Although Li was a senior minister of the Ministry of War in the Ming Dynasty, there were no biographies such as Ming History and Fujian Tongzhi, and even local chronicles such as Shaowu Fu Zhi and Taining County Zhi were not published for him. This may be due to two reasons: First, when Wei Zhongxian was in charge of state affairs, he made an oath to be an official. The Ministry of Housing and Industry has five ministers each, and the Ministry of War also has four ministers. The so-called ministers are like dogs, and all the streets are full of assistant ministers. What's more, Li's time in Shangshu is very short (only one year), and it is understandable that he has no outstanding deeds and no biography. Second, he has a "stain" and is attached to the eunuch party, and "eunuchs are like poisonous beasts, which has been known to everyone for thousands of years!" ("Ming Yi Yan Hui") Therefore, it is despised by intellectuals who have read a hundred books of Confucianism. Of course, if he is a wicked eunuch, he can also make a biography. There is a biography of eunuchs in Ming history. The problem is that Li can only play the role of "paying attention to others, not as good as others for three years" in the eunuch party. Therefore, we can collect very little information about Li.
At present, our understanding of Li's life mainly comes from two aspects. (1) Epitaph written by Shen Youlong, Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi during Chongzhen period of Ming Dynasty. Shen Youlong's epitaph records two important events in Li's life, both of which were written by Shen Youlong. The first case is that Governor Tao Langxian and assistant Liu Guokun of Chadeng came to seize the pay and donations, and recovered hundreds of thousands of stolen money for the court. The second thing is that when Wei Zhongxian wanted to kill Lang Wanyi of the Ministry of Industry, he appealed to the emperor and asked the emperor to punish Wei Zhongxian for his infidelity. Although this epitaph is full of praise (for the deceased, epitaphs are generally the same), I believe that the two things that Shen Youlong said are not groundless and have certain basis. My belief is based on two points: First, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), shortly after Emperor Chongzhen cleaned up the eunuch party, Shen Youlong wrote an epitaph for Li. Although Shen Youlong is Li's kindred spirit and has a good personal relationship, there is no need for him to openly confront the court and rehabilitate the eunuch. As the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, Shen Youlong certainly knows that "when the case is established, the struggle between parties is intensifying. Wang Yongguang and Wen Style Ren are the yin masters, and the emperor is firm. He wouldn't and wouldn't dare to take the world by storm. Second, Shen Youlong's character is not so low. According to Ming history, Shen Youlong was born in Huating, Songjiang. Forty-four years of Wanli Jinshi. In addition to Yin county magistrate. At the beginning of the apocalypse, he was given advice and served as the deputy envoy of Henan. In the first year of Chongzhen, he called back the old official, entered the old servant Shao Qing, worshipped the right capital, and admonished the governor of Fujian. " What is certain is that Shen Youlong is not a eunuch. What is more valuable is that in the first year of Hong Guang (1645), the Qing soldiers went to the south of the Yangtze River. "Youlong is Li, Zhang Jian, etc. Since Kaili, thousands of strong men have been recruited to guard the city, and they will stand in a corner with the second general, while Hou will guard Jinshan. " On the third day of August, the Qing soldiers attacked Qingpu. At dusk, its advance troops arrived at the gates of Songjiang, disguised as subordinates of the company commander Huang Fei. Simon garrison was cheated by it and opened the door and let it in. In the city, the Qing spies were stationed in advance. At this time, they shouted to the city, pulled out the Ming flag and cleared it easily. The defenders were in chaos and the city was broken. The rebels and the Qing army fought fiercely in the street, and Shen Youlong died in the disorderly arrows. A person who can put life and death aside and die for his country will be praised by Li for a generous pen-moistening fee (people think that Shen Youlong got a generous pen-moistening fee from Li's family), but he ignores his conscience and praises eunuchs as "poisonous beasts"? (2) In the 29th year of the Republic of China (1930), Taining County Records was published. Chronicle Note: "Li Wei, a famous scholar in Ming Dynasty, wrote an old chronicle biography, which seems to be a