Peerless Pirates

It should be said that since the palace coup more than ten years ago, the high-level politics of Daqi have come to Academy City in an extremely abnormal atmosphere. Political goals are often achieved by directly destroying the opponent's body. It is a precursor to troubled times. In a dynasty, normal political struggles often follow the general historical rule that "the official cannot be punished".

Especially assassination, this extreme method is a last resort and is often not used unless it is pushed to the extreme. However, in Daqi now, it has become a norm. When the major case of the Ju family broke out, Pang Hui took the opportunity to kill He Kuan, the city guard supervisor; Song Zheng himself was sniped at the Lian Family Boathouse... All of the above made people feel chilly.

Wang Yan died under mysterious circumstances, and the Queen Mother Huang Jiao and the young emperor Pang Ying were furious. Huang Feng, the commander of the Du Wei Army, resigned to investigate, and six or seven generals were dismissed, and the City Guards deployed manpower to fill their posts. Although Huang Yuandu tried hard, Huang Feng was finally dismissed. Although he had heavy responsibilities, he had to be demoted and transferred to Luoyang Pass as the left pacifier. Since then, the Duwei Army founded by Huang Yuandu officially announced that it was out of Huang Yuandu's control.

The new governor of the Imperial Guard is a figure that no one expected - the former Governor of Shipping Liang Shouxin, the Governor of Water Transport Lei Mingjue and the Governor of Shipping Liang Shouxin have always been closely related to the Prime Minister's Office. The seven existing governors in Daqi Among them (the newly added governor of Xijingguan), the maritime governor Liang Shouxin is the weakest, and he is much inferior to Lei Mingjue. This is probably because sea transportation plays a much smaller role than water transportation. Liang Shouxin can be controlled by the imperial guard. , is a big promotion.

After all, the Duwei Army was founded by Huang Yuandu himself. Although Huang Feng was removed, Liang Shouxin, who had a good relationship with the Prime Minister, was replaced. The meaning is also thought-provoking. On the surface, it may be because Pang Tong did not want to be too Huang Yuandu was over stimulated, so he promoted Liang Shouxin to the position. As for the actual situation, Song Zheng was not sure.

Among the many personnel changes in the military, the most surprising one is Dong Lancheng. Dong Lancheng, the former right minister of the Ministry of War, was Pang Hui's absolute confidant. After Pang Hui died of illness in Xijing, Dong Lancheng competed for the position of Taiwei. Later, Pang Tong took the position. , Dong Lancheng was facing the situation of being dismissed. It was rumored that Dong Lancheng was ready to return to his old age. However, after the Spring Festival, Dong Lancheng suddenly became active. Not only was he not dismissed, but he was also promoted to Shangshu of the Ministry of Justice.

After some inquiring, Yousi learned that Dong Lancheng had defected to Pang Tong. As Prince Pang Hui's absolute confidant, no one knew Pang Hui's behind-the-scenes arrangements and details better than Dong Lancheng, including the amount of free pay for each army, personnel deployment, etc. The reason why Pang Tong was able to eliminate dissidents so smoothly was because Dong Lancheng had made great contributions. Otherwise, Pang Tong would not have started such a big war as soon as he took office.

There was another personnel change that troubled Song Zheng a lot, that is, his father-in-law, Lu Hengshan, was transferred to Jiangning, promoted to the left commander of the Imperial Guard Army, and officially included in the ranks of senior military officials. The five major border armies of Daqi, plus Water transportation and sea transportation, plus the city guards and capital guards guarding Jiangning, there are nine major military systems, with nine people as governors or commanders, and 18 deputies (pacification envoys on the left and right or envoys on the left and right), plus There are twenty-seven people in total, who can be considered the real top military officials.

Song Zheng knew his father-in-law very well. Lu Hengshan was very utilitarian. In the past two years, he even thought of finding a way out of Jiangning, but he temporarily stopped thinking about it because of the strange situation. Unexpectedly, during the time he left Jiangning, Lu Hengshan would Hengshan actually approached the Duke's Mansion and obtained the high position of the Zuo Commander of the City Guards!

