After Empress Zhang left the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Youzhu sat on the dragon chair, pondering, and after a while, he asked Xiao Jing who was waiting on the side: "Gonggong Xiao, what kind of minister do you think Young Master Liu is?" ”

Zhu Youzhu was not assertive many times, he used to rely completely on the cabinet scholars and the six ministries, but now he was disturbed by his wife's words, he became suspicious of his courtiers, so he couldn't help but ask the opinion of Xiao Jing, who had always been loyal. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Xiao Jing hesitated a little: "Your Majesty, old slave...... Don't dare to talk casually! ”

"You say that no matter what you say, if you are disrespectful to me or the crown prince, or if you attack foreign ministers, I will forgive you for your sins, because this is what I am asking you, you just need to answer truthfully!" Zhu Youji's words were conclusive, and he wanted to listen to Xiao Jing's pertinent opinions.

Xiao Jing's breath was a little uncomfortable, and he said with difficulty: "The old slave thought that in the past, ...... The ministers do things decently, and they are valued by His Majesty, and the large and small matters of the court are handled very well, and the people are praised a lot, saying that I have three virtuous auxiliary ministers in the Ming Dynasty, and there are three capable ministers for Your Majesty to expand the territory and protect the rivers and mountains......"

Zhu Youzhu listened to Xiao Jing's praise of Liu Jian too much, waved his hand impatiently, and said, "I don't want to hear some clichés!" Let's pick something more pertinent to talk about! ”

"Yes!"

Xiao Jing was even more difficult now, and stammered, "The Tatar soldiers are in the Jingshi, Your Majesty's condition is ...... If it is not good, it will be replaced by the cabinet department, and the cabinet ministers will ...... Many times there are acts of trespassing, especially after the crown prince was appointed as the supervisor of the country, the cabinet has never faced up to the prince's position of supervising the country, and has been repeatedly criticized! ”

Zhu Youji's eyes widened angrily, and he shouted and asked, "Are you ...... What did you say? ”

Xiao Jing didn't talk about Liu Jian's abuse of power before, because he wanted to be a good old man and a good man, and he didn't want to destroy the good relationship between the emperor and his ministers, but now his own safety is threatened, and Empress Zhang is eyeing the side, so he doesn't care about anything else, and directly reveals everything:

"In the past, the cabinet drafted all the conclusions, all of which came from His Majesty's Zhu Approval, even if the old slave wrote on behalf of him, on many issues, there were many turnarounds, or discussions with the cabinet."

"But after the death of the Beijing Division, the cabinet will make a vote again, mostly strong words, the old slave has no right to decide, once the intention of the cabinet is violated, the script will be played again and again, again and again, not with the cabinet voted to draft the text Zhu Approval to be peaceful, the celebrant is miserable, and the six ministries and the five military governors do not dare to have anything to rebel against the cabinet, otherwise they will be attacked......"

"There are internal officials who say that the ministers of the cabinet are now more than Zaifu......"

Before, Zhu Youzhu just sighed, and didn't know how to reconcile the difference in knowledge between his wife and the first assistant Liu Jian, but after listening to Xiao Jing's heartfelt words, he became more and more convinced that what his wife said was true, and the cabinet scholars, especially the first assistant Liu Jian, did have some arbitrary power.

As the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he has only one son under his knees, and his son is still naughty and willful, of course he will worry that there will be problems after his son ascends the throne in the future, but in the case that his son has a good performance in this defense of Beijing, and even won the support of many ministers, Liu Jian still treats his son as a naughty boy and fools around, so he does not approve of it.

Zhu Youzhu was undecided, frowned and said, "Now...... But how to be born is good! At this time, Emperor Hongzhi's mood was very conflicted, he wanted to replace Liu Jian as soon as possible and eliminate unstable factors, but he was also afraid that doing so would have too much impact and directly lead to chaos in the government and the opposition during the succession of the throne.

Xiao Jing took out a copy of the playbook and said: "Your Majesty, this is the music played by Shen Zhongcheng before, please transfer the soldiers and horses outside the city back to the city, before being fettered by the cabinet, the old slave did not dare to slack off, so he made an initiative to stay on his body, you ...... Is it a royal view? ”

Xiao Jing left the notebook on his body, originally wanting to find an opportunity to dedicate it to Zhu Youji, which was a reflection of his dissatisfaction with Liu Jian's attitude of wanting to interfere in everything.

Liu Jian previously pressed Shen Xi's invitation to his army to enter the capital, and pressing down was actually equivalent to a veto, the 10,000 soldiers and horses led by Shen Xi could not enter the capital at this time in Nanyuan, which was outside the city, and Liu Jian's reason was that he could not lead foreign troops into the city, so as not to cause chaos.

But Xie Qian, one of the cabinet ministers, thought that this move was inappropriate, and he wanted to bypass Liu Jian and directly ask the emperor to play, but because Zhu Youji coughed violently, he didn't have time to play.

Xiao Jing believed that Shen Xi's troops were the first merit of this battle, and without their play, it was not necessarily that the city would be attacked by the Tatars at this moment. Leaving the meritorious soldiers outside the city is really detrimental to the majesty of the Ming court.

If it weren't for Empress Zhang's sudden mention of Liu Jian's abuse of power, Xiao Jing would not be ready to submit the transcript submitted by Shen Xi for the time being, but now he has to consider whether he can still gain the emperor's trust in the future, Empress Zhang is not a fuel-efficient lamp, Zhu Youzhu has not married a concubine in recent years, in addition to the love of husband and wife, it is also related to Empress Zhang's strength, in short, if he offends her, he must not have a good life.

