golden scales

"Nowadays the common people dare not open the market, and the officials dare not go to court. It is all caused by the plague. Your Majesty, please send capable ministers to suppress the epidemic." As the chief assistant, Chen Yan couldn't help sweating on his neck when he said this.

Ever since Chen Jiabao, the head of the General Administration Department, was killed, the crown prince immediately went to the Ministry of Pleading guilty, accusing him of killing the court ministers by the guards, and said that this was his own decree: if the guards let go of any suspected pathogens, If you want to beheaded to pay for the crime, no one dares to violate this order.

However, the prince also said "sincerely": I will restrain the guards under him and not let them go out for the time being. Since there are rules for epidemic prevention, you might as well order the people from Jinyiwei, Shuntianfu, and Wucheng Bingmasi to follow the rules.Thinking about it, these people would not kill officials without authorization, in the heart of Minister An.

Facts have proved that what the prince said is right, these people dare not offend officials and wealthy businessmen.As a result, the plague spread again overnight, and it was getting out of control. Many rich and powerful families who did not enter the outer city suffered from the plague.These people have experienced the prince's bloody epidemic prevention policy. Once they found out that someone in their family was sick, they naturally did not dare to speak up.

It seems that there is an invisible eye staring at them all the time. Whenever they reach a place they think is safe, the beast of the plague will follow.

On the platform, Emperor Chongzhen frowned facing Ge Fu.These cabinet ministers would only ask to send someone to prevent the epidemic and take over the work of the prince, but they themselves could not propose a candidate.Every time one was proposed, the official was terrified and timid and refused to accept it, and some even left with a seal.

Zhu Cihong sat on the left side of the emperor, looking at the prime minister below with confidence.On the emperor's right are the two little princes, King Ding and King Yong. They were brought to gain knowledge, but they all looked ignorant.

Chen Yan very much hoped that someone would propose to let the prince continue to go out to prevent the epidemic, and he knew that the prince did not really return to the palace, otherwise the people in the East Palace would have dispersed long ago.However, he had previously supported Xiang Yu's memoir, but he didn't know that the emperor had read the prince's invocation book and Li Mingrui's "Inviting Men to Make the Best of Their Talents for Women Officials" a long time ago.

Those two memorials were aimed at Xiang Yu's memorials one by one. After letting Chongzhen read Xiang Yu's memorials, he felt full of loopholes and absurd logic. They were not concerned about the country and the people at all. , a vicious work that slandered Donggong Qingyu.

Now Xiang Yu has been sent to jail to await trial, while Chen Yan, who followed up ignorantly, has been implicated and given a reprimand.

If the plague subsides here, it will be fine after a long time, and maybe Xiang Yu will be able to return to his post.But now the situation scares the officials so much that they dare not go to work. There are even legends among the folks: the officials who are jealous of the virtuous and capable are afraid that the prince will be the master of the people, and suppressed the plague god, making them seem incompetent, so they insist on locking the prince back to the palace. .

Just as the emperor should be in Ziwei, and the prince should be in Taiwei, they are all true Jade Emperor gods.Isn't it something a fool would do to let Taiwei Xing, who can suppress the plague god, return to the palace?

The emperor didn't speak, and the pressure on Shoufu unconsciously increased.

Chen Yan secretly raised his head to look at the prince, and there was a pity in his eyes.

Chongzhen finally turned his attention to his eldest son, and said, "Who does the prince think can do this?"

Zhu Cihong shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, my son has also seen some people's hearts outside. Some people don't care about the lives of others for the sake of their own lives. As long as there is a chance of life, they will flee. I don't know that all the people I met along the way , are likely to be infected with the plague. If such people are not confined, I am afraid that the capital will become a dead city."

Chongzhen took a deep breath.

He suddenly remembered someone.

Hong Chengchou.

In the third year of Chongzhen's reign, the bandits started to flourish. Hong Chengchou was just a governor of Yansui, so he insisted on killing all these rebels.Not only must they be severely exterminated, but they must also be killed and surrendered.

At that time, Hong Chengchou's immediate boss was Yang He.Yang He advocated "suppression and appeasement, with appeasement as the main point", and the suppression is also for appeasement.Therefore, the rebellious army accepted the recruitment for a while, but after eating and drinking enough, they killed officials and rebelled again.Giant bandits such as Zhang Xianzhong always feigned surrender repeatedly, retained their strength during the surrender, expanded their armaments, and then rebelled with a stronger posture.

At that time, Chongzhen himself said that "a thief is also my child", and he agreed with Yang He's proposition.

The result is now very clear.

—Those bandits are like the plague.

Emperor Chongzhen felt alarmed, and gritted his teeth: "A woman's benevolence for a moment will be hated for a lifetime. I won't take it!"

