On the sixth day of the first lunar month in the twenty-seventh year of the Jiajing reign, the Holy Emperor issued an imperial edict questioning his ministers about the recovery of the Hetao region.
"Does the army really have a legitimate reason to go out? Do the soldiers have enough strength and food supplies? Is success guaranteed? Zeng Xian has nothing to say. I only fear that the people will suffer innocent slaughter."
For a time, there was a lot of discussion in the government and the public.
Yan Song, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, guessed the emperor's intention and felt that the Jiajing emperor had changed his mind, so he wrote to the emperor, "Hetao must not be recovered."
Not only that, Yan Song also put all the blame on the Prime Minister Xia Yan.
In his memorial, Yan Song pointed out without hesitation:
"All the court officials knew the fallacy of repeating the old ways, but they were just 'afraid'."
The meaning couldn't be clearer.
In fact, the court officials all knew in their hearts that it was ridiculous to recapture Hetao at this time, but they chose to go along with it because they were afraid of someone.
This person is naturally the Prime Minister Xia Yan.
With the endorsement of the Prime Minister, Zeng Xin naturally felt fearless.
Yan Song's move was extremely insidious.
Emperor Jiajing had already been suspicious of Xia Yan, and he became even more furious after reading this memorial.
He issued an edict to reprimand Xia Yan for privately recommending Zeng Xin, disregarding the safety of the country and the lives of the people.
When Xia Yan learned about this, he was naturally extremely worried and wrote a memorial to defend himself.
But how could Emperor Jiajing listen to Xia Yan's defense at this moment? He issued another decree to accuse him of "forcing the emperor to coerce the people" and ordered all officials to decide his crime.
Now that the emperor has expressed his opinion, all officials naturally know what to do.
The situation in the court changed suddenly.
At Yan Song's instruction, his followers submitted memorials to impeach Xia Yan, listing all of his crimes.
The most fatal crime was the crime of abusing power by making friends with foreign generals.
This is a murderous act that breaks one's heart.
Heeding the calls from his ministers, Emperor Jiajing issued an edict halting the restoration of the Hetao Campaign and ordered the Embroidered Uniform Guard to arrest Zeng Xin and bring him to the capital. All the censors were caned in court for their inaction and had their salaries revoked for four months. The Emperor also ordered the Minister of War, Wang Yiqi, to take over the three frontier regions.
After a series of arbitrary decrees, the emperor thought of Xia Yan.
"Chief Minister Xia Yan stripped him of his official rank and ordered him to retire."
After this decree was issued, Xia Yan's followers in the court were all in danger. Yan Song took the opportunity to purge dissidents and place his confidants in important positions in the court.
All of Yan's party members rose to power in a short time.
The situation in the court changed so quickly that before anyone knew it, Yan Song had achieved a complete victory.
When the news reached Zhejiang, Xu Yan was filled with emotion.
History indeed developed in the same direction as before. Zeng Xin was arrested and Xia Yan retired.
Of course, this is not the end.
Soon, Xia Yan would be imprisoned, and Zeng Xin would be beheaded in the West Market of the capital for "making connections with close officials."
Xia Yan should be able to survive for a while thanks to his status as the former Prime Minister, but in the end he could not escape the fate of being executed in public.
Even the chief minister of the cabinet is like this.
Being an official in the Jiajing Dynasty was really risky.
In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, only Emperor Jiajing and Emperor Chongzhen liked to kill ministers, while the rest of the emperors were basically quite normal.
At most, the emperor would be so angry that he would issue an order to punish the disobedient minister by beating him with a stick in the court.
As for beheading ministers, such things really rarely happen.
Fortunately, the Jiajing Emperor only had eighteen years to live. By the time Xu Yan entered the officialdom and reached a high position, the Jiajing Emperor had already passed away. The new emperor would be the Longqing Emperor, known for his good nature, who was much easier to deal with than the Jiajing Emperor. As for the Wanli Emperor, he was a child who ascended the throne at a young age.
