In December, it snowed heavily in the capital, and Zhu Cijiong finally returned to the Forbidden City after a long-awaited tour for nearly two months. When he left the palace, there were two people around him, Qin Mingyue and Cao Huachun, but when he came back, there were two more oil bottles.

One is naturally Zheng Sen, the prince of Xinke Zhennan, Zhu Cijiong was afraid that he and Zheng Zhilong would be contaminated by the merchant's philistine if they stayed together for a long time, so he simply brought him to the capital. Although Zheng Chenggong was a famous hero at that time in Nanming, he still considered his own interests too much about some things, Zhu Cijiong wanted Xu Guangqi and others to educate him well, so that he could lose his selfishness and become a pure patriotic youth.

There is also one who is not Wang Zhengnan but Liu Ruis, Wang Zhengnan is a fifteen or sixteen-year-old young man after all, it is not appropriate to bring him into the palace, Zhu Cijiong directly asked him to follow Qin Yiming and them to the Jingying station. Liu Ru is different, she is a stunning little beauty herself, and she was bought out by Xu Wenjue, which is equivalent to the family of the convict who came over, and it should be handled as a slave, Zhu Cijiong saw him pitiful, and simply brought her into the palace together.

Of course, this is not because Zhu Cijiong is lustful, at his age, he can't be lustful, he is mainly thinking about Zheng Sen. Isn't Zheng Sen only six years old, she needs to be taken care of in her daily life, and it just so happens that Liu Ru is a professional servant, and she is proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, so it is perfect for her to take care of Zheng Sen.

Zheng Sen was at his best age, he had just come down from the dragon chariot, and when he saw the snowflakes in the sky, he pulled Zhu Cijiong's sleeve and said excitedly: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, let's build a snowman and play together!" ”

He finally knows Zhu Cijiong's identity, and he no longer calls "third brother, third brother", but this tone is like talking to the emperor!

Zhu Cijiong doesn't care much about this, he is a modern person's thinking, and he doesn't take his superiors and subordinates very seriously, he still reluctantly pretends to be embarrassed in front of the minister, and he doesn't bother to pretend in front of his own people.

He was still a little moved by Zheng Sen's suggestion, although it was not interesting to build a snowman with a little kid, but it was different with two stunning beauties next to him, that scene was desirable to think about.

However, he really didn't have time, so he could only say regretfully: "I still have a lot of things to do, Mingyue, you take them to play, by the way, arrange a place for them to live, just choose a compound in the East Sixth Palace, anyway, there is no one to live in." ”

Sometimes Zhu Cijiong is indeed very lonely, the huge palace has a total of three masters living in him and the queen mother of the two palaces, and the others are eunuchs and palace maids, there are no three palaces and six courts, no brothers and sisters, and no princesses and princesses, and he can't find a playmate, he can be regarded as the loneliest emperor in history.

Now that there is Qin Mingyue and Zheng Sen, he is finally not so lonely, looking at their distant backs, Zhu Cijiong smiled and shook his head, turned around and walked towards the imperial study.

Before he left the capital, although he ordered the regent Zhu Youzhen to take full charge of state affairs, there were some things that could not be done without the nod of the real emperor.

For example, Han Kuang, a scholar of the Ministry of Officials and Wuyingdian University, resigned, did Zhu Youzhen dare to approve it?

For another example, Taifu, the scholar of the Zhongji Temple, the secretary of the military department, and the first assistant of the cabinet, Sun Chengzong, invited Yongzhen Jiliao, did Zhu Youzhen dare to agree?

The first thing Zhu Cijiong has to deal with is these two things, these two people are cabinet scholars, you must know that there are only four people in the cabinet, this time it is equivalent to half of it, if you don't deal with it, the entire court will be paralyzed!

He came to the imperial study and first took a closer look at Han Kuang's recital, and the reason for his resignation was very simple, he was old and frail, and he couldn't be a teacher. Okay, Han Kuang is also in his sixties, and he is indeed old, but the problem is that Xu Guangqi and Sun Chengzong are older than him, how come these two are not old and frail?

In fact, Zhu Cijiong knew that the real reason was the corruption turmoil of Qian Qianyi and others in the Donglin Party. There have been corrupt officials in the Donglin Party, which has always been advertised as honest and honest, and there are not one or two, Han Kuang is a veteran of the Donglin Party and a secretary of the ministry, and many people are mentioned by him, how embarrassing you say, he really has no face to stay, so he resigned.

Zhu Cijiong felt that this was fine, as soon as the officials of the Donglin Party came to power, they would have fewer opportunities to promote officials, and the fewer officials of the Donglin Party in the DPRK, the lower the possibility of party contention, and the stubborn disease of serious internal friction in the Ming Dynasty could be slowly cured. It's not that he has to get along with the Donglin Party, but he is already disgusted with all the behavior of forming parties for personal gain, and any friend, whether it is the Donglin Party or the Fushe, he will try his best to suppress it.

Now that Han Kuang has submitted his resignation, of course Zhu Cijiong will not keep it, he signaled Zhu Youzhen to approve a "quasi-performance", and then asked Cao Huachun to draw up a canonization decree to commend Han Kuang's merits, and reward him with 10,000 taels of silver, so that Han Kuang can go home to retire with peace of mind.

Sun Chengzong, like Han Kuang, was embarrassed by Qian Qianyi's corruption turmoil, he originally wanted to resign, but he was the teacher of the former emperor, and the Emperor of the Apocalypse took Zhu Cijiong's hand and entrusted it to him when he was dying, and now the little emperor has not grown up and he picks his son, isn't that sorry for the emperor!

