The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde was secretly angry that he had been reckless last time, and he was quickly thinking about how to explain this matter.

After finally finding an insider in the palace, he didn't want to make the relationship tense.

Although it seems that the stakes planted in the palace are useless now, it is because of his low-profile relationship, not that the tree he planted is useless.

Wei Guangde looked at Chen Ju and said seriously: "My father-in-law in the palace, you are the only eldest brother I am familiar with."

After listening to Wei Guangde's words, Chen Ju nodded noncommittally.

He didn't think Wei Guangde was lying, but what his godfather said today was hard to understand.

Huang Jin was spying on Li Bin in the palace. How did he, a sesame official outside the palace, know about it.

"My news comes from outside the palace. The specific source is the same as last time. I can't say, but you should be able to roughly guess which yamen it is from."

Wei Guangde continued.

Wei Guangde didn't clarify this last time. He just said that he heard it from someone. Now he explained that the news came from outside the palace. Chen Ju naturally understood in his ears that there were not many eunuchs like Li Bin who could monitor him. Who else could be there besides Jin Yiwei?

Inside the palace is Huang Jin's East Factory, and outside the palace are the Jin Yiwei. Who can command and move them has already been revealed.

Chen Ju looked at Wei Guangde, blinked, and then nodded, "I understand. Although I don't know who you are so familiar with, I believe you."

After Wei Guangde and Chen Ju talked at home, Wei Guangde asked the cook to prepare a sumptuous banquet, served two jars of fine wine, and Chen Ju ate and drank at home.

In a house in the inner city of Beijing, Li Bin was lying on the kang, listening to a report from a small chamberlain.

"Godfather, I feel something is wrong these days. Someone seems to be following us in the palace. Today when I left the palace, I looked back a few times while walking on the road. Although I couldn't see anything, I still felt like I was being followed. .”

"Do you feel like someone is following us inside and outside the palace?"

Li Bin closed his eyes slightly and said seemingly casually.

"It just feels like there are eyes behind us watching us."

The young chamberlain replied, "But I looked over and found nothing."

The room was quiet for a moment. Li Bin opened his eyes and looked around the room. "I sometimes feel like this during this period. I don't know why. Maybe I'm tired from the Chinese New Year. Supervisor of Ceremonies." It seems like nothing has changed.”

"Nothing has changed in the palace."

The little chamberlain echoed.

"What about around the house?"

Li Bin suddenly asked again.

"I haven't heard anyone say anything unusual."

The little chamberlain said hurriedly.

"After these two days of busy work, I will also ask the palace for two days of leave to have a good rest. Maybe I am tired."

Hearing that there was nothing unusual around him, although he had some feelings, but considering that everything in the palace seemed to be business as usual, Li Bin had nothing to be suspicious of.

There were a few high eunuchs in the palace who had never done the things he did. Taking money from others to help them eliminate disasters or seek an official position were all very commonplace, and Li Bin didn't think anything of it at all.

"Maybe my son is too worried, hehe."

The little waiter said with a smile at this time.

While the two were having a conversation, a dark figure was squatting there under the window outside the house, unknowingly eavesdropping on the conversation in the house.

When it was heard in the room that Li Bin asked the young chamberlain to step aside and take a rest, the dark figure immediately stood up and took a few steps around the corner of the room to disappear. Through the moonlight, he could still vaguely be seen wearing servant clothes.

Not long after, a paper ball was thrown out of the yard and was quickly picked up by drunk passers-by, stumbling and falling down from time to time.

Although the New Year in Beijing has ended and the night ban has been restored in Beijing, it is only for each city.

What is closed is the traffic between the cities. The gates are closed, and there are night patrols on the main streets and intersections. However, there is no one in the city to control it. You can still move around as long as you don't leave the city.

Moreover, the so-called night ban is only for ordinary people. For officials with status and status, even if they are bumped into by night patrol officers and soldiers, they can often get away easily by showing their badges.

Even under the night ban, a paper ball quickly passed through the checkpoints and was sent to Lu Bing's house.

Two days later, a shocking news came from the palace. Li Bin, the eunuch Bingbi, the Superintendent of Ceremonies, was taken away by people from the Dongchang in the duty room of the Supervisor of Ceremonies. Corresponding to this news, Jin Yiwei sent out a large number of people to surround him. It is said that a large amount of property was seized from Li Bin's residence in the capital and two outbuildings.

Despite the disturbance from the outside world, the Imperial Academy is still full of flowers, quiet and peaceful.

The wintersweet, mountain peach blossoms and pear blossoms in the yard have already bloomed. The temperature has risen much faster than in previous years after New Year's Day this year. Although it is still cold, it is much warmer than a year ago.

