[Gao Gong is not dead. The last chapter was written wrong. It should be "after he left", not "after he died". ]
In fact, Yang Bo still planned to hold on for a few more years and wait until Zhang Siwei had recovered from this trauma.
However, his wishful thinking was secretly sabotaged by someone. After the Shanxi Gang's trick of betting on both sides was made public, it was natural that they could no longer hope to gain the absolute trust of Mr. Zhang.
Yang Bo knew that Zhang Juzheng had appointed him as the Minister of Personnel just to use him to eliminate dissidents. When he had almost cleaned up the court, it would be time to put away the bow.
The Tianguan is in charge of the officials' hats, how could he hand it over to someone who loves to do small things? If that happened, Mr. Zhang would not be able to sleep peacefully.
Therefore, Yang Bo devoted all his efforts to Zhang Juzheng and eliminated all his political enemies. Then, in August of the first year of the Wanli reign, he was ordered to go to the Xiyue Altar to offer sacrifices to the night-bright god and the stars in the sky, but he suddenly fell ill. After returning home, he fell ill and could not get up. He firmly requested to retire, and was allowed to return home only after insisting several times.
Prime Minister Zhang was very satisfied with Yang Bo's ability to understand human nature and know when to advance and retreat and to remedy the situation. Not only did he grant him the title of Junior Tutor to retire in the name of the emperor, he also ordered his son Yang Junmin, Junior Minister of the Imperial Household, and Yang Junqing, Commander of the Imperial Guard, to serve him all the way home, giving Old Yang enough face.
Before Yang Bo left, Zhang Juzheng went to his house to see him off. After receiving Yang Bo's promise that the Shanxi Gang would always obey Zhang Ge Lao in the future, Zhang Juzheng happily said that he would forgive the past and the two families would reconcile. He also promised Yang Bo that he would arrange for Zhang Siwei to be reinstated as soon as possible...
If others celebrate the first day of the month, you should celebrate the fifteenth day. This is the rule in the officialdom.
In short, with the final efforts of Old Yang Bo, the Shanxi Gang finally overcame the crisis, and Zhang Siwei got another chance.
~~
But Shao Da Xia was not so lucky.
Zhang Juzheng blamed him for the great humiliation he had experienced, wearing cloth clothes and a small hat, running to Gao Gong's mansion in the rain, and kneeling on the ground to beg for mercy.
And Mr. Zhang has always been a ruthless person who will never let go of any grudges...
As soon as he became the Prime Minister, he ordered Feng Bao to arrest Shao Fang and put him in prison. However, Shao Fang was very alert and escaped before the East Factory found him.
Shao Daxia hid outside for a year. When he felt that the storm had passed, he quietly returned to his hometown in Danyang, intending to take his newborn son to escape from the Ming Dynasty and live overseas.
Unexpectedly, he was caught by the police. It turned out that Zhang Jiayin, the new Yingtian governor who replaced Cai Guoxi, had been using his wife and children as bait to arrest him.
With a baby in swaddling clothes beside him, Shao Da Xia did not run away or resist, but just surrendered.
Because Shao Fang knew too much about the secrets of the top officials, Zhang Jiayin did not try him, but directly ordered his men to kill him in prison. In order to vent his anger on the Prime Minister, after announcing his death by starvation, he also dismembered his remains and threw them away to feed wild dogs...
It is really sad that the Danyang hero ended up like this, but this is also the ultimate fate of political brokers. Those who play with fire will get burned, and those who make cocoons will get caught in them. No one can escape.
~~
With Shao Fang's death, Gao Gong's era came to an end.
Many people in the Ming officialdom naively believed that they had finally gotten rid of Gao Huzi's high-pressure rule and could live a peaceful life like in the era of Lord Xu.
Who would have known that Zhang Xianggong, the student of Lord Xu, was actually even more arrogant than Gao Gong, and completely made their lives miserable.
The eighteenth day of the winter month in the first year of the Wanli reign is a day worth remembering, because from this day on, Zhang Juzheng petitioned to implement the "Performance Evaluation System" for officials across the country!
This famous assessment system brought nightmarish years to the officials of the Ming Dynasty before torturing high school students in later generations.
During his long years in officialdom, Mr. Zhang has clearly realized that "the difficulty in governing the world lies not in making laws, but in enforcing them!"
No matter how good the laws are, they are useless if they are not properly enforced! In the 200 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the bureaucratic system has been repetitive and perfunctory. The most scarce thing is people who get things done.
Everyone seems to be busy with paperwork every day, but in fact they are lazy and their minds are not on the work at all. Anyway, there is no punishment if they fail to complete the task, but if they mess up, they still have to take responsibility.
Even if someone still has a conscience and wants to do something honest without caring about gains and losses, they will be regarded as an outlier in the officialdom and be systematically excluded. For example, Hai Rui...
Therefore, Mr. Zhang had seen through everything a long time ago. He was counting on the consciousness of these corrupt officials who were used to cheating and shirking their responsibilities. Even if he could make up all the laws and talk them to death, he would never see the day when they would wake up and work hard.
There is no way to deal with lazy donkeys, so we have to whip them! To solve the problem of "poor execution", Zhang Juzheng referred to history and combined the experience of his predecessors to creatively propose the "performance evaluation method".
The so-called "performance evaluation method" refers to the legal provisions for evaluating performance.
It required that the six ministries and the Metropolitan Censorate should keep three separate account books from now on to record all the documents issued, received, regulations, and plans. In particular, the major and minor matters to be handled should be recorded in these three account books according to the deadlines as appropriate. Then one book would be examined by the six ministries and the Metropolitan Censorate, another book would be sent to the six departments for supervision, and the last book would be submitted to the cabinet for record.
