Spring is fleeting, and it’s the end of April in the blink of an eye.
Many people seem to have almost forgotten what happened at the court meeting a month ago. In more than a month, there has been no more difficulty or aggression in the outer court. It seems that the court meeting on March 10th has completely forgotten
Their energy was overwhelming, and they behaved calmly and restrainedly.
But in fact, the affairs in the palace have made the officials in the outer court intolerable.
Someone who is interested made an interesting statistics: from the beginning of the court meeting on March 10th to April 26th, in the past fifty days, Zhu Houzhao went to court six times, which lasted less than six hours. That is, every nine days in the Ming Dynasty
Emperor Zhengde had just held his last court meeting. Every time, he arrived late and left early.
The scripture banquet lectures have been almost completely abolished. In the past fifty days, Zhu Houzhao attended three scripture banquet lectures. One was the scripture banquet lectures given by Yang Tinghe, who had been promoted to Dongge University Scholar. It was Zhu Houzhao's whim, and it took a long time.
I didn't listen to Yang Tinghe's lectures given by the former Dong Palace Minister, so I attended one to reminisce about old times. There were also two Sutra banquets where Li Dongyang and Liu Jian were the speakers. That should give them face.
In contrast, the night banquets in the palace became more and more frequent during this period. Not to mention singing and dancing every night, there were at least one small banquet every three days and one big banquet every five days. The Qianqing Palace was filled with the sound of silk and bamboo singing and dancing, and Zhu Houzhao eight out of ten
At nine, we are all on the way to feasting and enjoying.
According to reports from the palace, the emperor's way of having fun was very strange and full of tricks. Not only normal banquets, but also all kinds of gimmicks. For example, he asked the palace maids to dress up as brothel fans, and he dressed up as a prostitute visiting a brothel.
For example, raising hawks and dogs in the palace caused a lot of noise in the palace, making the dogs bark all night long. For example, summoning many warriors to wrestle in the palace in the market, and the emperor rewarded them with wine and gold, which made the palace noisy.
It's like a market place.
All these things created a smoky atmosphere in the palace. The restraint in the outer court seemed to have encouraged this trend. From the beginning, they started making trouble secretly, and finally ended up feasting, singing and dancing in broad daylight, without caring about the opinions of outsiders.
Just as Liu Jian and others predicted before, after the court meeting on March 10th, Liu Jin and others became increasingly arrogant and arrogant. Almost everything was the idea of Liu Jin and others. The fifteen-year-old boy tasted
After getting into the mood of wanton fun, they got out of hand, and Liu Jin and others became more and more interested in them. These fun tricks and methods were all done by Liu Jin and others.
Liu Jin and others also became more and more excessive in their attitude towards the bigwigs of the inner court. Wang Yue, Li Rong, Fan Heng and others were originally the leaders in the inner court, and all matters in the inner court had to go through their approval. But now
The situation is very strange. Now, if Wang Yue and others even want to see the emperor, they need permission from Liu Jin and others. Without the nod of Liu Jin and others, the big shots in the inner court cannot meet the emperor. This simply makes Wang Yue and others popular.
Vomiting blood.
Although extremely angry, Wang Yue and others have consciously kept a low profile since that court meeting. After all, one of the focuses of that court meeting was that the inner court might have leaked news from the palace. And this matter will obviously automatically focus on
Wang Yue, Li Rong, Fan Heng and others were on top of this, including the Jin Yiwei personal guards. Although Zhu Houzhao did not conduct any extensive inquiries or thorough investigations afterwards, Wang Yue and others did not dare to cause trouble for the time being, fearing that it would stir up the incident.
In view of this, they can only knock out their teeth and swallow it in their stomachs, silently enduring this humiliation. What they hope most now is that the civil servants in the outer court will quickly find a way to solve all this. Otherwise, things will continue to develop like this.
Sooner or later, Liu Jin and others will ride on their heads and dominate them, and the power of the inner court will eventually fall away.
However, in fact, the civil servants of the outer court are now enduring the same humiliation. It is becoming more and more difficult for the civil servants to have an audience with the emperor. Liu Jin and others have also learned to behave, and they are polite to the important ministers of the outer court. Officials of the outer court have an audience with the emperor.
when
They would also report in time with a smile on their face. However, they often got the following words: "The Emperor is resting," "The Emperor is inconvenienced at the moment," "The Emperor please come to see him later," and the Emperor said, "Just hand me the note, there is no need to see you."
.
At first, the three cabinet ministers and the ministers of various ministries were able to see the emperor without any hindrance. Later, even Liu Jian and Li Dongyang had to see the emperor by chance. What was annoying was that they could not catch any Liu Jin at all.
Because the Emperor is already surrounded by servants from the East Palace, there is no inside information to spread.
It's not that the outer court didn't think of a way. In fact, they used a very insidious method, which was fishing. They asked people to bribe Liu Jin, Zhang Yong and others with heavy sums of money, trying to catch Liu Jin again through this method.
However, Liu Jin and others obviously learned to be good and refused them all and refused verbally.
When Liu Ji, the minister of the Ministry of Rites, secretly took out three hundred taels of silver and tried to bribe Liu Jin, Liu Jin grabbed his hand and dragged him to Zhu Houzhao and reported the matter. Liu Ji was disgraced and quickly admitted his mistake. Zhang Sheng, the Minister of Rites, who learned the news, hurriedly
He came to plead for mercy, and then the serious matter was reduced to a trivial matter, and he was given a reprimand and the matter was settled.
