The Prosperous Era of Longwan

The Qianqing Palace was once again flooded with impeachment memorials from Yan Guan. This time, the impeachment was mainly made by officials from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and not many people from the Sixth Section participated.

A sneer appeared at the corner of Wei Guangde's mouth. Xu Jie had already thought about it. Knowing that Emperor Longqing was definitely unhappy and was about to find someone to vent his anger on, he threw out the people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate and asked them to attack Guo Pu. Emperor Longqing chose several scapegoats.

How could it be possible for Xu Jie to succeed and keep the members of the Xu Party in the Sixth Section?

Through Ouyang Yijing's relationship, Wei Guangde had already identified the closest people to Liu Keli and Xu Jie.

They will be promoted, but they will never stay in the court. Instead, they will be released as fifth-rank officials.

Such an official position is a high promotion for the imperial censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, but it is a low-profile position for the six subjects, because they usually start at the fifth rank when they transfer, and they still serve as officials in the capital.

A Beijing official, a senior official, more than half a rank, this is not just bragging.

Even in later generations, when local department-level cadres met central division-level cadres, they were treated with extra courtesy and did not dare to put on official airs at all.

As for why so many people are sparse, it is nothing more than the relationship between favors and money.

Over at the Sixth Section, Ouyang Yijing has already found out clearly that the people in the Sixth Section are mainly Zhang Lu from the Etiquette Department, Wu Shilai from the Engineering Department, Li Zhenyuan from the Engineering Department, and Shizhong from the Criminal Department. Zhang Jin and several others secretly contacted each other.

They either impeached him personally, or incited him behind his back, and brought some so-called victims to visit him to cry. It can be said that they racked their brains and collected various accusations to attack Guo Pu.

At this time, although Xu Jie and Li Chunfang were added to the cabinet, Guo Pu was constantly impeached, and the cabinet was in trouble.

After going back and forth for another half a month, Guo Pu was also exhausted physically and mentally, and he couldn't help but want to quit.

In fact, when an official becomes a cabinet minister, unless he can't do anything anymore, or he can't serve the six ministries and five temples, the cabinet ministers will generally not choose to retire.

In fact, Guo Pu still had the energy to continue serving as an official, and it would not be a big deal even if he stayed for another ten years. However, Gao Gong was about to leave, and he still refused to rely on Xu Jie, and he was alone in the cabinet.

Well, Xu Jie didn't do anything in the first few days after returning to the pavilion to run errands. In fact, he just wanted to win over Guo Pu, but the effect was not satisfactory, so he came up with the idea of ​​eradicating the root cause.

However, just when Xu Jie was planning to arrange for people to continue to contact people in the Metropolitan Procuratorate to impeach Guo Pu in turn, Guo Qian, the Minister of War, hurried to the cabinet.

"Sir, Chief Assistant, Anda's troops invaded Liaoyang in March and Datong in May. Recently, the border town received news. The traitor Zhao Quan told Anda that the defenses in Jizhou are very strong and there are many soldiers and generals, while the Shanxi area is The army is weak, the pavilions and barriers are sparse, and the defenses are weak. Shizhou and Xizhou are rich and have good iron. The officers and soldiers mainly defend Xuanfu and Datong, and it is difficult to come to rescue. It is said that Anda Khan has decided to adopt this strategy."

In Xu Jie's duty room, Guo Gan told the chief assistant opposite the news the Ministry of War had just received.

"You mean, there will be a war in Shanxi soon?"

Although Xu Jie didn't know much about military matters, Guo Qian came here with a serious look on his face, so he naturally didn't dare to ignore it.

Guo Qian said before that Shanxi's troops are empty and it seems that Anda Khan can easily succeed.

In the first year of Longqing, the new emperor had just ascended the throne. This should be the reason why Anda Khan dared to send another large army to attack.

Suddenly, Xu Jie became alert.

