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everyone here, when you see these comments and jokes on the internet, do you also think of your own unreadable homework or plans? when you rack your brains to write a "masterpiece" and send it to your leader (or tutor), have you ever thought that your tutor may be beside the computer, painfully tapping the mouse, "angrily criticizing" your nonsense literature? let's escape from this tragic reality and go back a few hundred years ago, when there were people who suffered similar pain as your tutor...

ru taisu was beaten with a stick

the complexity of words not only affects the quality of the article, but also the mental state of the reader. the messy words always make people sleepy, while those refreshing and concise words often make people read ten lines at a glance and feel happy physically and mentally. this is true in modern times and in ancient times. for example, in the late yuan dynasty, the documents transferred by the government were so cumbersome that only the old clerks with decades of experience could understand the meaning of the documents. this resulted in "all the documents were only listened to by the old clerks", so that officials at all levels took the clerks as their teachers, and the clerks often sought personal gain and exploited the people, which accelerated the demise of the yuan dynasty.

in 1368, zhu yuanzhang established the ming dynasty. born in poverty, he knew the shortcomings of the yuan dynasty's bureaucracy and was well aware of the importance of pragmatism in governing a country. as early as the bingwu year (1366) before the founding of the country, he told his officials, "in my daily work, i just want to be pragmatic and not superficial."

at the beginning of the founding of the country, zhu yuanzhang did not seem to have realized the power of nonsense literature. in february of the first year of hongwu (1368), he said to the imperial censor wen yuanji and others:

i now think that when the ministers are in front of me, the emperor, they are bound to fail to express their ideas clearly. as for those who keep nagging and saying too many empty words, i sympathize and understand them and do not blame them... when the ministers write to me, what i see is your loyalty, not the rightness or wrongness of your expression.

but just one year later, zhu yuanzhang deeply understood the harmful power of nonsense literature. in march of the second year of hongwu (1369), he complained to zhan tong, a scholar at the imperial academy:

ancient people wrote articles that were easy to understand, without using strange and obscure words. take zhuge liang's "the memorial to the emperor on leaving the capital" for example. the whole article is full of sincerity and does not contain any fancy words. however, some scholars in recent years "write articles with difficult and profound words, but their meanings are simple and easy to understand". even if their writing skills are better than sima xiangru and yang xiong, what practical significance does it have for governing the country? in the future, when hanlin scholars write memorials, they must understand the principles and affairs of the world, and must not pile up words.

in the sixth year of hongwu (1373), zhu yuanzhang could no longer tolerate his ministers' frequent use of parallel four- and six-character writing, and expressed to his ministers, "i am tired of its artificiality, which is so different from the ancient style. it also causes the facts to be obscured by superficial words." he issued an order to ban the use of parallel four- and six-character writing, and required that the memorials submitted by the ministers should imitate "liu zongyuan's memorial of thanks on behalf of liu gongchuo" and "han yu's memorial of congratulations on the rain", and be simple, unadorned, refreshing and elegant.

in the ninth year of hongwu (1376), many disasters occurred in the ming dynasty. it did not rain in the capital city of nanjing for ten months until the gengxu year in april of that year, which lasted for 24 days. in july, floods occurred in the four prefectures of suzhou, songjiang, jiaxing and huzhou, droughts occurred in yongping and changli, and floods occurred in huguang and shandong. in the intercalary ninth month, the sky was abnormal, the five planets were disordered, and the sun and the moon were in conflict (the positions of the five planets of water, gold, fire, wood and earth deviated from each other, and the sun and the moon were in conflict with each other). zhu yuanzhang issued an edict to ask for frank opinions. unexpectedly, a letter of "ten thousand words" written by ru taisu, the head of the ministry of justice, completely annoyed him.

