Zheng Haizhu took Zheng Zhilong to have a private meeting with Gulit. That night, an oral report was made through Jinyiwei and Dongchang and passed to the emperor.
At this time, Wang An, the Supervisor of Ceremonies, was in charge, and there were some signs of the summer. Wang Tiqian, the third eunuch in the Supervisor of Ceremonies, took over Wang An's class several times to listen to the emperor's orders.
In the Qianqing Palace, Wang Tiqian watched the factory guards retreat, bowed and said to Zhu Changluo: "Long live Lord, although Mrs. Zheng had the idea to beat the Hongyi people back then, but this time, none of the elders in the cabinet have helped. It is not appropriate for Mrs. Zheng to step into the Honglu Guest House to reminisce about old times as Long Live Lord Zhang Luo Hongmao comes to visit us."
Zhu Changluo closed his eyes slightly in the light breeze brought by the palace fan, but what he said was: "Both sides of the factory guards are very efficient in doing things, and they are worthy of being the confidants of the imperial court. I thought that Luo Sigong and Liu Qiao of the Jinyi Guards were as good as We have a good relationship with Zheng, so any situation involving her side will be postponed before talking to me."
Wang Tiqian didn't know how to restrain himself, but still insisted on pulling the battle to his side, thinking carefully about his words: "Commander Luo and Governor Liu are both old men of Jinyiwei, and they have their own sense of proportion. In the past few years, Dongchang has been changing things like a revolving door. He is the beloved grandson of Shangshu Tian. After all, he is a descendant of an aristocratic family. He is too polite and might not be able to control his subordinates for cheating and laziness. Uh, so, in normal times, this slave has to overstep his bounds and do the work on his behalf..."
Zhu Changluo's closed eyes opened, and his eyes were gentle and full of interest: "Dongchang has always been the supervisor of the ceremony. If you just stare at it, it doesn't mean you put your hand in the wrong bowl. Then, what happened to Dongchang just now?" Is he more familiar with you than with his boss Tian Ergen?"
Wang Tigan thought carefully, the middle-aged emperor was not a childish child, so he couldn't treat him like a fool and hide it.
The prince and his father-in-law, who claimed to understand the emperor's character, simply put on a look of being honest and honest because of their loyalty to the emperor: "Back to Long Live Lord, that backbone of the East Factory, because he is a fellow slave, he usually listens to the slave's admonitions, and in his mind His strings are very tight, and whenever there is something fishy or inappropriate outside the court, he will rush to report it to the Lord Long Live."
Zhu Changluo made a satisfied look, thought for a moment, and said earnestly: "Wang Tiqian, the factory guards are my confidants, but those of you who helped me when I was guarding the cold stove and suffered hardships make me feel more at ease. Alas, Wang When my age is no longer forgiving, I have been thinking about how to choose the next person to be the Chief of Ceremonies."
Wang Tiqian smelled the strong fragrance of the supreme power and was overjoyed for a moment. Only with the cautious instinct of being a saint for many years, he managed not to act like a dog begging for meat and bones.
He used a hypocritical but correct way of replying: "No matter who Long Live Lord decides, I can't wait to put all my heart and soul and body into serving Long Live Lord even more fiercely."
Zhu Changluo smiled and waved: "I understand, you can go down."
After lighting a stick of incense, in the Yikun Palace not far away, Concubine Li listened to the report from her cronies in the palace with a serious face.
"Even if I go to deliver mung bean soup to Lord Long Live, I can still see a man named Wang in the Qianqing Palace. What time of the year is this? He is not the father-in-law of the Jingsi Room. Why is he going to the Qianqing Palace?"
Concubine Li was suspicious and angry, and her voice couldn't help but get louder.
Birds of a feather flock together, and most of the favored servants in Yikun Palace are narrow-minded or just follow Concubine Li's words. At this time, a maid in charge who claimed to be close to Concubine Li showed a worried look: "I still see it at a glance. A clue. Wang Tiqian is so ungrateful, he won't do anything bad that will harm the honor of the empress, right?"
