Empress Dowager Li, that is, Li, a native of Beizhili County, was born in Jiajing for 25 years, her family background is extremely ordinary, and her father Li Wei was born as a mason. It is said that his name is Li Caifeng, I don't know if it comes from the allusion "no Caifeng double flying wings", but I think Li Wei should not have so much culture.

When the Li family was young, due to the severe disaster in his hometown, the Li family's life was extremely difficult, and in desperation, Li Wei dragged his family to Beijing. "Beijing Normal University, it is not easy to live", and then due to the lack of money, Li Wei sent his daughter Li to the palace and became a palace maid. This may be the wisest decision he has made in his life.

When Li first entered the palace, she was just an ordinary palace maid, and no one could have expected that she would soar in the future.

In the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing, that is, when Li was fifteen years old, she was assigned to enter the palace of King Yu and serve the third son of Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Zaiyuan, King Yu.

Because at that time, Jiajing originally had several sons, as the third child, Zhu Zaiyuan was not treated by his father at first, and his father believed in the saying of some monks that "the two dragons can't meet", so Zhu Zaiyuan could only find solace in women and wine.

At this time, Li Shi walked into the world of Zhu Zaiyuan. Because the Li family was smart and handsome, he soon won Zhu Zaiyuan's favor.

In the forty-second year of Jiajing, Li gave birth to a son Zhu Yijun for Zhu Zaiyuan. After Jiajing's death, Zhu Zaiyuan, who originally had no hope of being the emperor, actually became the only son of the first emperor, "salted fish turned over", and sat on the dragon chair.

In the first year of Longqing, Zhu Zaiyuan ascended the throne for Ming Muzong. In March of the same year, Ming Muzong named Li as a noble concubine, second only to Empress Chen.

In the second year of Longqing, Li gave birth to another son, Zhu Yiyi, for Zhu Zaiyuan.

In the first year of Wanli, after Zhu Yijun ascended the throne, he was honored as the "Empress Dowager of Cisheng" for his mother Li. According to the old system of the Ming Dynasty, the new emperor ascended the throne and respected the previous empress as the empress dowager; If the new emperor's biological mother is called the queen mother, the emblem is added to show the difference.

At that time, the great eunuch Feng Bao wanted to curry favor with the Li family, so in the name of respecting the two empress dowagers, he suggested that the scholar Zhang Juzheng should be handed over to the ministers for consultation, respecting the Empress Muzong Chen as the Empress Dowager of Rensheng and the Li family as the Empress Dowager of Cisheng.

After the issue of honorific titles was resolved, there was no difference between the Li family and the Chen family at the beginning. Empress Dowager Chen lived in Ciqing Palace, and Empress Dowager Li lived in Cining Palace. It was only later that Zhang Juzheng wrote that in order to facilitate Empress Dowager Li to take care of Zhu Yijun's daily life, he should move to Qianqing Palace.

In the sixth year of Wanli, after Zhu Yijun's wedding, Empress Dowager Li returned to Cining Palace.

However, at the beginning of Emperor Wanli's accession to the throne, Empress Dowager Li did two major things. It is these two major events that ensure the stability of Zhu Yijun's throne; To a certain extent, it was also these two actions of the Li family that created the prosperous situation of "Wanli Zhongxing".

One is to replace Meng Chong, the eunuch who was the former celebrant and eunuch, and let Feng Bao take the throne.

Meng Chong was originally a chef, and by chance, he entered the palace as a eunuch and has been serving in Shangshan Prison. During the Longqing period, Meng Chong was in charge of one of the "Twelve Eunuchs", and later, he was valued by the university scholar Gao Gong and recommended to the emperor, so he sat on the high position of the eunuch who held the seal of the celebrant eunuch.

Meng Chong doesn't have any big skills, he is good at flattery, and "competing for strange tricks and tricks to please the emperor's will". For such a person, Empress Dowager Li naturally had no good feelings, so after the death of Emperor Longqing, she was dismissed.

The second major thing that Empress Dowager Li did was also about personnel appointments and dismissals: dismissing Gao Gong, who was then the first assistant, and pushing Zhang Juzheng to the post of first assistant.

In fact, regarding the removal of Gao Gong, on the surface, the reason is extremely simple.

After Zhu Yijun ascended the throne, Gao Gong once said in the cabinet: "How can a ten-year-old child take care of the affairs of the world?" The toddler here is, of course, the Wanli Emperor.

Although Gao Gong didn't have any other thoughts when he said this, this sentence was revealed by Zhang Juzheng to the great eunuch Feng Bao, and through Feng Bao's mouth, it reached the ears of the empress dowager of the two palaces (Li Guifei and Empress Chen), and the two were immediately shocked. Especially Empress Dowager Li, how could she tolerate such a scholar to assist her son.

On the morning of June 16 in the first year of Wanli, Empress Dowager Li severely rebuked Gao Gong's crime in front of the high-ranking officials of the cabinet, the five governments, and the six ministries, accusing the other party of contempt for imperial power and abusing power without a king, which was a great rebellion.

The matter was not over, and after being scolded, Empress Dowager Li bypassed the cabinet and issued an edict on the spot to dismiss Gao Gong, ordering him to return to his hometown immediately and not to stay in Beijing for more.

In fact, Empress Dowager Li has admired Zhang Juzheng for a long time, and her suspicion and dissatisfaction with Gao Gong are not only caused by this sentence. But in any case, her move, in hindsight, was indeed extremely wise.