ru taisu was a native of zezhou, shanxi. he was a juren in the third year of hongwu (1370) and was appointed as a supervisory censor. in the sixth year of hongwu (1373), he was appointed as the sichuan provincial surveillance commissioner, and was known for his fairness in administration. in the seventh year of hongwu (1374), he was appointed as the vice minister of the ministry of justice. he petitioned to improve the assessment mechanism of the censorate, increase the number of officials in the ministry of inspection, and select provincial supervisors to correct local military and civilian disputes. zhu yuanzhang accepted all of his proposals. in the eighth year of hongwu (1375), he was demoted to the head of the ministry of justice due to being implicated.

in the ninth year of hongwu (1376), when the emperor asked for his frank opinions, he wrote a memorial of 17,000 words, talking about five issues. because of the large number of words, zhu yuanzhang had to order wang min, a doctor in the imperial court, to read it. when wang min read 16,370 words, zhu yuanzhang heard some practical words, such as "in the past few years, only one or two talented people have survived, and they can only answer questions and handle collections" and "most of the people appointed are pedantic scholars and vulgar officials."

coincidentally, for zhu yuanzhang, these two only useful sentences simply devalued the achievements of the nine years since the founding of the country. the emperor was guilty of all crimes and blamed him for his inability to employ people. the ministers present also added insult to injury and accused ru taisu of being full of disrespectful and slanderous words. in addition, zhu yuanzhang still had not heard the substantive content after reading it to this point, so he summoned ru taisu and asked, "you are an official of the ministry of justice, and there are more than 200 officials in the ministry of justice. can you divide them into pedantic scholars and vulgar officials?" it means, tell me which people in your ministry of justice are pedantic scholars and vulgar officials, and who can be used and who cannot be used? ru taisu was speechless and did not know how to answer. zhu yuanzhang, who was extremely angry, immediately ordered ru taisu to be caned and punished for his alarmist remarks.

however, the next night, zhu yuanzhang couldn't sleep and ordered his courtiers to read the "ten thousand words memorial". he found that he only heard the five facts and deeds at the 16,500th word, and there was only more than 500 words of useful information. he carefully analyzed ru taisu's memorial and found that the four suggestions made were indeed reasonable. so the next day, at the morning court, he ordered the secretariat, the censorate and other departments to act according to the memorial.

at this point, zhu yuanzhang suddenly felt that he had wrongly blamed ru taisu, and said with emotion:

those who have written letters to the emperor in the past and present have always spoken for the country, the people and the monarch. although there are those who blame others for their reputation, there are not many. now i am tired of listening to complicated documents and i have rejected the loyal ministers. this is my fault. if there are ministers like this, they can be called loyal. alas! it is not easy to be a minister, and it has been shown here. what a pity!

in light of this lesson, he reiterated that his officials should speak frankly about facts when submitting memorials to the emperor and avoid literary nonsense. he also specially formulated a "format for suggestions" and promulgated it nationwide.

after that, ru taisu, the protagonist who was beaten with a stick, served as a doctor in the ministry of justice, a deputy censor in the metropolitan procuratorate, and finally the minister of the ministry of revenue. he remained unyielding as an official, repeatedly questioned and repeatedly pardoned. once, zhu yuanzhang hosted a banquet in the side hall and wrote a poem to him, "i will drink from the golden cup with you, and i will not spare you with my sword." ru taisu straightened his clothes, kowtowed to thank him, and continued, "i will repay my country with my sincerity, and i will not avoid the anxiety of the emperor." zhu yuanzhang was moved. unfortunately, ru taisu was implicated in the zhan hui case and was eventually imprisoned and sentenced to death.

however, even after the promulgation of the "format of suggestions", the phenomenon of red tape still appeared in officials' memorials. in october of the 15th year of hongwu (1382), the minister of punishment kaiji reported that "the memorials of various departments inside and outside the country on criminal cases are often tens of millions of words, and are too numerous to be regulated, losing their original meaning. moreover, the emperor has many affairs to attend to every day, so how can he examine all of them with such red tape? this is because the clerks are not familiar with the general situation. if it is not banned and reformed, it will become a bad habit." zhu yuanzhang was still helpless and lamented that "empty words are inaccurate and superficial documents are inaccurate. i am very tired of them. from now on, anyone who uses red tape to accuse others will be punished." he had to order the officials to set the agenda format and promulgate it at home and abroad.

