prosperous age

640 Chapter 639

The Qianqing Palace was once again overwhelmed by the impeachment memorials of the officials. This time the impeachment was mainly made by the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and there were not many people involved in the six departments.

There was a sneer at the corner of Wei Guangde's mouth, Xu Jie had already thought about it a long time ago, knowing that Emperor Longqing was definitely unhappy, and was about to find someone to vent his anger on, so he threw out the people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate and asked them to focus on attacking Guo Pu. Emperor Longqing chose several scapegoats from them.

How could it be possible for Xu Jie to succeed and keep the members of the Xu Party in the sixth section.

Through Ouyang Yijing's relationship, Wei Guangde had already delineated the closest people in Liu Keli and Xu Jie.

They will be promoted, but they will definitely not stay in the court, but will be released as a fifth-rank official.

Such an official position is a high promotion for the censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, but it is a low allocation for the six divisions, because they usually start at the fifth rank when they are transferred, and they are still officials in the capital.

Beijing official, seeing that the official is more than half a level, this is not bragging.

Even in later generations, local department-level cadres should be treated with courtesy when meeting central department-level cadres, and they dare not put on official airs at all.

As for why so many people go to the sparse, it is nothing more than the relationship between favors and money.

On the side of the Sixth Division, Ouyang Yijing has already found out that Xu Jie's people in the Sixth Division are mainly Zhang Lu from the Rites Department, Wu Shilai from the Right Department from the Engineering Department, Li Zhenyuan from the Engineering Department, and Li Zhenyuan from the Criminal Department. In the middle, Zhang Jin and several others secretly joined forces.

They either impeached Guo Pu in person, or encouraged them behind the scenes, and brought some so-called victims to the door to complain. It can be said that they racked their brains and collected all kinds of crimes to attack Guo Pu.

At this moment, although Xu Jie and Li Chunfang were added to the cabinet, but Guo Pu was continuously impeached, and the cabinet was not going well.

After going back and forth for another half a month, Guo Pu was exhausted both physically and mentally, and he couldn't help thinking of quitting.

In fact, when an official becomes a cabinet minister, if he is not really able to do his job, or can't greet the six ministries and five temples, the cabinet ministers generally will not choose to retire.

In fact, Guo Pu still had the strength to continue to be an official, even if he worked for another ten years, it would be fine, but he would leave immediately, and he still refused to attach himself to Xu Jie, so he was alone in the cabinet.

Well, Xu Jie didn't do anything in the first few days after returning to the pavilion for business. In fact, he wanted to win over Guo Pu, but the effect was not satisfactory, so he started the idea of ​​​​cutting grass and roots.

However, just when Xu Jie was planning to arrange for people to continue to contact the people in the Metropolitan Procuratorate to impeach Guo Pu in turn, Guo Gan, Minister of the Ministry of War, hurried to the cabinet.

"Master Shoufu, our troops committed crimes against Liaoyang in March and Datong in May. Recently, the frontier town received news that the traitor Zhao Quan told me that the defense in Jizhou was very strong, with many soldiers and generals, and that in Shanxi. The army is weak, the pavilions are sparse, the defense is weak, Shizhou and Xizhou are rich and have a lot of good iron, the officers and soldiers mainly defend Xuanfu and Datong, and it is not easy to rescue them. It is said that Alta Khan has decided to adopt this strategy."

In Xu Jie's duty room, Guo Gan told the opposite Shoufu the news that the Ministry of War had just received.

"You mean, there will be a big war in Shanxi soon?"

Although Xu Jie didn't know much about military affairs, Guo Qian came here with a solemn expression, so naturally he didn't dare to ignore it.

Guo Gan said earlier that Shanxi's military strength is empty, and it seems that it is very easy for Al Dahan to succeed.

In the first year of Longqing, the new emperor had just ascended the throne, which should be the reason why I Da Khan dared to send troops to attack again.

All of a sudden, Xu Jie became alert.

Think about why the other party came to attack Daming, and think about what happened in the court two months ago, if there is a major mistake in this battle, will the emperor anger him, the chief assistant?

"Shanxi has insufficient soldiers and horses?"

Xu Jie grasped the point and asked.

Guo Gan nodded.

"The Ministry of War will send reinforcements from the surrounding towns of Datong, Yansui, Ningxia, etc., and come back to make a report."

Xu Jie made a decision immediately, but Guo Qian did not move.

"Why, what's the problem?"

Xu Jie asked.

"Master Shoufu, apart from Jizhen and Xuanfu, none of the nine border towns of the imperial court has a surplus of troops, and it is very difficult to maintain the current defense. Where can we find the strength to reinforce Shanxi.

Even if reinforcements are really needed, they can only be dispatched from Ji Town, and Xuan Mansion can only dispatch troops, but the two towns dare not move. "

Ji Town and Xuan Mansion are not only border towns, but also the cornerstones of the defense of the Ming Dynasty's capital. If there is an order, the cavalry can arrive under the walls of the capital in two or three days, and even with all the troops, they can arrive in half a month.