The Longqing and Wanli periods can be described as the golden age for being an official.
Not long ago, during the college entrance examination interview, Grandmaster Lei Li once asked a question, "How to settle in Hetao?"
Although there is only one word difference between "An" and "Fu", the meanings are completely different.
An means to maintain the status quo, and Fu means to recover.
Xu Yan's policy proposal was also very conservative, with the keynote being active defense and gradual progress.
It was because he knew that Emperor Jiajing would soon turn against him and punish Zeng Xin, Xia Yan and others.
Although he was just an inconspicuous student, he should be cautious at this time and try not to cause trouble for himself.
Emperor Jiajing was really shameless. He clearly supported the recovery of Hetao, but in the end he denied it and put all the blame on his ministers.
This is very similar to Emperor Chongzhen.
In the fifteenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, Chen Xinjia was beheaded in Xishi after his plan to "negotiate peace" was exposed. In reality, the peace negotiations were the Emperor's original intention, and Chen Xinjia was merely a scapegoat. Without the Emperor's authorization, Chen Xinjia would not have dared to negotiate peace privately, even if he had the guts.
But Emperor Chongzhen was too concerned about his reputation and refused to admit that it was his fault, so he had no choice but to kill Chen Xinjia to appease the public anger.
Such meanness and ingratitude are truly inherited from Emperor Jiajing.
Not to mention Xia Yan, Xu Yan really felt sorry and unworthy for Zeng Xin.
If he had not been born in the Jiajing period and served such a fickle emperor, perhaps his fate would have been much better.
Let’s put these aside for now and say that Xu Yan went to Hangzhou again in February.
He has a lot to do on this trip to Hangzhou.
The first was to inspect Miaofengtang's expansion and opening of branches in Hangzhou, the second was to meet his future brother-in-law to dispel his doubts, and the third was to have a good reunion with his mentor Qian Dehong.
Of course, the most important thing is to give Zhu Wan some pertinent and practical advice from a historical perspective.
He clearly remembered that in April of the 27th year of the Jiajing reign, after careful planning, Zhu Wan ordered his general Lu Tong to lead the army to capture Shuangyu Port.
Shuangyu Port in Ningbo, Zhejiang has always been an important stronghold of Japanese pirates in the southeast. Zhu Wan's move can be regarded as the first shot fired by the Ming army in the fight against the Japanese pirates.
According to the historical process, even if Xu Yan did not join the Ming army, he could still capture Shuangyu Port.
The reason why Xu Yan gave Zhu Wan suggestions was that he hoped the Ming army could do a better job of the details.
After all, there have been many cases in history where real and fake Japanese escaped from Shuangyu Port and established their own bases on other islands.
The most famous one is Wang Zhi.
If these pirates could be wiped out in one fell swoop, the Ming Dynasty would at least have a chance to catch its breath for a short period of time.
Of course, Xu Yan was very clear about the drawbacks of the Ming Dynasty's coastal defense policy. As long as the maritime ban policy was not abolished, it would be impossible to eradicate this stubborn problem.
Even if one Wang Zhi is missing, there will still be a second and a third.
But given Emperor Jiajing's suspicious and stubborn character, it was a pipe dream to ask him to open the sea.
All we can do now is to patch things up as much as possible and recruit new people like Qi Jiguang.
As for completely eradicating the maritime threat, it would probably have to wait until the Longqing Dynasty.
In history, Zhu Wan committed suicide out of grief and anger because he offended the Fujian-Zhejiang maritime merchant group.
Although Zhu Wan's status is higher now and she has gained the trust and appreciation of Emperor Jiajing to some extent, her essence has not changed.
Xu Yan felt that it was necessary to remind Zhu Wan.
After all, Zhu Wan is Xu Yan's biggest backer now. If the skin is gone, where will the hair be attached?
Whether out of righteousness or personal friendship, Xu Yan doesn't want anything to happen to Zhu Wan.
Capturing Shuangyu Port was just the beginning of the fight against the Japanese pirates.
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