The Prosperous Era of Longwan

I don't know if it was God's will. At this time, Emperor Longqing was sitting in the cabinet duty room. The chief assistant of the cabinet, Xu Jie, and his student Zhang Juzheng were standing on one side, while the second assistants Li Chunfang, Chen Yiqin, and Guo Pu were standing on the other side.

Perhaps this was because Guo Pu and Chen Yiqin did not want to be associated with Xu Jie and did so deliberately.

"Master Li, what's your attitude?"

Emperor Longqing saw that Li Chunfang was in a daze, so he asked.

For a moment, everyone in the room focused their attention on Li Chunfang.

The situation at this moment was delicate, and it seemed that Li Chunfang had all the control.

Li Chunfang was also secretly complaining at this moment.

Although there are many rumors that Emperor Jiajing's mistakes were the reason why he was able to win the top prize, but after all, his results were among the best, otherwise he would not even have the chance to meet the emperor in the examination paper.

Li Chunfang, who is well-read and familiar with classics and history, is well aware of the dangers of officialdom. Especially since Emperor Jiajing became seriously ill, Xu Jie and Gao Gong have been fighting openly and secretly for many times. After Emperor Longqing ascended the throne, the fighting became more intense. No matter which side he stands on, he will definitely offend the other side completely.

He knew why Guo Pu got close to Gao Gong.

Guo Pu's problems actually exist in him as well.

It's just that after Yan Ne took office, he was already the second assistant, and it was no longer possible for him to join Guo Pu and turned to Gao Gong.

After all, behind Gao Gong was Emperor Longqing, and with the emperor's trust in him, Li Chunfang could not see any reason for Gao Gong to lose in this battle.

However, after all, Xu Jie's situation was established, and his power in the court was so deep-rooted that even the new emperor Longqing would not dare to touch him easily.

Therefore, he simply chose to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and just seconded what Xu Jie or Gao Gong said casually, giving people a sense of humility, not using his power to dominate others, being diligent and honest in government, advocating frugality, and recommending talents. impression.

Speaking of which, he was also unlucky. He entered the cabinet in April of the 44th year of Jiajing, and just missed the examination that year.

According to the unspoken rules for cabinet ministers in the Ming Dynasty, cabinet ministers after joining the cabinet must take a general examination to recruit disciples and increase their strength in the court.

However, he has been in the cabinet for three years and has already served as the second assistant, but has not presided over a single parliamentary examination. Although he cannot be said to be weak in power, his influence is indeed not great. It is really embarrassing to be in this position.

In the 44th year of the National Examination, because the cabinet ministers Xu Jie and Yuan Wei had already had the examination experience, the candidates were Gao Gong, the left minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, and Gao Gong, a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy. Hu Zheng covered his head.

This is also one of the reasons why Gao Gong is not afraid of Xu Jie. He also has three hundred disciples in the court. As long as he says a word, more than a hundred new Jinshi in Beijing will go to court to impeach Xu Jie and fight against each other.

Compared with the number of people, Gao Gong is really not afraid of Xu steps.

But being stuck here is not a problem. Li Chunfang still has to answer the emperor's questions.

He hesitated for a moment and then stood up and bowed: "Your Majesty, the opening of the sea is of great importance. On the one hand, it is difficult to violate the ancestral system, but on the other hand, it is related to the livelihood of the people, and it is difficult for me to make a choice."

With her head lowered, Li Chunfang did not dare to peek at others' reactions, fearing that her hard-earned confidence would be shattered.

"I hesitated again and again, so I can only respectfully ask for the Holy Judgment."

Finally, Li Chunfang said these words. He knew that at this moment, his status in Emperor Longqing's mind would undoubtedly be demoted by an unknown number of levels, or even marked as useless, but he still had this choice.

If the emperor is not happy, the worst he can do is become an official and go home to retire, offending others, and the outcome will be bad.

As for some people who think that such an answer offends both sides, they must have the strength to do so.

In any case, Li Chunfang is the second minister of the dynasty, and not everyone can figure it out.

If someone takes the initiative to attack him and makes him fall to the other side, can this situation be tolerated?

For those who are truly useless, that is the way to die, while for those in high positions, it is a means of self-preservation.

But he didn't know that at this moment, Xu Jie, Guo Pu and others all breathed a sigh of relief, and finally let go of their hanging hearts.

Even if Xu Jie thought he understood Li Chunfang, he couldn't guarantee that it would be like this before Li Chunfang finally made his choice, and the same was true for others.

Emperor Longqing had a look of disappointment on his face. Was the ball still mentioned to him and asked him to wear a hat that had been modified from his ancestors?

Of course not.

He has only been on the throne for a few months now, and he cannot do this yet. He must first find someone to take the blame.

Thinking that Gao Gong was not present, Emperor Longqing came up with an idea after some thought.

"In this case, let's discuss this matter at the court meeting tomorrow."

He took the initiative to arrange to move the discussion of opening up the sea to the court meeting. Of course, he did not want to face the scorn of the officials, but to delay it for a day.

