Chapter 629 Chapter 628 Storm Begins

I don’t know if it was God’s will, but at this time, in the cabinet duty room, Emperor Longqing sat at the top, while the cabinet chief Xu Jie and his student Zhang Juzheng stood on one side, while the second assistant Li Chunfang, Chen Yiqin and Guo Pu stood on the other side.

Perhaps, this was also because Guo Pu and Chen Yiqin did not want to be with Xu Jie, so they did it on purpose.

“Master Li, what is your attitude?”

Emperor Longqing saw Li Chunfang was stunned at this time, so he asked.

For a moment, everyone in the room focused their attention on Li Chunfang.

The situation was delicate at the moment, and it seemed that it all depended on Li Chunfang.

Li Chunfang was secretly complaining in his heart at this moment.

Although there were many rumors that he was able to win the top prize because of Emperor Jiajing’s mistakes, after all, his grades were among the best, otherwise he would not even have the opportunity to see the emperor.

Li Chunfang, who was well-read and familiar with classics and history, knew that the officialdom was treacherous. Especially since Emperor Jiajing became seriously ill, Xu Jie and Gao Gong had been fighting openly and secretly for many times. After Emperor Longqing ascended the throne, the fighting became even more intense. No matter which side he stood on, he would definitely offend the other side.

He knew why Guo Pu was close to Gao Gong.

He actually had the same problems as Guo Pu.

It was just that after Yan Ne retired, he was already the second assistant, and it was impossible for him to turn to Gao Gong like Guo Pu.

After all, Gao Gong was backed by Emperor Longqing, who trusted him. Li Chunfang could not see any reason why Gao Gong would lose in this fight.

However, Xu Jie had already become a big shot, and his power in the court was even more deeply rooted. Even the new emperor Longqing did not dare to touch him easily.

Therefore, he simply chose to play dumb and just seconded Xu Jie or Gao Gong's words, giving people a good impression of being humble, not bullying others, being diligent and honest, advocating frugality, and recommending talents.

Speaking of which, he was also unlucky. He entered the cabinet in April of the 44th year of Jiajing, and just missed the examination of that year.

According to the unspoken rules of the cabinet ministers of the Ming Dynasty, the cabinet ministers who entered the cabinet must preside over a joint examination, recruit students, and strengthen their strength in the court.

But he had been in the cabinet for three years and was already the second assistant, but he had never presided over a joint examination. Although he could not be said to be weak, he did not have much influence, and it was really embarrassing to be in this position.

And the chief examiner of the 44th joint examination fell on Gao Gong, the left assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel and the bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, and Hu Zhengmeng, the bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, because the cabinet ministers Xu Jie and Yuan Wei had already had the experience of the joint examination.

This is also one of the reasons why Gao Gong is not afraid of Xu Jie. He also has 300 students in the court. As long as he says a word, more than 100 new Jinshi in Beijing will impeach Xu Jie and confront each other.

In terms of numbers, Gao Gong is really not afraid of Xu Jie.

But it is not a big deal to be stuck here. Li Chunfang still has to answer the emperor's questions.

After hesitating for a moment, he stood up and bowed, saying: "Your Majesty, the matter of opening the sea is of great importance. On the one hand, it is difficult to violate the ancestral system, and on the other hand, it is related to the livelihood of the people. I am also difficult to choose."

With his head down, Li Chunfang did not dare to peek at the reactions of others, for fear that his confidence, which had finally been firmed up, would be shattered.

"I have hesitated again and again, and I can only respectfully ask for the emperor's judgment."

Finally, Li Chunfang said this. He knew that at this moment, in the eyes of Emperor Longqing, his status would undoubtedly be downgraded by many levels, and even marked as useless, but he still had no choice.

If the emperor is not happy, the worst thing is to retire and go home to retire. If he offends others, the outcome is uncertain.

As for some people who think that such an answer offends both sides, they must have the strength to do so.

In any case, Li Chunfang is the second assistant of the current dynasty, and not everyone can control him.

If someone takes the initiative to attack him and makes him lean towards the other side, can this situation be tolerated?

For truly useless people, that is the way to death, while for people in high positions, it is a means of self-protection.

But he didn't know that at this time, Xu Jie, Guo Pu and others all breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts, and their hanging hearts were put down.

Even if Xu Jie thought he understood Li Chunfang, he didn't dare to guarantee that it would be the case before Li Chunfang finally made a choice, and the same was true for others.

There was a clear look of disappointment on the face of Emperor Longqing. The ball was still brought to him. Let him take the hat of changing the ancestral system?

Of course not.

Now he has only been on the throne for a few months, and he can't do this yet. He must find someone to take the blame first.

Thinking that Gao Gong was not at the scene, Emperor Longqing thought about it for a while and came up with an idea.

"In that case, let's discuss this matter again at the grand court tomorrow."

He took the initiative to arrange to move the proposal of opening the sea to the grand court, of course not to face the saliva of the officials, but to delay for a day.