Concubine Li glanced at her, her eyes slanted, but her tone was serious: "Last time you went to the Zheng family to choose other jewelry for me, and you met a young and beautiful lady who was generous and generous. The maid mentioned to the prince .You said that Mrs. Zheng asked you to find out which prince it was, whether it was a relative or the woman in the house you bought. How did you find out?"
Of course the maid in charge knew about it, and Concubine Li also wanted to find out.
The palace maid Hou'erjing first analyzed the wealthy eunuchs in the inner court, and the ones named Wang were Wang An and Wang Tiqian. Although she had no connections, she went to follow the two eunuchs named Wang Quan, but she realized that the current situation was that Wang Xin Neither Zheng Haizhu nor Wang Tiqian liked Wang Tiqian, and Concubine Li also began to be wary of Wang Tiqian's tricks. Therefore, as a slave, the smart thing for her was to find out the truth, follow the trend, and report ambiguous information.
The palace maid then begged for forgiveness and said in a mixed voice: "Ah, I beg your empress to punish me. My two brothers are not well-connected. I only heard the legend from Nanhaizi that Wang Tiqian seems to have bought a young girl this year. As for Mr. Wang An, my servant Ever since I entered the palace, I have never heard that Mr. Wang An has a daughter-in-law. Please go and inquire."
Concubine Li sighed: "I don't blame you. Who made us prosperous last year? How can we be like Concubine Zheng in the past? The servants and spies outside the palace are probably better than the factory guards. By the way, that little lady who buys jewelry Do you remember his face?"
"Slave, I remember."
Concubine Li stopped talking, turned her head, and looked at her face in the mirror.
Both she and Zheng Haizhu are women of the same age. The one named Zheng is much worse than her in terms of foundation and maintenance level. But if she were to compete with a girl in her mid-20s, she would lose miserably.
Didn't Wang Tigan, that eunuch, fall in love with that lady from Ke Yinyue? Then why did he buy the young girl?
…
In the following days, the Dutch mission was formally summoned by Zhu Changluo. There were no ministers from the cabinet to accompany him. Except for the ministers of the Bureau of Ceremonies, the only foreign ministers were Honglu Temple officials, the newly promoted editors of the Hanlin Academy, and the editors. Xiu, and Zheng Haizhu.
But the Dutch are already feeling flattered.
I originally thought I was seeing someone like a consul, but I didn't expect to be able to stand in front of the Emperor of the Eastern Empire.
The Netherlands, after all, was a defeated country at that time. The male civil servants of the Ming Dynasty who had accepted the Western religion, and their good friends with missionaries were all from Italy, Portugal and other countries, so how could they take the initiative to help them connect.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Gulit thought in his mind that although the woman named Zheng would not give in at all on the price, she could still fulfill her promise such as a gentleman's agreement and persuade the emperor to come out. Meet them.
Zhu Changluo asked about foreign customs, said some words of admonishment such as "You are importing goods according to the rules in the Fujian Sea, and you must not commit crimes or violate laws." After rewarding him with brocade cloth, he ended the summons.
Returning to the West Nuan Pavilion of the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Changluo said to Zheng Haizhu who was left behind by the order: "This Hongyi man seems to be as you said. He is different from the Thai and Western missionaries who met the late emperor in the past. They don't talk about Bodhisattvas and gods." , just licking his face and begging me, Ming Dynasty, to allow them to enter the ship in Guangdong."
Zheng Haizhu said: "Your Majesty, this is the style of Westerners who are more direct from generation to generation. When I saw this Gulit this time, I stared at him and asked about the situation in Europa for a long time, and made peace with Yan Xuan Zheng Zhilong learned about the same thing. The capabilities of the Frankies are gradually declining, and the island country further west of the Europa continent, called England, is probably rising faster than the Netherlands."