Wei Guangde heard the news in the Hanlin Academy. To be honest, he admired Emperor Jiajing for being so calm. Although he was half-dead with anger, he still suppressed the anger in his heart and allowed Li Bin to live for more than a month.

Gao Zhong was not an idiot. After knowing that Li Bin might have committed something, he didn't ask more questions. Instead, he just observed carefully. Finally, he confirmed that the people in the palace of Dongchang had indeed monitored Li Bin, so he called the disciples and grandsons on duty in Yongshou Palace. Came to ask questions.

After repeated cross-examination and checking of palace entry and exit records, Gao Zhong roughly surmised the truth of the incident. Lu Bing had already impeached Li Bin years ago, but he didn't know why he was not taken down at that time.

Of course, Gao Zhong would not have been able to figure out the details if he were not present. If he had been there at the time, he would have thought of the truth instantly just like Huang Jin.

As for letting Chen Ju go to Wei Guangde's house, it was naturally to deceive Wei Guangde.

The officials in Beijing naturally know who the most favored eunuch in front of the current emperor is, not Gao Zhong, but Huang Jin.

As a Beijing official, he wanted to join Huang Jin's family. Only those in high positions would disdain Huang Jin. That was just a statement in front of others. People behind him didn't know how groveling Huang Jin was when they saw him.

Even Yan Song and Yan Shifan, father and son, did not dare to make mistakes in front of Huang Jin and treated each other with courtesy.

In fact, both the inner court and the outer court were very unfavorable to Erwuzi.

It was also for this reason that Gao Zhong asked Chen Ju to test Wei Guangde. He didn't want the person he supported to be rebellious and defect to Huang Jin. That would be too much of a loss.

Fortunately, Wei Guangde said that the news came from the outer court, so it could only be Wei Guangde's friends among the Jinyi Guards who passed the news to him.

As long as Wei Guangde is not a speculator and a villain who blindly follows the trend, Gao Zhong and Chen Ju are still willing to cooperate with him. Besides, Wei Guangde has a good family. If there is a chance to be promoted, it is very common for him to talk to the emperor casually. thing.

After all, the promotion and demotion of officials all depended on the emperor.

They can pave the way, but whether it can succeed or not depends on the emperor's will, and they won't lose anything.

Wei Guangde still stayed quietly in the Hanlin Academy reading and studying. From time to time he would go downstairs to check on the progress of the revision. His life was very quiet and comfortable. However, he secretly arranged for Zhang Ji to go out to inquire about the news and learn the specific details. He also pretended to ask questions like gossip. Lubu, various versions circulated in the yamen.

Wei Guangde was jealous. He knew that a corrupt official was violating the law, but nothing happened to him. Thank you.

Influenced by The Deer and the Cauldron, Wei Guangde has become convinced that the easiest and most convenient way to get rich in this era is to participate in house raids.

According to the news heard from Lu Bu, Jin Yiwei confiscated more than 400,000 taels of silver and a large amount of gold, pearls and treasures from Li Bin's house. The reason why this number was reported in the yamen is because the Zang Penalty Treasury is nominally under the supervision of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Naturally, people from the Ministry of Finance were watching when they were put into the treasury, even though they knew that all the property would end up in the inner court, and the court would not get half a tael of silver.

Wei Guangde didn't believe that Li Bin had just a few things at home, maybe just a fraction. Just thinking about it was enough to make people jealous.

At this time, in the Yongshou Palace in Xiyuan, what was placed on the imperial desk in front of Emperor Jiajing was the catalog of all the harvests from the house raid commanded by Lu Bing, a thick stack.

Emperor Jiajing just swept through those fields, houses and shops. The amount of gold and silver collected later was as much as 430,000 taels, and the thick list at the end contained pearls, agate, ivory, jade and other items confiscated from the house. , which can be converted into more than 200,000 taels of silver.

Emperor Jiajing was a vassal king, and he was not a little bird trapped in the Forbidden City. Counting these fields and houses, the raid on Li Bin's home brought him almost 800,000 taels of silver.

This amount of money is not a small number.

Emperor Jiajing's annual expenditure on monasticism was certainly larger than this figure, but not much larger.

Think about it, how many years has it been since Li Bin was really reused by him?

In ten years or so, you can accumulate a net worth of 800,000 taels of silver.

Of course he didn't believe that this was Li Bin's entire family fortune. Although the Jinyiwei family had a strict family law, there must still be people who got lucky. Even Lu Bing probably got a share of it, but Emperor Jiajing would not say these things. of.

A conservative estimate would be a million taels of silver, depending on how big Lu Bing's appetite is.

