prosperous age

Chapter 271 Chapter 270 Fire

Wei Guangde was secretly annoyed that he was reckless last time, and he was thinking quickly about how to explain this matter.

After finally finding an insider in the palace, he didn't want to make the relationship stiff.

Although it seems that the stakes planted in the palace are useless now, it is also because of his current insignificant relationship, not that the tree he planted is useless.

Wei Guangde looked at Chen Ju and said seriously: "Elder-in-law in the palace, the only one I know well is your elder brother."

After hearing Wei Guangde's words, Chen Ju nodded noncommittally.

He didn't think Wei Guangde was lying, but what his godfather said today was hard to understand.

Huang Jin in the palace monitored Li Bin, how did he, a sesame official outside the palace, know.

"My news came from outside the palace. The specific source is the same as last time. I can't say, but you should be able to guess which yamen it is from."

Wei Guangde continued.

Last time Wei Guangde didn't make this clear, he just said that he had heard it from someone, and now that he explained that the news came from outside the palace, Chen Ju understood it in seconds. There are not many eunuchs who can monitor Li Bin, who else but Jin Yiwei?

Inside the palace is Huang Jin's East Factory, and outside the palace is the Jin Yiwei. Who can command them is ready to be revealed.

Chen Ju looked at Wei Guangde, blinked, then nodded, "I understand, although I don't know who you know so well, but I believe you."

After Wei Guangde and Chen Ju talked at home, Wei Guangde asked the cook to organize a sumptuous banquet, and brought two altars of fine wine and Chen Ju ate and drank at home.

And in a house in the inner city of Beijing, Li Bin was lying on the kang, listening to the report of a small servant who accompanied him.

"Godfather, I've always felt something is wrong these few days. It seems that someone has been following us in the palace. Today, I left the palace and walked on the road. I looked back a few times. Although I couldn't see anything, I also felt that I was being followed. .”

"Do you feel that someone is following us inside and outside the palace?"

Li Bin closed his eyes slightly and said casually.

"It's just that feeling, as if there are eyes watching us behind us."

The little servant replied, "But I looked over and found nothing."

The room was quiet for a while, Li Bin opened his eyes and looked around the room again, "I also felt this way sometimes during this time, and I don't know what's going on, maybe it's because I'm tired during the Chinese New Year, Supervisor of Rites It seems nothing has changed."

"Nothing has changed in the palace."

The waiter agreed.

"What about around the house?"

Li Bin suddenly asked again.

"I haven't heard anything unusual about it."

The little servant said hurriedly.

"After these two days of busy work, I will also ask the palace for two days off to have a good rest. Maybe I am tired."

Hearing that there was nothing abnormal around him, although he had some feelings, but thinking that everything in the palace seemed to be business as usual, Li Bin had nothing to doubt.

The things he did, several eunuchs in the palace hadn't done it, collecting money to help people eliminate disasters or finding officials, these are very commonplace things, Li Bin didn't think it was a big deal at all.

"Maybe it's because my son is overwhelmed, hehe"

The little waiter said with a smile at this time.

While the two were talking, a dark figure was squatting under the window outside the house, eavesdropping on the conversation in the house without anyone noticing.

When it was reported in the room that Li Bin told the servant to leave and he was about to rest, the black figure immediately got up a few steps, turned around the corner of the room and disappeared. Through the moonlight, he could still be discerned in the clothes of a servant.

Not long after, a ball of paper was thrown out of the yard, and was soon picked up by drunken passers-by, who stumbled and fell from time to time.

Although the New Year in Beijing is over and the night ban has been restored in Beijing, it is only for each city.

What is closed is the traffic between the fangshi, the fangmen are closed, and the main streets and intersections are patrolled by night guards, but there is no one in the fangshi, as long as you don't go out of the fangshi, you can still walk around.

Moreover, the so-called night ban is only true for ordinary people. For officials and lords with status and status, even if they are bumped into by night patrol officers and soldiers, they will often get away easily by showing their waist cards.

Even under the night ban, a ball of paper quickly passed through the checkpoints and was sent to Lu Bing's mansion.

Two days later, an astonishing news came out from the palace that Li Bin, the eunuch of Bingbi, the supervisor of ceremonies, was taken away by people from the East Factory in the supervisor's room. It is said that a large amount of property was confiscated from Li Bin's residence in the capital and two outhouses.

The outside world is disturbing, but the Hanlin courtyard is still full of flowers, quiet and peaceful.

