This book starts from the family backgrounds of Yan Song and Xu Jie, analyzes their different life experiences, growth paths, and personality characteristics, sorts out their imperial examinations and official careers, and combines some historical events that happened at that time to explore the process of their ideological transformation. At the critical moment when they climbed to the position of chief minister, the two men adopted similar methods. They both used active traps to unseat their predecessors, so that they could finally become the most popular ministers.
During the years when Gui was the chief minister, they had completely different styles in the way they dealt with the emperor, their hiring characteristics, and their attitude towards dissidents. The attitudes and responses of the two great ministers during the Jiajing period towards each other, as well as their methods of dealing with major problems and crises, also give us food for thought.
Yan Song's traitorous behavior was always loyal to the emperor; Xu Jie's people praised him as a virtuous person, but he blindly catered to the emperor and curry favor with Yan Song. In order to confuse and cling to Yan Song, he even moved his family to Jiangxi to become Yan Song's hometown, betrothed his granddaughter to Yan Song's grandson, and married into a family, which was almost unethical. What's more, after being disarmed and returning to the fields, he allowed his children to run rampant in the countryside, bullying men and dominating women, and the family had a huge amount of land. Comparing the number of fields owned by Yan Song to less than 30,000 acres, although the Xu family has a reputation of being honest, it is not actually honest.
In the past, evaluations of Yan Song and Xu Jie were too superficial and simplistic. Historical figures cannot be judged comprehensively and objectively only by relying on official historical materials that have been deleted many times and subjective folk records. To evaluate Yan Song and Xu Jie, we need to restore the historical situation at that time and cross-corroborate it with multiple historical materials before we can make a judgment that is consistent with human nature.
Reader comments
This book gave me a more comprehensive understanding of Yan Song and Xu Jie. It turns out that their story is so complicated! Just like many people in life, we cannot simply evaluate them by good or bad. The author's analysis is very in-depth and reminds me of "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", which is all about history but very close to life. I just gave birth to a child, and I also hope that I can look at my child's growth in a more objective way and not easily label them. Have you read this book? Let's chat together!
This book gave me a more comprehensive understanding of Yan Song and Xu Jie. It turns out that their story is so complicated! Just like many people in life, we cannot simply evaluate them by good or bad. The author's analysis is very in-depth and reminds me of "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty", which is all about history but very close to life. I just gave birth to a child, and I also hope that I can look at my child's growth in a more objective way and not easily label them. Have you read this book? Let's chat together!