Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 144 Helpless Coping (Part [-])
Jingxuan Yage, with carved railings and jade bricks, looks especially elegant under the cover of winter snow that has not yet melted away.

Although there are many Zhongfu gardens in Sijiu City, it is rare to see a scholar's mansion like Zhang Juzheng with a bit of southern atmosphere.

It's just that at this time, Zhang Juzheng, Grand Master Zhang, was rarely standing by the window of Xiaoxuan where the wind was particularly strong, his brows were tightly furrowed, and his face was gloomy.

It stands to reason that the current overall situation is as Zhang Juzheng expected, and he shouldn't look like this: since he tried every means to lead the government to the point where he had to invite Gao Gong back, Gao Gong has recovered smoothly, and Zhao Zhenji has an opponent. Putting senior qualifications in front of him has become an extravagant expectation; Gao Gong is also roughly as Zhang Juzheng expected. Although he did not clearly break out with Zhao Zhenji, Zhao Zhenji dislikes almost everything he can do. Sooner or later, the conflict will erupt.

As for Li Chunfang, this Yuanfu who has nothing to do, has a lot of ink, but has neither practical ability nor ambition. He is just a dead bone in the grave. Just sit on the sidelines, there is no need to worry.

Chen Yiqin, my colleague for many years still hopes to abide by neutrality, and seems to want to consider himself a lonely minister, but his situation seems to be different from his own. If he really wants to be impartial, in fact, there is no possibility at all.Although Gao Gong can probably tolerate this old colleague who at least will not take the initiative to do bad things in his heart, Zhang Juzheng is sure that as long as Gao Gong becomes the chief assistant, he will definitely try to cure many chronic diseases in the country in his eyes. I can't stand it.However, how could Chen Yiqin compete with Gao Gong? Either he jumped out to oppose and was forced to leave by Gao Gong;

Not only did these things that are closely related to his position in the cabinet develop as expected earlier, even including the unexpected Songjiang withdrawal case, Gao Gong also changed his mind following his own persuasion. Press down on the teacher's troubles... This can be regarded as repaying the teacher's kindness back then, right?

It seems that everything is normal and everything is going well.

But Zhang Juzheng has not been a fool for nothing after all these years. He has been an official for so many years, and he always doesn't like to talk too much, but he likes to speculate.Not only do you think about almost everything you experience and observe, but you also think about everyone you come into contact with and observe.

Sensitively, Zhang Juzheng discovered that there was something wrong - there might be some inside story about the prince's playmate incident that he didn't know.

It seems that this incident just started on the emperor's whim, and the root cause is that the emperor loved the prince and thought of his loneliness back then, so he had a whim and found a few young men from the family of military officials Xungui who were about the same age as the prince to accompany him. The prince played for more than ten days.

If the matter only reached this point, according to past experience, the next step must be that the officials scolded, the emperor confessed, and then took it back and gave an explanation.Even what the emperor can say is nothing more than what Zhang Juzheng can predict out of ten: The prince is depressed recently, I am worried that the prince will be depressed for a long time, so I let them play with the prince for a few days, this is a special case, Qing, etc. Don't worry.

The emperor seems to have indeed done this, just one thing: the emperor seems to have recognized the counsel too thoroughly, so that he not only withdrew his playmates, but also said that he would choose a person with good character and talent from the civil servants above the third rank in Beijing. A young man who is outstanding and about the same age as the prince enters the palace to accompany the prince to study.

Speaking of this matter alone, it seems that the emperor was afraid of being scolded, so he showed his favor to the civil officials.But after Zhang Juzheng quietly sent You Qiduo to collect evidence, he keenly noticed that something was wrong.

First of all, the current emperor is no better than before. He already has Gao Gong, a teacher who can shield him from the wind and rain again, and Gao Gong's current power in Beijing is enough to complete this task. Thinking about it, if you don't want to completely tear yourself apart with the officials, then you only need to send those children home, why bother to post a book to accompany the prince to study?

Secondly, there is something wrong with Gao Gong's performance in this incident.It stands to reason that with Gao Gong's personality and level of holy family, when the emperor first issued an order to let those children enter the palace to play with the prince, he should directly stand up and persuade him.But he didn't, not only didn't, he even seemed to acquiesce in such behavior.This is too abnormal, Gao Gong himself is also a civil servant, and in fact the first civil servant of the Longqing Dynasty, he has no reaction to such a thing, what is he thinking?It's impossible to take the opportunity to win over the nobles—Gao Gong may look at some capable and talented generals differently, but he will never take those nobles as a big deal, let alone those mere little boys up.

But at that time Zhang Juzheng put himself in Gao Gong's position and thought carefully for a long time, but he couldn't figure out the reason for Gao Gong's silence.

It wasn't until the emperor said that he would choose children from the third rank and above in the Beijing civil servant's family to accompany the prince to study, that Zhang Juzheng suddenly thought of the Gao family boy he had seen that day when Gao Gongqi returned to Beijing.

Could it be... Gao Gong intentionally let his nephew enter the palace to be this accompanying student?

However, even if he had this thought at this time, before the emperor didn't mention this, he had already chosen to keep silent, why is that?

Unless, this matter itself was promoted by him behind the scenes!
Perhaps this incident was not due to the emperor's whim, but a strategy Gao Gong had set up long ago, and his only purpose was to send his little nephew to the prince's side!

Zhang Juzheng suddenly felt that the wind blowing on his face was a little colder, and his usually solemn and majestic face turned pale.

When did Gao Gong learn to use these insidious tricks?Where does he stand?What about his reserve?What about his conduct?Where have they all gone!

Zhang Juzheng took a deep breath, and straightened out his messy thoughts.

According to inquiries, everything was normal during this time, except for the habitual two separate meetings with Gao Gong, whether it was the respect for the cabinet proposals, or the habits of daily life, and even including the fact that he always loved eating donkey intestines. Nothing has changed, including small details.

But Zhang Juzheng still thought of a key point: he himself, the emperor's disciple, has never been very courageous. Regarding some old systems, unless Gao Gong persisted, he would be able to stay firm and not change.Because doing this kind of thing is unavoidable to be dismissed by the officials, saying that it is against the ancestral system.In the past, only Gao Gong persisted. He had the courage to do it because he had his own teacher as a shield.

So there are only two possibilities for this:

One is that this matter was indeed done on the emperor's whim, and later Gao Gong put forward a private remonstrance and mixed in some private goods by the way.If this is the case, it is still a blessing in misfortune.

I'm afraid of the second possibility: this matter was promoted by Gao Gong from the beginning, with the purpose of getting his nephew close to the prince!

If so, it's scary.

(End of this chapter)