The wintersweet, mountain peach and pear blossoms in the yard have already bloomed. After Zhengdan this year, the temperature has risen much faster than in previous years. Although it is still cold, it is also much warmer than before.

Wei Guangde heard the news in the Imperial Academy. To be honest, he admired Emperor Jiajing for being so calm. Although he was half-dead in anger, he still suppressed the anger in his heart and allowed Li Bin to live for more than a month.

Gao Zhong is not an idiot. After knowing that Li Bin may have committed a crime, he didn't ask more questions, but just observed carefully. Finally, he confirmed that the people in the palace in Dongchang had indeed monitored Li Bin, so he called the disciples and grandchildren who were on duty in Yongshou Palace respectively. Come to ask a question.

After repeated cross-examination and checking the palace entry and exit records, Gao Zhong roughly deduced the truth of the incident. Lu Bing had already impeached Li Bin years ago, but he didn't know why he was not taken down at that time.

Of course, Gao Zhong couldn't think of the details if he wasn't there. If he had been there, he would have thought of the truth in an instant like Huang Jin.

As for letting Chen Ju go to Wei Guangde's house, it was naturally to deceive Wei Guangde.

The officials in Beijing naturally knew who the most favored eunuch in front of the current emperor was not Gao Zhong, but Huang Jin.

As a Beijing official, he wanted to join Huang Jin's family. Only those in high positions would look down on Huang Jin. That was just a statement in front of others, and the queen didn't know how humbled Huang Jin was.

Even Yan Song, Yan Shifan and his son did not dare to make mistakes in front of Huang Jin, and they all treated each other with courtesy.

In fact, no matter whether it is the inner court or the outer court, Er Wuzi is very disliked.

That's why Gao Zhong asked Chen Ju to test Wei Guangde. He didn't want the person he supported to be born rebellious and ran to vote for Huang Jin. It would be too much for the gain.

Fortunately, Wei Guangde said that the news came from the outer court, so it could only be Wei Guangde's friend in Jinyiwei who passed the news to him.

As long as Wei Guangde is not a villain who blindly pursues power, Gao Zhong and Chen Ju are still willing to cooperate with him. Besides, Wei Guangde's family members are also good. thing.

After all, the promotion and demotion of officials are all in the emperor's mind.

The road can be paved, and whether it can be completed depends on the emperor's will, and they will not lose anything.

Wei Guangde still stayed quietly in the Hanlin Academy to read and study. From time to time, he went downstairs to see the progress of the book revision. He lived a peaceful and comfortable life, but in private he arranged for Zhang Ji to go out to inquire about the news and details, and asked him pretending to gossip. Lubu, various versions circulated in the yamen.

Wei Guangde is jealous, he knows that a corrupt official is subduing the law, but he has nothing to do with him, thank you.

Influenced by the Tale of the Deer and Ding Ding, Wei Guangde has already firmly believed that the easiest and most convenient way to get rich in this era is to participate in house raids.

According to Lubu's news, Jin Yiwei confiscated more than 40 taels of silver and a large number of gold and pearls from Li Bin's house. Of course, people from the household department watched Ku, even though they knew that all the property would go to the inner court in the end, and the court would not distribute half a tael of silver.

Wei Guangde doesn't believe that Li Bin's house is just a little thing, maybe it's just a small change, just thinking about it is enough to make people jealous.

At this time, in the Yongshou Palace in Xiyuan, on the imperial book case in front of Emperor Jiajing was the catalog of all the harvests of this raid commanded by Lu Bing, a thick stack.

Emperor Jiajing just swept away those farm houses and shops, and the gold and silver that were confiscated later amounted to as much as 43 taels of silver. More than two hundred thousand taels of silver.

Emperor Jiajing was the king of the feudal lord, but he was not a little bird trapped in the Forbidden City. Counting these fields and houses, copying Li Bin's home brought him almost 80 taels of silver.

This amount of money is not a small number.

Emperor Jiajing's annual expenditure on monasticism was certainly greater than this figure, but not by much.

Think about how many years it has been since Li Bin was really reused by him?
In ten or so years, you can accumulate a net worth of 80 taels of silver.

Of course he didn't believe that this was all of Li Bin's family property. Although Jin Yiwei's family law was strict, there must still be some lucky ones. Even Lu Bing might get a share of it, but Emperor Jiajing would not say these words of.

It is conservatively estimated that there are millions of taels of silver, depending on how big Lu Bing's appetite is.

Emperor Jiajing didn't bother to ask other questions, but turned to Huang Jin and said, "Arrange someone to go there to see if this slave has delayed the construction period or delayed the progress."