After Emperor Longqing ascended the throne, he was obsessed with women all the year round, and his health was not as good as before, and his condition was not optimistic. At this time, the Demon Dao King Jiusi claimed to be well versed in Yin and Yang Dafa, and he prescribed a prescription to the emperor, taking the urine of a twelve-year-old boy and the menarche water of a twelve-year-old virgin, and then mixing them and refining them with Chinese medicine.

After Emperor Longqing got the recipe, Long Yan was happy. And Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong have both experienced the tragic experience of Emperor Jiajing's lifelong belief in Taoism and alchemy, and all day long in the Xiyuan, which led to the painful experience of state affairs and political decline.

Zhang Juzheng resolutely opposed what the emperor did.

Although Gao Gong also knew that the emperor's behavior was inappropriate, because he was at a critical juncture in the struggle for power with Zhang Juzheng, he did not want to offend the emperor, so he persuaded the emperor to give it a try.

Regarding the actions of the two courtiers, Emperor Longqing of course reprimanded Zhang Juzheng and praised Gao Gong. How did she know that this matter reached the ears of the Empress Dowager Li, she naturally felt that Zhang Juzheng was loyal and outspoken, but Gao Gong, who was closest to the emperor, disregarded the emperor's health and the safety of the Ming Dynasty because of his own selfish interests.

In this way, in the depths of Empress Dowager Li's heart, a seed of doubt was planted early, and after waiting for time to slowly ferment, it will burst out with a thousand powers.

In the early spring of the second year of Longqing, at the suggestion of Gao Yi, the then secretary of the Ministry of Rites, several scholars in the cabinet jointly gave the emperor an excerpt. It is to the effect that the emperor hopes that the emperor will establish Zhu Yijun's status as the crown prince as soon as possible.

Emperor Longqing had only two sons, both of whom were born to Concubine Li at that time. Due to physical reasons, Empress Chen gave birth to a daughter who died early in her early years, and she never came out again.

Zhu Yijun was the eldest son of Emperor Longqing, who was only more than five years old at the time. The emperor was very fond of this eldest son, and when he received a request from a cabinet minister, he played it on the spot, and in March he held a canonization ceremony to announce the matter to the world.

As soon as Zhang Juzheng entered the cabinet, he caught up with this major event. However, Gao Gong, who first entered the cabinet, was impeached by the officials because he fell out with Xu Jie, the first assistant at the time, and was excluded from the cabinet at the end of the first year.

Although not long after, Xu Jie retired to his hometown due to his old age, Gao Gong returned to the cabinet and sat in the position of first assistant. However, in the matter of "canonizing the crown prince", Gao Gong did not make an inch, which also led to the fact that after Wanli ascended the throne, Zhang Juzheng was more favored by the emperor than him.

And Empress Dowager Li also took a fancy to this, so that she could easily pull the high arch off the horse above the early dynasty. This shows how keen Empress Dowager Li's political sense is.

Through the analysis of what the Empress Dowager Li did, Zhong Nan came to a conclusion: The Empress Dowager Li is not simple! Not only is she capable, but she also knows how to advance and retreat, if she changes to a male body, she may be able to break out of the world.

For such a character, if you want to convince her, Zhong Nan feels that it is not ordinary.

The next day, Zhong Nan dragged Zhang Whale's relationship and expressed his willingness to ask for an audience to Empress Dowager Li. The old lady went against the norm of not having children on weekdays, and immediately summoned him.

After meeting, Zhong Nan found that the other party looked a little haggard, and he was probably worried about Zhu Yijun's condition. Now it seems that no matter how high a woman's status is, as long as she is a mother, her care for her children is the same as that of ordinary people.

"Zhong Shangshu has a way to heal the emperor?" Empress Dowager Li took the lead in asking.

Zhong Nan didn't expect the other party to be so urgent, he was still thinking about how to talk to the other party, and when he heard the question, he said in his heart: It seems that the old lady can't sit still. However, in this way, it is more conducive to his own lobbying work.

"Back to the Queen Mother, Xiaguan has a treatment plan, but there may be some risks."

"Have you communicated with the hospital? What do they say? ”

"Uh...... The treatment plan on my side is to use Western medicine, so the hospital has not informed them for the time being. After answering, Zhong Nan was a little worried about the other party's cognition and attitude towards Western medicine, after all, the mainstream is still Chinese medicine.

"Western medicine? I've heard of it, too. Empress Dowager Li nodded, "I don't know what method the Yanglang Middle School plans to use to heal the emperor?" ”

"According to their analysis and judgment of the condition, the Holy One can only be cured through surgical treatment."

"Surgery? That's a human head, can the Yanglang people guarantee that there will be no mistakes? Empress Dowager Li was a little surprised and worried.

"Hui Yu Empress Dowager, in fact, the surgical treatment of this Western medicine is not as terrible as you imagined." Zhong Nan decided to tell the other party well, after all, judging from his experience in two lives, Zhu Yijun's only chance now is to open his brain to remove the blood congestion in his brain, otherwise he can only become a vegetative person, or even die.

Subsequently, Zhong Nan explained to Empress Dowager Li the respective advantages of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, which he had seen before. Fortunately, Zhong Nan has been a "business ape" for several years, and he is well versed in the skills of dealing with people, plus the other party is not a pedantic person, not to mention that his son is heartfelt, and after several trade-offs, Empress Dowager Li finally nodded and agreed to let Yang Langzhong give Zhu Yijun surgery.