First Minister of Ming Dynasty

First Minister Section 440

After the ministers entered Fengtian Hall and performed the salute to face the emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately said, "Prepare a seat for Mr. Zhang as well."

Sure enough, a seat similar to that of Li Shanchang was placed behind Zhang Ximeng's butt.

Seeing this, Lao Li didn't even bother to speak.

I guessed it a long time ago and gave it to me. Can Zhang Ximeng be shortened!

But apart from them, there is also Zhu Sheng, who is getting older, and is also a deputy prime minister... Lao Zhu thought about it and said: "From now on, officials above the third rank, who are over 50 years old, will have seats." .”

This was aimed at Zhu Sheng, and he quickly knelt down to thank him.

The same courtiers, some sit, some stand, some rely on merit, and some rely on seniority.

All kinds of flavors can only be tasted slowly.

After completing his first appearance and confirming the layout of the court, Zhu Yuanzhang had someone bring up the wine bowl made of Song Lizong's head.

The big guys have heard about it a long time ago, and they are still horrified when they see the real thing.

Song Lizong's head was too big. After the evil monk Yang Lianzhenjia robbed the Southern Song Dynasty imperial tomb and dug up the corpse, he felt that this head was special, so he split it in two, decorated it with gold, jade and jewelry, and made a special wine bowl.

From then on, in the middle of Yuan Ting Guiwei, tossed and turned for decades.

The emperor's head was used as a drinking utensil and played with by others.

What a shame and shame, really comparable to the shame of Jingkang!

Don't blame the descendants for looking down on Zhao Song. No matter how much rouge and powder are applied, this dynasty, from the beginning to the end, is full of aggrievedness, which makes people feel depressed and vomit blood.

Zhao Kuangyin and Chen Qiao rebelled, bullied orphans and widows, and sat on the dragon chair.

Although a bit disdainful, after all, ending the chaos of the Five Dynasties was considered a hero for a while, but then Zhao Da died in a muddle.Zhao Er failed two Northern Expeditions and was unable to take back the land of Yanyun. The ensuing Chanyuan Alliance set a bad example for the New Year's Coin.

The Khitan can't beat it, and the mere Xixia can bully the Song Dynasty.

Then the Kingdom of Jin rose, not to mention taking away half of the country, and also created the shame of Jingkang. So many noble daughters of emperors and concubines became others' playthings and trophies.

Going on, he failed to live up to his expectations, killed Zhongliang, and cut off the hope of recovering from the Northern Expedition.

This is not over yet, the tombs of the Six Emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty were robbed and excavated.

The emperor's skull was made into a wine vessel.

Looking through the history books, the rise and fall of dynasties are common things. The old Liu family and the old Li family also have a dark history, but it is really rare that the old Zhao family is so black.

"Everyone, let's talk about it, what do you think?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

All the ministers at the scene regained consciousness slightly from their sighs, and couldn't help but shook their heads.

Wei Su, who succeeded Song Lian as a scholar of the Imperial Academy, bowed and said, "Your Majesty, when the mausoleum of the Six Emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty was stolen, the people collected some of their bones and buried them under a holly tree. I think there should be Song Lizong's remains among them." Your Majesty is merciful, and burying this skull in it can be regarded as a great meritorious deed."

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned slightly, thought for a while and said, "The words of Wei Xueshi are quite reasonable, and the position has been chosen. We want to ask you, do you want to be buried according to the emperor's ceremony?"

Wei Su was taken aback, thought for a while and said: "Your Majesty, the Zhao and Song dynasties lived in peace, and the country was not upright. It is really nothing. They can be buried according to the prince's ceremony, which is considered to be an honor."

At this time, Liu Bowen suddenly said: "Song Lizong is also an emperor, if we only use the prince's gift, it will appear that we intend to belittle them."

Wei Su was stunned, and said: "Everyone knows about Zhao Song's shame, so do you intend to belittle it?"

