?Decryption of Jie Jin’s death
The low-key Feng Dao died without illness at the age of 73, while the high-profile Jie Jin only lived to be 47 years old, and died of "unnatural death". This is a strange rule of the reverse Tao game. The best and the fittest are also eliminated by the flatterers.
Xie Jin, a prodigy of the Ming Dynasty, gradually turned into a "high-end flatterer", but this talented flatterer was eventually killed by his incompetent colleague "Jicai".
Whether a low-profile official or a high-profile official in the court has nothing to do with loyalty or treachery. Either a low-profile official is a traitor, and a high-profile official is loyal. When evaluating Xie Jin, the so-called "loyalty and traitor" and "honor and integrity" are false propositions and do not exist in him at all. Later generations praised Jie Jin: he was upright and jealous of evil; he was loyal to the country and took personal life and death seriously. If Bachelor Xie had a spirit in heaven, he would be ashamed to hear such high praise. During the Jianwen crisis, this prodigy's performance in escaping from battle and changing his family was really not worthy of the word "fame".
So, here we discuss the matter, not the quality, but the relationship between talent and tune.
In terms of talent, among the three emperors in the early Ming Dynasty, Xie Jin was second to none. Otherwise, there would be no Jiejin version of the encyclopedia "Yongle Dadian" released. Of course, this "talent" mainly refers to literary talent, not the ability to govern the country and secure the country. However, even among the literary talents, there were few in the court who could do it well at that time. Among the group of minions and sycophants, the talented and high-profile Jie Jin was still quite outstanding.
According to vulgar political analysis, Jie Jin’s death was not unfair at all. Who made you put yourself out of position and participate in the struggle for the emperor's successor? Your smug words of "good saint grandson" and "Qi Zheng cannot be ignored", openly supporting the emperor's eldest son and disparaging the emperor's favored second son, in the eyes of the tyrant Zhu Di, have been seriously overstepped and are scheduled to die.
Although Xie Jin died offside, was there an unjust death? He didn’t take the initiative to offside and rush to find Zhu Di to interfere with the matter of the heir to the throne, but it was Zhu Di who took the initiative to find Xie Jin for advice? .
When your leader comes to you to ask for your opinion, he actually wants you to have no opinion. This is a game of destruction in the court of Chinese history.
The high-profile gifted scholar took the emperor’s imitation status too seriously, so he had no scruples about calling him good. How did he know that it was just a superficial gesture? Talented people speak high-profile to show their talents, but in court, sometimes you need to pretend to be deaf and mute, and you only need to be a slave without talents.
In terms of understanding the actual needs of leadership, Xie Jin is far less intelligent than his predecessor Feng Dao. Although Feng Dao, a veteran of the Five Dynasties and a roly-poly, was mediocre in talent, his position was very accurate and his reputation was very low. He positioned himself as a "great serviceman". The old slave did not talk about matters in the master's category, so he lived for more than seventy years.
The high-profile Xie Jin relies on nothing more than the two. One is talented, the other is favored. He was favored because of his talent, but fell out of favor because of his temperament. In the eyes of the master, you are a slave first and then a talent. If you change the position of the word "slave", you will be disgusted and abandoned by the master. There is an insurmountable gap between the slave and the master. Only a slave who is so pampered will take the nonsense that "I am right to you, a king and my ministers, and a father and a son, I should know everything" seriously.
This article does not complain about flatterers but complains about talented people. Xie Jin was not a scholar who knew nothing about officialdom. He was also famous for his flattering skills. He won the admiration of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, a tyrant father and son, by relying on flattering poems. Can we say that he was ignorant of current affairs? But here’s the problem. A talented person spends a lot of time, energy and talent on flattering, but he still cannot avoid death. Why is this? Because on issues that really involve national affairs and the succession of future political power, if you show undue talent and unique insights, you will eventually be destroyed by the master's disapproval.
There were two things that directly led to Xie Jin’s downfall. Both of these things were related to Xie Jin’s high-profile style.
The first is "Leaking the forbidden Chinese language". That is, telling others about state secrets and important matters casually. The second reason is that the court examination papers are unfair. That is to say, Xie Jin presided over two joint examinations and the results were unfairly judged. The top picks and second best picks were all native Jiangxi natives. These two serious political mistakes were reported by Zhu Gaoxu, Xie Jin's political opponent and the prince he had offended.
According to Jie Jin’s high-profile and open-minded acting style, the word caution is not in his dictionary, so these two reports may not be groundless. It's just that the political opponents want to exaggerate and use the topic to play off the topic. The key is Zhu Di's attitude. He is not an emperor without opinions. Why did he listen to the slander? It should be noted that in the eyes of a tyrant, anyone is either his pet or his stick. When he is tired of his proud pet, he will use a stick to beat the pet's dignity.