"When I came here, I heard that the cabinet had received another impeachment notice against the prime minister?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Xu Jie stood up at this time and said: "The Criminal Division has reinstated Zhang Jin and Yushi Li to impeach Gao Gong."

"Show me the memorial."

Emperor Longqing waved his hand, directly interrupting Xu Jie's answer.

Xu Jie's expression remained as usual, he turned around and handed the draft memorial to Meng Chong from the desk beside him, and he handed it to the emperor.

Emperor Longqing opened the memorial and glanced at it, then said: "I will serve you with pen and ink."

Meng Chong quickly went to the writing desk next to him, brought some pen and ink, and placed it on the coffee table.

This is Xu Jie's duty room, which is a main hall. There is a reception hall after entering the door. There are also rooms on the left and right, which are used for offices and stacking of various books.

The living room where they were sitting naturally had no desks in front of the seats.

Emperor Longqing put down the two memorials, picked up his pen and quickly reviewed the two memorials.

Xu Jie looked at Emperor Longqing's actions with an expressionless face.

He knew what the emperor would write without even thinking about it.

Sure enough, after the emperor collected the pen and handed it over to him, all Xu Jie saw was one sentence, "What he said is untrue. Jin (re-appointment) heard that something was wrong, so Gong can serve with peace of mind."

After sending Emperor Longqing away, Xu Jie handed the two memorials to Li Chunfang for processing. Although they did not have the seal of the Supervisor of Ceremonies and lacked necessary procedures, they could be approved by hand in front of everyone, so of course they could not be ignored.

What's more, it's just a lack of procedures. The formalities can be completed immediately after being sent to the Supervisor of Ceremonies, so there is no need to worry about it.

Returning to the cabinet, everyone returned to their respective rooms and continued working.

Chen Yiqin was relatively happy. Today's incident once again proved that the emperor trusted them, his subordinates. Guo Pu was also very excited, because he also saw that Gao Gong's position in the emperor's heart was stable.

Li Chunfang and Zhang Juzheng were not in such a good mood. Even Li Chunfang was still worried about their attitude at tomorrow's meeting. It was really difficult to make a choice.

Only Xu Jie remained the same. After all, he had seen such scenes countless times, especially when Emperor Jiajing was furious. That scene was many times more dangerous than today.

When he returned to the duty room, he didn't bother with the official documents piled up on the desk, but spread out a piece of paper and started writing.

Today's officialdom in the capital is full of news. First, Gao Gong left the cabinet in embarrassment due to his impeachment. Then Emperor Longqing personally visited the cabinet and cabinet ministers to discuss matters and asked Kaihai's opinions. Later, he even approved the impeachment memorial against Gao Gong on the spot. Responsible for the reinstatement of Zhang Jin and Li.

At this point, the story of Gao Gong being impeached again is over. Gao Gong does not even need to write a self-report and can return to work in the cabinet tomorrow.

It seemed like it was just a farce.

But just after noon, Wei Guangde heard another news in the yamen. The chief assistant of the cabinet, Xu Jie, was unwell on duty and had been sent back to his mansion to recuperate. At the same time, it was also reported that Xu Jieshang, the bachelor of the university, was begging to return home due to illness. The news was accompanied by the fact that the eclipse half a month ago was mentioned again.

At the beginning, the only people who knew about the meeting were the attendees.

The identities of both parties are not ordinary, and the officials participating in the banquet are also ordinary. Naturally, it has only been spread among small circles, and has not spread widely among the officialdom of the capital.

The difference this time was that the news spread at an astonishing speed. It spread to all the yamen in Beijing almost quickly, which was extremely unusual.

In the duty room, Wei Guangde sat quietly behind the desk, but he could vaguely hear the fierce voices in other rooms outside.

Although I couldn't hear it clearly, at this time, I could guess that the person who was so excited was probably an official who was complaining about Xu Jie.

In the past few months, Xu Jie had been personally involved in bringing order to things in the Jiajing edict. Many officials who had been punished for admonishing the emperor and impeaching Yan Song had their reputations and official positions restored, which greatly won over a group of people.

Correspondingly, he did the good things and left the bad things to Gao Gong and others to take care of. This was also one of the reasons for Gao Gong's rebound.

Those who know the inside story will naturally not explain too much to others, and when such news comes out at this time, it will undoubtedly be extremely detrimental to Gao Gong and others.

The official errands may seem daunting to the people on the official documents, but to Wei Guangde, who is in power, it makes no difference whether it is sooner or later.

He didn't have time to deal with official documents at the moment, but had deeper worries.

Today's events may seem unrelated, but if you think about it carefully, from the moment Tan Lun's memorial arrived in Beijing, Xu Jie seemed to have planned every step, including the current attitude of all the officials in the court.

Xu Jie was the one who truly understood the hearts of these officials and learned how to take advantage of them.

As the chief minister of the current government, he has made few achievements in the major national policies that should be dealt with, and it seems that he still follows Yan Song's approach.