"Everyone knows it, and it's different from being buried with the prince's ceremony. Doing so is not dignified, and it's not my Ming Dynasty."

Wei Su took a deep breath, "I wonder what Mr. Liu's opinion is?"

Liu Bowen was silent, but looked at Zhang Ximeng.

"We still need to be buried properly, but it's not about burying an emperor who has died for more than 100 years. It's about burying the entire Song Dynasty, burying our cowardice, and reopening a new chapter in China."

Zhang Ximeng said slowly: "Your Majesty, please abolish the history of the Song Dynasty compiled by Tuotuo before, and the National History Museum will take the lead in re-editing the history of the Song Dynasty!"

Liu Ji and Song Lian stood up immediately, "The ministers and others seconded the proposal, please abolish the history of the Song Dynasty immediately and rewrite the history!"

Everyone hesitated a little, but Li Shanchang stood up and said, "Your Majesty, the history of the Song Dynasty compiled by Tuotuo is really not good, and it should be abolished, and the source should be cleared up!"

Now all the ministers stood up one after another, and together they respectfully asked for the revision of the history of the Song Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang took a deep breath, looked at the skull wine bowl again, and said meaningfully: "Indeed, bury Da Song properly!"

Chapter 613 The Royal Golden Pen

Zhang Ximeng took over the responsibility of rebuilding Song history as he wished.

This has also become the first important mission since the official operation of Menxia Province.

Zhang Ximeng contemplated for three days, and then called all the main officials of the Menxia Province over,

Song Lian, Liu Ji, naturally all came, and Gong Bosui, who had participated in the history of Tuotuo Xiu, was also invited... He seemed a little prominent among this group of people.

Liu Ji couldn't help laughing and said: "Gongzhen is the only one who can compile history twice and span two dynasties!"

Gong Bo was stunned, and suddenly smiled wryly: "Mr. Bowen was joking, I participated in the revision earlier, Song History, Liao History, and Jin History, and now Song History has been abolished, I don't know if Liao History and Jin History are also included Abolish it?"

Gong Bosui continued: "The Yuan court is absurd. At the beginning of the founding of the country, the old customs of the grasslands were used to govern the country. Later, the imperial examination was held to select scholars and enter the court as officials. Later, he quit his job as a chancellor. Only then did he think of writing history. It can be regarded as an explanation for the three dynasties. However, due to the rush of time, when compiling the history, there is no time to carefully scrutinize it. Most of the time, we can only plagiarize the historical materials of previous dynasties in large paragraphs. It can be considered that the history of the Song Dynasty was not well compiled."

Liu Ji smiled instead: "It may not be appropriate for you to say that. Although the cultivation is not good, after all, a lot of real things have been preserved. If the history is carefully compiled and distorted and falsified, future generations will be affected, and it will cause difficulties instead. "

Gong Bosui had no choice but to smile bitterly, "Mr. Bowen is very knowledgeable. What should we do, we still have to listen to Zhang Xiang."

The big guys set their eyes on Zhang Ximeng.

Don't just look at these few people, under Zhang Ximeng, there are still a lot of Lingshi, among which there are as many as 20 people who are in charge of writing.

For the purpose of compiling history, the number of people is still increasing crazily.

Since in order to review officials and take charge of evaluation, it must be professional!

Therefore, in theory, Menxia Province is to gather talents from all over the world.

Those who understand writing, those who understand laws and decrees, those who understand calculations, those who know astronomy and geography, and even those who are familiar with military affairs... After all, only in this way can they cover everything.

With the current scale of the Menxia Province, it can be regarded as worthy of the specifications of the top yamen. Otherwise, why should it compete with the Zhongshu Province?

Now that so many capable people gathered together, they were all listening to Zhang Ximeng's orders, and the feeling of ordering the world and being in charge of the world spontaneously arose.

But these mundane things are nothing to Zhang Ximeng.