Think about why the other party came to attack the Ming Dynasty, and then think about what happened in the court in the past two months. If there was a major mistake in this war, would the emperor be angry with him, his chief minister?

"Shanxi doesn't have enough troops?"

Xu Jie grasped the key point and asked.

Guo Gan nodded.

"Then the Ministry of War will dispatch reinforcements from the surrounding towns of Datong, Yansui, Ningxia and other towns, and then go back and draft a report."

Xu Jie made a decision immediately, but Guo Qian did not move.

"What, any more questions?"

Xu Jie asked.

"Master Chief Assistant, apart from Ji Town and Xuanfu, none of the nine important towns on the imperial court has sufficient troops. It is difficult to maintain the current defense. Where can we reinforce Shanxi.

Even if reinforcements are really needed, they can only send troops from Ji Town. The troops that Xuan Mansion can mobilize are also extremely limited, but how dare they move from these two towns. "

Ji Town and Xuanfu were not only border towns, but also the cornerstones of the defense of the Ming Dynasty. If the order was issued, the cavalry could reach the walls of the capital in two or three days. Even if all the troops were mobilized, they would arrive in less than half a month.

Neither Xu Jie nor Guo Gan believed that the Jingying camp still had any fighting strength. In fact, in the 29th year of Jiajing, the emptiness of the Jingying camp had been completely exposed, and it was barely possible to defend the city, let alone go out to fight.

Throughout the dynasties, the Beijing army has been the most powerful fighting force of a dynasty. Wherever there is rebellion, the Beijing army can immediately set off to put down the rebellion.

This was the case even in the early Ming Dynasty, but things had changed drastically since Tumubao, and the strength of the Beijing camp had never been restored.

The most powerful soldiers and horses of the Ming Dynasty were the frontier troops at this time, and they were the cornerstone of the court's maintenance of rule.

"Ji Town cannot be moved. How many troops can Xuan Mansion mobilize?"

At any time, the safety of the capital comes first, so even if Xu Jie thought with his buttocks, he knew that the soldiers and horses in Jizhen could not be transferred from outside, so he could only take the idea to Xuanfu, where Ma Fang was the general commander anyway.

In the past, the relationship with Prince Yu's Mansion was relatively good, and he helped him a lot, but now it seemed that it was his turn to help him.

"The Xuanfu can mobilize no more than 10,000 troops."

Guo Qian thought for a while and roughly calculated a number.

"Ten thousand? Xuanfu has nearly 100,000 troops. Since the Battle of Wanquan last year, the cavalry have not dared to harass Xuanfu for a long time. Can't they send 20,000 to 30,000 troops?"

Xu Jie asked in disbelief.

"The Xuanfu is the northwest gateway to the capital. The Xuanfu is anxious to put the capital and Ji Town under martial law. How can we dare to conduct large-scale external transfers?"

Guo Gan said, "What's more, although Ma Fang had a great victory over Anda's tribe at Malianbao last time, the Qinqi were not injured. With the ferocity of the Tatars, they were always looking for opportunities to retaliate.

We also discussed it before we came here. Everyone in the Ministry of War felt that we could not mobilize large troops from Xuanfu, in case the Tatars failed to attack Shanxi and returned to attack Xuanfu, then the capital could be there."

The mobility of the Mongols has always been a big problem for the Central Plains dynasty. Since the Han Dynasty, they have been looking for ways to restrain it. But in the end, apart from sending a large army to actively sweep away the fortress and weaken the opponent's strength, there seems to be no way to deal with it.

The distant ones include the large-scale battles during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the more recent ones are the several northern expeditions to the grasslands in the early Ming Dynasty. Although some results were achieved, they ultimately wasted people and money.

And the results of those battles would be replenished by the Mongols in just a few decades, and they would form a new threat.

But now the Ming Dynasty is no longer able to support large armies like those in the early Ming Dynasty.

What's more, since Tumubao, the Ming army has almost lost its strength in field battles with the Mongols.

