he will definitely be the first to poison Yuan.'"

Finally, Wei Shiliang told the news he heard when he came back. When he heard his fellow villager talking about this matter, Jiang Zhi was there too. He had returned to Beijing to report on his work.

"Because he offended Zhang Jiangling?"

Tan Lun frowned.

At that time he was still in the south of the Yangtze River and had not yet come to the north, so naturally he did not know about this.

"That's not the case, he's not that stingy.

I think he must have caused some trouble in Jiangnan recently, which offended the Prime Minister."

Wei Guangde said.

"Maybe it's because of the academy. I heard that he is planning to build an academy in Huguang recently, and he is a person who dares to say anything.

Zhang Jiangling returned to Jingzhou this time, and he might have heard what he said, so he lost his favor and planned to use him to establish his authority. "

Zhou Shouyu smiled bitterly.

"Shou Yu, are you familiar with him?"

Wei Guangde looked at Zhou Shouyu and asked.

The reason for calling him here was, firstly, that he might be familiar with He Xinyin, and secondly, that this matter was related to the Ministry of Rites. Even if the "Memorial on Reinforcing the Old Regulations and Instructing the Educational Administration to Revitalize Talents" was approved, it still had to pass the rites section.

Zhou Shouyu is there, so he can try to delay the situation for a while.

As for the real punishment, let Wei Shiliang help to clear him of the crime.

"In that case, please write to him as soon as possible and ask him to go back to his hometown and stop giving lectures everywhere.

To put it more seriously, if you don’t want to see the court shaken, it’s best to be honest for a while.”

Wei Guangde said.

Tan Lun understood Wei Guangde's intention. It would be best if he didn't have to fight with Zhang Juzheng. Otherwise, he could only protect himself.

Regardless of what was said, He Xinyin was still the face of Jiangxi literati at that time. If he was tricked, they would lose face.

But after listening to Wei Guangde's words, Zhou Shouyu said in embarrassment: "I'm afraid it's difficult. He is stubborn and self-willed. It's hard to convince him. He is almost the same type of person as Gao Xinzheng.

It’s true that they are familiar with each other, but as far as I know, there are not many people from the same hometown who have a good relationship with him.”

"That's it."

When Wei Guangde heard Zhou Shouyu's words, he began to waver for a moment.

If it is true as Zhou Shouyu said, He Xinyin may have some reputation among the literati, but if his relationship with his fellow townsmen is average, then even if he is convicted by Zhang Juzheng, there will probably not be many people among his fellow townsmen who will stand up and speak for him.

"After all, he is a leader in the literary world, so we should protect him."

Not sure if he could see what they were thinking or if he was just expressing his feelings, Tan Lun spoke at this time.

"So keep silent, you write a letter to He Xinyin, and then contact other fellow villagers to write letters to him and persuade him.

I will write to Mr. Zhenshan later and ask him to think of a way to get him back even if it means cheating him."

Wei Guangde nodded, understanding what Tan Lun meant.

The Zhenshan he mentioned was actually Zhu Heng who retired and returned to his hometown.

Although Zhu Heng was not from Yongfeng, he was from Wan'an, which also belonged to Ji'an Prefecture, and Yongfeng County was also under its jurisdiction.

“Although I opposed his original manuscript submission, I don’t know how much of an impact it had on him.

If Zhang Jiangling insisted on banning the academy, Zhang Siwei would definitely support him at the cabinet meeting.

As for the palace, as long as Zhang Juzheng uses He Xinyin to take the blame, I'm afraid there is a high probability that he will approve it with a red seal."

Wei Guangde expressed his helplessness, saying that he really could not defeat Zhang Juzheng in the cabinet.

"When it comes to that, Zhou Shouyu, the Ministry of Rites must find ways to delay this memorial. Although it cannot be rejected, one day of delay is one day of delay."

Wei Guangde continued.

He actually knew that the Six Departments had no way to refute the palace's order because Zhang Juzheng held the supervisory power of the Six Departments.

As long as the six subjects were delayed too much, Zhang Juzheng would most likely raise the stick of the performance evaluation system.

"Gongfu, you should also start to make arrangements with the Ministry of Justice, so that we won't be caught off guard when the time comes."

Wei Guangde continued.

After hearing this, several people nodded silently, and then they heard Wei Guangde say: "Originally, I was going to call Ru Mo for today's matter, but in the end I didn't let him come.

I plan to arrange for him to enter the Ministry of Personnel as soon as possible."

The person Wei Guangde was talking about was naturally Shen Shixing, the number one scholar in the 41st year of Jiajing, who had been the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Rites for quite some time. This time, Wei Guangde wanted to move him to the Ministry of Personnel, which was naturally paving the way for the last step. (End of this chapter)