Sun Chengzong is a loving and righteous person, his feelings for the former emperor are particularly deep, since the first emperor entrusted him with orphans, no matter what, before Emperor Chongzheng came of age, he will not let go. After thinking about it again, he chose to go away to Liaodong, and now the biggest threat to the Ming Dynasty is Houjin, he is ready to fight hard to deal with Houjin, and try his best to drag Houjin in Liaodong, so that Daming will have one less deadly threat, and he will be able to recover slowly, if he can hold on to the day when Daming Zhongxing, he will be worthy of the emperor. Of course, if he can defeat Houjin and recover Liaodong in his lifetime, then he will die without regrets.

Zhu Cijiong carefully flipped through Sun Chengzong's recitals, feeling his sorrow and unswerving loyalty to the Ming Dynasty, and his heart could not be calmed down for a long time. Such a loyal minister and a good general, how could he let him die a tragic death in Liaodong, Zhu Cijiong thought for a long time, suddenly stood up, and said loudly: "The proposed decree is to seal Sun Chengzong as the prince of Zhenguo, hereditary replacement, Liaodong, Shandong, Jizhou three places of tunwei and border troops are all under his command, and reward 1 million taels of silver for use." ”

Zhu Youzhen glanced at Zhu Cijiong in surprise, this town is just a prince, the soldiers and horses in Liaodong, Shandong, and Jizhou account for more than half of the current Ming army, is it appropriate to hand them all over to an outsider? But he carefully recalled Sun Chengzong's personality, and was relieved that Sun Chengzong was indeed a trustworthy person, and it was impossible for this kind of person to rebel.

After dealing with the affairs of Han Kuang and Sun Chengzong, the next step is the promotion of officials, there are too many Donglin Party members involved in the Jiangnan corruption case this time, and a large number of officials have fallen off, so they naturally have to find someone to replace them.

Not to mention Qian Qianyi's gang of officials assigned to Shaanxi, they have already arranged for the people of the restoration society to take over, and there are still many Donglin Party members in the court who have been implicated, most of them are for the matter and the supervision of the imperial history, that is, even the emperor dares to scold the "speech officials".

Zhu Cijiong can be said to have had enough of the hardships of these "speech officials", and they are flying over like snowflakes at every turn, if you don't listen to them, these people are famous for being able to toss, if you don't admonish them, they will make trouble with you, making the whole court restless, because of the ancestral system, you can't clean them up, it's really 'tofu fell into the ashes, you can't blow it, you can't beat it.' It can annoy people to death.

This time, these 'tofu' were all rotten, and Zhu Cijiong naturally stepped them into the ashes unceremoniously, and then all of them were replaced by Jinshi in the first year of Chongzheng, these were all his protégés, and he would not dare to make trouble with him. After the big blood change, these officials really supervised the hundred officials for the emperor, not for the emperor.

The problem of the official is solved, and there is only one candidate left for the secretary of the ministry, Zhu Cijiong did not say politeness this time, and directly promoted Yang Sichang, who is still unknown to the right governor of the Imperial Inspectorate, to serve as the secretary of the ministry!

Don't look at Yang Sichang is not famous at all now, Chongzhen was the famous "Yang Ge Lao" at that time, Emperor Chongzhen was so suspicious, in the seventeenth year of the dynasty, the first assistant changed more than fifty, but Yang Sichang has always trusted Youjia, even if he was defeated and committed suicide in the end, Emperor Chongzhen did not blame him, but lamented, as if he had lost his siblings.

However, Yang Sichang's reputation at that time was not good, Li Zicheng and other leaders of the peasant rebel army compared him to a traitor who was worse than Qin Hui, and many officials in the Ming court believed that he was the culprit who killed Lu Xiangsheng.

In the chaotic history of the late Ming Dynasty, it is really impossible to tell whether he is a good person or a bad person, but Zhu Cijiong values him the most, that is, loyalty, unswerving loyalty to the Ming Dynasty in a desperate situation, in the face of such a desperate situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he did not escape, but rose to the occasion, personally led the troops and the enemy with the respect of the first assistant, and finally failed, he did not shirk his responsibility, but committed suicide to apologize.

In fact, Chongzhen did not misunderstand Yang Sichang, Yang Sichang has the ability, not to mention anything else, his ability to know how to make good use of people is unmatched, like Sun Chuanting, who can be described as the first good general in the late Ming Dynasty, as well as Zuo Liangyu and Hong Chengchou Although they both surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the end, it is undeniable that they are all generals, and they lead the troops to fight fiercely one by one.

Even if Xiong Wencan, who has been criticized, is also a negotiator, Zheng Zhilong was the one he fooled and surrendered, and Zhang Xianzhong was also persuaded by him to surrender. Of course, a capricious villain like Zhang Xianzhong, surrender and rebellion have become commonplace, and the thickness of his skin is unmatched.

After some adjustments, the Ming Dynasty can be described as a new look, the four scholars in the cabinet, Xu Guangqi and Yang Sichang are all Zhu Cijiong's cronies, Sun Chengzong is far away in Liaodong, basically no longer express any opinions, and Daozong is a good gentleman, plus the Donglin Party officials have been cleaned up by him, and no one will jump out to disagree with him anymore.

At this point, the problem of internal friction in the Ming Dynasty has been solved, and the problem of lack of funds is not to be worried, not counting the 100 million taels of silver that have been confiscated, just one year's tax revenue is enough for all the expenses of the imperial court now, plus the income of the Rixinglong business and the Daming Western Trading Company, the expansion of the army is no longer a dream, and the peasant rebel army and the Houjin Iron Cavalry will be cleaned up one by one, and the road to a strong country in the Ming Dynasty will begin.