In the fifth year of Longqing, on May 22, I replied to the matter of paying tribute to a complete success. The border minister returned to the imperial court and said that he had sworn an oath on April 13 in front of the leaders of the right-wing Mongol tribes and hundreds of thousands of people.

So the Great Tomorrow envoy took the edict of the Son of Heaven, named me the king of Shunyi, and changed the name of the city where he lived to naturalize; Kunduli, Xin Ai, etc. were all awarded officials; General Hannaji Zhaoyong was sealed, and the commander was the same.

I answered and led the troops to be very respectful, sent tribute horses, and held Zhao Quanyu Party to offer the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Jia Qicheng, give gold coins. He also collected the ancient and courtiers, gave the king's seal, gave it food, and added a reward, but the tribute envoy did not listen to the capital.

Hetao Jineng also asked for his life as promised. Because the matter was in Shaanxi, the cabinet ordered the governor Wang Zhiyu to agree on the slight. Wang Zhihe hoped to issue an edict to Ji Neng, requiring him to refrain from committing crimes for one or two years before he was allowed to pay tribute.

Chonggu Fu said: "I answer, Ji Neng is an uncle and nephew, and the beginning and end are corresponding." Now accept his uncle and indulge his nephew, shackle his head and stretch his arms, I will call the people of Ji Neng to the city of Hedong Xuan, big; The vendors can't give, and Ji Neng can correct and disturb Shaanxi, and the worries of the four towns are great. ”

Long Qing thinks it is reasonable, if you can seal my answer, you can seal Ji Neng, anyway, a sheep is a drive, and a group of sheep is also a drive. So he also gave the governor of Ji Neng to know the same knowledge.

After the event, Wang Chonggu called merchants and listened to the order to trade. Cloth, corn, and leather are far away from Jianghuai and Huguang, and they are rewarded for collecting their taxes. Its ministers of all sizes are given to the golden thread, and the number of horses in the city is different. Chonggu is still old, and he gives the fort to proclaim Weide. All the robes, there is no one who dares to make an uproar.

Since then, the border is peaceful, from the east to Yan, Yong, west to Jiayu seven towns, thousands of miles of land for the military and the people to work, no need for military revolution, seven out of ten years of savings. The emperor issued an edict, and Wang Chonggu entered the crown prince's Taibao.

Now that the tribute has been decided, the emperor is ready to reward the ministers, from the center to the three towns of Xuanda, and almost everyone who has agreed to pay tribute before.

But at this time, Li Chunfang, the first assistant of the cabinet, was once again neglected and begged for rest due to illness. Longqing immediately sent the imperial physician to visit him, and after the imperial doctor's diagnosis and treatment, he returned to the emperor and said: "Yuanfu is depressed and has a knotted heart, coughing and wheezing, and really needs to recuperate." ”

In fact, as early as February this year, Li Chunfang went to the court to "beg for rest with illness", but the emperor did not agree, and sent the imperial physician to visit him.

In April, Wang Zhen and others in Nanjing commented on Li Chunfang's "begging to go to the elderly, and then stop at the slightest hint, because the fate is the younger brother to change the official, and he is not divided, and said that his father is not in a good place at home, and Chunfang cannot resign." ”

After reading this, the emperor was "furious" and reprimanded: "Zhen and others are rash and reckless, slander the auxiliary ministers, and lose the national body, so they will forgive their crimes." Li Chunfang immediately went to the court to plead and beg for leave, which was the second time to beg for leave.

Judging from what Wang Zhen said, "to ask for the elderly, and then to stop", the matter refers to the third year of March Chunfang to two sparse to go, at this time the high arch has not yet returned to the cabinet, that time was actually forced by Zhang Juzheng's words, and then Li Chunfang secretly exerted his strength, let Zhao Zhenji enter the cabinet and fight with Zhang Juzheng, but Zhang Juzheng is not good at stubble, and soon returned the high arch, making Li Chunfang and Zhao Zhenji finally defeated.

In fact, the reason why Li Chunfang begged to go was indeed forced by the situation, one was because Zhao Zhenji himself had killed himself, and Li Chunfang had lost his allies, and the other was that although Gao Gong had only been in power for more than a year, he had made major achievements that Li Chunfang could not compare with in recent years.