No one knew that Chongzhen associated the thieves with the plague in his heart, and they all felt that the words were murderous, so they kept silent.

"Your Majesty Father," Zhu Cihong stepped forward and responded, "It is the duty of a subject to share the worries of the emperor and father. If the subject is willing to fight the plague again, at least he can return to his appearance in June."

"He is really my eldest son!" Chongzhen patted the handrail lightly: "What do gentlemen say?"

"The ministers think that it is not right for the country to take personal risks..."

What else can the ministers say?Should they applaud and applaud, in case something happens to the prince, the whole family will be buried with him?

"Your Majesty, the previous decree was to order my ministers to help the army to prevent the epidemic. Now that the plague is not over, my ministers should continue to work." Zhu Cihong did not even look at those prime ministers, and carried out the decree he had received before.He turned and said: "But now that the relaxation is slowing down, it may be more difficult to prevent the epidemic. My minister asks the Tai Hospital and the Gunpowder Bureau to expand the quarantine camps and isolation camps outside the city to increase the number of people."

"Yes." After Chongzhen finished speaking, he suddenly felt that something strange had been mixed in. After sorting it out, he found that his son had proposed an unfamiliar bureau—the firearms bureau.

"The Firearms Bureau only makes gunpowder, so what has it to do with the plague?" Chongzhen asked.

"Your Majesty, for walls, floors, cesspools, sewage ditches, etc., a large amount of lime is needed for disinfection—to eliminate the poison of plague bacteria. To mine limestone in large quantities, a large amount of gunpowder is required." Zhu Cihong explained.

Although Chongzhen didn't know how to open mines, it was not a novelty to use gunpowder to open mines as early as Wanli.He said: "Since this is the case, it's okay to entrust the power to you. It's just that gunpowder is powerful and often causes disasters. You must be careful and never go to Anmin Factory."

After Emperor Chongzhen finished explaining, he was still a little worried.

The Gunpowder Bureau is under the jurisdiction of the Bingzhan Bureau, which is just a subordinate unit of the 24th Bureau of Internal Supervision. It has a factory supervisor and distributes five thousand catties of black powder to the three major battalions every five days.According to Zhu Cilang's book report, the production capacity of the State Gunpowder Bureau is between [-] and [-] catties a day, but it is not known how much it will actually be.

The extra gunpowder will be put into clay pots and sealed up.Because the seal is not good enough, the gunpowder will become damp and condense into lumps after a long time.In September of the 33rd year of Wanli, the officers and soldiers of the three major battalions received gunpowder at the Armor Factory.The eunuchs Zang Chao and Wang Cai who supervised the release of gunpowder ordered the craftsmen to split the old gunpowder with iron axes because the old gunpowder in the altar had formed hard lumps and was inconvenient to distribute.

The iron ax hacked the gunpowder clot to produce sparks, causing a huge explosion, and burned to death the eunuch Zang Chao, ten members of the general Fu Zhong, and 83 soldiers including Li Zhongbao.The craftsmen in the bureau and the residents passed by the market, and the casualties were unbelievable. Five companies of workshops, about [-], were burned down, and the gunpowder and firearms were useless.

Later, the Wang Gong factory was used as a national gunpowder depot, located in the southwest of the capital, and a big explosion occurred in May of the sixth year of Tianqi.This big bang has become a mystery for centuries, and later generations say it was a tactical nuclear bomb from aliens.In short, the area of ​​influence of that big explosion stretched from Fuchengmen in the east to Xingbu Street in the north, spanning four miles and thirteen miles wide, and the number of direct casualties exceeded [-].This big explosion was implicated in the Great Beijing Earthquake, and the number of victims was in the millions.

At that time, the earthquake caused by the explosion overturned the imperial case of the Qianqing Palace. The third son of Emperor Tianqi was only two or three years old, so he died in shock and lost the last heir.

After the explosion of Wanggong Factory, Emperor Tianqi set up a new factory in Anmin Factory.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, the old factory of Wang Gong Factory exploded again.In the 11th year of Chongzhen, the new factory Anmin factory had three explosion accidents within one year, and a mushroom cloud appeared, which was called "Ganoderma lucidum cloud" at that time, and tens of thousands of people were killed or injured.

At that time, it was also because Emperor Chongzhen wanted to rebuild the neijiao and armed the eunuchs. As a result, there were gunpowder factory accidents almost every year during the years of practicing neijiao.It wasn't until the 13th year of Chongzhen that it was all internal affairs, and it was only two years after the 14th year of Chongzhen that it was stable.

Therefore, the emperor was still very impressed by the gunpowder disaster, and he was especially worried about another explosion.

In case the crown prince died because of this, it was too late to cry.

Zhu Cihong himself was absolutely unwilling to end his life with such an aggrieved way of death.

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