In this cold winter night, unless there is something particularly important, most people will not go out, most people will choose to nest at home to bake the fire, or simply sleep.

Huang Chenghao is also ready to sleep, because he will have an early dynasty tomorrow, Chongzhen is the kind of emperor who is particularly diligent and diligent, unless the weather is cold and the snow closes the road, otherwise, the early dynasty will not stop, no matter how cold the weather is, they have to get up in the dark and rush to the early dynasty, so the Beijing officials of the Chongzhen Dynasty have developed the habit of going to bed early.

At this time, it was almost time, Huang Chenghao hurriedly cleaned up the things on the desk with the oil lamp, and then turned off the light, and walked quickly to the bedroom of the little peach, thinking of the fiery delicate body of the little peach, he suddenly felt a burst of blood boiling, unfortunately, there is no time to consume, every time it is a hurry, he really looks forward to the New Year's energy saving soon, only then, he can indulge in the gentle and considerate of the little peach, but unfortunately, the New Year has just passed, and he has to wait for the New Year, and he has to stay up for eleven months.

At this moment, he was in a hurry, and he didn't notice that there were two black shadows squatting under the window outside the study.

Not long after Huang Chenghao left, the two black shadows stood up silently, and then the dim light in the corridor gently pried the window open and drilled in like a ghost.

The two shadows didn't notice that on the roof of a bungalow more than a mile away, there was a shadow staring at them with a telescope.

Bai Wenxuan stared at the two black shadows for a while, and it wasn't until they turned into Huang Chenghao's study that he put down his binoculars and scolded softly: "Damn, these guys finally appeared again, causing us to wait for several days." ”

Li Dingguo, who was lying next to him, smiled faintly: "What's the hurry, this is not a war at this time, didn't I say it in the special warfare class, when waiting for the rabbit, the most important thing is patience." ”

Bai Wenxuan rolled his eyes and said: "Brother Dingguo, I'm not impatient, the main thing is that it's too cold this day, and I get frostbite on my hands and feet every night!" ”

Li Dingguo touched his head and encouraged: "Okay, if you suffer hardship, you will become a master, and now people are waiting, you go back to the fire, and I will take someone to follow him." ”

When Bai Wenxuan heard this, he immediately volunteered: "Brother Dingguo, I'll go with you." ”

Li Dingguo shook his head and said: "No, there must be someone here in command, you stay, I'll go." ”

With that, he stood up directly, jumped off the eaves, landed lightly on the ground, and then whispered to the courtyard: "Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen." ”

His voice, though soft, resounded throughout the courtyard in the silence of the night, and soon more than forty black men came out of the house and lined up in front of him.

He didn't say anything, but waved his hand directly, and then ran into the night, and more than forty people in black lined up without any hesitation, and followed silently.

Soon, they came to the periphery of Huang Chenghao's mansion, and quickly divided into four teams, quietly hiding in the darkness.

After about a quarter of an hour, two black shadows climbed out of the wall in the backyard of Huang Chenghao's mansion, and then under the cover of night, they cautiously sneaked to the east.

Seeing this, Li Dingguo did not chase after him immediately, but made a gesture and motioned to the people behind him to notify the other teams to follow, until the two black shadows ran out dozens of steps away, he waved his hand and quietly followed with his subordinates.

The two black shadows did not notice that anyone was following, they cautiously sneaked five or six miles to the east, turned to the north and sneaked two or three miles, and then directly climbed over the walls of the inner city and entered a courtyard near Chang'an Avenue.

Li Dingguo did not recklessly lead people to follow up, because this was already the northeast of the capital, and he was not familiar with this place, he just ordered four teams to secretly surround this courtyard, and then sent people to find the people in charge of this area, Ai Nengqi and Ma Yuanli.

After less than a quarter of an hour, Ainengqi quietly lurked over with a team, and he was a little curious: "Brother Dingguo, why are you here?" ”

Li Dingguo said softly: "I came here following the black-clothed man in Huang Chenghao's mansion, do you know who lives in this courtyard in front of me?" ”

Ai Nengqi took a closer look in the night, and then shook his head and said: "The courtyards here seem to be inhabited by ordinary people, we are not very familiar with each other, but the back of these courtyards is Wen Tiren's mansion, do you see the circle of walls behind, that is the wall of Wen Tiren's mansion, but the gate of Wen Tiren's mansion is not on this street, but on the street behind this row of courtyards." ”

When Li Dingguo heard this, he nodded thoughtfully and said: "It seems that these people should have nothing to do with Wen Tiren, you are responsible for this, you send people to guard around here, don't startle the snake, I'll go back and report to the adults first, and see what to do next." ”

When Ai Nengqi heard this, he nodded without hesitation and said, "Okay, I'll take turns guarding here for twelve hours in a squadron near the platoon, Brother Dingguo, don't worry." ”

Li Dingguo nodded, patted him on the shoulder again, and then turned around and led people back.

