Daming: My boss Zhu Yuanzhang

Outside the Zhengyang Gate of the capital, Li Wei and Xue Xiang walked side by side, followed by many officials and Confucian scholars. In addition to the people from the Ministry of Works and the Department of Finance that Li Wei was familiar with, there were also some unfamiliar faces that he did not recognize.

Xue Xiang has been in power for many years and has a wide range of connections, but from now on, these connections belong to Li Wei.

When he reached a fork in the road far away from the city gate, Xue Xiang paused, turned around and said to everyone: "We will see each other again after thousands of miles, so please stay."

Jiang Shouqing, Wang Jie and others stopped one after another and returned the greeting with their hands raised: "Then I'll see you off soon. Master Xue, walk slowly!"

Xue Xiang smiled and nodded: "Everyone, take care!"

"Take care of yourself."

After saying goodbye to everyone, Xue Xiang left the crowd, took his servants, a donkey, and a simple baggage with him and set off alone.

After taking two steps, he looked back at Li Wei, who was standing there, and said with a chuckle: "Master Li, why don't you give me another paragraph?"

Li Wei paused slightly, nodded and said, "That's fine."

He said and followed him.

The two gradually walked away, and Wang Jie, Sun Jian and others also turned back to the city.

On the official road, Xue Xiang and Li Wei walked in front, followed by the servant leading the donkey.

"After you return to your hometown, will your living expenses be sufficient? How about I give you some pension money?" Li Wei asked.

Xue Xiang smiled and said, "You don't need to worry about this. Your Majesty has given me a lot of rewards this time, and I still have acres of land for my children, which is enough for me to spend the rest of my life peacefully."

Zhu Yuanzhang rewarded him with five thousand guanbao banknotes this time. With the purchasing power of the new banknotes, as long as he did not spend it arbitrarily, the money would be enough to support him in his old age.

In addition to money, there are also farmland and Wenqi. Zhu Yuanzhang is still very generous this time.

After listening, Li Wei nodded gently.

After walking for a while, Xue Xiang suddenly stopped and said to the servant behind him: "You go ahead and wait for me. I will have a few words with Master Li and I will follow you later."

"Okay sir."

The servant responded respectfully, and then led the donkey away alone.

Li Wei looked at him and knew that he had something to give him alone, so he was not in a hurry and waited quietly for the servant to go away.

Sure enough, when the servant's figure disappeared in front of him, Xue Xiang spoke softly:

"After we say goodbye this time, I'm afraid we won't see each other again. I still have something to say to you in detail."

When Li Wei heard this, he felt a little sad. In today's era, transportation is inconvenient, and there is no convenient network to contact him at any time. Xue Xiang is so old. It is estimated that as he said, if we say goodbye today, we will say goodbye forever.

"Sir, if you have anything to say, just say it. I'm all ears, kid." Li Wei was rarely polite.

Xue Xiang smiled with satisfaction and continued: "After I leave this time, it won't be long before you can be promoted to Minister of the Ministry of Industry. Since His Majesty resigned from the Ministry of Education, the six ministers have been the head of the civil service. You He is a very human minister, so you should be more cautious when doing things in the future. Your ideas are good, but you should think twice before implementing them and not be reckless."

"Hey, not necessarily. I heard that Zhang Zongyi and the others are walking around, so they probably want to stop me." Li Wei sighed.

With his current status, someone would tell him some things without him taking the initiative to inquire about them, and it would be difficult for him not to know.

Zhang Zongyi and Zhao Jun went around to visit the nobles, and all they wanted was to help Zhao Jun compete with him for the position of Minister of the Ministry of Works. In the early Ming Dynasty, the military was strong and the civil servants were weak. The weight of the nobles in the court was far beyond that of the civil servants. Even Zhu Yuanzhang handled He had to be careful when picking them up, otherwise with his hatred for corrupt officials, he would have killed all these lawless nobles long ago.

However, Xue Xiang chuckled and said: "No one can stop what Your Majesty wants to do. Your promotion to the position of Minister is inevitable. There is no need to worry about it."

Li Wei was startled, and felt that it was right. If Zhu Yuanzhang insisted on raising him to the position of top leader of the Ministry of Industry, it would be useless even if Zhang Zongyi persuaded all these nobles.

"But this is not what I want to tell you. I want to remind you that you are already in a high position among civil servants, so you can no longer have too much involvement with military generals. Do you understand?" Xue Xiang said softly.

Li Wei's eyes narrowed slightly: "Why?"

Xue Xiang's eyes suddenly became serious and asked: "Do you know why Hu Weiyong died?"

"Because His Majesty wants to abolish the Ministry of Education, use him as an excuse to have surgery?" Li Wei thought for a while and asked.

"This is just your Majesty's purpose, not the reason." Xue Xiang said quietly: "Hu Weiyong has outstanding talents and good governance. He originally won your Majesty's trust. It's a pity that this man was obsessed with human rights and became the Prime Minister of the Left. Do you think His Majesty can tolerate him because he keeps having connections with military generals?"

When Li Wei heard this, his face suddenly became solemn, and he lowered his head in thought.

"Not only him, but even Li Shanchang may not have a good end in the end." Xue Xiang sighed softly, and said: "Only an emperor can be both civilized and military. As ministers, we must either be civilized or martial. You can't be both civil and military, that's all when your status was low in the past, but you can't continue to do so in the future."

Li Wei not only controls the Ministry of Industry and founded the Ministry of Operations, but also supervises the powerful Shenji Battalion. He has made great achievements in two expeditions. This is extremely dangerous in his opinion. What if one day His Majesty trusts Li Wei? If he is slightly reduced, he may be regarded as a serious problem and be eliminated quickly.

"That's not necessarily true. His Majesty forced me to do these things, and I didn't want them myself." Li Wei frowned.

"His Majesty also forced you to do the job of being in charge of the business department?" Xue Xiang gave him a meaningful look.

When Li Wei heard this, he was suddenly shocked!

Yes, how could he forget all this? Why did he put so much effort into establishing this branch?

Thinking of all the past events, Li Wei's expression suddenly changed.

This expedition to Yunnan lasted for nearly half a year, and he was far away from everything in the capital, which made him forget a lot of the troubles in the past. In addition, when he came back, he rescued Empress Ma, listened to her advice, and had a substantial relationship with Anqing. These things all One by one, he weakened and weakened his previous thoughts.

However, at this time, he recalled all the things in the past, and he felt a little entangled in his heart. Can those things really be tolerated?

Xue Xiang looked at his expression and guessed what he was thinking. He sighed helplessly and comforted: "It's still the same sentence. If you are loyal, you won't tell your faults. If a son doesn't remember his father's faults, you should do a good job in a down-to-earth manner. This Minister of Industry, please stop getting involved in those military matters."

Li Wei took a deep breath and sighed: "This is not something I can do!"

Xue Xiang was stunned when he heard this.

Although Li Wei was just complaining helplessly, it was an irrefutable reality. Zhu Yuanzhang asked him to do it, could he still resist lying down like before?

What he did before had resulted in consequences that were unacceptable to him. If he did it again, who knows whose life Zhu Yuanzhang would use to force him. (End of chapter)