Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

What happened in the Wenhua Palace soon aroused heated discussion in Beijing.

Zhu Youjian had previously deliberately allowed this matter to ferment and divert the attention of both the government and the public. After the results came out, people were naturally very concerned.

Especially when the examination was about to begin and the candidates gathered, they were particularly concerned about the fraud in the imperial examination.

In a tea house, Shi Kefa, Lin Zengzhi and other officials sat together and talked about this matter. Shi Kefa said:
"Brother Lin, you are from Zhejiang, so you should be familiar with this matter."

"Is the Zhejiang rural examination fraud case related to Mr. Qian?"

"Why is this happening suddenly at this time?"

Lin Zengzhi and Shi Kefa hit it off immediately and their relationship was extremely close. But on this matter, he did not dare to speak nonsense and said:
"Not many people were involved in the fraud case in the first year of Tianqi. How could outsiders know about it?"

"Whether Mr. Qian is involved or not depends on the court's trial."

"Brother Xian, take one and ask me, but you are asking the wrong person!"

Listening to Lin Zengzhi's loud response, the people around him paid attention. Shi Kefa also realized that he was a little rash and should not have asked his friend this matter in public.

However, he was really concerned about Qian Qianyi's affairs. After all, his teacher Zuo Guangdou and Yang Lian were both one of the Six Gentlemen of Donglin who were murdered by Wei Zhongxian.

Now that the Eunuch Party has collapsed and the Donglin Party is gaining momentum, Shi Kefa does not want to see the new leader of the Donglin Party, Qian Qianyi, fall into a fraud case, which will affect the reversal of the teacher's case.

So he has been paying attention to this matter these days and keeps asking people about it.

Among all the suspects, there are still some who are well-informed. Li Mengchen from Suizhou, Henan, is the nephew of Li Ruhua, the former Minister of Household Affairs. Yesterday when he visited his fellow minister Yuan Keli, he happened to hear the relevant news. At this time, he told everyone:
"Qian Shaoqing is generally not deeply involved in the Zhejiang rural examination fraud case."

"His Majesty interrogated him yesterday, but he was not found guilty. He was only punished to spend three months in seclusion, and was left to question him for a while."

"I heard that His Majesty and Qian Shaoqing talked for a long time. When he left the palace, Qian Shaoqing looked happy."

This was mentioned when he heard the officials visiting Yuan Keli chatting. Those people seemed to be very concerned about this kind of news.

When Shi Kefa heard this, he suddenly felt happy. He was born in Jinyiwei in Beijing. There are hundreds of hereditary Jinyiwei in his family. He has been influenced by his ears and eyes and understands the meaning of this——

Qian Qianyi's appearance obviously means that the Holy Family is still there. Even if he is involved in the Zhejiang rural examination cheating case, he will most likely be punished with a small amount of punishment but a big warning.

In this way, the general trend of the Donglin Party's revival will not be affected. His teacher's reversal of the verdict would not cause any problems.

With joy in his heart, Shi Kefa was about to continue asking when he suddenly heard news from someone that Qian Qianyi had published an article explaining the six divisions and nine temples.

This article was circulated to the public and someone quickly got it. Everyone was talking about it, but they didn’t understand why:

How could Qian Qianyi still have the time to explain the Six Parts and Nine Temples when he was clearly involved in the rural examination fraud case?

There are so many ministers in the court, who will get his explanation?

Obviously, these officials had limited knowledge of the affairs in the court and did not understand the rationale behind them.

But the officials in the court understood the purpose of this article very clearly.

When Yuan Keli saw the article, he was communicating with his disciple Ni Yuanlu about Qian Qianyi. He sighed and said:

"Qian Muzhai looks so disgraceful!"

"But if he can write this article, you and I don't have to worry about it."

They were all disciples of Sun Chengzong, and Ni Yuanlu was very concerned about Qian Qianyi's affairs. I came to Yuan Keli to communicate, and also wanted to ask him to help me speak.

Now that I saw Qian Qianyi's article, I was stunned. I never expected that the new leader of the Donglin Party would yield so quickly to the emperor:
"Mu Zhai...how did it become like this?"

"What will the world think of him doing this?"

Writing an article explaining the Six Parts and Nine Temples is not a big problem at other times. Even in Ni Yuanlu's view, Qian Qianyi's article was good enough to be passed down.

But I absolutely should not, absolutely should not, write at this time.

Qian Qianyi wrote such an article at this time, where would he place those who followed him and questioned the emperor's policies?

Not to mention that he didn’t communicate with anyone else at all before publishing this article. Those officials who are still persisting and helping him build momentum may still be questioning the emperor's policies in Shangshu——

Qian Qianyi’s article is stabbing them in the back!
So after Yuan Keli saw it, he said that he had lost his integrity.