At three o'clock the next morning, Zhang Bin just got up and put on his court clothes, and after washing, Zhang Cha whispered outside: "My lord, Dingguo is here." ”

When Zhang Bin heard this, he hurriedly drank a few mouthfuls of porridge, took another steamed bun, and then walked quickly to the lobby.

Li Dingguo was standing in the lobby waiting at this time, and when he saw Zhang Bin coming in, he hurriedly arched his hand and said, "My lord, my subordinates waited for those people last night." ”

When Zhang Bin heard this, he raised his hand and motioned for him to sit down, and then stuffed the last piece of steamed bun into his mouth, swallowed it in two bites, and then walked to the main seat and sat down, and asked with interest: "Oh, who sent it, have you found it?" ”

Li Dingguo was a little ashamed and said: "We followed them for nearly an hour to follow them to the place where they settled, which is already the area that Nengqi is responsible for, and the subordinates are not familiar with that side, so they dare not rashly follow up to investigate, but according to Nengqi, behind that courtyard is Wen Tiren's mansion." ”

Zhang Bin suddenly said when he heard this: "Sure enough, it's Wen Tiren, and finally grabbed his tail, very good, you let Nengqi keep an eye on those people with all his strength to see what they are doing every day." You must be careful, the Zhejiang Party has been one of the best forces in the DPRK and China for more than 30 years, relying on absolutely not luck, their hidden strength in the shadows is certainly not trivial, you will take that place as a breakthrough point, and slowly find out all their hidden strength, and then I will decide the next action plan according to their hidden strength. ”

When Li Dingguo heard this, he hurriedly arched his hand and said, "My subordinates understand." ”

Zhang Bin sent Li Dingguo away, as usual, with a personal entourage, and walked slowly towards the imperial city, as if nothing had happened.

On the surface, the court is still calm, Zhang Bin is still "honest", he doesn't care about political affairs, he only cares about teaching the prince, Wen Tiren also seems to have suddenly stopped, and no longer orders people to attack dissidents, but secretly it is not calm at all, because Huang Chenghao is investigating Wang Yingxiong, the secretary of the Cabinet University Officials Department!

Wang Yingxiong is not a veteran of the Zhejiang Party, and even he is not a member of the Eunuch Party, because he is a Jinshi in the forty-seventh year of Wanli, and he was also elected as a Shujishi, and studied in the Hanlin Academy for three years.

It stands to reason that it is difficult for an official like him, who has been in the official career for less than ten years, to enter the cabinet, but he knows how to judge the situation, and soon after entering the office, he joined Wen Tiren's command, and soon won the trust of Chongzhen with the assistance of Wen Tiren, so he rose all the way, from Langzhong to Shilang, and then was promoted to the secretary of the ministry, and soon entered the cabinet.

The reason why he was promoted so quickly was naturally not based on merit, because an official like Zhang Bin, who had been an official for more than ten years and had outstanding merits, only now did he have the name of a secretary of the Ministry of War, and he was not even qualified to enter the cabinet, but Wang Yingxiong had been in the cabinet for almost a year.

If you want to compare merits, he doesn't even deserve to lift shoes for Zhang Bin, but he just controlled the most important yamen of the Ministry of Officials, and entered the cabinet and became a Zaifu, so what did he rely on?

This is the reason why Huang Chenghao investigated him, Wang Yingxiong's political achievements are not glorious, when he was still the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, there were Feng Yuanbiao, Zhang Zhengchen, Fan Shutai and other upright officials who impeached him for corruption and abuse of power for personal gain!

It's a pity that these people's positions are not high, Zhang Zhengchen and Fan Shutai are only in the middle of the matter, from the officials of the seventh grade, Feng Yuanbiao was only in the right of the Ministry of Rites at that time, the officials of the seventh grade, several seven-grade sesame officials dared to impeach Wen Tiren's love general, the result can be imagined, Zhang Zhengchen and Fan Shutai were directly thrown into the prison of the Criminal Department, and Feng Yuanbiao was directly thrown by Wen Tiren to the Nandu Taifu Temple for retirement.