"Come here, please quickly invite Mr. Li Ge and others to come over to discuss matters."

Xu Jie knew that he could not make the decision on this matter. He had previously thought of letting the Ministry of War make the decision and then discuss it with the cabinet. Now it seems that the Ministry of War has few options, so he can only discuss it with the cabinet first.

Because of the incident in Shanxi, Xu Jie also hinted to his disciples that night that he would be slow to respond to Guo Pu's actions. When the war was about to begin, it would not be appropriate to provoke the court to besiege the cabinet ministers.

Although the number of impeachment memorials against Guo Pu decreased, the officials still did not collect so-called evidence of crime in private. From time to time, a memorial was sent to the palace, but Guo Pu could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, Wei Guangde didn't care about this. In the name of floods, he first transferred the engineering department to Wu Shilai, who went out to the capital to inspect various places to deal with floods. Wei Guangde wanted to come and once he had achieved results in assisting Zhu Heng in flood control, he was directly sent to the local government to be the prefect. Or some official.

This matter has been handled by him since last year, so the memorial was easily supported by the cabinet. Wu Shilai went on a foreign mission, but when Wei Guangde wanted to transfer the etiquette department to Zhang Lu, it seemed that This aroused Xu Jie's alarm and directly drafted a memorial against him on the cabinet vote.

The reason given by Xu Jie was that Zhang Lu was a Jinshi in the 38th year of Jiajing's reign and had insufficient experience in governing local areas. It was better to leave the post to a post in Shizhong and look for opportunities to transfer to the Sixth Department before delegating it to local areas.

Wei Guangde planned to let Zhang Lu serve as a provincial academic officer according to the Chasi Qianshi, so that his grade could be designated as the fifth grade.

At that time, tixueguan was called "tituiaoxueguan", which was a type of patrol patrol and was in the nature of a dispatching officer.

Each administrative region has one, and the southern and northern Zhili directly appoint a part-time censor for supervision. The local provinces are appointed by the deputy envoys and ministers of the censorship department.

The academic officer is fully responsible for the academic administration of a province, including imperial examinations and all school administrative affairs.

In addition, they also have the responsibility of supervising local officials to promote schools, but they do not care about the administration of money, food, punishment, and reputation.

Zhang Lu suddenly jumped from being a seventh-rank official to a fifth-rank Qingliu official. For most people, it was a piece of cake falling from the sky, but it was a pity that Xu Jie saw through it.

When Wei Guangde received the news from Chen Yiqin, he was still secretly upset, because as long as he was released, Wei Guangde had the ability to keep Zhang Lu in the position of academic officer for the rest of his life, and at most he would be promoted to the deputy envoy of the Imperial Examination Division, with a fourth rank, until his death. Official body leads to officialdom.

In the imperial examination, it is very easy to find errors and omissions.

Wei Guangde passed the imperial examination by stumbles. He was lucky, but he also heard many complaints from his classmates about the examination, especially the college examination.

The imperial examination is also the imperial examination for which the academic officer is fully responsible, and there are many tricks in it.

Just like his two fellow countrymen, brothers Zeng Yuanshu and Zeng Yuanrui, they passed the academic examination after Wei Guangde passed the joint examination and became scholars in the Ming Dynasty. However, in the following years, they repeatedly failed in the provincial examination.

Zeng Yuanshu was a scholar who was admitted by himself, so I won’t go into details. However, Zeng Yuanrui was much smarter than Zeng Yuanshu. He failed the college examination twice. It was not until Zeng Yuanshu brought his brothers to visit the master of Jiangxi Tixue that the college examination went smoothly in the second year. Go ashore.

Up to now, the two brothers are still fighting for the provincial examination.

However, Zeng Yuanshu wrote to him, saying that after he won the title of Juren, he would take part in two general examinations. If he failed, Wei Guangde would arrange a good place for him, and he would become an official as a Juren.

In this regard, Wei Guangde has no problem. As long as he does not want to use his status as a scholar to become an official, it is a bit difficult.