it is conceivable how much of a headache zhu yuanzhang had with this nonsense literature during his 31-year reign.

are low-level memorials just nonsense literature?

in recent years, with the digitization of qing palace archives and imperial comments on memorials, "i miss you very much" and "i am such a man" have become popular on the internet again.

so, were the qing emperors troubled by nonsense literature like zhu yuanzhang? did they read the low-level memorials that made people depressed? and were these low-level memorials really just nonsense literature?

in early june of the 56th year of the reign of emperor kangxi (1717), heavy rains fell throughout beijing.

on june 4, zhao hongxie, the governor-general of zhili, submitted a memorial to the emperor, "reporting the rainfall in shuntian, baoding and other prefectures in early june". emperor kangxi commented in red:

it has already rained everywhere, but there are too many reports of rain! besides, i have already heard about the rain in the capital and northern beijing.

on june 6, zhao hongxie submitted another memorial, "reporting the rainfall in shuntian, baoding and other prefectures in early june", to which emperor kangxi commented:

there is a purpose.

on june 8, zhao hongxie submitted another memorial, "reporting on the rainfall in baoding, zhending and other prefectures in early june", to which emperor kangxi again commented:

there is a purpose.

on june 10, zhao hongxie submitted another memorial, "reporting the scale of rainfall in shuntian, hejian and other prefectures in early june", to which emperor kangxi commented:

there was heavy rain again in the capital and the north of the capital on the 12th. i have heard about it, so you don't need to report it.

on june 25, zhao hongxie submitted another memorial, "reporting the rainfall in the capital and shuntian prefecture in mid-june and the safety of all rivers without locusts and larvae." emperor kangxi commented in red:

i have already known about the rain on the 27th, so there is no need to report it again.

from the literal meaning, zhao hongxie seems to be a crazy rain-reporter. it was just a small matter of rain, but he wrote five memorials in one month. emperor kangxi had clearly told him that he had received it, but zhao hongxie still kept on complaining. he even forced emperor kangxi to write a note on the memorial on the 25th: the local officials had already reported the rain on the 27th, so don't bother me again! on june 21 of the following year, zhao hongxie reported the dates when shuntian and yongping prefectures had rain. emperor kangxi wrote in red and complained:

it has rained early, but the reports of rain are coming too frequently!

in the 60th year of emperor kangxi's reign (1721), due to the heavy taxes levied by wang zhen, the prefect of taiwan prefecture, local citizen zhu yigui pretended to be a descendant of the ming dynasty and called himself "great marshal of restoring the ming dynasty" to call on the people to overthrow the qing dynasty and restore the ming dynasty, launching an uprising. the uprising was so powerful that the rebel army once reached 300,000 people and almost occupied the entire island of taiwan.

on may 8 of that year, the governor of fujian and zhejiang, jueluo manbao, submitted a memorial to the emperor, "memorial on the gathering of traitors in taiwan to revolt", reporting zhu yigui's rebellion. the qing court immediately ordered lan tingzhen, the general commander of nan'ao town, and shi shibiao, the admiral of the fujian navy, to send troops to taiwan to suppress the uprising. on july 6, zhu yigui was captured and the uprising was declared a failure. however, just five days ago, emperor kangxi received another memorial from sun wencheng, the textile manufacturer in hangzhou, "memorial on the gathering of zhu yigui in taiwan to revolt", reporting zhu yigui's rebellion. emperor kangxi commented:

i really don't understand your nonsensical talk!

people who didn't know the truth thought that another zhu yigui was starting a rebellion!

