prosperous age

Chapter 678 Chapter 777
In principle, there is no problem with Shixun and his relatives. It is just that the relative's farmland has been increased from [-] hectares to [-] hectares.

As long as he is lower than Sehun, it's okay to appease him.

However, Emperor Longqing wanted to distinguish his relatives. The former imperial relatives did not care, but his relatives had to take special care of them. One hundred and fifty hectares of farmland was not enough, and it had to be increased to one thousand hectares, and then decreased.

One thousand hectares, this number made Wei Guangde feel really difficult, it was too much.

But the result the emperor wanted was to let Chen Ju come over, which was to give him full power to operate the matter.

If you do well, you will get extra points, if you don’t do well, you will definitely lose points.

Wei Guangde knew that no matter what, this matter had to be done well.

Wei Guangde is familiar with patting his head to determine the numbers, and many people in later generations will do the same.

Since Emperor Longqing wanted to treat them differently, Wei Guangde could also find a reason.

Based on whether the members of the royal family are still alive or not, those who live are limited to [-] hectares, and then downgraded generation by generation.

Based on this, Wei Guangde quickly determined that Princess Ning'an and her son-in-law Zhang He's estates would be set at [-] hectares, while Princess Jiashan was no longer there, and her son-in-law Xu Congcheng's estates would be reduced to [-] hectares.

In addition, there is also the cousin of Emperor Longqing, who is also the nephew of the Empress Dowager. The elder brother of the Empress Dowager is no longer here, so he can only be reduced to a lower rank when he is supposed to have a thousand hectares, and the fixed number is five hundred hectares.

He quickly made a plan in his heart, without leaving a note, but just told Chen Ju about his plan, and asked him to report to the emperor alone after returning to the palace.

If the two sides don't explain the truth and just rely on the memorandum to pass it back and forth, it may take half a year for this matter to happen. After all, the cabinet can only guess the emperor's mind.

After sending Chen Ju away, Wei Guangde went back to the desk and sat for a while, then took out a piece of paper and laid it out, picked up a pen and wrote the message to be delivered on the note, called Lu Bu, and asked him to send it to the palace. Take it back to Zhang Ji as soon as possible.

In fact, it was nothing, just let Zhang Ji send people to deliver news to Ding Guogong, Cheng Guogong and other residences, and let them send people to Wei's residence for a banquet at night.

In fact, Shixun in the capital is not an unbreakable group of people. Although they don't have much pursuit of titles, they don't want to be closer to the emperor and be more favored.

In this case, whether it is arranging for the nephew to work in the court, or doing some salt imports, contracting court projects, etc., it will be much easier for the family.

Therefore, among various families, especially among the top nobles, open and secret struggles are also indispensable, but when facing civil officials, they will hold together to keep warm, after all, they have lost enough.

Most of the rights were taken away, and they had only one yamen left in the Five Army Commander's Mansion.

You know, when the country was founded, many of the ancestors of their family held important positions in the imperial court.

But this time, from their point of view, it was something that the civil servants deliberately did because they were jealous of the Zhuangtian in their hands.

But people have already started, and they also know that it is not easy to do without paying a price, and they also agree to pay some taxes to the court.

But too much is not enough. For example, the Ministry of Household Affairs only planned to leave them a hundred hectares of land at the beginning, but they felt that it was too little and it was too embarrassing.

They also think that [-] hectares is an appropriate number, even if it does not seem too much, it can also be accepted by civil officials, which is barely a win-win situation.

Of course, from their point of view, it would be best for all the Zhuangtian to remain the same, but it is unrealistic.

For the sake of Zhuangtian, the nobles of various families stood together for a rare time, planning to jointly deal with the provocation of the civil official group.

Wei Guangde invited several families, mainly to explain the previous plan to them, so that each family has a clear idea, and don't complain about anything after the decree is made.

With Emperor Longqing's personal approval in his hand, Wei Guangde planned to take it back to the mansion after he left the office, and let them see it at that time, and understand that this was the emperor's intention.

Originally, according to the rules, documents such as memorials and approvals could not be taken out of the cabinet, but this is just a system, and there are actually many ways to deal with it. look.

But this time the situation is special, Wei Guangde wants to take the original directly.

In fact, this is not a big deal. Although the secretary in the cabinet will gather up the memorials in the value room and count them according to the registration when they were sent to the cabinet, the one in Wei Guangde's hand is not from the formal procedure, but It was sent directly by Chen Ju.

Without registration, it means that the secretary in the cabinet has no idea that this memorial has been returned to the cabinet.

If you take it away, you will take it away, and no one will look for and track down the whereabouts of the memorial.

The banquet held in the Wei Mansion that night was very grand, after all, the people who came were all famous figures from several houses in the capital.