He just pondered for a while, and then said to the big guys: "In the past, the history of the past dynasties was to build a coffin for the previous dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, if this rule is followed, the history of the Yuan Dynasty should be compiled first, and the history of the Song Dynasty compiled by the Yuan Dynasty should be recognized. In the end, we wanted to overthrow the history of the Song Dynasty, and started to revise it from the history of the Song Dynasty, do you guys understand the intention?"

This time Song Lian immediately said: "Master Zhang said more than once that the Zhao and Song dynasties were the gateway from China's prosperity to decline. If we don't re-edit Song history, we will not be able to figure out the root of China's rise and fall. Obviously, the revised Song history has been removed. If we can’t do this, we have to do it.”

Zhang Ximeng smiled, "That's it, so the first thing I want to say is to write history with a straight line and write the truth of the past. However, historical materials are complicated, and the same event, recorded by different people, has different conclusions. When we compile history, we must have viewpoints and opinions. That is to say, when dealing with historical materials, we must have viewpoints and have trade-offs. I don’t want big guys to tamper with historical materials and talk nonsense, but I also ask big guys to understand that we Ming Dynasty How to establish a country, how to rejuvenate China... This question must always be kept in our hearts, from this we can look at the history of Zhao and Song Dynasties, and cultivate our own historiography, do you guys understand what I mean?"

Everyone was terrified, what Zhang Ximeng said was straightforward enough, if you still don't understand, you are a fool.

A dynasty has gone through hundreds of years, and there are as many people and things as a cow's hair, like beads scattered over time.

The person who writes history is to pick out the beads and wear them into a string.

This is a great test of the skill and mind of the history writer.

If you insist on choosing the Song Dynasty to use troops abroad, how to win, and then choose how clever the research and development of Song Dynasty weapons are, and then choose to write about generals, compile them into biographies, and then write about how much the Song Dynasty invested in food, goods and military equipment, etc., and get [-]% of the finances Raising soldiers and so on...

As far as this is written, there is not a single lie, and a single wrong historical material is not quoted... But the people who compiled the history definitely had bad intentions.Because anyone who sees this will subconsciously feel that the Great Song Dynasty is a powerful country with iron and blood, and that it uses troops abroad, and there is no disadvantage.

But that is certainly not the case.

And this is the power of history editing. Under certain circumstances, it can influence people's thinking unconsciously.

Zhang Ximeng has only one request for history compilation. After reading this volume of Song History, everyone should be able to roughly understand why Zhao and Song Dynasties declined, why China was not as good as before, why there was the shame of Jingkang, and the hatred of Yashan.

Obviously, the off-version Song History obviously cannot do this.

Even if Zhang Ximeng can't handle it well when compiling history this time, he will make a joke that he smacks his own mouth.

"This time, in addition to the official revision history, we also need to revise some popular books and student books. We must clearly write the framework of thousands of years of history and tell our young students."

Zhang Ximeng glanced at Song Lian, "Have the Imperial Academy been busy with this matter for a long time?"

Song Lian smiled wryly and said, "To be honest with Mr. Zhang, it has indeed been prepared for a long time, and even published several editions. But the effect is not very good."

"why?"

"The main thing is not to take the imperial examination." Song Lian said honestly: "We now have business, law, and martial arts, but we don't have any special historiography... Zhang Xiang, would you like to ask Your Majesty to add a history?"

Zhang Ximeng frowned, "Forget it, don't add it separately... For our country, history should be a basic subject, and history should be added to all exams in the future. As a compulsory course, even martial arts is no exception. "

After Zhang Ximeng finished speaking, Liu Bowen applauded immediately, "I agree with Zhang Xiang's proposal. Historiography is also an easy subject to get started. As long as you are interested, you can get enough historical materials, and you have the right mind and are willing to work hard, you can make a difference." Achievements. You don’t need any famous historians, you can be a great Confucianist in the world.”

Song Lian coughed lightly: "Brother Bowen, what you said is a bit too much. Isn't our Zhang Xiang a famous historian and a great scholar in the world? How to judge the rise and fall of the millennium depends on Zhang Xiang's big pen!"