so, are these seemingly low-level memorials really just nonsense literature from zhao hongxie and sun wencheng?

this is not the case. according to research by zhang hongjie, a researcher at the school of history of renmin university of china, the emperors of the qing dynasty attached great importance to agricultural production, and it was one of the duties of local officials to regularly report rain and drought conditions to the court. moreover, a careful reading of zhao hongxie's memorials reveals that the location of the rain conditions reported each time is also different. the same is true for sun wencheng's memorial. the governor-general of fujian and zhejiang directly faces taiwan, so he would naturally receive the news of the uprising first and report it to the emperor. sun wencheng was the hangzhou weaving manufacturer, and he learned about zhu yigui's uprising probably through sea merchants or rumors. moreover, the conditions for information exchange in ancient times were limited, and he should not have been aware that juelu manbao had submitted a memorial. in addition, the hangzhou weaving manufacturer itself had the secret duty of supervising the local area, so it was natural for him to submit a memorial.

but there is another point. in the imperial era, the life and death of officials, honor and disgrace, and fortune and misfortune were all decided by the emperor. who can say that such a seemingly inefficient memorial is not a way to protect oneself? at most, submitting a memorial would bother the emperor, but not submitting a memorial could result in dereliction of duty and the loss of one's official hat.

references:

1. ming shilu (ming shilu with collation notes), beijing: zhonghua book company, 2016.

2. zhu yuanzhang (ming dynasty): collected works of ming taizu, hefei: huangshan publishing house, 1991.

3. song lian (ming dynasty): qianxilu, hangzhou: zhejiang ancient books publishing house, 2014.

4. (qing dynasty) zhang tingyu et al.: history of ming dynasty, beijing: zhonghua book company, 1974.

5. “memorials from the palace - kangxi reign”, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the size of the rain in shuntian, baoding and other prefectures in early june”, june 4, the 56th year of kangxi, no. 000418, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

6. “memorials from the palace - kangxi reign”, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the size of the rain in shuntian, baoding and other prefectures in early june”, june 6, the 56th year of kangxi, no. 000417, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

7. “memorials from the palace - kangxi reign”, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the size of the rain in baoding, zhending and other prefectures in early june”, june 8, the 56th year of kangxi, no. 000416, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

8. memorials from the palace - kangxi reign, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the size of the rain in shuntian, hejian and other prefectures in early june”, june 10, the 56th year of kangxi, no. 000415, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

9. memorials from the palace - kangxi reign, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the date when it rained in shuntian, yongping and other prefectures”, june 21, the 57th year of kangxi, no. 000875, the palace museum, “national” palace museum.

10. “memorials from the palace - kangxi reign”, zhao hongying’s memorial, “reporting the rainfall in the capital and shuntian prefecture in mid-june and that all rivers were calm and free of locusts and larvae”, june 25, the 56th year of kangxi, no. 000414, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

11. manchu-language memorials from the palace archives - kangxi reign, by sun wencheng, “memorial on the death of the abbot of the fayu temple on mount putuo and qiu zhaoao’s illness”, november 1, 56th year of kangxi, no. 155890, forbidden city, “national” palace museum.

12. manchu-language memorials from the palace archives - kangxi reign, by jueluo manbao, “memorial on the news that treacherous people in taiwan have gathered to revolt,” may 8, 60th year of kangxi, no. 156144, palace museum, “national” palace museum.

13. “manchu-language memorials from the palace archives - kangxi reign”, sun wencheng’s memorial, “memorial reporting that zhu yigui in taiwan had gathered a crowd to revolt”, july 1, 60th year of kangxi reign, no. 156057, palace museum, “national” palace museum.

14. qin guojing: research on the document and archives system of the ming dynasty, beijing: palace museum press, 2019.

15. chai xiaojun, “on the yongzheng emperor’s way of employing people from his red-lettered comments”, leadership science, no. 3, 2020.