Dingguo Duke Xu Wenbi came in person, Chengguo Duke Zhu Xizhong and British Duke Zhang Rong both sent their eldest sons, that is, Zhu Shitai and Zhang Yuangong.

Wei Guangde and Zhu Shitai knew each other relatively early, after Lu Bing died, Wei Guangde met when he was in Lu's residence.

Because Cheng Guogong's family and Lu Bing's family were related by marriage, Lu Bing's eldest daughter was married to his eldest son Zhu Shitai, so Zhu Shitai often took care of him in Lu's house during that time.

As for the other marquises, Wei Guangde also graciously entertained them.

In fact, it wasn't that Zhu Xizhong and Zhang Rong didn't want to come because they didn't want to save face, but because they knew that Xu Wenbi was going to be there, and if the three of them all came together, the news would be bad.

Although Zhu Xixiao is in charge of Jinyiwei, there are not only Jinyiwei in the capital, but also Dongchang.

In order to avoid causing misunderstanding by the royal family, the two had no choice but to shirk.

Things were progressing very smoothly. Wei Guangde explained the situation, and each family knew that it was the emperor's will, so naturally they didn't dare to raise any conditions.

They are all world honors, and the titles are passed down from generation to generation, and nothing will change.

On the side of Xunqi, although the first three generations seemed to get more than them, they kept falling down, and in the end they were still not as good as them, and the previous grievances naturally eased a lot.

Wei Guangde explained the situation clearly, and he was not afraid of their dissatisfaction.

The current situation is that if you agree, you have to agree, and if you don't agree, you have to agree. Who dares to oppose the emperor's will?
However, shortly after he was on duty the next day, before Wei Guangde had time to contact the Metropolitan Procuratorate, he planned to talk to Wang Ting and Tuntian Yushi about the matter, when Chen Ju's small note was delivered first.

Wei Guangde frowned when he saw the note, this matter is not easy to deal with.

The thing was a major event that happened in the palace late yesterday. Li Fang, who had been punished and neglected, clashed with Teng Xiang again because of the renovation of the main hall in the palace and the preparations for the Aoshan Lantern Festival next year. Xiang took advantage of the opportunity of renovating the palace to wantonly greedy for ink.

Palace repairs are done almost every year in the inner court, and preparations for the Aoshan Lantern Festival have started early, and it is not until the end of the year that skilled craftsmen are hired to design and produce.

Not to mention the renovation of the palace, the cost of the Aoshan Lantern Festival alone is as high as 30 taels of silver, and how much of it is used for palace lanterns is unknown to the outer court.

What Wei Guangde could find out was that the Aoshan Lantern Festival required 10 taels of silver in the early Ming Dynasty, and it increased year by year.

Wei Guangde shook his head, Li Fang has not learned his lesson even after being like this, he is too upright.

It is a good thing for people to be upright, but it may not be a blessing in a place like the inner court.

It must be right for the emperor to save money for the emperor, but it blocked his way of making money.

Which of the eunuchs in the palace doesn't spend money on the palace expenses?

Li Fang's report against Tengxiang not only failed to win over Meng Chong, Chen Hong and others, but also deepened the grudge between them.

You can sue Tengxiang today, and you can tell them wrong tomorrow.

After all, which of these celebrities who had managed to get along with Emperor Longqing were trying their best to embezzle and accept bribes?

As long as you can get money, you can say that you can do anything.

Teng Xiang was reprimanded by Emperor Longqing for this matter, and later contacted Meng Chong and Chen Hong to arrange Li Fang for Emperor Longqing.

Wei Guangde can think of everything he said.

Using Li Fang being reprimanded and rejected by Emperor Longqing last year as an excuse, it is disrespectful to say that Li Fang said many bad things about the emperor in private.

If it was only Meng Chong or Chen Hong who said it alone, Emperor Longqing might still have doubts, but with the cooperation of several people and mutual confirmation, Emperor Longqing's doubts were dispelled.

Knowing that Li Fang complained and cursed in private because he was dissatisfied with his punishment, Emperor Longqing didn't get angry, and immediately ordered Chen Hong to lead people to arrest Li Fang. prison.

The note sent by Chen Ju was to tell Wei Guangde about the matter. Now that Li Fang has been imprisoned, the Ministry of Criminal Justice will issue an order to try Li Fang later today.

Chen Ju also knew that Wei Guangde and Li Fang were close at the beginning, and knew that the relationship between the two was not bad, so he quietly passed a note to let him know the details, so as not to be stupid.

As for Li Fang being wronged, why didn't Chen Ju come out to say something fair and testify? As far as Chen Ju's current status is concerned, to be honest, it's really not enough in the palace.

His current status, that is, the title of imperial eunuch is not bad, but he is very bluffing outside the palace.

The position of the Chief of Ceremonies and eunuch can also frighten the small officials in the court, after all, he is the Chief of Ceremonies.