lack of canon, but today is a supplement." "Biography of Li" is not long, with only a hundred words: "The word' Master Chun' is white, Wanli is a scholar, an official, and his performance evaluation is the first, and he is promoted to the middle level. Speak freely and don't avoid powerful people. What it talks about is all about the world. When investigating a case in Shandong, Tao Lang got greedy first, and he recovered more than one million taels of silver to pay for the army. Its integrity is so. During the reign of Emperor Xizong, the Minister of War was an associate professor of military and political affairs in Beijing. Xu Ning,, give python jade, gold, Shao Bao and Prince Taishi. The public cares about current events, and he has repeatedly begged his adoptive mother. At that time, Wei Yan was born in the world, and Fujian Province was unique. The power of the public to stop it is vague. " "Taining County Records" (Republic of China Edition) basically followed the contents of the epitaph, except that Li Wei's unjust impeachment of Wei Zhongxian was deleted, and the Wei Zhongxian shrine in Fujian was added, which was "stopped by public power". It is not known why Taining county annals are so. However, it is far-fetched to attribute Li's contribution to Fujian's failure to build the Wei Zhongxian shrine. At that time, the activity of building a shrine for Wei Zhongxian, which was popular all over the country, began in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, and was initiated by Pan Ruzhen, the governor of Zhejiang Province. On the second day of June in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, Pan Ruzhen, the governor of Zhejiang Province, presented a memorial to the court for the construction of the Wei Zhongxian shrine, saying, "Wei Zhongxian, Dongchang, is diligent in serving the country and caring for the people. In view of the disasters in Zhejiang in the past two years, it has paved the way for various expenses. Once the bad habits accumulated in the past 100 years are corrected, not only will mobile phone users turn over a new leaf, but all people belonging to our country will sing and dance, tell each other and wear each other. " Please build a temple to express your wish. "Xi Zong's edict:" It is said that Wei Zhongxian is diligent in serving the country and caring for the people ... It is advisable to follow the crowd, use Jiansheng Temple and build it in the local area to be immortal "; And named the Wei Zhongxian Temple built in the West Lake "Pude". Producer Lu Wanling is also ingenious. He suggested coining new words in imperial academy, comparing illiterate Wei Zhongxian to Confucius: "Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals, while loyal sages wrote Yao Dian, while Confucius killed young righteousness and loyal sages killed Lin Dong. It is advisable to build a temple to learn Chinese and Western cultures and respect sages. " "Re-emphasizing the sacred learning is not under Mencius." Therefore, the activity of "building temples" is popular all over the country. "Ming History" records: "The cost of each temple ranges from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, which means depriving people of wealth, encroaching on public funds and cutting down trees. "At that time, the governor of Fujian was Zhu. According to Ming History, "Qin Xiang looked for Shao Qing, an old servant. Yang Lian not only disintegrated Wei Zhongxian, but also resisted sparseness. In five years, Zhu Zuodu was the governor of Fujian, and made contributions to thieves Liu Yang, Cai San and Liu Zhong. Spin with loyalty and remove the name. " (Biography of Zhen Fang in Ming Dynasty) Zhu has always opposed eunuchs such as Wei Zhongxian. At the beginning of the apocalypse, Fang Zhenyu wrote "On Hakka" and gave it to Ni Sihui of Qimen and Zhu Qin of Linchuan. Embarrassed, the emperor demoted three officials. Later, due to the birth of the Prince, he granted amnesty to the world, and at the request of many courtiers, he reinstated Zhao Sihui, Zhao Yuhui, Zhao Yuhui and other late officials. "In May of the five years of the Apocalypse, Zhu became the governor of Fujian as the right capital suggestion, and naturally did not buy Wei Zhongxian's account; So Fujian didn't build Wei Zhongxian Temple. This has nothing to do with Li's "holding power to stop". At that time, Li worked in the Ministry of War, and it was certain that he got on a fake ship in Wei Zhongxian, but it was impossible to reach out to Fujian to "stop" the construction of the shrine with his right hand. Even if Li Zhen stretched out his hand, Fujian local officials wouldn't buy his account, because Zhu was a landlord who didn't even buy Wei Zhongxian.
