Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

"I, Xiong Ansheng, the Junior Minister of the Ministry of Rites, kowtow to the Supreme and wish the Emperor a long life!"

Xiong Ansheng was over sixty years old, his hair and beard were all gray, but he was still energetic. After he entered the palace, he meticulously bowed to the Emperor who was sitting on the top of the palace.

Seeing Xiong Ansheng's old appearance but still calling himself Junior Minister, Li Tai couldn't help but laugh, and then he straightened his expression and said with a smile: "Xiong, please don't be polite. The wise man's entry into the court has made my steps fragrant, and the jade tree and white hair make people feel that the wise and good are not met!"

There are many tribute scholars from Hebei who have entered the court, including both wise men in the wild, famous talents, and old ministers of the previous dynasty. Xiong Ansheng is also a very conspicuous one among them. He is known as the Confucian Master of Hebei. He has profound attainments in classics and many disciples. This time, he is also one of the more anticipated ones.

In order to show his respect for this Northern Confucian, Li Tai even exempted Xiong Ansheng from the imperial examination, so that he would not feel embarrassed to compete with a group of young people. Soon after he entered the capital, he was awarded the position of Taixue Doctor.

"Zhou was tyrannical, and Yuangui was not occupied. I dare not pretend to be virtuous, but I know a little about etiquette and morality. The Qi family is declining and there is no governance. I am just a rotten wood in the wilderness. Now the Supreme Lord is in power and the Holy Lord is in power. I came here with the red letter."

After hearing this, Xiong Ansheng bowed and said: "I used to live in Hebei. It's not that I didn't meet him, but that people didn't recognize me. Now I am in the court. It's the Holy Emperor who looks at the people with virtue and sees the slightest detail. It's not just my luck!"

Li Tai has heard too many flattering voices in recent years. He didn't expect to hear some new ideas when he summoned this Northern Confucian today.

King Zhou of Shang was so tyrannical that even the heavens were unwilling to give him a revelation to predict good and bad luck. Who could recognize my virtuous nature among those morally corrupt people in Northern Qi? If the Supreme Ruler is wise, I will turn into a white bird and come to him with a red letter.

This statement not only belittled the ruler of Northern Qi, but also flattered the current Supreme Ruler, and did not forget to praise himself. Perhaps this old gentleman was thinking about how to flatter him in his spare time when he was reading and lecturing at home. In history, when Emperor Wu of Zhou, Yuwen Yong, met him after he destroyed Qi, Xiong Ansheng's flattery was extremely disgusting.

Li Tai smiled and raised his hand to signal the old gentleman to sit down without courtesy. Looking at his respectful expression, his thoughts turned secretly in his heart.

Xiong Ansheng has become a legendary figure in Beijing in recent days. He has been promoted to a higher position in a very short period of time. At first, he was just a doctor of the Imperial College granted by the emperor. Soon after, he was promoted to a doctor of the Imperial College. A few days later, he was promoted to the director of the Imperial College. Now he is directly granted the position of the Junior Minister of the Ministry of Rites.

Such a series of promotions is to commend him and his disciples for their recent criticism of the personnel malpractices of the Northern Qi Dynasty. Although it is inconvenient for the court to personally lead the pace, it can also guide everyone to the right path in its own way.

Xiong Ansheng and Zhao Yanshen have similar backgrounds. They are both children of poor families without ancestral blessings. However, due to their different choices, their life trajectories are also very different. They can be said to be representatives of frustration and pride.

Zhao Yanshen has been smart and capable since he was a child. He is keen to wander around the powerful and wealthy. In the end, he was recommended to Gao Huan by Sima Ziru for his talent. Since then, he has begun to rise rapidly.

Xiong Ansheng, however, lacked the ability to socialize, but devoted himself to learning. Although he became a Confucian scholar who was well-read in poetry and profoundly studied the classics, with many disciples and a great reputation, he was not very successful in politics.

In history, it was not until the Heqing period of the Northern Qi Dynasty that his talent was recommended by Yang Xiuzhi as a doctor of the Imperial College, but now the Northern Qi Dynasty was destroyed before the Heqing period, so Xiong Ansheng had been a hermit who had never served in the government, and was only granted an official position after he arrived in Guanzhong.

There was originally little intersection between Xiong Ansheng and Zhao Yanshen. The two had different talents and different areas of expertise. One was a senior official in the court, and the other was a Confucian scholar in the opposition, and there were few conflicts.

However, as public opinion in Chang'an heated up the personnel malpractices of the Northern Qi Dynasty, Xiong Ansheng, as a master in the opposition, naturally had sufficient reasons and legitimacy to attack Zhao Yanshen, a senior official of the old Qi Dynasty.

Therefore, in this public opinion storm, Xiong Ansheng did not disappoint everyone and directly pointed the finger at Zhao Yanshen, denouncing him for being jealous of talents, and then his disciples also regarded Zhao Yanshen as an object of denunciation.

People have a certain filter for learned people, especially scholars like Xiong Ansheng, and are always used to linking virtue with knowledge. But Mr. Xiong Ansheng really can't say how high his moral integrity is, or it can be said that under the background of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Confucian classics he is good at are difficult to realize politically, which makes him feel clumsy in his actions.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Confucianism was a non-government school. No matter how much the rulers of the north and south respected Confucianism and Taoism on the surface, they didn't agree with it in their hearts. Although there are many Confucian clans from the north and south serving as officials in the court, upon closer examination, the reason why they are officials is still due to their own family background, not the classics and academics they are good at.

