The Reborn Duke of Ming Dynasty

"How's Southwest going?" Zhang Fan asked Wang Meng.

Recently, there have been too many things. After Long Qing passed away, the court has been busy in the past half a month, whether it is the emperor's funeral, or something about the palace, such as Zhu Yijun; or Zhang Fan was by his side for everything about the court officials.

Although it is said that Jin Yiwei's identity is often invisible to the public, but in many cases, Jin Yiwei's role is huge.

For example, now that the emperor has passed away and the new emperor is about to ascend the throne, then the direction of the officials in the imperial court is the most debatable issue at the moment. At this time, the Jinyiwei can play the most role, responsible for monitoring Hundreds of officials can obtain a lot of useful information, the most important of which is to understand the thoughts of these ministers, the direction of the court in the future, the interest relationship between the party and the masses in the court, these are related to various aspects of future events , all of which can be known through Jin Yiwei.

Therefore, Zhang Fan, who seemed to be doing nothing during this period of time, was actually very busy. The news from various places came from Zhili, some from South Zhili, and more from various provinces of Ming Dynasty. All the news is gathered here, and then, which news is false or unimportant, must be eliminated one by one; and those important news must be sorted out and reported.

And Zhang Fan plays a very important role here. As the commander of Jinyiwei, and the prince and Taifu of the dynasty, he is obviously more qualified than other people to comment on the seriousness of these news. important.

The so-called report has another meaning. Originally, Jinyiwei was the emperor's personal guard, an organization that was loyal to the emperor. Of course, in most eras, its allegiance was not only to the emperor, but more It is controlled by the palm print eunuch of the Rites Supervisor.

But it's different now, since Zhu Xizhong took the position of Commander of Jinyiwei, this situation has changed.

Not to mention that the eunuch who was in charge of the ceremony at that time was not a person with a strong desire for power. Even if he was, his ability was very limited. More importantly, Zhu Xizhong was the descendant of Zhu Neng, the hero of Jingnan, who became a country by hereditary inheritance. The title of duke, this kind of person, this kind of descendant who is equivalent to the founding hero who was not killed by the founding emperor, is absolutely in control. This kind of person has always won the trust of the emperor, and will never let anyone except the emperor Anyone who can restrain him, the only person who can be above him is the emperor.

And when Zhang Fan took this position, the eunuch with the handprint of the supervisor of ceremonies was Chen Hong. This person who was recommended by Gao Gong had no means at all except flattery. , may reveal great flaws.

And Zhang Fan himself was extremely favored by Long Qing.

Now, Feng Bao, a talented, powerful, and ambitious eunuch, took this position, but the good thing is that Feng Bao and Zhang Fan are in a cooperative relationship. Feng Bao understands Zhang Fan's weight in the future, He doesn't know how to do that kind of thing, and Zhang Fan agrees with Feng Bao.

But now, the person Zhang Fan wants to report to is not Feng Bao, nor Zhu Yijun, the prince who is ten years old and is a few months away from taking the throne in a few days, but the one who will be the regent of the court and will become the prince in the future. Li Guifei, the actual ruler of the empire.

And this is just a factor of Zhang Fan's busy time. Another point is that the death of the first emperor and the ascension of the new emperor are very important events when these two things come together. The emperor’s funeral is still the enthronement of the new emperor. Not only all the officials come to the court, but also princes and county kings from other places. These are all people that Zhang Fan needs to monitor. I have understood the threat of these people for a long time, and I have already prepared for it, but I still have to take precautions.

What's more important, those who are from foreign vassals and those who are crowned kings will also be notified. If they are like the ruler of a small country in a remote place, it is not necessary, but this time, the most attention-getting person, I Answer also came to the capital.

In the Ming Dynasty, Tartars were not uncommon, and even in the history of Jinyiwei, there have been cases where a few Tartars sat on the command post of Jinyiwei.

But for me, for this Tatar ruler who is no less of a threat to Ming Dynasty than Wacha back then, it always makes people feel a bit uncomfortable to enter the capital of Ming Dynasty in such a peaceful and even humble way. same feeling.

Now, although I Da has surrendered, Da Ming and Tatars have reopened the mutual market, and I Da is now also with the help of the Ming court, suppressing the rebellion of the nobles in Tatars. It seems that the current Tatars and Da Ming are the same There is nothing wrong with each other, and the relationship is still very harmonious, but many people are very worried about this.

Therefore, Zhang Fan still has a major responsibility, which is to keep an eye on I Da and his party at all times.