But in the inner court, everyone knows their identities well, who can they scare?

Regarding what happened to Li Fang, Chen Ju didn't dare to say a word, he could only pass the news to Wei Guangde.

In any case, he was able to stay in the inner court until now because he had inherited the favor of Huang Jin and Li Fang.

Some favors must be repaid to the best of our ability.

This is Chen Ju's rules of doing things.

Wei Guangde bowed his head and pondered for a long time, and finally came to a conclusion that Li Fang could no longer be in the inner court.

The people in the inner court were basically offended by his integrity, and if they continued to stay, they would inevitably die, or perhaps die for no reason.

It's okay to die, but I'm afraid that with the urinating nature of Teng Xiang and others, they will push all the pots they made on Li Fang's head and wash them clean.

Eunuch, where else can you go if you don't hang out in the inner court?

At this time, Wei Guangde couldn't help but think of Liang Tian who took the first step and applied to be a eunuch in Nanjing.

However, when Liang Tian took the initiative to ask Ying to go to Nanjing to guard, who would have thought that the court would change so much in just over a year, and Li Fang, who had been fawned on by countless officials, had already been imprisoned.

Picking up the note, I can only put away today's official documents, and I have to discuss with Chen Yiqin and Yin Shizhen, how to get Li Fang out of the prison is the only way to be serious.

Wei Guangde guessed that Emperor Longqing beat Li Fang to vent his anger and put him in prison, it should be caused by a moment of anger, maybe he didn't intend to kill him.

After all, in those years, Li Fang had been by Emperor Longqing's side, serving him with all his heart, so there must be hard work without credit.

And Chen Yiqin, Yin Shizhen and others also admired Li Fang's integrity, and they probably would not refuse to save him.

If they really chose to see death and not save them, Wei Guangde felt that he would not be able to get along with them.

First went to Yin Shizhen's duty room, dragged Yin Shizhen who was still reviewing the memorials to Chen Yiqin, and whispered to him about the affairs of the inner court on the way, Yin Shizhen was also very shocked.

When Chen Yiqin was on duty, Wei Guangde handed them the note written by Chen Ju, and sat there drinking tea by himself.

He has some vague thoughts in his heart, but the key is how to get people, he has no idea yet.

"Go to the palace to intercede with Eunuch Li?"

After reading the note, Chen Yiqin frowned and asked Wei Guangde.

Wei Guangde didn't speak, but looked at Yin Shizhen to see if he could do anything.

Yin Shizhen was lowering his head at the moment, completely unaware that both Chen Yiqin and Wei Guangde were looking at him.

After a long time, he heard no one talking in the room, so he looked up and saw the eyes of the two of them.

"Everyone is watching what I do, and there is no way to do it for the time being."

Yin Shi said in a low voice, "However, His Majesty's order has not yet been issued. I'm afraid it's inappropriate to rush into the palace to intercede now."

Then he said softly, "I still don't know what His Majesty is thinking at this time."

"Because Li Fang said bad things behind his back, with His Majesty's character, I'm afraid he will be very angry."

Chen Yiqin answered, "After all, Li Fang is an old man who has been serving His Majesty all the time."

"Li Fang should not be that kind of person."

Yin Shizhen corrected, "I don't believe he would do such a thing."

"It's useless for us to say these things here, only His Majesty needs to believe it."

Chen Yiqin smiled wryly, he didn't know what Li Fang was like.

Li Fang is upright, but not stupid. He may have resentment in his heart, but he will never say it out loud. He is always cautious.

"Act before His Majesty's decree or intercede later?"

Wei Guangde said, "You have to think clearly about this, anyway, after we fish out this time, Li Fang can't be allowed to stay in the capital."

"where to?"

Yin Shizhen wondered.

"Let him go to Nanjing, even if he is charged with crimes, he must be dispatched to Nanjing.

With Liang Tian there, he shouldn't suffer. "

Wei Guangde said.

"Liang Tian? That's really the case."

As soon as Wei Guangde reminded him, Chen Yiqin immediately came up with a solution.

"I think so, let's add up."

Immediately, Chen Yiqin said: "Your Majesty is good at face, if Li Fang is really interrogated by the Ministry of Criminal Justice, as an old man beside His Majesty, what face will His Majesty have?
It's better to let the inner court send Li Fang to Nanjing directly, so that His Majesty can calm down while out of sight and out of mind.

For Li Fang, we also have an explanation, at least we don't have to suffer in the prison. "

"You can give it a try."

Wei Guangde said: "Of course it's the best to beg for mercy and get the person out of prison, but if it doesn't work, we have to find a way from the Ministry of Punishment."

Yin Shizhen also nodded, "Then shall we go together or separate, and plead with His Majesty alone?"

(End of this chapter)