Li's character is dual, with the integrity, weakness, compromise and even greed of traditional literati. When I first became an official, I was ordered to visit, and I was able to "borrow and bribe privately and get nothing"; When I saw a scholar in the same department being beaten with a scepter for impeaching Wei Zhongxian, I was filled with indignation and complained about inequality. This is the great moral and emotional superiority of the courtiers who climbed out of the Four Books and Five Classics and entered the official career. They think they are the supervisors of the moral standards of justice, and ask the monarch to do whatever he wants according to the traditional moral standards of saints and not to cross the line. Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, also especially praised the atmosphere of "attacking the face and directly remonstrating" by courtiers. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, many courtiers dared to "criticize their faces". Hai Ruigan of Jiajing Dynasty said to the emperor, "It's been a long time since everyone in the world faced your majesty directly!" " Minister Wu Zongchao dared to accuse the emperor of "self-destruction and laughing at the world". Emperor Wanli dared to accuse the emperor of indulging in wine, greed, desire and anger. In the second year of the apocalypse, even the new literati who had just stepped into the officialdom dared to set up a monument together: "The emperor is not cool, not diligent in politics, but not diligent in words." Red led the performance, bowed and stood up. The first appearance is like a puppet, no business. "In this atmosphere, officials who entered the imperial examination are proud of being able to' remonstrate'. Therefore, Li's "remonstrance" is normal, which does not mean that it is a question of who is deliberately attacked.
Wei Zhongxian took control of the political affairs of the Ming Dynasty from May of the first year of the Apocalypse, that is, "It was May of the year, when Wang stopped, and the Wei and Jin Dynasties used things." (See Biography of Mao Shilong in Ming Taizu) Since Wei Zhongxian's "using things", Lindong Party has never stopped attacking Wei Zhongxian and Xizong Nanny Hakka.
In the second year of the Apocalypse, the new No.1 scholar played Wei. In the third year of the Apocalypse, Zhou Jianzong wrote to compare Wei Zhongxian with Liu Jin, the eunuch of the previous dynasty, calling him a disaster for the country and the people and demanding punishment. Immediately, Liu Huahong, Chen Liangxun, Yu Shifang, Huang Zunsu and others wrote articles, directly or indirectly attacking Wei Zhongxian from different angles. Lindong Party's attack on Wei Zhongxian and others was not based on political views or Wei Zhongxian's poor political talent, but on "ancestral system"-eunuchs were not allowed to interfere in politics. However, Zhu Youxiao, an illiterate emperor who was not loved by his parents since childhood, has a deep "missing mother (father)" complex for Wei Zhongxian and Hakkas who took care of his daily life since childhood; In addition, Zhu Youxiao's weakness of being bored with politics and being playful virtually condoned the expansion of Wei Zhongxian and Hakka's selfish desires and ambitions. By June of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the political situation of the Ming Dynasty had a great fission under the impact of these two forces. At the suggestion of Zuo DuDu, Yang Lian wrote on behalf of Lindong Party and listed 24 major sins of Wei Zhongxian. The mobilization order of Lindong Party to launch a general attack on Wei Zhongxian. At that time, from college students, ministers to ordinary officials in Beijing, they all joined the ranks, and the memorials to impeach the Wei family swarmed, with more than 70 copies. Wei Zhongxian didn't do nothing, but fought back under the protection of an illiterate emperor. As a result, there was "a stick to kill the Ministry of Industry, which was full of doctors and practitioners, and arrested you to make comments." . ..... In October, Chen Yuting, assistant minister of the official department, Yang Lian, deputy imperial minister, and Zuo Guangdou, imperial minister of the capital, were dismissed. "Apocalypse five years in March, arrested, Zuo Guangdou, Yuan Huazhong, Wei Dazhong, Zhou Chaorui, Gu, cut down the book. A few days later, Lian and others were arrested, went to the town to touch the prison and died in prison one after another. In the summer of April, I was born in Shanghai, and I cut books for college students. Li Sancai and Gu Xiancheng, ministers, cut books. At noon in August, the Lindong Lecture Institute in the world was destroyed. " ("Twenty-two Years of Xizong in Ming Dynasty")
In the political environment of high power, the political pattern has also split. Scholars who read sages' books and were familiar with the rites of Confucius and Mencius also experienced great differentiation.
