133 133 Perfect Man
◎I'm surprised! There are three big scandals in his life.◎
It was almost March, the time of spring and blooming flowers. Even in a northern place like Tianjin, the weather has warmed up and there is a spring atmosphere.
When Master Kang's boat arrived at the port, it was noon. The warm sun shone on the water, sparkling and poetic.
However, the same sunlight shining on people is a different feeling.
At the beginning, of course, it makes people feel warm.
But after a little longer, it becomes a little hot.
Especially when you are fully dressed in official uniforms and wearing flower feathers to prepare for the ride back and forth, standing upright under the sun for an hour or two, it is even more so.
Anyway, Li Guangdi was sweating all over at this moment, his gray hair was a little damp, and even left a little water stain on his official uniform.
Although it can't be said to be impolite, it is a bit ugly.
Master Kang walked in front, and was obviously stunned for a moment when he saw Li Guangdi like this. Mo Yu followed at the end of the team, but he was short and could see everything through the gaps between people. Seeing this scene, his eyes couldn't help but linger for a moment - Master Li is really a bit too hard, right? This
is not the first time Mo Yu has seen Li Guangdi, but it was only at this moment that he really felt that this Master Li was already an old man in his sixties.
The system started to play Master Li's life for Mo Yu at 0060.
Sure enough, the first paragraph introduced the birth and death dates of this Master Li.
He was born in 1643, so this year, he is exactly 62 years old.
To put it bluntly, many people in this era can't live past 50 years old, and those who can live to 60 years old are already considered to be long-lived. Not to mention,
this Lord Li is still active in the front line of officialdom, and in a core and key department.
His official position now is the Minister of Personnel, which is a first-rank official.
And he also serves as the Zhili Inspector.
That is to say, the level of the Minister of Organization and Personnel, the Governor of Zhili Province, and the Commander-in-Chief of the North China Military Region...
It can be said that he is already an extremely powerful official.
Oh, or he is infinitely close to the ceiling of officials.
After all, there is a prime minister above him.
Not to mention, according to historical records, he was really going to be promoted to prime minister soon - that is, Wenyuan Pavilion Grand Academician.
It was this year, that is, the 44th year of Kangxi, that Master Kang issued an imperial edict to the Ministry of Personnel, saying that he wanted to promote Li Guangdi, the Minister of Personnel and Zhili Inspector, to the position of Wenyuan Pavilion Grand Academician.
He was called "Li Xiang".
Ming Xiang and Suo Xiang were in power before, and now Li Xiang is here again, and there will be Zhang Xiang in the future.
As the saying goes, one prime minister follows another, and each is in power for four or five years...
Oh, it seems that Master Li has been in power for more than four or five years, probably more than ten years.
Because Master Kang really cherished him so much, not only did he call him "confidant" many times on various occasions, rewarded him and summoned him at any time, and when he died thirteen years later, that is, in the 57th year of Kangxi, Master Kang even cried openly to mourn the loss of his confidant.
Sure enough, just over three years later, Master Kang himself also rode a crane to the west, and reunited with these old friends in heaven.
Lord Li was a Jinshi in the ninth year of Kangxi's reign. He was appointed as an editor of the Hanlin Academy that year. He died in office due to illness in the fifty-seventh year of Kangxi's reign. He had been in politics for forty-eight years, which can be said to be a long-term worker.
Looking at the life of Lord Li, he entered the officialdom through the imperial examination, and his talents and abilities as an official were outstanding. It can be said that he had made many achievements in various positions, and he also left many very positive comments in history books.
Master Kang regarded him as a confidant, and because he died in office after devoting himself to his work, he gave him the posthumous title of "Wenzhen", and sent Prince Heng Yinqi to express condolences in person and rewarded him with a thousand taels of gold, which was really a grand ceremony.
After a few years, Master Kang himself died. When the Four Lords came to power, they gave the title of "Prince Taifu" to Lord Li, who had taught him in the Shangshufang in the past. This was the icing on the cake and made him even more popular.
As a minister, Lord Li had reached the pinnacle. Not only was he a confidant of Master Kang, but he was also stamped as a "perfect man" by the Four Lords.