Faced with this situation, the anger of the outer court can be imagined. Everyone kept coming to the three cabinet ministers to ask for measures. Even Xie Qian himself couldn't calm down and became furious. But Liu Jian and Li Dongyang
But they remained calm. Their idea was very simple. Let Liu Jin and others jump higher, act more recklessly, and cause more public anger. Only then can they be more united in the future liquidation and achieve what they want.
result.
The balloon is constantly blowing up, and one day it will explode. And that day is not far away. Under the quiet and peaceful appearance of the court, there is an increasingly weird and tense atmosphere.
Interestingly, compared to the behavior of Liu Jin and others, Jianchang Hou behaved very low-key here.
For more than a month, Jianchang Hou seemed to have disappeared from people's sight. He spent most of his time in Fusi Yamen, Jinyiweinan Town, and did not have frequent contact with Liu Jin and others, or even even
I only went to the palace twice, and they were just to see Queen Mother Zhang.
However, he seemed to like going out for an outing. During this period, he took his wife and concubines to his Xishan Manor five times. Each time, the whole family went out in great force. The Jinyi Guards of Nanzhen Fusi
The guards naturally followed, but there was nothing wrong with this. After all, they had been attacked before, and there was nothing wrong with mobilizing Nanzhen Fusi's manpower for protection.
The news obtained from Mu Bin is that Zhang Yanling seems to have no longer engaged in any secret activities or done anything excessive, whether in Nanzhen Fusi Yamen or in other aspects.
Of course, Mou Bin also admitted that there were gaps in tracking Zhang Yanling's whereabouts. For example, he had no idea what Zhang Yanling was doing in Xishan Manor. He only knew that Zhang Yanling was carrying out large-scale construction projects in Xishan Manor and purchasing goods from Xishan Mine.
A large amount of bluestone gravel was purchased, and a large amount of materials were purchased. There were also many well-covered vehicles loaded with goods to be transported to the Xishan Manor.
When the people sent by Mou Bin to follow up tried to approach Xishan Manor for detailed investigation, they were interrogated by Zhang Yanling's men, and the secret was almost exposed. In the end, they had to pass by to excuse themselves.
There are various signs that it seems that after that court meeting, Zhang Yanling decided to keep a low profile and change his appearance to avoid becoming the focus of others. There was even a sense of deliberately compromising in exchange for forgiveness from the outer court and others.
However, how could the civil servants in the outer court, the big shots in the inner court, Mou Bin and others forget about this culprit. He, Zhang Yanling, has long been the target of public criticism and a thorn in the flesh, and it is absolutely impossible to be forgiven. No matter how low-key he is,
Nor can it be forgiven.
Of course Zhang Yanling was not idle, nor did he keep a low profile as others thought, hoping to be forgiven and forgiven. Zhang Yanling had no illusions about the situation, and he was intensively making his own preparations.
On March 19, all thirty bird guns and muskets were completed and all tests were completed.
On March 26, the first grotto cave under Wild Dog Ridge was excavated.
On the fifth day of April, the Bird Gun Musketeers Guards were formally established after layers of selection. Bird guns were officially distributed to thirty guards, and large-scale shooting training and three-stage shooting formation drills were carried out.
On the tenth day of April, the double short-barreled short-fire blunderbuss was successfully manufactured.
On April 18, the improved paper-packed bullets entered production line, with a daily production of 300 rounds of paper-packed bullets. Using purified gunpowder, they had a longer range and greater power.
During this period, Zhang Yanling, Liu Jin and others met several times at the mountain house beside Jishuitan. The two parties further established a cooperative relationship and discussed countermeasures. Both parties understood that the other party would not give up. The calm in front of them was just the calm before the storm, and the follow-up would be inevitable.
There are big moves.
Zhang Yanling was quite surprised that Liu Jin had such a clear understanding. What surprised Zhang Yanling even more was that Liu Jin had actually won over several civil servants in the outer court to work for him. Liu Yu, the Minister of the Ministry of War, and Zhang Cai, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, were all placed outside by him.
Court's eyeliner.
Moreover, during several conversations, Zhang Yanling also gained a better understanding of Liu Jin. Liu Jin was more courageous and had bigger goals than he imagined. During the conversation, Liu Jin actually had a deep understanding of Wang Zhen, the eunuch who was involved in the Tumu Fort Incident.
He admired him very much and regarded him as his idol, which made Zhang Yanling speechless.
Of course, Zhang Yanling had heard about some things in the palace. But Zhang Yanling did not dissuade Liu Jin and others from their actions. Zhang Yanling knew that Liu Jin had to gain Zhu Houzhao's favor through this kind of favor. If he did not strengthen his relationship with Zhu Hou,
If Liu Jin and others do not have a high status in Zhu Houzhao's mind, what is the point of cooperating with him?
?
In short, even though he had the psychological barrier of being ashamed to be complicit with the eunuch party, Zhang Yanling still overcame this psychological discomfort in the face of reality. Even though he knew that Liu Jin would be a big cancer in the future, in the face of powerful enemies inside and outside the court,
, cooperation at this moment is imperative.
On the sixth day of May, after half a year of construction, the Tailing Mausoleum in Bijia Mountain was officially completed. On the ninth day of May, Emperor Hongzhi's coffin was ceremoniously buried in the underground palace. When the tomb door closed, everything about Zhu Youtang also
Everything seemed to have been wiped away from the world. The relieved Zhu Houzhao issued an edict the next morning and announced a piece of news that shocked civil and military officials.