Neither Xu Jie nor Guo Gan believed that the Jingying had any fighting power. In fact, in the 29th year of Jiajing, the emptiness of the Jingying had been fully exposed, and it was barely possible to defend the city, let alone pull it out to fight.

Throughout the dynasties, the Beijing army has been the most powerful combat force in a dynasty. Wherever there is a rebellion, the Beijing army can immediately go out to suppress the rebellion.

This was the case even in the early days of the Ming Dynasty, but it has changed drastically since Tumubao, and the strength of the Jingying has never been able to recover.

The most powerful soldiers and horses of the Ming Dynasty are the frontier troops at this time, and they are the cornerstone of the court to maintain its rule.

"Ji Town can't be moved, how many people can the Xuan Mansion mobilize?"

At any time, the safety of the capital comes first, so even if Xu Jie thinks about it with his ass, he knows that Jizhen's soldiers and horses cannot be transferred outside, so he can only send his idea to Xuanfu, where Ma Fang is the chief soldier anyway.

In the past, the relationship with Prince Yu's Mansion was pretty good, and I helped him a lot, but now it seems that it's time for him to help himself.

"The Xuanfu can mobilize no more than 1 people."

Guo Gan thought for a while, and roughly figured out a number.

"Ten thousand? The Xuan Mansion has an army of nearly 3. Since the Battle of Wanquan last year, the cavalry have not dared to harass the Xuan Mansion for a long time. Can't they send [-] to [-] horses?"

Xu Jie asked in disbelief.

"Xuan Mansion is the gateway to the northwest of the capital. Xuan Mansion is in an emergency and the capital and Ji Town will be under martial law. How dare they make large-scale transfers?"

Guo Qian said, "What's more, even though Ma Fang had a big victory over the Alta tribe in Malianburg last time, the captive cavalry was not hurt. With the ferocity of the Tartars, they are always looking for opportunities to retaliate.

We discussed it before coming here, and the entire military department felt that it was not possible to mobilize the army from the Xuanfu, in case the Tartars failed to attack Shanxi, and the returning troops attacked the Xuanfu, then the capital would be gone."

The mobility of the Mongols has always been a big problem for the Central Plains Dynasty. Since the Han Dynasty, they have been looking for ways to restrain it, but in the end, there seems to be no way to deal with it except sending a large army to actively sweep the fortress and weaken the opponent's strength.

In the far distance, there were large-scale battles during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and in the near future, there were several northern expeditions to the grasslands in the early Ming Dynasty. Although some victories were achieved, they ultimately cost people and money.

And those victories, the Mongols have added back in just a few decades, and will form a new threat.

But the current Ming Dynasty is no longer able to support a large army like the early Ming Dynasty going out of the fortress.

What's more, since the Tumu Fort, the Ming army has almost lost the strength to fight the Mongols in the field.

"Come here, quickly invite Mr. Li Ge and the others to discuss matters."

Xu Jie knew that it was not up to him to make decisions on this matter. Before, he wanted to let the Ministry of War make up his mind, and then the cabinet would discuss it. Now it seems that the Ministry of War has few options, so he can only discuss it with the cabinet first.

Because of the Shanxi incident, Xu Jie also hinted to his disciples that night that he would move slowly towards Guo Pu, and that it would not be appropriate to provoke the court to besiege the cabinet ministers when the war was about to start.

Although the number of impeachment memorials against Guo Pu decreased, the officials still did not collect the so-called criminal evidence in private. From time to time, a memorial was sent to the palace, but it finally allowed Guo Pu to breathe a sigh of relief.

However, Wei Guangde didn't care about these in the name of floods. He first transferred the right staff of the engineering department to go out to Beijing to inspect various places to deal with floods. In Wei Guangde's mind, when he had achieved results in assisting Zhu Heng in flood control, he would directly send him to the local government to become a magistrate. Or what official.

This matter has been done by him since last year, so the memorial was easily supported by the cabinet. Wu Shilai was on a business trip. This aroused Xu Jie's vigilance, and directly opposed his memorial on the cabinet draft.

The reason Xu Jie gave was that Zhang Lu Jiajing had been a Jinshi for 38 years and had insufficient experience in governing the local area.

Wei Guangde intends to let Zhang Lu be appointed as an academic officer in any province according to the case of the inspector, so that the grade can be set as the fifth grade.

At that time, the promotion of school officials was called the promotion of school officials.

Each administrative region has one, the southern and northern Zhili appoint a part-time censor, and the local provinces are appointed by the deputy envoy and Qianshi of the procuratorate.

The academic officer is in charge of the overall administration of a province, including the imperial examinations and all government affairs of the school.

In addition, there is also the duty of supervising the promotion and transfer of schools by local officials, but they ignore the politics of money, food, punishment and names.

Zhang Lu jumped from the seventh-rank job to the fifth-rank Qingliu official position. To most people, it was a big cake that fell from the sky, but it was a pity that Xu Jie saw through it.

When Wei Guangde received the news from Chen Yiqin, he was still secretly annoyed, because as long as the person is released, Wei Guangde has the ability to put Zhang Lu in the position of promotion officer for the rest of his life. Serve as an official.