What does Pang Tong mean? Why did he choose Lu Hengshan? Song Zheng did not naively think that Pang Tong had no available people, or he really took a fancy to Lu Hengshan's talent. With Pang Tong's ability, it is impossible not to know that Lu Hengshan Hengshan is Song Zheng's father-in-law. So why did he do this? In Song Zheng's eyes, Pang Tong is a thousand-year-old demon fox who has hidden deeply. There must be deep meaning in doing so.

There was a lot of content in Cai Yong's report, and Song Zheng couldn't think about it deeply. Another important piece of information came out: Wei Buzhou, a contemporary great scholar, was reinstated and returned to the post of chief teacher of Jiangning Academy of Literature! Not only that, Wei Buzhou He also became a court instructor again, just like Song Zheng's father Song Jue.

Compared with the previous information, this surprised Song Zheng even more. You must know that in order to make Neo-Confucianism the mainstream, Huang Yuandu drove many traditional Confucian disciples out of public schools, including Wei Buzhou. Now Wei Tong actually obtained To enable it, this is directly digging into Huang Yuandu's heart.

"When did Wei Buzhou activate it?" Song Zheng couldn't help but ask. During Cai Yong's narration just now, Song Zheng never asked the question. Now that he finally asked, it shows that he attaches great importance to this matter.

Cai Yong didn't know much about things like Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism. He just reported the information compiled by Mu Yu to Song Zheng one by one. When Song Zheng asked questions, he quickly said, "It happened half a month ago. It is said that it was The Holy One summoned Wei Buzhou, and later personally ordered Wei Buzhou to be appointed as a court instructor, and on the third day he was reinstated as the chief instructor of the Academy of Arts."

Song Zheng knew that Wei Buzhou had taught the young emperor in the palace, but after being dismissed from his post in the Academy of Arts by Huang Yuandu, Wei Buzhou never set foot in the palace again. This time, Pang Ying suddenly summoned Wei Buzhou If there was no one behind Zhou Zhou, Song Zheng would not believe it at all.

"Huang Yuandu was deprived of the Imperial Guard, and now Wei Buzhou, whom he denounced, has become the chief professor of the Academy of Arts. I don't believe that Huang Yuandu didn't fight back at all?"

"Young master, your eyes are as sharp as a torch." Cai Yong said quickly, "Huang Yuandu once made a suggestion to the Holy One, requesting that the Ministry of Household Affairs send more food supervisors to the border troops in various places to cooperate with the inspection of empty pay opportunities and control the flow of the imperial pay and silver. But in the Holy One, There, the proposal was not passed. Instead, a different approach was adopted. The Holy Emperor wanted to set up supervisory troops in the border armies, which would be filled by palace eunuchs, just like the city guards and the capital guards. When Xiao Xiao left Jiangning, this matter It is still under discussion, but the possibility of enactment is very high.”

Song Zheng frowned and used eunuchs as supervisors. The Ming Dynasty was the pinnacle of history. But the eunuchs were even less trustworthy. Apart from being greedy for money, there were really not many eunuchs who could do serious work. Huang Yuandu's The counterattack was sharp, but when it came to the little emperor, the eunuchs became trustworthy. The food supervisor of the Ministry of Household Affairs was replaced by the eunuchs who supervise the army. This idea was very clever in terms of strategy, but in terms of actual results That said, it's really bad.

Cai Yong continued, "Right now, Huang Yuandu seems to be in a big trouble. There are rumors in Jiangning City that the Holy Emperor no longer trusts Huang Yuandu. In addition, Huang Yuandu is also involved in a case, which is the 300,000 taels of silver allocated by the Ministry of Accounts. He disappeared inexplicably, and someone brought up the old case again. It is said that Huang Yuandu was involved."

Song Zheng's eyes widened instantly. He knew very well about this matter. His friend Xu Mingxuan's wife, Tang Wan, had a father who was the household minister. Because 300,000 taels of silver were taken away, Tang Wan's father was beheaded. Tang Wan She also fell into prostitution. After several tortures, Tang Wan and Xu Mingxuan came together. Based on the news that Song Zheng originally heard, it seems that Huang Yuandu used the 300,000 taels of silver to replenish the capital guard army. Why is this Why did the incident come out again now?