Now, knowing that Zhu Yijun has successfully ascended the throne, the court seems to have calmed down, and I answer that he has returned to the north. Zhang Fan, who is somewhat free, remembered to ask about the situation in the southwest.

"My lord," Wang Meng replied with cupped hands, "there is indeed news from the southwest side, but because of the busy affairs in the imperial court recently, your lord has not been free, so this humble job is just self-assessment, and you didn't tell your lord the matter, so as not to annoy you ,"

"Well, I'm really busy recently," Zhang Fan said. He understood that Wang Meng did this because he cared about himself, and now, compared to the imperial court, the affairs in the southwest are really not a big deal. I haven’t received any news, which is a bit strange,”

"My lord, it's really good," Wang Meng continued, "That's why I didn't tell my lord what happened. It's really a matter in the southwest, and there hasn't been much progress so far."

"Oh," Zhang Fan became interested after hearing Wang Meng's words, "Tell me, what's going on?"

"The day that Fang Yueling gave us was the third day of June," Wang Meng said, "On that day, our people went to the teahouse called 'Cuimingxuan', and there were people watching from the dark nearby.

"Afterwards, there was a person wearing the same jade pendant as in the picture. Our people immediately contacted that person, because the others were too far away. We don't know what they said now, but they talked about it. Not long after, he stood up and followed the man away.

"Originally, our people wanted to follow them to see where they were going, but they found that there were many people watching there at that time, and it must be Fang Yueling's person. people didn't follow,"

"The person who came, do we know who it is?" Zhang Fan asked after pondering for a while.

"That person..." When Wang Meng said this, his face became a little hesitant.

"What's the matter?" Seeing Wang Meng's appearance, Zhang Fan couldn't help asking, "Is there any problem? This doesn't look like your Wang Meng usually does."

"My lord, that person...that person can be regarded as an old acquaintance of my lord," Wang Meng thought for a while, and finally replied.

"Oh, who is it?" After Wang Meng said this, Zhang Fan became even more interested.

"It's that Li Yang," Wang Meng said, and immediately closed his mouth tightly, looking at Zhang Fan, as if he was observing something.

"Li Yang." Hearing this name again, Zhang Fan frowned deeply.

Li Yang, one of the five hall masters of the Five Poison Sect, is superb in martial arts, and the technique of using poison is extremely powerful.

And this person, when he was caught by Zhang Fan, just persisted for a while, then he quit and switched to Zhang Fan's command.

After that, Li Yang worked in the Jinyiwei. Regardless of whether Zhang Fan sent someone to monitor him or not, he was always diligent and spared no effort in doing things. He contributed all his secret tricks for using poison and some unique formulas. Li Yang even lived like this for Zhang Fan's birth.

However, just when Zhang Fan and other Jinyiwei were completely at ease with him, who seemed extremely loyal, and when the matter involved the Five Poison Sect from which Li Yang was born, a sudden change occurred.

Li Yang once again staged a big show of rebellion, and this time, Li Yang's rebellion was not serious. He chose to rebel when Zhang Fan was by his side, which not only made Zhang Fan miss the opportunity to capture Fang Yueling and the others. The opportunity caused the cooked duck to fly away, and even almost took Zhang Fan's life.

This is unforgivable to many people, especially Wang Meng and Liang Chao, who have been reused because of Zhang Fan and no longer have to make connections in order to get up as in the past, so they are naturally very angry about this matter.

What's more, this incident caused Jin Yiwei, those who also came from the rivers and lakes, to feel extremely uneasy, for fear that Zhang Fan would turn his anger on them because of Li Yang's incident. Although Jin Yiwei wanted to deal with them easily, they didn't It's not that they are greedy for life and afraid of death, but Jin Yiwei is also responsible for taking care of their families.

It took Zhang Fan a lot of effort to stabilize the mood of the people in Weizhong.

"Let's leave this matter as it is for the time being." Zhang Fan seemed to have lost interest because of Li Yang's name, and didn't want to mention this matter again. "If anything happens, remember to report it to me."

"I understand," Wang Meng said, but when he heard Zhang Fan's order, Wang Meng's eyes flashed again, as if he had thought of something.

At this time, Liang Chao walked in. Although he walked steadily, the expression on Liang Chao's face was not relaxed.

Seeing Liang Chao, Zhang Fan and Wang Meng understood that something must have happened.

Wang Meng was by Zhang Fan's side, while Liang Chao was in charge of the communication, but Liang Chao was too emotional, everything was written on his face.

Now, with Liang Chao's appearance, even if he didn't speak, Zhang Fan knew that something bad had happened.