Emperor Jiajing was too lazy to ask anything else. Instead, he turned to Huang Jin and said, "Arrange someone to go there and see if this slave has delayed the construction period and delayed the progress."

Although Emperor Jiajing practiced Taoism and hoped to live forever, he did not neglect the things he should do as an emperor.

In the seventh year of Jiajing's reign, when his first queen, Chen, passed away, the site selection and construction began.

In order to cater to the emperor, officials planned the mausoleum to be only slightly smaller than Changling, so it was quickly approved by Emperor Jiajing. Yongling was officially approved as a national project and construction began, and the project continues to this day.

Emperor Jiajing was very concerned about Yongling and asked about it several times a year. He also left the matter to his trusted eunuch Li Bin.

But he never expected that the impeachment memorial submitted by Lu Bing directly reported that Li Bin had embezzled engineering materials from Yongling to build his own tomb, and even the craftsmen and laborers were transferred from Yongling, which he couldn't tolerate. .

"Yes, I will make arrangements as soon as I get down."

Huang Jin responded quickly from the side.

"Go down and arrange for Gao Zhong to be in charge. He has built Xiyuan and is familiar with these things. But you have to arrange for someone to supervise the project every year. This will never happen again."

Although Emperor Jiajing devoted himself to pursuing immortality, he still achieved nothing after more than 20 years of practice. It was only the stubbornness in his heart that made him persist. He only hoped that God would open the door for him for the sake of his sincerity.

But despite this, there are still things to prepare for after death.

The current cultivation practice carried out by Emperor Jiajing is actually more about winning face.

Because of practicing Taoism, he has been fighting with the courtiers for more than 20 years. They have been quarreling since Xia Yan, and until now, he can't afford to lose this person.

The next day, the decree from the palace finally came out: Lu Bing, the left commander of the Jinyi Guards, impeached the eunuch Li Bin for stealing materials and hundreds of thousands of money and food from the inner palace. He was a private soldier. Emperor Shizong ordered Li Bin to be arrested and put in jail and put to death, and his house was confiscated to obtain the money. More than 400,000 taels and countless gold, pearls and treasures.

Shuo Shu finally surrendered, and the confiscated family property was confiscated and sent to the inner court. The hundreds of thousands of taels of silver that the court borrowed from the Changying Treasury of Taipu Temple years ago still had to be deducted from the taxes and returned.

The Ming Dynasty levied summer taxes and autumn grain taxes twice a year. The summer taxes were naturally still early, so they could only be deducted from other taxes paid by various places.

The news of Li Bin's arrest spread quickly to all parts of the empire with the Di newspaper. For the guarding eunuchs and lieutenants everywhere, this was the first person who had fallen since the eunuch of Prince Hui's Palace was punished last year, and his status was still very high. Eunuch, the deterrent effect is still very obvious.

However, after the news of Li Bin's downfall reached Nanjing, the behavior of the two masters in Duke Wei's mansion was completely different.

Xu Pengju invested a lot of capital in Li Bin, hoping that he could help him fulfill his wish at the critical moment. Now, not only is he trying to achieve nothing, but he is even more likely to be burned.

In desperation, Xu Pengju had no choice but to send people to rush to the capital and deliver many gifts to Lu Bing's house to feel at ease.

As long as Li Bin's illegal income is traced and not traced to him, it is not a big or small crime to make friends with internal officials to find out internal information. It would be too unfair to punish the emperor if he is unhappy.

In fact, Lu Bing had already discovered that Li Bin had a lot of correspondence with the Duke of Wei in Nanjing. Every year, the Duke of Wei gave a lot of money and gifts to Li Bin. He was wondering whether he should continue to investigate and make a big sum.

Now seeing Xu Pengju on the road, he naturally nodded with satisfaction and let it go.

When Xu Bangrui, the young master of Duke Wei's palace, learned about Li Bin's downfall, he looked dazed for a long time before he came back to his senses.

Unknown to others in Nanjing City, he knew the news of Li Bin's downfall more than two months in advance, but he didn't really believe it himself.

Now that what I thought was impossible has become a reality, what else can Xu Bangrui do?

I can only raise Wei Guangde's status in my heart. There is no one who has just entered the officialdom for more than half a year and can participate in the operation to overthrow the eunuch Bingbi, the eunuch of the ceremony.

This is why Xu Bangrui was secretly grateful for his trip to Jiujiang. Although his father had plotted against him that time, he did not expect that it was a blessing in disguise. Not only did he find a good husband for his sister, but he also seemed to have found a strong supporter for himself.

As days passed, the canal finally thawed, transportation between the north and south of the empire finally resumed, and merchants traveling from north to south became active.

Just on such a day, a shocking fire suddenly burned in the center of the capital.