However, as the saying goes, "there is no pure gold and no perfect man."
It is actually difficult to live up to the reputation.
There is no real perfect person in this world, but the superiors selectively advocated and created a god-like persona.
For example, Lord Li, although he left a lot of words in history, when he was evaluated, he was also "half-honored and half-dishonored", and he was not so perfect.
Because there are at least three scandals in his life that cannot be explained away.
In this regard, the famous Qing Dynasty scholar Quan Zuwang, known as the "pillar of history", once described him in his book as "selling friends in his early years, seizing love in his middle age, and marrying his mistress's son in his old age"※, which can be said to be very contemptuous of his character.
Interestingly, this teacher Quan is also from the south. However, he is not from Fujian, but from Zhejiang.
What's more, this teacher Quan was just born this year, and this year, Lord Li was about to be named Wenyuan Pavilion Grand Scholar and appointed Prime Minister, which was also a coincidence.
Mo Yu secretly sighed that the fate between people in this world is really wonderful. While continuing to mingle among the crowd and be a qualified "companion tool man", he couldn't help reading the gossip and advice provided to him by System 006.
I didn't expect that Lord Li, who looks quite righteous, is actually such a person inside.
This level of scandal, just one of them is enough for everyone to eat once, not to mention that all three are real events.
It's simply three consecutive big melons, and they can't help but eat them all at once. Let's
talk about "selling friends in the early years" first, which is about the most criticized incident of Lord Li, "stabbing friends in the back", "forgetting righteousness for profit", and "turning against each other".
Coincidentally, this incident also involves another celebrity.
That is the famous scholar Chen Menglei.
Mo Yu had met this old man before when he was a tutor in the palace.
Although they had not met many times, they had met before.
Because this old Mr. Chen has been editing books in Wuying Hall in recent years - yes, that is the job that the third prince has.
Editing books.
The book he is editing now is the famous "Ancient and Modern Books Collection", which took five years and hard work, and it will be completed in the next two or three months.
This is part of the Third Prince's achievement, but it is all the hard work of Mr. Chen.
However, he didn't have to be so wronged and live in a corner as a hardworking book editor.
Because in fact, this old man Chen Menglei was a Jinshi in the same year as Li Guangdi.
As Jinshi in the same list and both from Fujian, the two were originally very close friends.
However, the two of them were equally unlucky. They had just passed the imperial examinations and it had not been long since Master Kang succeeded to the throne. They were caught up in the Three Feudatories Rebellion.
The two of them were in high spirits and went back to their hometown to visit their relatives. However, they were caught by Geng Jingzhong, the Prince of Jingnan in Fujian, who had rebelled.
Li Guangdi was very alert and had sent his family to a safe place to hide.
Chen Menglei was simple-minded and did not prepare in advance. So when he returned to his hometown, although he received the news and hid, he forgot to settle his relatives in his hometown.
Therefore, he had been hiding in the mountains for a few days when he received the news that his old father had been captured by Geng Jingzhong.
Geng Jingzhong's men also said that if Chen Menglei didn't pledge allegiance to Geng Jingzhong, they would chop off Chen Menglei's old father...
He was a rebel, how could he still have any humanity?
Chen Menglei had no choice but to come out of the mountains and "surrender" to Geng Jingzhong's house.
Geng Jingzhong was of course very happy, and immediately released Chen Menglei's old father. He even met Chen Menglei in person and promised to give him a high position.
Although Chen Menglei was very resistant in his heart, he still reluctantly coped for the sake of his family and, most importantly, to "penetrate the enemy", and vividly performed a Chen Menglei version of "Xu Shu entering Cao's camp".
The reason why he did this was, firstly, to protect the safety of his relatives, and secondly, to endure humiliation and gather intelligence.
People are not plants, who can be heartless? The kindness of parents is greater than the sky, and if someone holds your soft spot, even gods can't do anything.
Chen Menglei is a filial son, and he would never do such a thing of "forgetting his relatives for the sake of justice".
This is probably one of the reasons why Geng Jingzhong dared to do this. In
short, Chen Menglei was held in this way.
But he didn't intend to sit and wait for death. Because he knew that he was not fighting alone.