At this time, it was very necessary to properly show his attitude and stand firmly with the royal family, so Xiao Jing decisively took out the notebook as his stepping stone. He thought very clearly, if the emperor trusted Liu Jian, he would temporarily press the book to protect Liu Jian's face, but now that the emperor himself has doubts about Liu Jian, it is no wonder that he fell into the ground.

Although Xiao Jing is a well-known good man in the court, it doesn't mean that he has no brains, and if he really has no brains, he can't climb to the position of the eunuch who holds the seal of the celebrant eunuch. Xiao Jing knows very well how to protect himself, this is many years of experience in the palace, every time he has to leave a way back for himself, sure enough, when the emperor saw the transcript presented by Xiao Jing, his opinion of him suddenly changed.

Zhu Youzhu had always said that he was not in good spirits and could not read the recital, but when it really came to the major issue of the stability of imperial power, Zhu Youzhu looked at the recital carefully, and even read out the content of the recital word by word, and carefully figured out the meaning.

After a long time, Zhu Youzhu put down the notebook in his hand and asked, "Gonggong Xiao, how did the cabinet vote on this matter?" ”

Xiao Jing replied with admiration: "Back to Your Majesty, the cabinet ...... Pressed this notebook down! ”

Zhu Youji's face suddenly darkened, and he sneered: "Cabinet ministers, you actually have the power to press the book, it is really no different from Zaifu!" ”

In the Ming Dynasty, the cabinet, as a secretarial department, did not have the authority to intercept any promissory notes, and if there was anything, the promissory notes had to be prepared in the shortest possible time, submitted to the celebrant and submitted to the emperor for review.

Even if the emperor didn't have time to read it, he would let the celebrant and eunuch approve it as soon as possible, and some untimely scripts would choose to stay in the middle and not send them, but that was the matter of the emperor and the celebrant eunuch, and had nothing to do with the cabinet.

However, in practice, because the cabinet is too busy, there will occasionally be a backlog of notebooks, and the cabinet scholars will make their own judgments according to the priority of the matter, which ones should be voted on first, and which ones can be delayed, even if there are occasionally important things delayed, the emperor will not say anything.

But the problem is that the current matter involves the army, especially the arrangement and disposal of meritorious men, and is closely related to the current war against Tatar, and there can be no negligence at all. No matter how you look at it, this recital should be drafted as soon as possible and then handed over to the celebrant to the emperor, who will decide whether to transfer troops into the city.

Even if the emperor or the celebrant didn't want to transfer troops into the city, it should be up to the celebrant to make Zhu's approval, rather than the cabinet withholding Shen Xi's recital without authorization.

Xiao Jing hurriedly took the opportunity to express his loyalty, and said: "Your Majesty, the old slave is also aware that this matter is very important, so I have to urgently ask Your Majesty to make a decision!" ”

Zhu Youzhu nodded in approval: "Gonggong Xiao, you are doing the right thing, of course such military affairs should be handed over to me to make a decision, but I didn't expect the cabinet to secretly withhold such an important document, which is really ridiculous!" Oh yes, Gonggong Xiao, do you think I should transfer this road of soldiers and horses back to Beijing? ”

Xiao Jing is more difficult to answer now, he needs to guess according to the actual situation, which plan the emperor prefers.

After a long time, Xiao Jingcai replied cautiously: "Back to Your Majesty, the old slave thinks that the soldiers and horses on this road help the Beijing division to solve the difficulty, and it is a meritorious minister of the Ming Dynasty, if he is left outside the city and ignored, or even suspicious of it, it will definitely cause speculation about the court in the army, resulting in unstable morale of the army." ”

"The old slave believes that the soldiers and horses on this road should be transferred back to the Beijing division as soon as possible, but they cannot be deployed according to the original structure, but should be transferred back in batches and assigned to different camps in the Beijing camp to guard the nine cities!"

Xiao Jing is a very capable person, which is also the fundamental reason why Zhu Youzhi will appoint Xiao Jing to be in charge of the celebrant at the beginning, but Liu Jian and others think that Xiao Jing is just a rubber stamp role, like a puppet, he only needs to cooperate with the cabinet to say "yes" or "no", Xiao Jing does not want to offend people, so he lets it go, but in fact he is very assertive.

Hearing Xiao Jing propose such a solution, Zhu Youji's eyes lit up, and he got up and praised loudly: "Gonggong Xiao has a very good proposal, and he will transfer this road of male soldiers back to the capital, but he will be transferred in batches and assigned to different Beijing camps, haha, it can not only stabilize the hearts of the Ming soldiers, but also strengthen the combat strength of all departments in the Beijing camp, and win more ......than one stone."

"Well, Gonggong Xiao, this matter will be decided by me personally, and you should not know anything about this matter, even if the cabinet asks, you should not know, understand?"

As soon as Xiao Jing heard the emperor say this, he knew that the emperor wanted to protect himself, so Liu Jian didn't know who was behind the scenes who presented this recital, and it was likely that Shen Xi played it himself, or through some secret channels, such as the crown prince, and then Xie Qian.

Xiao Jing was busy responding, but he was secretly glad in his heart, and thought: "If I hadn't left this notebook on my body first, Your Majesty would have suspected Young Master Liu of abusing power and the celebrant was inactive and blamed me, but fortunately, Your Majesty is my own person, I have to be cautious in the future, and I can't deviate again!" ”