In the early Ming Dynasty, it was easy for a scholar to become an official. However, there are no more scholars to be officials in the country. Even if it is to promote people, there is not much room, so we can only start with the edict of a county.

This was the idea that Wei Guangde had in mind when he wanted to send those people to be academic officials.

If you really want to get rid of them, all you need to do is check the results of the college entrance examination. Wei Guangde doesn't believe that these people go somewhere without stealing.

Unfortunately, Xu Jie discovered it the second time he took action.

Wei Guangde summed up the lesson and felt that he should be the one who was impatient.

It is best to bring this matter up only when there is a vacancy in the place and the court needs to fill it urgently.

If you take the initiative to play, you will definitely attract others' attention.

Smacking his lips, Wei Guangde could only put away the prepared list and wait for the opportunity to take action.

As for the crisis in Shanxi, the cabinet and the Ministry of War held several discussions in succession, and in the end they only asked Yansui and Ningxia towns to gather troops to support Shanxi town at any time. At the same time, Xuanfu and Datong also did the same thing.

After all, the safety of the capital must always come first.

Although Anda Khan intends to attack Shanxi, who knows when he will launch it.

Don't go around Shanxi to fight with soldiers and horses, and they will go to Liaoyang to hunt grass in the valley.

Between offense and defense, the attacking side always takes the active position, while the defensive side is passive.

Chen Yiqin asked Wei Guangde for advice, but Wei Guangde had no good solution.

When Ma Fang and Yu Dayou went out of the fortress, it was all a sneak attack. They did not dare to take the few cavalry from Xuanfu to fight in the field with Anda Khan's army. That was a way to die.

In this case, not to mention that Wei Guangde himself is not a military genius, even if he is, there is actually no good way to solve it.

But it was at this time that Ge Shouli, the Minister of Household Affairs, went to the court to beg his adopted mother to return.

Months ago, after Ge Shouli petitioned to stop the "One Whip Method", Emperor Longqing considered it for two days and summoned cabinet ministers to discuss the prelude with Ge Shouli. Although Zhang Juzheng strongly opposed the suspension, there was a huge difference between the north and the south. As Ge Shouli said, " The "One Whip Method" seems to be more suitable for implementation in the south, while in the north, because a large number of lands have been annexed by the royal family and nobles, there is great resistance to implementation.

Emperor Longqing also fell silent for a while after knowing the source of the resistance.

The imperial court was short of money, so the "one whip method" could be used to increase the imperial court's income. However, the Minister of Household Affairs was opposed to this method, so what else could he do?

Emperor Longqing couldn't help but think of the ridiculous things done by the salt patrol censor who replaced Yan Maoqing when Yan Song fell. In the name of bringing order to chaos, he eliminated the method designed by Yan Maoqing to increase salt tax revenue for the court, which cost the court one year. Huge income tax.

Emperor Longqing still remembered Wei Guangde's attitude when he talked about this matter.

Although I really don't want to agree, the words have come to this point, and the opponents are all staunch supporters of imperial power.

After a brief consideration, Emperor Longqing finally nodded, agreed to Ge Shouli's instructions, and stopped the whipping method to collect taxes and services.

But in his heart, Emperor Longqing also labeled Ge Shouli as incompetent.

According to the logic that Wei Guangde instilled in him, it would be appropriate for the Minister of Rites to oppose this method because it "violates the ancestral system" and can increase the court's fiscal revenue. As the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, he should not object. Not only cannot he object, but It must be actively supported.

Obviously, Ge Shouli is not such a person.

After the news came out that the imperial court had stopped the "One Whip Method", officials within the Ministry of Household Affairs had great opinions, especially the doctors of the Jiangnan Qing Li Department. The chief officials had great opinions.

Xu Jie was dissatisfied with Gao Gong last time, but this time he finally found an opportunity. With Xu Jie's secret support, a storm that overcame the superiors was staged in the household department.