At the core power level, the ruler's personal advisers often have stronger discourse penetration than ministers and officials from foreign dynasties.
Zhu Changluo was taught by Zheng Haizhu for two years the map of the seas of all nations, the situation of sea traders in the southern customs, etc. Now he has a general understanding of the pattern of the Age of Discovery, and he is not like those civil servants in the outer dynasty who were hiding in the well. When I reach the level of a minister or court official, I will also ask, "What can a Western island country do to me?"
On the contrary, Zhu Changluo murmured meaningfully: "English is also an island country. Just like Japan, it cannot be underestimated, right?"
The Wanli Korean War and the Japanese army led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi had a cognitive impact on the Ming Dynasty and North Korea. Even though Zhu Changluo was just a sitting prince at the time, he had some sense of it from his master Sun Chengzong.
Zheng Haizhu did not shy away from showing his worries about the future of the empire: "Yes, these foreign countries in the East and the West have more ambitions to plunder and expand because of their small territories. Therefore, long live my Ming Dynasty, in the In their eyes, we are just fat sheep. Only by showing our fangs and claws will they believe that we are also wolves, more powerful wolves than them, and that Long live the Lord is the wolf king."
Zhu Changluo smiled: "Okay, you don't have to flatter me. You can tell me now, right? What do you want Hongmao to do when he buys whale oil?"
"Make grenades. Putting aside the two tactics of mandarin duck formation and cavalry battle, in the long-range fire strike of our Ming army, the lethality of porcelain mines is small. Cannons and matchlocks can only inflict heavy damage to the enemy in specific formations. Soldiers, Especially soldiers fighting on foot need a firearm that is light and easy to carry, but will kill and injure a large area when thrown."
Zhu Changluo was surprised: "Can this kind of firearm be made with fish oil?"
"It's just an introduction. It mainly relies on the compatibility that we Ming officials have figured out by ourselves. Your Majesty, Xu Hanlin wrote a book "The Method of Creating Strong Water" last year. After I read it, I suddenly got an idea and wanted to give it a try."
Zheng Haizhu then combined the method of making concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid discovered by Xu Guangqi, combined with the feasibility of refining glycerin from whale oil, and relied on his own reflections on black powder after running an artillery factory for many years, and simplified the complex to the emperor.
Just like pushing Song Yingxing to invent the steam engine for pumping water from mines, Zheng Haizhu did not need, let alone have the ability to explore for himself, a new generation of explosives. He also made a start, prepared the raw materials for testing, and gave it to the smartest people of this era. Just think about it in your head.
Zhu Changluo listened carefully and nodded frequently.
"Mrs. Zheng, I taught Nurhaci a hard lesson in fire attack, and I will never forget it. Therefore, I will allow you to research new firearms at any time. You are careful and are afraid of the capital, Jizhen, and Xuanda." There are Jurchen spies in Denglai and Songjiang, and they want to put them in Daning New Town where Ma Xianglin and Huang Zunsu live. I also believe you, so I said you were selling red-haired whale oil to Chahar Mongolia."
Zheng Haizhu immediately stood up from his seat to thank him.
Zhu Changluo stared at her: "You know, in the past three years, I have read Xiaoxiao's many impeachment books on you. Is that why?"
Zheng Haizhu said: "Because I am doing hard work, but they only like to talk. I have a clear conscience, so my family background and my thoughts are always ahead of them, and I will tell them clearly to Your Majesty."
Zhu Changluo lowered his eyes and remembered that three days ago, Wang Tiqian also stood on the same green brick where Zheng Haizhu stood, plausibly arranging this woman's private meeting with the Hongyi people.
When Zheng Haizhu heard the emperor sitting on the dragon throne, he said in a teasing tone: "Why do they think that they are more strategic than you, a woman? I have recently begun to understand that they actually think that they He is more strategic than me."