Although Emperor Jiajing practiced Taoism and hoped to live forever, he did not neglect what he should do as an emperor.

In the seventh year of Jiajing, when his first empress Chen died, he began to select a site for construction.

In order to cater to the emperor, the mausoleum plan was only slightly smaller than Changling, so it was quickly approved by Emperor Jiajing, and Yongling was officially approved as a national project, and construction began. The project continues to this day.

Emperor Jiajing was very concerned about Yongling, and he would ask about it several times a year, and he also handed over this matter to his trusted eunuch Li Bin.

It’s just that he never expected that in the impeachment memorial submitted by Lu Bing, he directly reported that Li Bin embezzled engineering materials from Yongling to build his own tomb, and even the craftsmen and civilian husbands were transferred from Yongling. This made him intolerable. up.

"Yes, I will arrange it when the servants go down."

Huang Jin hurriedly responded from the side.

"Go on and arrange for Gao Zhong to be in charge. He has built Xiyuan and is familiar with these things, but every year you have to arrange someone to supervise the project. You will never allow such a thing to happen again."

Although Emperor Jiajing devoted himself to pursuing Taoism and longevity, he still failed to achieve anything after more than 20 years of practice. It was just his inner stubbornness that made him persist. He only hoped that God would open the door for him for the sake of his sincerity.

But despite this, there are still things to prepare for.

The current Emperor Jiajing's practice is actually more for the sake of saving face.

Because of cultivating the Tao, he has been fighting with the courtiers for more than 20 years. The quarrel has started since Xia Yan's time. Until now, he can't afford to lose this person.

The next day, the decree of the palace finally came out: Lu Bing, the left governor of Jinyiwei, impeached Li Bin, the eunuch for ceremonies, for stealing materials and hundreds of thousands of money and food from the inner government. More than [-] taels, gold, pearls and treasures are innumerable.

Shuoshu finally subjugated the law, confiscating the confiscated family assets and entering the inner court, and the several 10 taels of silver borrowed by the imperial court from the Changying Treasury of Taipu Temple years ago still had to be deducted from taxes and returned.

The Ming Dynasty collected taxes twice a year for the summer tax and autumn grain. The summer tax was naturally still early, so it could only be deducted from other taxes sent by various places.

The news of Li Bin's subjugation was quickly spread to all parts of the empire along with the residence newspaper. For the guarding eunuchs and middle officials in various places, this is one who has fallen since punishing the eunuchs of King Hui's Mansion last year, and his status is still very high. Eunuch, the deterrent effect is still obvious.

However, after the news of Li Bin's downfall spread to Nanjing, the behavior of the two masters in Duke Wei's mansion was completely different.

Xu Pengju invested a lot of capital in Li Bin, hoping to help him fulfill his wish at the critical moment. Now not only is the bamboo basket fetching water in vain, but he is more likely to be burned.

In desperation, Xu Pengju had no choice but to send someone to gallop to the capital and send a lot of gifts to Lu Bing's mansion to feel at ease.

As long as Li Bin's illegal income is traced and he is not found, it is fine. It is not a big crime to make friends with internal officials to inquire about the news of the big internal affairs. If the emperor is unhappy and punished, it will be too wronged.

In fact, Lu Bing had already discovered that there were many correspondences between Li Bin and Duke Wei's mansion in Nanjing. Every year, Duke Wei's mansion gave Li Bin a lot of money and gifts.

Seeing Xu Pengju go up the road now, he naturally nodded in satisfaction and let it go.

And Xu Bangrui, the young master of Wei Guogong's mansion, after learning the news of Li Bin's downfall, was stunned for a long time before he came back to his senses.

Others in Nanjing City didn't know about it, but he knew about Li Bin's downfall more than two months in advance, but he didn't really believe it himself.

Now that what he thought was impossible has become a reality, what else can Xu Bangrui do?
He could only elevate Wei Guangde's status in his heart, because no one who had just been in the officialdom for more than half a year could participate in the action to overthrow the eunuch Bingbi, the supervisor of ceremonies.

This is, Xu Bangrui was secretly grateful for his trip to Jiujiang. Although his father planned that time, he did not expect it to be a blessing in disguise. Not only did he find a good husband for his sister, but he also found a strong support for himself.

Days passed, the canal finally thawed, the north-south transportation of the empire finally resumed, and merchants from south to north became active.

It's just that on such a day, a shocking fire suddenly blazed in the center of the capital.

(End of this chapter)