Ni Yuanlu was also really puzzled. Why did Qian Qianyi do this? Angry in his heart, he immediately said:
"Teacher, I'm going to ask Mu Zhai why he did this?"

Yuan Keli stopped him and scolded:
"what?"

"Can you retract the article just because you asked?"

"The article went viral and the deal was sealed."

"You don't have to pay attention to this matter and don't worry about him!"

After being in the officialdom for a long time, Yuan Keli has seen many officials like Qian Qianyi, and now he is just another one.

Think about Wen Tiren's memorial and the fact that the emperor specially held a meeting and left Qian Qianyi behind.

Yuan Keli vaguely guessed that the emperor must have tested Qian Qianyi's willingness to cooperate yesterday as he had summoned him before. If Qian Qianyi doesn't reply, he will leave soon.

Under the pressure exerted by the emperor, Qian Qianyi could not resist, which was understandable.

Based on Yuan Keli's understanding of the current emperor, he felt that the reason why this article spread so quickly was because Qian Qianyi received specific instructions and wrote it overnight after returning yesterday. Even for ventilation, there was not enough time——

Even if he had time, Qian Qianyi would not dare to communicate with others at this time. Wen Tiren was still accusing Qian Qianyi of being a traitor who forms cliques and deceives the emperor yesterday in the Wenhua Palace. If Qian Qianyi did this, he would have confirmed the matter.

So this article is the petition that the emperor forced Qian Qianyi to write. It represents Qian Qianyi, the new leader of the Donglin Party, who is willing to surrender to the emperor.

Knowing Zhu Youjian's approach very well, Yuan Keli quickly figured it out.

But Ni Yuanlu didn't think about it, and in his heart, he didn't want to believe that Qian Qianyi was such a person——

The Six Gentlemen and the Seven Gentlemen are the examples before them, and everyone in the world admires their character.

How could Qian Qianyi, the new leader of the Donglin Party, have such soft bones? At this moment, Ni Yuanlu really felt a sense of disillusionment in her heart. I really don’t believe that the gentleman Donglin I admire, the party leader is like this.

Not only him, but also members of the Lin Party in Jingdong were a little reluctant to believe it after seeing Qian Qianyi's article.

Especially those who followed Qian Qianyi to the hotel, they were even more angry and cursed, feeling that Qian Qianyi had tricked them——

He and his men followed him into the battle, but Qian Qianyi withdrew and stabbed him in the back.

How can they accept this calmly, and how can they follow Qian Qianyi in the future?

It can be said that Qian Qianyi's political reputation suffered a devastating blow after this incident. In the future, it will be difficult for him to answer every call he makes when speaking. When others echoed his memorial, they had to think about whether they would be stabbed in the back.

Zhu Youjian's purpose of asking Qian Qianyi to write this article has been completely achieved.

As an immature political party, Qian Qianyi, the leader of the Donglin Party, is not qualified to ask other Donglin Party members what to do, let alone impose prohibitions. The reason why he has a strong influence is not only the prestige left by his teacher Gu Xiancheng, but also due to his personal charm.

Now that Qian Qianyi's political credibility has been ruined, this influence will decline sharply. In the future, it will be difficult to build momentum in the court and coerce the ministers to threaten the emperor.

In this way, Qian Qianyi must rely on the emperor if he wants to be promoted in the future. It is far easier than before to decide how the emperor wants to deal with it.

Therefore, after Zhu Youjian read Qian Qianyi's article, he was very satisfied. He felt that Qian Qianyi was very sensible and did not make any mistakes in this matter, did not contradict his words, and did not praise openly or secretly.

Zhu Youjian admired such a trustworthy person, so he decided to keep Qian Qianyi as the leader of the Donglin Party and not let others occupy it:
"Only when such a person becomes the leader of the Donglin Party can I rest assured!" 』

"If someone else replaces Qian Qianyi, it will be very troublesome. 』

Sun Chengzong and Han Xu, these two great bachelors, were both members of the Donglin Party. If Qian Qianyi takes away the two of them, things will be more troublesome for the emperor Zhu Youjian.

Both of them are bachelors, and they can do much more in the court than Qian Qianyi, the young minister of Taichang Temple. With the support of the entire Donglin Party, the influence will change qualitatively.

Fortunately, the Donglin Party members are mainly from the south and do not like northerners very much. Qian Qianyi, a native of Southern Zhili, a disciple of Gu Xiancheng, and a leader in the literary world, was a choice. Sun Chengzong and Han Xu, two northerners, were not within their scope of consideration even if they became bachelors -

At best, these two people will become the backbone, rather than the leader of the Donglin Party.

Just like back then, Zhao Nanxing had a higher official position and was Gu Xiancheng's boss. But his status in the Donglin Party is inferior to that of Gu Xiancheng. As a native of Northern Zhili, it was difficult for him to convince the southerners.