Liu Bowen glared at Song Lian, don't you understand what I mean?I mean, there is no need for those old Confucianists to control history and control right and wrong, these are all in our hands!

Zhang Ximeng waved his hand, and did not let the two fight any further, but murmured: "After all, it boils down to this time, it is not only the compilation of history, but also the enlightenment of the common people. A proper set of history education can lay the foundation for my great Ming Dynasty. The foundation of the year must not be sloppy!"

When everyone heard this, they were shocked again. Zhang Ximeng raised Xiushi to this level. Is it nonsense?

Obviously not.

Historiography is collective memory, and collective memory is the best criterion for distinguishing you from me.

What is Huaxia and what is Yidi?

Why did the barbarians enter Huaxia and the Huaxia became the same, and when the Huaxia came out of the barbarians, the Yidi became the barbarians!

It is not blood relationship that determines the relationship between people, but the education they receive, the language they use, the words they write, the common memory engraved in their heads, the consistent principles of doing things, and the mode of thinking.

A village or a county seat may be related by blood, and the family is naturally cordial.

But when the population size reaches tens of millions or even more, the same historical memory becomes extremely precious.

This is what Zhang Ximeng, Liu Bowen, Tang He and others have repeatedly mentioned.

It is also the reason Zhang Ximeng said about writing history.

But this time, they are real, and they are going to fall on the black and white paper... The history books are repaired, right from wrong, right from wrong.

With good and bad, right and wrong, people who study history, who should learn from them, and what kind of values ​​should be established, needless to say.

And with a solid identity, a strong cohesion.

This is absolutely enough to ensure that the Ming Dynasty's country for hundreds of years will stand firm.

When Zhang Ximeng said this, everyone naturally understood and was deeply moved.

"The weight of the history pen is extraordinary. After the big guys go back, they will think about it for a while, and then they will officially start work."

The big guys immediately agreed and went down to make preparations.

And within a few days, Qian Tang came from Beiping.

After seeing Zhang Ximeng, he immediately saluted and said, "Master Zhang, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince sent officials to Beijing, and the matter of the merit camp is handed over to Duke Yue."

Zhang Ximeng was taken aback, "Duke Yue? Is he busy?"

"Should be busy, he has seconded someone from Changlu Saltworks."

"Who?"

"Jiang Ke!"

Zhang Ximeng frowned again and again, but he didn't say anything. Hu Dahai really knows people with his eyes.

"In this case, you have solid knowledge, let's study history together!" Zhang Ximeng nodded in agreement.

Qian Tang said again: "Mr. Zhang, actually I want to recommend someone."

"Who?"

"This person's great-grandfather was an official in the Song Dynasty. He once joined Prime Minister Wen's King Qin's army as an aide. His father was once admitted to the Yuan court. His talent and learning are ten times higher than that of an official."

Zhang Ximeng thought for a while and said, "Since he has participated in Prime Minister Wen's King Qin's army, it is worth recruiting. What's his name?"

"It's called Wu Bozong!"

Zhang Ximeng frowned slightly, "I seem to have heard of it."

"That's right, he just passed the Jieyuan test in Yingtian Township!" Qian Tang said, "I don't know if Prime Minister Zhang can break the rules and be promoted!"

Zhang Ximeng smiled, "Our province is the place where the rules are the most important. It's not okay to break the rules casually... Well, let him report to the Imperial Academy first, as a review. Then we will be seconded from the Imperial Academy, so it will be fine."

Qian Tang quickly agreed, "Thank you, Mr. Zhang. In fact, Wu Bozong has long admired Mr. Zhang's knowledge and wanted to follow him."

Zhang Ximeng said with a smile: "We will study history together, get along day and night, and put business first."

Qian Tang agreed again and hurried down.

Soon it was the day when the official start of work came. Among all the courtiers who studied history, apart from Zhang Ximeng, Song Lian, Qian Tang and others, there was also an old man who was nearly eighty years old.