This matter has already been suppressed by Wen Tiren, but if you don't die, Feng Yuanbiao and Zhang Zhengchen are both from Zhejiang, and Huang Chenghao happens to be from Zhejiang, and the hometown of the three of them is not far away.

It should be explained here that not all Zhejiang officials are Zhejiang Party, and honest officials from Zhejiang generally do not join the Zhejiang Party, especially after the Zhejiang Party of the Tianqi Dynasty was put into the eunuch party, the people who joined the Zhejiang Party are basically the scum of Zhejiang officials, and the truly honest Zhejiang officials, even if they are their fellow villagers, do not disdain to be with them, and even many times, they will stand up and impeach them because they are not used to what they do.

Like Feng Yuanbiao and Zhang Zhengchen, they don't care that Wang Yingxiong is the new favorite of the Zhejiang Party, Wen Tiren's favorite general, once they find out that he is corrupt and abuses power for personal gain, they will still be impeached.

Because of the impeachment of a corrupt official, the one who was imprisoned and the exiled one was naturally unwilling, so as soon as Feng Yuanbiao heard that his fellow countryman Huang Chenghao was in control of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, he immediately wrote to him to expose Wang Yingxiong's corruption and asked him to uphold justice.

At this time, Huang Chenghao can be described as a prodigal son, he is a remnant of the eunuch party, and he was transformed into an upright, jealous and hateful anti-corruption pioneer by Zhang Bin, after receiving Feng Yuanbiao's letter, he immediately launched an investigation against Wang Yingxiong, and at this time, Wen Tiren was about to deal with him, so his investigation of Wang Yingxiong was soon discovered by Wen Tiren, and the man in black who often patronized his study was looking for "evidence".

However, what they are looking for is not the evidence of Huang Chenghao's corruption, because Huang Chenghao has been away from corruption since he reformed his ways, and all the evidence of corruption in the past has been destroyed by him.

This is the secret of Wen Tiren's ability to "defeat the enemy", he is also corrupt, he even uses the power in his hands to seize people's property, but when others impeach him, he is fine, and even, he overturns all the people who impeached him, what is going on?

Actually, to put it bluntly, it is very simple, that is, he heard the rumors in advance, and even knew the content of the impeachment of him, he had already been prepared, in front of Chongzhen, he either avoided the important and trivial, or diverted the topic, or reversed black and white, or pointed to the deer as a horse, in short, he had a plan in advance, knew how to deal with it, and knew how to fool Chongzhen, so he did all the bad things, but he didn't do anything, Chongzhen was fooled by him to clean up all the honest officials who impeached him!

This is also the reason why he has been deflated in front of Zhang Bin repeatedly, because every time Zhang Bin makes a secret move, he doesn't know who is cleaning him up, and naturally he can't prepare in advance.

He wanted to know that Zhang Bin was the "mastermind behind the scenes", and it was estimated that he would have been sent to spy on Zhang Bin secretly.

He is about to use this trick to clean up Huang Chenghao at this time, if Huang Chenghao can't find evidence of Wang Yingxiong's corruption, it's okay, once he finds it, Huang Chenghao himself will be miserable, Wen Tiren will let Wang Yingxiong find a way to destroy the relevant evidence, and then in turn slander in front of Chongzhen, accusing Huang Chenghao of forming a party for personal gain, excluding dissidents!

Of course, at this time, Huang Chenghao didn't know that Wen Tiren was secretly spying on him, and Zhang Bin didn't understand what Wen Tiren sent people to Huang Chenghao's study for, if they took something, Huang Chenghao should have found out a long time ago, the problem Huang Chenghao has not found any abnormality, what the hell is this Wen Tiren doing?

The best way is naturally to arrest all Wen Tiren's cronies, torture them, and force them to confess, but Zhang Bin doesn't want to do it at this time, because he found that these people are the key to cleaning up Wen Tiren, and he has to find out all the situation of these people before he does it.

Perhaps, this is the real reason why Cao Huachun overturned Wen Tiren in history, otherwise, why did all the court officials have no way to take Wen Tiren, as soon as Cao Huachun made a move, Wen Tiren was planted, it is very likely that Cao Huachun found out the details of Wen Tiren's cronies, and then sued Chongzhen.

If Chongzhen knew that Wen Tiren was secretly cultivating cronies and spying on court officials everywhere to expel dissidents, what would have happened?