According to the records of the historical books: "The high decision is to Dinggong City, which combines seven towns into one, and the provincial border fee is more than 100,000 yuan." Zhao An Guoheng came out of reason, and tried his best to level the barbarians. Momentarily experienced, generous and straightforward, all have success. Ran Xinghua was overwhelmed, resigned, and took the lead. ”

In other words, Li Chunfang, who had lost all his allies, compared his political achievements with Gao Gong, and he really couldn't continue to do this first assistant with a cheeky face, so he had to resign, so this time he was not only sincere, but also really depressed and sick.

In this way, Longqing will be easy to do. Of course, on the face of Emperor Longqing, he still showed a look of necessity, and only in "helplessness" did he issue an edict on May 24 to agree to Li Chunfang's resignation, and temporarily added a pillar state to Li Chunfang - this is unprecedented in history.

On 25 May, Li Chunfang left Beijing and returned to Xinghua, and Gao Gong led a large number of officials from the cabinet and various ministries to send Li Chunfang back to his hometown.

On May 26, Emperor Longqing officially issued an edict to reward his ministers:

High arch plus pillar country, Jin young master, Zhongji Temple scholar;

Zhang Juzheng is still a young master, and he is also the prince of Jin and a scholar of Jianji Palace;

Yin Shi Dan Jin Shaobao, Wu Yingdian University Scholar;

……

As for Gao Pragmatism, he was an exception, he had already been rewarded several days in advance, and this time he had nothing to do.

Therefore, he is taking advantage of the free time when everyone in the court is busy receiving rewards to deal with his own affairs.

For example, he met with Gao Guoyan, Gao Xiaozhuang, Gao Mo, Cao Gan, Wei Ximin and others who came to Beijing in advance and had been waiting to report to him on the progress of his work in the past six months.

However, these business things are very complicated, and there is no need to elaborate on them one by one, in short, Gao pragmatic first understood the situation in the past six months, and according to these circumstances, combined with the plan that had been set before, he re-determined the new tasks for them.

Gao Guoyan didn't need to say anything, he still continued to do a good job in financial supervision, and incidentally began to experiment with the "financial budget" method that Gao Shishi had mentioned to him.

After Gao Xiaozhuang was transferred to Kaiping, he had basically laid a good foundation in the past six months and began small-scale steelmaking and iron smelting, but at present, because the private affairs of ordnance have not been completed, there is no place to sell stainless steel products even if they are manufactured, so for the time being, iron smelting is still the mainstay.

Gao Pragmatic gave him the task of prefabricating the barrel in advance, as for the products of iron smelting, it can be mainly built as agricultural tools first, and the problem of sales is easy to deal with - the agricultural tools that the Tuntian soldiers of the Guangwei Institute have to change in a year is an astronomical amount, not to mention the civilian? Gao pragmatic let Gao Xiaozhuang be responsible for the expansion of the civil business, and as for the health office, he will wait until he communicates with the group of nobles.

Gao Mo's side is mainly in charge of the armed family, and according to Gao Shi's plan, now the cavalry and foot soldiers are divided into several parts, so as not to gather together too many people. At present, the total number of highly pragmatic horsemen has exceeded two thousand, which is supposed to be a big burden, but fortunately, these horsemen themselves also create profits - Cao Gan's Jinghua caravan mainly relies on the escort of horsemen.

That's not all, Gao Mo has even reached an agreement with some big merchants in the north according to Gao Shishi's explanation before leaving Beijing, when they need to transfer a large amount of materials, especially valuable materials, they can ask the cavalry of the Jinghua caravan to escort them. As for the price...... It's not cheap, but fortunately, the Gao family is famous for riding Ding Wei, and they are rampant on the grassland, so these big businessmen are also willing to spend this money. In this way, not only did the rider not become a burden, but he still had a surplus.

And Bu Ding is different, Gao Mo is quite worried and told Gao Pragmatic that at present, the Bu Ding under his command Gao Yude, except for the most elite about two thousand people, who are sometimes hired by those big businessmen as escorts to travel with the caravan, the remaining five or six thousand people are in a state of "only losing money and not making money", at present, these people may cost 210,000 taels of silver a year!

Gao Pragmatic was also stunned and asked, "Why are there so many people?" ”