Now, Zhu Youjian plans to take advantage of this mentality to weaken Qian Qianyi's political influence while allowing him to continue to hold the position of Donglin Party leader and not give others a chance.

In order to achieve this goal, Zhu Youjian also planned to strengthen Qian Qianyi's academic influence and use his status as a leader in the literary world to maintain his political status.

Under his command, the Donglin Party could also transform into an academic school and fall into academic debates.

This is Zhu Youjian's general direction to destroy the political influence of the Donglin Party, and it is also a strategy he has set long ago.

Now that it has started smoothly, Zhu Youjian is very happy.

Sensing Zhu Youjian's happiness, the queen also took the opportunity to say something and asked the emperor to accept a concubine.

A few days ago, Empress Zhang left behind by Emperor Tianqi was honored by Zhu Youjian as Empress Yi'an and officially moved to Ciqing Palace.

After Queen Zhou moved to Kunning Palace, she felt that her position was stable, but she was also affected by outside discussions and had to fulfill her responsibilities as a queen. I plan to give Zhu Youjian some Han concubines, so that the beauty sent by King Shunli will not be favored and cause disputes in the palace.

Zhu Youjian is now busy with court affairs and doesn't worry much about matters in the harem. After hearing Queen Zhou's request, she frowned and said:

"It's up to you to make the decision on this matter!"

"But don't listen to outsiders. They don't need to comment on my family affairs."

"We must also keep things confidential in the palace, and don't let the palace people talk too much!"

Zhu Youjian was very dissatisfied with the courtiers' interference in the affairs of the harem, which was why he treated the concubine matter coldly some time ago.

But the queen couldn't bear the pressure. I want to show my mother's magnanimity through taking a concubine.

After Zhu Youjian considered it, he agreed to the queen's request and left the matter to her. Stabilize the queen's position so that she can feel at ease.

Sure enough, Queen Zhou was very happy after hearing that the emperor had left this matter completely to her.

As the wife of Ming Media when the emperor was the king of Xin in Qiandi, Queen Zhou's position was very stable. But she has not given birth to a prince after all, and she is still a little worried.

The emperor left the matter of taking the concubine completely to her, which undoubtedly made her feel more at ease. It means that her status in the harem has not wavered at all. Whether those concubines enter the palace or not is under her control. The little emotion in her heart about taking the initiative to take a concubine for the emperor also disappeared.

In addition to this matter, there is also the matter of canonizing the concubines left by Emperor Tianqi. After Queen Zhang was canonized and moved to Ciqing Palace, these concubines also had to move and their treatment was determined.

In particular, the concubines who were killed by Wei Zhongxian and Hakka in the palace must also be granted posthumous title. For example, Concubine Yu who starved to death, Guiren Feng who was strangled to death by a hunger strike, and Concubine Cheng who was deprived of her title by persecution, etc. all need to have their titles restored and even express condolences to their families.

When Zhu Youjian heard that so many concubines had been killed by guest Wei, he was very unhappy and said:
"The female officials and eunuchs in the palace should be trained to have knowledge of marriage."

"Any time a high-ranking palace official dies or there are rumors of abnormal death, an autopsy will be conducted."

"We can't just disappear without knowing it. Some of them are dead. I think even the emperor doesn't know about it."

As the king of a country, the emperor has too many things to deal with, and it is impossible to pay attention to the affairs in the palace all the time. Zhu Youjian can only strengthen supervision in the system to prevent some people from disappearing without paying attention for a period of time.

It is better for the palace to be an open and honest place, and not to let too many people die inside, making it eerie and scary.

The queen has no control over the affairs of the eunuchs in the inner court, but she is in charge of the female officials. So after the queen agreed, Zhu Youjian summoned Liu Ruoyu, the eunuch in charge of the internal official prison, and asked him to take charge of this matter.

At this time, the internal officials and supervisors, after reorganization, were already responsible for the promotion and removal of personnel in the palace. The vacancies in various yamen of the inner court are also being filled one after another.

Zhu Youjian focused on the affairs of the inner court, which he specially built to be responsible for the inner court's finances. The Dongning Company, which was decided to be established a few days ago, also has an internal supervisor in charge of the royal family's shares.

The palm of this prison was appointed by Zhu Youjian to Wang Chengen. This person was promoted by him last year to supervise Shuntian Bank and be in charge of the imperial store in Zhangjiakou. Later, this matter was taken over by Chaoyong, who transferred Wang Chengen back and was assigned to the auction house and other tasks.

Zhu Youjian planned to check the results and see if Wang Chengen could take charge of the inner government.

Such an important yamen requires not only loyalty, but also corresponding abilities.

If Wang Chengen can't afford it, he can only find someone else. (End of chapter)