After that, the heads of various government offices would register the accounts and conduct monthly inspections. Each completed item would be cancelled, and if it was not, it must be reported truthfully, otherwise it would be punished!
The six departments will check the execution of the ministries and agencies every six months. If the heads of the ministries and agencies conceal or perfunctorily deal with the matter, they will be impeached immediately, otherwise they will be charged with harboring a criminal!
Finally, the six departments must also establish such account books, and the cabinet must verify the auditing work of the six departments. Anyone who conceals or slacks off will be investigated and punished immediately!
That is, "If any governor or prefect is late in carrying out his duties, the relevant ministry or court shall report him; if any ministry or court conceals or deceives anyone in his/her records, the six departments shall report him; if any six departments conceal or deceive anyone in their reports, the cabinet ministers shall report him. If there are monthly examinations and annual inspections, the names will be correct and the matter can be held accountable!"
This formed a governance system in which the Cabinet led the Kedao, which in turn supervised the six central ministries, and the six ministries commanded civil and military officials as well as local officials, forming a complete mechanism for evaluating officials.
Theoretically speaking, the scope of the performance evaluation system is infinite, from the two capitals to provinces, prefectures, counties... Even remote frontier counties, such as Lingao County, cannot escape the control of the performance evaluation system.
Of course, the Performance Evaluation Law itself is also a law, and it will be useless if it is not implemented properly.
So at first everyone was still hoping for the best, thinking that since a new official would start with three major changes, Mr. Zhang would just be tight at the beginning and then relax later. So everyone wanted to hold on for a while and get through this period first.
Unexpectedly, Mr. Zhang is a persistent man. In the past year, he has devoted most of his energy to the implementation of the performance evaluation system.
Not only is Mr. Zhang extremely energetic and able to work intensively from morning to night, he also has a superhuman memory. All data from various departments and provinces are stored in his mind. He is very familiar with all the crooked ways below, so no one can fool him.
Zhang Juzheng was particularly ruthless in enforcing the law. All officials who failed to complete their tasks by the end of the year were demoted. Those who helped to conceal the facts were also charged with harboring crimes! Even his trusted officials were punished.
As a result, a large number of officials were demoted and retained in various ministries and provinces. In some government offices, not a single official was left behind, and all were demoted collectively.
This was the first year of the implementation of the performance evaluation system, and the result of Prime Minister Zhang showing mercy. At the beginning of this year, Zhang Juzheng informed all ministries and provinces that starting from the second year of the Wanli reign, there would be no more demotions. If the governor failed to complete the task, he would be demoted to the governor, if the governor failed to complete the task, he would be demoted to the prefect, if the prefect failed to complete the task, he would be demoted to the county magistrate, and if the county magistrate still failed to complete the task, he would be demoted to the low-ranking teaching inspector...
Someone may ask, aren't the officials of the Ming Dynasty wealthy? Why do they have to suffer this? Can't they just run away?
No, that's wishful thinking! Don't forget that in the spring of the sixth year of Longqing, when Gao Ge Lao was in office, he made a rule that "officials who ask for leave due to illness shall be allowed to retire and shall not be allowed to be re-employed after recovery."
That is to say, you can leave, but once you leave, don't come back forever... A registered Jinshi who will never have a chance to make a breakthrough will also experience a sharp decline in status in his hometown.
Although Zhang Juzheng had killed all of Gao Gong's people, he did not change any of Gao Gong's decrees. Because he and Gao Gong were like-minded in political views, so wouldn't it be nice to follow Gao Gong's rules?
Now that even the way out was blocked, the officials had no choice but to give up their fantasies, cheer up, and work hard every day, living a life worse than death... Oh no, they had to work hard, just to pass the assessment at the end of the year and not be stripped of their official positions by Prime Minister Zhang.
Thus, the Ming officialdom, which had been perfunctory and incompetent for more than a hundred years, finally changed its face and began to work hard under the severe encouragement of Prime Minister Zhang.
The problem that Gao Ge Lao had always wanted to solve - the officials' execution ability and control over the local areas - was solved by his successor in one move.
And just as Gao Gong said, once this chronic disease was solved, many other problems were also solved. As the government and officials stopped doing nothing and finally started to work diligently, most of the hundreds of malpractices that had plagued the Ming Dynasty since the Zhengde period quickly disappeared...
At the end of last year, someone had already praised the young emperor in a congratulatory message, saying that since the new emperor took the throne, the atmosphere has been new and there is a sense of governing the country!
~~
Naturally, Zhao Hao also had to brag about his father-in-law's new policies, saying that they were effective immediately.
Listening to Zhao Hao's flattery, the smug look on Zhang Juzheng's face disappeared. He subconsciously picked up the briar pipe on the table and began to fill it with tobacco skillfully and elegantly.
A mature man like Mr. Zhang, who has both taste and independent thinking, after being brought into the smoking party, tries various postures and quickly finds the one that suits him best and carries it through to the end.
After trying the pipe, he found that this was the one that suited him best, because filling the pipe required skills and patience, and he could decide what kind of pipe to use, whether to compress it tightly or loosely, which would bring different tastes.
Although this process takes a long time, it is an excellent way to relax and adjust your emotions.
In Zhang Xianggong's view, cigarettes are like prostitutes - used to quickly satisfy desires, and discarded after use, leaving no trace.
Cigars are like mistresses - not only can they satisfy desires, but they can also be shown off in front of others. They are a subconscious expression of showing masculinity, seeking recognition, and pursuing fame and fortune.
A pipe is like a wife - it takes three matchmakers and six engagements before you can have the wedding night with her. After enjoying her, you still have to take the trouble to comfort her. It is a one-time purchase, a long-term maintenance, and a lifelong companion.
ps. Write one more chapter...