The Lu family of Fanyang in the Northern Dynasties was very famous for their scholarship, and Wang Zunye of the Wang family of Taiyuan was also a Confucian master at the time, but their careers in the government were mainly due to their origins from the Five Surnames. For poor scholars like Xiong Ansheng who had no family background or inheritance, no matter how profound their academic knowledge was or how famous they were in the academic world, they could not directly exchange it for political resources, and it was normal for them to be old in the countryside.

Xiong Ansheng also has a lot of jokes. One of them is that someone deceived Xiong Ansheng, saying that there was an ancient tomb in a village where General Xiong Guang of Henan in the Jin Dynasty was buried. It was 72 generations ago. There was originally a stele to record the event, but it was hidden by the villagers. Then Xiong Ansheng believed it and dug the ground to find it but couldn't find it, so he filed a lawsuit for years.

The Chief of Jizhou was annoyed by him and made a verdict: "The 72nd generation is the descendant of Emperor Xi, General Henan, and there was no such official title in the Jin Dynasty." He thought that Xiong Ansheng's lawsuit was really unreasonable, but Xiong Ansheng still refused to wake up and led his family to cry towards the ancient tomb.

In this matter, Xiong Ansheng was certainly pedantic and stubborn, and even stupid. He believed whatever others said and had no common sense at all.

But in fact, this is a true portrayal of the importance of family background in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Even though Xiong Ansheng was already a Confucian scholar in the north and had a high academic reputation, he was still not as helpful as digging out an official ancestor who had been dead for countless generations from the ground. Personal efforts are extremely pale and powerless in an era where the beauty is the dry bones in the tomb.

Those who laughed at Xiong Ansheng, do they really believe that the ancestors of the Zhaojun Li family can be clearly traced back to Li Mu and Li Zuoche, and that the Longxi Li family is the undoubted blood descendants of Li Guang of the Western Han Dynasty? But even so, what great gifts and talents can these ancient people whose bones have rotted into mud pass on to future generations?

Xiong Ansheng's farce of searching for his ancestors is nothing more than a struggle of a poor man who has no way to advance in the era of strict family background and class solidification in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Rather than saying that Xiong Ansheng believed it, it is more likely that he hoped to use this incident as an opportunity to trace his family background forward with his social influence and reputation accumulated over the years, so as to achieve the improvement of family background.

In short, this old man is by no means a hermit who is indifferent to fame and fortune, but a fame-seeking guest who is full of worldly feelings and eager to advance in his career.

This is not a moral flaw, but just the normal mentality of talented and ambitious people in the world. Even because the opportunities and resources that everyone can get in the Southern and Northern Dynasties are naturally unfair, when the opportunity comes, even if a person does something that breaks the bottom line and hurts others, it cannot be said that his character is inferior to those of the children of the aristocratic families.

Li Tai set off a wave of public opinion with Zu Ting's "On the Fall of Qi". Except for a little deviation on the issue of Cui Jishu of the Bo Ling Cui family, other aspects are generally under control. Because this is not a debate with fair and open discourse power, but a speculative statement by a group of people who compete for political resources after the fall of the country.

Opposition figures such as Xiong Ansheng will undoubtedly strongly criticize Zhao Yanshen and others, whether to cater to the will of the court, criticize the remnants of the fallen country, or prove that the road to talent is indeed blocked in Northern Qi.

Such criticism is valuable, not only in killing people with words, but also in a public opinion reckoning with the politics of Northern Qi. After Xiong Ansheng and others made this political statement, they can only stand more firmly on the position of the Tang Dynasty court in the future, otherwise the old abuses of the Qi family mentioned today can be imposed on them next year.

Li Tai summoned Xiong Ansheng today, in addition to commending his active performance in this public opinion trend, there is another thing, that is, he hopes that he can bypass those Hebei tribute scholars to recommend some talents to the court: "Now that all the territories in Guandong have been pacified, it is even more necessary to establish governance as soon as possible. People and land are the basis of governance. The court will send envoys to various places in Guandong to register households and settle the people. Because of the fear that the people are disturbed and the people do not understand the purpose of the court's benevolent governance, it is necessary to assist with talented people who deeply observe the local conditions and people's sentiments in Guandong. I wonder if Xiong Qing has any good talents to recommend to the court?"

After the Guandong War came to an end temporarily, the next step is naturally to register households and recuperate. Although the officials of the prefectures and counties who had been in office in the former Northern Qi Dynasty also presented household registration maps and other materials, these were obviously not reliable. Li Tai needed to have a more comprehensive and detailed grasp of the household registration data in Guandong. The household registration and equal distribution of land were the basis for the implementation of all government orders.

At present, the military offices in various places in Hebei have been established, which can maintain a basic stability in Hebei. However, the problems of the dispersion of refugees and the protection of powerful people still need to be sorted out and controlled by special envoys. Even if Li Tai sent envoys from Guanzhong, he needed people who were familiar with the local conditions and situation as guides to dig deep into the household registration.

The Guandong nobles were the main force of the population protection, so they were naturally untrustworthy. And those Hebei tribute scholars were all recommended by the local people, and it was hard to say how many upright and selfless people there were.

Now Xiong Ansheng and his disciples have proved their enthusiasm for the politics of the Tang Dynasty with practical actions, and have criticized the various malpractices of the Northern Qi Dynasty. They can be used to cooperate with the envoys from various routes to check the household registration. Even the long-term governance of Hebei in the coming year can rely heavily on these Hebei wise men who are not in the right era but have the talent to govern the country and be pragmatic.