Cai Yong didn't know the mystery anymore and just went on to report the next news.

"Sir, there is one more thing that Mu Dutong didn't have time to check. I heard that Datong Bank and Kaibao Bank are going to set up a Huilian account. The two major banks will jointly provide bank loans to the court to make up for the court's deficit."

"What?" Song Zheng stood up immediately.

Cai Yong was startled. In his opinion, the previous news was more shocking than this one, and Song Zheng was not as surprised as he was now. Little did he know that Song Zheng felt an extremely unusual meaning from it, a line I also slowly connected some things together.

Due to Da Qi's efforts to march into Guanzhong, the imperial government's finances were extremely tight. Pang Ying and Huang Yuandu worked hard to sustain this war. It doesn't take Song Zheng to know that Da Qi's financial situation should be extremely serious now. If Huilian If the account is established and the loan is given to the court, then the mortgage will definitely be the taxes paid by the court in the next few years. To put it another way, Huilian will kidnap the entire court.

It should be noted that since the founding of the Qi Dynasty, Daqi has always paid little corvee and hid wealth among the people, which is why it has today's prosperity. These taxes were originally not enough to support the huge court expenses. Huang Yuandu originally sold many interests such as salt, wine, and mines to Everyone in Jiangnan not only exchanged for their support, but also increased taxes in disguise.

For example, at the beginning of the Republic of China, the price of salt in the country was only a dozen cents per catty, and the annual salt tax was only more than 400,000 taels. After the salt was handed over to the Ji family and other big families for monopoly, they turned in about 800,000 taels every year. See It seems that the imperial court's income has doubled, but the price of salt has been rising year after year, and finally increased several times or even ten times.

This policy not only caused the price of salt to skyrocket, but also harmed the interests of the court in disguise. As a result, Da Qi's "hiding wealth among the people" became "hiding wealth in the big families". Huang Yuandu also realized that he had made a mistake, and when he couldn't bear it anymore , chose to cooperate with Pang Hui, directly inspected the Ji family, and took back the salt.

As a result, the Jiangnan people were saddened and felt the crisis. In Huang Yuandu's established policy, there was also a plan to gradually weaken the Jiangnan people, which prompted the Jiangnan people to gradually separate from Huang Yuandu. However, due to the alliance between Pang Hui and Huang Yuandu, their power was unprecedentedly huge , everyone in Jiangnan has not yet come up with a reliable way to defeat Huang Yuandu.

Everyone in Jiangnan urgently needs new agents. After Pang Hui's death and Pang Tong's rise to power, an excellent opportunity appeared. The alliance between Kaibao Bank and Datong Bank began to take shape. You must know that the shareholders of Kaibao Bank, They are from a military family. They are some of the powerful generals led by Taizu after he crossed south. This is why Kaibao Bank, as the second largest bank in the country, is headquartered in Kaifeng.

The largest shareholder of Datong Bank is actually the Bao family, one of the big names in Jiangnan. They originally competed with Kaibao Bank, but now they want to join forces, so someone must be pulling money from it. This person is also obvious, and he must be Pang Tong. Pangtong has a deep foundation in the military, and Kaibao Bank also has shares in it. Everyone in Jiangnan wanted to abandon Huang Yuandu, so they chose to cooperate with Pangtong.

In a word, everyone in Jiangnan chose to support Pang Tong. In this case, they would definitely try their best to replace the prime minister and move Huang Yuandu down. Under Pang Tong's planning, a series of strategies against Huang Yuandu were launched. The capital guards changed Marshal, seized Huang Yuandu's only military power; Wei Buzhou Qifu seized Huang Yuandu's foundation of Neo-Confucianism; he brought up old cases again, leaving Huang Yuandu busy.

From this point of view, Pang Tong is playing a big game: with the help of the emperor to investigate the salary issue, clean up the dissidents in the army, and firmly control the military power. At the same time, he will try every means to dig into Huang Yuandu's corner, reach out to the political power, and at the right time When the time comes, he can replace himself with a prime minister who can cooperate with him. In this way, the day when he can take control of the entire Da Qi government is not far away.