"When I came, I heard that the cabinet had received another memorial impeaching Prime Minister Gao?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Xu Jie stood up at this time and said: "Zhang Jin, the Secretary of the Criminal Department, and Li Fupin, the Censor, impeached Gao Gong"

"Show me the memorial."

Emperor Longqing waved his hand and interrupted Xu Jie's answer directly.

Xu Jie's face was normal, and he turned around and handed the draft memorial from the desk next to him to Meng Chong, who handed it to the emperor.

Emperor Longqing opened the memorial and glanced at it, and then said: "Pen and ink are ready."

Meng Chong quickly walked to the desk next to him to move the pen and ink and placed it on the coffee table on the side.

This is Xu Jie's duty room, which is a main hall. There is a reception hall after entering the door. There are also two rooms on the left and right, one for office use and one for stacking various books.

Naturally, there was no desk in front of the seats in the reception hall where they were.

Emperor Longqing put down the two memorials and quickly wrote his approval on them.

Xu Jie looked at Emperor Longqing's actions with a blank expression.

He knew what the emperor would write without even thinking about it.

Sure enough, after the emperor put down his pen and handed it to him, Xu Jie saw only one sentence, "It is not true, Jin (re-employed) Fengwen reported the matter inappropriately, Ling Gong can serve with peace of mind."

After seeing Emperor Longqing off, Xu Jie handed the two memorials to Li Chunfang for processing. Although there was no seal from the Imperial Household Department and the necessary procedures were missing, the imperial handwriting in front of everyone could not be ignored.

Moreover, it was just a lack of procedures, and the procedures could be completed immediately after sending them to the Imperial Household Department. There was no need to worry about it.

Back to the cabinet, everyone returned to their respective duty rooms to continue working.

Chen Yiqin was relatively happy. Today's events once again proved that the emperor trusted them, the hidden ministers, and Guo Pu was also very excited because he also saw that Gao Gong had a stable position in the emperor's heart.

Li Chunfang and Zhang Juzheng were not in such a good mood. Li Chunfang was even worried about his attitude at the court tomorrow. It was really difficult to make a decision.

Only Xu Jie remained the same. After all, he had seen so many such scenes, especially when Emperor Jiajing was furious, the scene was many times more dangerous than today.

Back to the duty room, he did not care about the documents piled up on the desk, but spread out a piece of paper and started writing.

Today, the officialdom in the capital was full of various news. First, Gao Gong left the cabinet in embarrassment because of impeachment. Later, Emperor Longqing personally went to the cabinet to discuss matters with the cabinet ministers and asked for Kaihai's opinion. After that, he even approved the impeachment memorial against Gao Gong on the spot and severely criticized Zhang Jin and Li Fupin.

At this point, the matter of Gao Gong being impeached again was turned over again. Gao Gong did not even need to write a self-introduction, and he could return to the cabinet to work tomorrow.

It seemed to be just a farce.

But just after noon, Wei Guangde heard another piece of news in the government office. The cabinet chief Xu Jie was unwell in the duty room and had been sent back to the mansion for recuperation. At the same time, there was news that the Grand Secretary Xu Jie had submitted a petition to return home due to illness. Along with this, the dinner party half a month ago was mentioned again.

At the beginning, the participants knew about the dinner party.

Both parties were not ordinary, and the officials who participated in the banquet were not ordinary. Naturally, it was only spread in a small circle, and it did not spread widely in the officialdom of the capital.

But this time was different. The speed of news spread was amazing. It spread to all the government offices in Beijing very quickly, which was extremely unusual.

In the duty room, Wei Guangde sat quietly behind the desk, but he could vaguely hear the fierce voices of people in other rooms outside.

Although he could not hear it clearly, at this time, he could guess that the people who were so excited were probably officials who were speaking up for Xu Jie.

In the past few months, Xu Jie has personally handled the matter of rectifying the chaos in the will of Emperor Jiajing. Many officials who were punished for admonishing the emperor and impeaching Yan Song have been restored to their reputation and official positions, which has greatly won the hearts of the people.

Correspondingly, he did the good things, and the bad things were handed over to Gao Gong and others, which is one of the reasons for Gao Gong's backlash.

Those who know the inside story will naturally not explain too much to others, and the news at this time is undoubtedly extremely unfavorable to Gao Gong and others.

The job of the Ministry of Personnel may be eagerly awaited by those on the official documents, but for Wei Guangde, who is in power, it makes no difference whether it is one day earlier or later.

He has no time to deal with official documents at this moment, but has deeper concerns.

Today's events seem to be unrelated, but if you think about it carefully, it seems that Xu Jie has calculated every step since Tan Lun's memorial arrived in Beijing, including the attitude of the officials in the court.

Xu Jie is a person who truly understands the hearts of these officials and has learned how to use people's hearts.

As the prime minister of the dynasty, he made few achievements in the major national policies that he should really deal with, and seemed to still follow Yan Song's approach.

Covering up the truth and whitewashing the situation.