In the imperial examination, it is really easy to find mistakes and omissions.

Wei Guangde passed the imperial examination after stumbled and stumbled. He was lucky, but he also heard complaints from many students about the examination, especially the college entrance examination.

The college examination is also the imperial examination that the academic officer is fully responsible for, and there are many tricks in it.

Just like his two fellow countrymen, Zeng Yuanshu and Zeng Yuanrui, after Wei Guangde took the general examination, they passed the college examination and became scholars of the Ming Dynasty, but they failed the provincial examination repeatedly in the following years.

Zeng Yuanshu is a scholar who was admitted by himself, so I won’t say much about it, but Zeng Yuanrui is much smarter than Zeng Yuanshu. He failed the college entrance examination twice, until Zeng Yuanshu brought his brother to visit Master Jiangxi Tixue, and the second year of examination passed smoothly. ashore.

Up to now, the two brothers are still working hard for the rural examination.

But Zeng Yuanshu wrote him a letter saying that after he won the honor of juren, he would take part in two rounds of examinations. If he failed, Wei Guangde would arrange a good place for him, and he would go as an official as a juren.

In this regard, Wei Guangde has nothing to do, as long as he doesn't want to be an official with the status of a scholar, it is a bit difficult.

In the early Ming Dynasty, it was easy for a scholar to become an official, but there is no such thing as an official in the Guochao until now. Even if it is a person, there is not much room for it, so we can only start with a county edict.

Wei Guangde wanted to send those people to serve as academic officers, and that was exactly what Wei Guangde had in mind.

If you really want to mess with them, you just need to check the results of the court test, Wei Guangde doesn't believe that these people go to the place and don't steal.

It's a pity that Xu Jie noticed it the second time he made a move.

Wei Guangde summed up his lessons and felt that he should be the one who was impatient.

For such a matter, it is best to bring it up when there is a vacancy in the place and the court needs to make up for it urgently.

Playing on your own initiative will definitely attract the attention of others.

Smacking his lips, Wei Guangde could only put away the prepared list and wait for the opportunity to make a move.

As for the crisis in Shanxi, the cabinet and the Ministry of War have discussed several times in a row. In the end, it was only to ask Yansui and Ningxia towns to gather troops to support Shanxi town at any time. At the same time, Xuanfu and Datong also did the same thing.

After all, the safety of the capital is always the first priority.

Although An Dahan intends to attack Shanxi, who knows when it will be launched.

Don't you raise soldiers and horses around Shanxi, and they turn around and go to Liaoyang to fight grass valleys.

Between offense and defense, the offensive side always occupies the active position, while the defensive side is passive.

Chen Yiqin asked Wei Guangde for advice, but Wei Guangde had no good solution.

When Ma Fang and Yu Dayou went out of the fortress, it was a sneak attack, and they didn't dare to take the cavalry from Xuanfu to fight Altan Khan's army in the field, that would be the way to die.

In this case, not to mention that Wei Guangde himself is not a military genius, even if he is, there is actually no good way to solve it.

But it was at this time that Ge Shouli, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, went to Shuli to beg for the return of his adoptive mother.

A month ago, after Ge Shouli asked to stop the "one whip method", Emperor Longqing considered it for two days, and then summoned cabinet ministers and Ge Shouli's prelude. Although Zhang Juzheng strongly opposed the suspension, there was a huge difference between the north and the south. The "one whip method" seems to be more suitable for implementation in the south, but in the north, because the land has been annexed by the royal family and nobles, there is great resistance to its implementation.

After knowing the source of resistance, Emperor Longqing was also silent for a while.

The imperial court is short of money, and the "one whip method" can increase the imperial court's income, but the Minister of the Ministry of Households opposes this method, what else can he do?
Emperor Longqing couldn't help but think of the absurd things that Yan Maoqing's inspector who replaced Yan Maoqing did when Yan Song fell from power. Income huge tax silver.

Emperor Longqing still remembered Wei Guangde's attitude when he talked about this matter.

Although I really don't want to agree, but the words have been said here, the opponents are all staunch supporters of the imperial power.

After a brief consideration, Emperor Longqing finally nodded, agreed to Ge Shouli's performance, and stopped the collection of taxes and labors.

But in his heart, Emperor Longqing also labeled Ge Shouli as incompetent.

According to the logic instilled in him by Wei Guangde, it is appropriate for the minister of the Ministry of Rites to oppose this law, because it "violates the ancestral system" and can increase the government's fiscal revenue. As the minister of the Ministry of household, he should not oppose it. To actively support is.

Obviously, Ge Shouli is not such a person.

After the news came out that the imperial court stopped the "one whip method", the officials in the household department had great opinions, especially the doctor of the Jiangnan Qingli Department, and the principals had opinions on Judas.

Xu Jie was dissatisfied with Gao Gong's incident last time, but this time he finally found an opportunity. With Xu Jie's secret support, a turmoil was staged in the household department.

(End of this chapter)