At that time, Li Guangdi, who passed the imperial examination at the same time as him and returned to his hometown in Fujian to visit relatives, was also there. This brother Li got along very well with him, and the two agreed to visit relatives together, and then return to Beijing to take up their posts together.
I didn't expect that such a thing would happen as soon as I entered Fujian. It was really a pity.
But at least, they were not alone.
Two people could take care of each other and there was hope that they could break out of the siege.
So Chen Menglei found a way to contact Li Guangdi, wrote a wax ball with his ideas and asked him to find an opportunity to return to Beijing and hand it over to the emperor, that is, Master Kang.
Master Kang was still young at that time. He was only in his twenties and did not have the maturity and calmness he has now.
He was even a little discouraged because he had been attacking the Three Feudatories but failed for a long time. He felt that the Three Feudatories were really difficult to deal with, otherwise he would just give up and not fight. Anyway, the three of them were hiding in a few marginal provinces in the south, so he might as well give them to them.
But the letter in the wax ball brought back by Li Guangdi immediately rekindled the fire of hope for Master Kang.
This is a secret letter from the "enemy-occupied area".
This is the voice of the common people who are waiting to be rescued.
They have not lost confidence in me, the young emperor, and are still waiting for me to save them.
Who can stand this?
So there was a wave of chicken blood, a wave of strategy, a wave of charge, and no fear, just do it...
The Three Feudatories were dealt with in this way. Master Kang therefore had a special filter for Li Guangdi, which was one of the reasons why this Lord Li's official career was so smooth.
How could someone who risked his life to return to the capital from Geng Jingzhong's territory in Fujian and sent him a secret letter have any bad intentions?
Unfortunately, Master Kang didn't know that all this was not just the credit of Li Guangdi.
Such a big man like Chen Menglei was just "butterflyed" by him.
Yes, the secret letter in the wax pill that moved Master Kang so much and ignited his fighting spirit was actually written by Chen Menglei.
Although he was forced to work in Geng Jingzhong's house and was even appointed to an official position, he did not really surrender.
All he thought about was the young Master Kang far away. That's why he wrote so many words to express his loyalty. The most important thing was that there was a lot of information he collected while lurking in Geng Jingzhong's house.
Then he sealed it in the wax pill and gave it to his most trusted brother Li Guangdi to take to the capital.
Of course, Li Guangdi also participated in the discussion, and as a transport tool, he delivered this precious wax pill to the capital and handed it over to Master Kang, playing a very important role.
This credit should belong to him, but he can't just not mention Chen Menglei's credit.
People who know the business know that the most fearful thing for an undercover agent is that he can't prove that he is actually a good person, but just an undercover.
At that time, the only one who could prove Chen Menglei's innocence was Li Guangdi, but he concealed it and refused to admit it, causing Chen Menglei to be exiled directly for treason and lived a miserable life for most of his life.
It has to be said that Lord Li's move was really cruel.
So, several decades later, when Chen Menglei, who was nearly 60 years old, finally found an opportunity to turn over and returned to the capital, the first thing he did was to make the "wax pill case" public, and even wrote a "Letter of Breaking Off Friendship with Li Guangdi", which can be said to be a complete break.
Lord Li was already the Minister of Personnel at the time, so of course he could not admit this matter - if he admitted it, he might never be able to gain a foothold in the capital again.
Although the right and wrong were not finally determined, judging from Master Kang's attitude in handling this case, he was still very inclined.
He also knew that it was probably his confidant Li Guangdi who did something wrong to Chen Menglei, but he could not admit it.
That was his best friend, so he had no choice but to forgive.
[Author's words]
※ "In his early years, he sold out his friends, in his middle age, he seized love, and in his old age, he married his mistress's son." - From "Uzaki Ting Collection" written by Quan Zuwang of the Qing Dynasty.
It has been refined.
Thank you to the little angels who cast the Overlord vote or irrigated the nutrient solution for me during 2024-03-21 23:52:51~2024-03-22 23:57:55~
Thank you to the little angels who cast mines: 1 breeze and drizzle;
thank you to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 1 bottle of plum green tea;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!