In the spring of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Wei Guangwei, a cabinet university student, took the lead in taking refuge in Wei Zhongxian. And Wei Zhongxian formed a fellow-townsman alliance with the same surname, and became a "cabinet newspaper". In August of the same year, another patrol officer Cui Chengxiu, who was impeached for corruption and bribery, was dismissed for questioning and defected to Wei Zhongxian. "At that time, Zhong Xian attacked the courtiers and was very angry. Fang Si must get the help of foreign ministers. Show off, meet each other late. " This kind of political speculation has brought obvious benefits and produced great Matthew effect. Those literati who were ashamed to associate with eunuchs also forgot the word "shame" and went to Wei Zhongxian in succession. Gu Bingqian, the chief college student of the Cabinet, who is equivalent to the prime minister, sent a son to Wei Zhongxian in a roundabout way. Zhang Gongming, assistant minister of the Ministry of War and governor of Sichuan, pretended to be the son-in-law of the Wei family. Even the governors of the six cabinet departments and four directions are mostly Wei Zhongxian's confidants. As a result, a new political group was quickly formed. Wei Zhongxian Group has five tigers, five tigers, ten sons and forty grandsons. Not only are the "Five Tigers" almost all scholars, but also the "Ten Sons" and "Forty Grandsons" are mostly scholars from three merchants and bureaucrats above the intermediate level. "The curse of the Ming eunuch is cool, but it's not party member attached to it, it's wings to help them attack. This is not a fierce abuse of flame. " ("Shi Ming Wild Goose") For the sake of practical interests, once these people take off their elegant and dignified coats, all that remains is naked selfish desires. After they took refuge in Wei Zhongxian and gained political power, they were understandably eager to take bribes, sell officials and titles, resettle private individuals and take revenge. Perhaps Mrs. Li cherished her hard-won reputation (decades of cold window) and went to the Wei Zhongxian Party. It is an indisputable fact that Li is attached to eunuchs, but he is different from Cui Chengxiu and Wu. Because, judging from the existing historical data, he did not commit the crime of "lascivious punishment and poison, and quickly get rid of evil and ugliness", but he was just a follower of "being cruel as a servant and waiting for the second redemption for the people in three years".
Li Shixiong wrote "Ninghua County Records" and said that Li "sold officials": "Li is an imperial minister in Taining, and the most intimate thing is castration, which is among the tigers. Fan Shengmou, a fellow villager, ran to the gate of Ye Chun and paraded through the streets in order to take bribes. Knowing (Wang, Ninghua) is quite gentle, and he has the friendship of fellow villagers with Yang Jin and satirizes him as a US official. " It is not clear what Shixiong Li relied on. However, there are several mistakes in this information: first, Li has never had an imperial adviser. Li's resume is as follows: Forty-four years of Wanli (16 16), being a pedestrian (positive eight products), the first year of apocalypse (162 1), the Ministry of Industry (from seven products), the second year of apocalypse (from seven products) and the third year of apocalypse. In the fifth year of the Apocalypse, he served as Shao Qing of Taibu Temple (four products), and in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, he served as right assistant minister and left assistant minister of the Ministry of War (all three products). At the end of the same year, he was promoted to Minister of War, military and political assistant of Beijing battalion (second grade), and served as Shaobao and a prince officer in the seventh year of the apocalypse (from the first grade). According to the "Official List of Past Dynasties", in the Ming Dynasty, "the Douchayuan is surrounded by censors, who are responsible for supervising law enforcement." Li has never held this position. Second, Li is not one of them. Wei Zhongxian's "Five Tigers" and "Five Tigers" are well documented. According to "Biography of Wei Zhongxian in Ming Dynasty": "At this time, the internal and external power belongs to Zhong Xian ... There are Cui Chengxiu, Tian Ji, (Li) and Ni, who are the masterminds and are known as the' Five Tigers'; Chen Wu was killed by Tian Ergeng, Xu Xianchun, Sun Yunhe, Yang Huan and Cui Yingyuan, and was named' Five Standards'. " To be sure, Li is not one of them. Emperor Chongzhen's punishment for the people was also very severe. Cui Chengxiu, the leader of the "Five Tigers", said, "If the clock dies first, it will be obvious. He listed his concubines, collected all kinds of treasures, shouted wine and drank it, and drank it himself. When beheaded, Ziduo was removed from the list, and his brother Ning Xiu sent him to guard. " (Shi Ming Wild Swallow) The rest, "Five Tigers", Ni, Tian Ji, etc. Chase them and send them to the army. Wuhutian Ergeng and Xu Xianchun were executed, while Cui Yingyuan, Yang Huan and Sun Yunhe were stationed in the army, thinking that they were attached with the power ring. "(Ji Ming Bei Zong) and Li, Emperor Chongzhen only gave him a punishment of" paying close attention to servants and being inferior for three years ". It can be seen that Li and Li are still very different.
It is also an indisputable fact that Li is a corrupt official. A "Shangshudi" built at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver is enough to illustrate the problem. However, it is doubtful whether this glistening silver was earned by "selling officials". Because, when he was caught, Chongzhen did not punish him for taking bribes and bending the law, nor did he confiscate a "Shangshudi" of Nuoda. In the case of insufficient evidence, he can only be sentenced to "the crime of huge property of unknown origin"