Zhu Di accepted the report from Jie Jin’s political opponents, and it cannot be ruled out that he was considering killing high-profile talents.
However, even if these two things are true, they are faults and not crimes. Zhu Di can only demote Xie Jin and use him. But there is more than one "Prince Liuzi" who hates talented people. Xie Jin speaks freely and offends many colleagues. The reeds on the wall are top-heavy and have shallow roots; the bamboo shoots in the mountains have sharp mouths, thick skin and hollow bellies. ?This is Xie Jin's famous sarcasm and satire on those who use mediocrity in the officialdom. Nine times out of ten, he evaluates his fellow ministers truthfully.
It is said that someone is born and clings to power, but although he is talented, he behaves inappropriately; someone can be considered a gentleman, but he is short of talent; someone is virtuous, but he does not alienate villains. However, these people he despised were precisely first- and second-grade officials. How could they not feel disgusted or even jealous when they heard Xie Jin's comments?
At this moment, no one lends a helping hand, but they all add insult to injury. When a talented person is not favored, these colleagues dare to be angry but dare not speak out. But when a talented person falls out of favor, they all become sharp weapons. The road to Jie Jin is getting narrower and narrower.
However, Xie Jin, who has been transformed from a member of the Central Committee to a status official (relegated to bachelor degree? Chief Secretary of Guangxi to counselor?), still has illusions about being reactivated in the future. So, "unrepentant" continued to keep a high profile and made a fatal mistake, which ultimately cost him his life.
The emperor Zhu Di ordered him to go to Beijing to report on his work. When he arrived in Beijing, Zhu Di went out to expedition to Mobei. He was not in the capital. After being left out for a long time, Xie Jin acted on the spot and went directly to the prince's residence. , met with the Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi who was staying in the country to report on the work.
According to the "organizational procedures", it is understandable for ordinary officials to do this. However, for an extraordinary official who fell out of favor because of his involvement in the emperor's family affairs, this kind of thing was okay for the public, but it was a big taboo for the private. He forgot that the only leader should be the current emperor, not tomorrow's emperor or prince.
The old leaders are most taboo about subordinates who like the new and hate the old. Those who join the new leader will be punished in the eyes of the old leader. It just so happened that Zhu Gaoxu, the crown prince, had been keeping an eye on his political opponents, so "privately visiting the prince" and "not being courteous" became the capital crime of the talented scholar. The moment Zhu Di threw Xie Jin into prison, he was already tired of his former pet. During the final round of the ward, he said the code word "Jin is still there" to the cell leader, and sentenced the talented man to death. The talented man was drunk by the cell leader and died of cold.
For the tragedy of Jie Jin's death, later generations blamed a series of villains who framed the talented scholar. In fact, the only person who really wanted to kill and could kill Jie Jin was Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty. Without his hint, who would dare to touch a hair of this man who used to rely on his talents? The reason why Zhu Di wanted to kill Jie Jin was first of all because he was extremely dissatisfied with the high-profile servant who could not lower his focus. The most important thing was that he did not want to see this talented man being used by his eldest son to find new love a hundred years later.
In the eyes of Zhu Di, who killed talented people, the so-called talented people are only worthy of writing flattering poems, and at most they can compile things in the study. How is pampering talented people different from advocating excellence?
Xie Jin, a talented man in the Ming Dynasty, was conceited and did not understand his status and true situation in the heart of his master. He is just an "escort scholar", and his talent show has been strictly limited in scope: singing praises and making jokes. He can do what promotes outstanding talents; he must not do what the powerful ministers of the country can do.
What was Prince Zhu Gaochi doing when Jie Jin was killed? Stand back and watch! Even though you tried your best to support him, he still chose to watch the fire from the other side to avoid getting burned. Zhu Gaochi was a benevolent monarch (Ming Renzong), but the biggest problem with benevolent monarchs was the weakness behind his kindness. Will he sacrifice himself for the talented man? No, he is not willing to even damage a single hair of his own hair. Because in the mind of any monarch, a golden body and a slave body are incomparable.
Ten years after Xie Jin's death, Zhu Gaochi, whom he supported, finally became the emperor, and Jie Jin's case was "*** Zhaoxue". But for a talented man who has been "frozen to death" for ten years, what's the point? Xie Jin cannot be resurrected, and high-profile talents still repeat the fate of being destroyed in the court.
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This article is excerpted from "Counter Elimination", author: Cheng Wanjun, publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press