Cover the lid and whitewash the peace.

But he had better luck. With Yan Song in front and the late emperor's mistakes in front, he won people's hearts by bringing order to the chaos, cleverly diverted the attention of officials, and won widespread support.

Now, there's compassion.

Gao Gong unknowingly became a villain in the court and was denounced by most people.

When Wei Guangde was worried about the development of the situation, Gao Gong's disciples also realized that something was wrong. Their teacher had a bad reputation in the court, which was not a good thing.

What is the main reason why people are dissatisfied with Gaogong?

Naturally, it was Xu Jie who was the initiator of everything. It was said outside that the teacher bullied honest people and relied on the emperor's trust to fight Xu Jie in the cabinet and wanted to replace him.

Of course they hope to replace Xu Jie, but the current situation is not what they want to see.

In the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Yushi Qi Kang has seen through today's trick. Everything was planned by Xu Jie, and the teacher's reputation was lost due to his calculations.

In a rage, Qi Kang dug out Xu Zhi's memorial to impeach Xu Jie three months ago and looked at it carefully, and then he started to worry about it.

Speaking of Xu Zhi, although his reputation is not well known, his elder brother was a prominent figure in the Ming Dynasty, and was the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Jie.

Xu Zhi was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Jiajing, and was in the same department as his second assistant Li Chunfang. At this time, Xu Jie had already experienced the stage of being suppressed by Mr. Zhang and returned to the court.

However, Xu Jie did not help his younger brother stay in the capital as an official. Instead, he kept him in Nanjing, perhaps so that he could take care of the family nearby.

But no matter how he thought about it, Xu Zhi, who felt that he could not get Xu Jie's glory and would be suppressed in Nanjing, felt dissatisfied, so he finally impeached his brother Xu Jie in February for three illegal things, namely accepting a false letter. , embezzling land, hiding the population, the family's land is as much as 200,000 acres; allowing the family's children and slaves to run rampant in the countryside, doing evil and so on.

After the memorial was sent to the capital, it should have caused an uproar. However, at this time, most of the attention of the government and the public was focused on the late emperor's palace, mausoleum, and the relocation of several queens' tombs. Although this memorial was not concealed, its impact was still felt. The deliberate reduction was even said to be a family matter of Xu Jie.

Because of family affairs, Xu Zhi was dissatisfied with Xu Jie's handling, and then used private affairs to abolish public affairs and take private revenge.

In short, although most officials heard about it, they didn't take it seriously, admitting that it was because of the Xu family's family affairs.

However, others did not care, but someone in the Imperial Court paid attention to it and copied the memorial and kept it. This person was Qi Kang.

Yes, he was writing a memorial at this time, citing the three major crimes of Xu Jie mentioned by Xu Zhi to impeach him.

Although Xu Zhi had retired from office two months ago, the imperial court would keep the memorial and would not destroy it easily.

With the confessions of Xu family members, Qi Kang did not think that his memorial was just a rumor, and the emperor should send someone to investigate in detail.

Until then, let's see how Xu Jie, an old man, defends himself.

In Qi Kang's eyes, Xu Jie was insidious and greedy.

He allowed his family's children and servants to do evil and harm others outside the country, all because he had great power in the court.

Also, when the late emperor wanted to establish a heir, Xu Jie firmly opposed it. He said that the emperor was successful in cultivation and had a long life. Whether it was to flatter Emperor Jiajing or to speculate that it was the emperor's test, Xu Jie did object to the emperor's establishment. Store.

But when Emperor Longqing actually ascended to the throne, he had something in his mind, so he pretended to be sick to get a glimpse of the emperor's intentions.

He also wooed Li Chunfang in the cabinet and relied on his momentum to achieve the purpose of exercising exclusive power.

In short, in Qi Kang's eyes, everything Xu Jie did was his deliberate attempt to squeeze out Gao Gong and monopolize the power of the government.

After Qi Kanti finished writing the impeachment memorial in bits and pieces, he hurriedly held the ink in his hands and headed to the royal court of Zuodu to check in.

In the evening, Wei Guangde received a note from Chen Yiqin at home and saw the general content of Qi Kang's impeachment memorial against Xu Jie.

"The rank is sinister, evil, corrupt, autocratic, and the country is obsessed with it. The late emperor wanted to establish a throne, but the rank was stubborn and he could not do it. When the emperor ascended the throne, he was extremely suspicious and fearful, so he pretended to be sick in order to get a taste of his superiority. He also relied on the momentum of the great scholar Li Chunfang. The great scholar Gong has been criticized repeatedly for being impeached by Xu Jiezhu, a great scholar in Italy.

Wei Guangde felt a toothache after reading the note, which was really disturbing.

Thinking of Gao Gong's resignation from the cabinet today, he didn't want to think that Xu Jie would have to stage this scene again before the court meeting tomorrow.

It’s okay to be impeached by others. You, a Guangdong Taoist Examination Censor, are impeaching you. Are you afraid that no one will remember that your teacher is Gao Gong?