But he was luckier. With Yan Song in front and the mistakes of the previous emperor in front, he won the hearts of the people by rectifying the chaos, cleverly diverted the attention of the officials, and won widespread support.

Now, there is still sympathy.

And Gao Gong unknowingly became a villain in the court and was denounced by most people.

When Wei Guangde was worried about the development of the situation, Gao Gong's students also realized that it was not good. Their teacher had a bad reputation in the court, which was not a good thing.

What is the main reason for everyone's dissatisfaction with Gao Gong?

Naturally, it was Xu Jie, the initiator of everything. People outside said that the teacher bullied honest people and relied on the emperor's trust to fight Xu Jie in the cabinet and wanted to replace him.

To replace Xu Jie, of course, these people hope so, but the current situation is not what they want to see.

In the Censorate, the censor Qi Kang had seen through today's tricks. Everything was planned by Xu Jie, and his teacher's reputation was ruined by him.

In anger, Qi Kang turned out the memorial written by Xu Zhi three months ago to impeach Xu Jie and read it carefully, and then he had a plan in mind.

Speaking of Xu Zhi, although he was not well-known, his brother was a famous figure in the court of the Ming Dynasty, the chief minister Xu Jie.

Xu Zhi was a Jinshi in the 26th year of Jiajing, and he was in the same department as the second assistant Li Chunfang. At this time, Xu Jie had already experienced the stage of being suppressed by Zhang Zong and returned to the court.

However, Xu Jie did not help his brother stay in the capital as an official, but kept him in Nanjing, perhaps so that he could take care of the family nearby.

But no matter how he thought about it, Xu Zhi, who felt that he could not get Xu Jie's glory and would be suppressed in Nanjing, was naturally dissatisfied, so he finally impeached his brother Xu Jie in February for three illegal things, namely accepting a deceitful letter. , embezzling land, hiding the population, the family's land is as much as 200,000 acres; allowing the family's children and slaves to run rampant in the countryside, doing evil and so on.

After the memorial was sent to the capital, it should have caused an uproar. However, at this time, most of the attention of the government and the public was focused on the late emperor's palace, mausoleum and the relocation of several queens' tombs. Although this memorial was not concealed, its impact was still felt. The deliberate reduction was even said to be a family matter of Xu Jie's.

Because of family affairs, Xu Zhi was dissatisfied with Xu Jie's handling, and then used private affairs to abolish public affairs and take private revenge.

In short, although most officials heard about it, they didn't take it seriously, admitting that it was because of the Xu family's family affairs.

However, others did not care, but someone in the Imperial Court paid attention to it and copied the memorial and kept it. This person was Qi Kang.

Yes, he was writing a memorial at this time, citing the three major crimes of Xu Jie mentioned by Xu Zhi to impeach him.

Although Xu Zhi had retired from office two months ago, the imperial court would keep the memorial and would not destroy it easily.

With the confessions of Xu family members, Qi Kang did not think that his memorial was just a rumor. The emperor should send someone to investigate in detail.

Until then, let's see how Xu Jie, an old man, defends himself.

In Qi Kang's eyes, Xu Jie was insidious and greedy.

He allowed his family members and servants to do evil and harm others outside the country, all because he had great power in the court.

Also, when the late emperor wanted to establish a heir, Xu Jie firmly opposed it. He said that the emperor was successful in cultivation and had a long life, whether it was to flatter Emperor Jiajing or to speculate that it was a test by the emperor. Anyway, Xu Jie did oppose the emperor's establishment. Store.

But when Emperor Longqing actually ascended to the throne, he had something in his mind, so he pretended to be sick to get a glimpse of the emperor's intentions.

He also wooed Li Chunfang in the cabinet and relied on his momentum to achieve the purpose of exercising exclusive power.

In short, in Qi Kang's eyes, everything Xu Jie did was his deliberate attempt to squeeze out Gao Gong and monopolize the power of the government.

After Qi Kanti finished writing the impeachment memorial in a few strokes, he hurriedly held the ink in his hands and headed to the royal court of Zuodu to check in.

In the evening, Wei Guangde received a note from Chen Yiqin at home and saw the general content of Qi Kang's impeachment memorial against Xu Jie.

"The rank is sinister, evil, corrupt, autocratic, and the country is obsessed with it. The late emperor wanted to establish a throne, but the rank was stubborn and he could not do it. When the emperor ascended the throne, he was extremely suspicious and fearful, so he falsely claimed his illness to get a taste of his superiority. He also relied on the great scholar Li Chunfang. The great scholar Gong has been repeatedly criticized and impeached by Xu Jiezhu, a great scholar in Italy.

Wei Guangde felt a toothache after reading the note, which was really disturbing.

Thinking that Gao Gong had just left the cabinet today, he didn't want to think that Xu Jie would have to stage this scene again before the court meeting tomorrow.

It’s okay to be impeached by others. You, a Guangdong Taoist Examination Censor, are impeaching you. Are you afraid that no one will remember that your teacher is Gao Gong?