After Sun Chengzong left, Lu Qi walked in with a letter and handed it to the emperor who had just returned to the study.

Leaning on the leather sofa chair carefully made by the craftsman, Zhu Youzhen slowly read the letter handed to him by Lu Qi, and then said: "Are these people trying to incite Caogong to make trouble?" Are you sure? Is there anyone else behind them? ”

Lu Qi hurriedly replied: "The minister has ordered the Social Investigation Bureau to investigate the family relationships behind these people, but the minister feels that it seems difficult to find out who is behind them. ”

Zhu Youzhen couldn't help frowning and asked, "Why do you say that?" ”

Lu Qi said unhurriedly: "Because these people are not only very familiar with the merchants in the Jiangnan area, the heads of the canal boats, and the officials, but they are also mostly related to the gentry in Shandong, Huaiyin, and Jiangnan by marriage. These people have big and small interests in the canal, so it is difficult to say that they were instructed to do it more spontaneously.

Of course, a few of them often exchanged letters with Qingliu in the capital and the bigwigs in the DPRK and China. Although the minister failed to find evidence, he also heard that it was said that the reputation of the Yansheng Mansion was now discredited by the new scholars, and even the faces of the scholars were a little unsightly, so some scholars wanted to make some noise and attract the attention of the world, so as to cover up the ugly things of the Yansheng Mansion. ”

Zhu Youzhen shook his head slightly and said: "Since they want to use Caogong to make trouble to force the imperial court to give up shipping, then they have to let themselves be burned." You sent a message to Zhang Xianzhong and Cui Wensheng, and as long as those heads and bows of the ship started to make trouble, they used the trade union to point the finger at the businessmen, demanding that their wages be raised, and that those who had worked for more than 10 years should receive pensions, injuries, illnesses, labor insurance, and other benefits.

By the way, tell Wang Chengen and let him discuss it with the cabinet, and the case of Yan Shenggong can be settled. But the impact of this case is bad, the Yan Sheng Gong in the past dynasties is the last benevolent word that is difficult to call, rather than selling dog meat on the head of a sheep to disgust the people of the world, it is better to let Confucius himself resign from the title of Yan Sheng Gong and set up another position of enshrined official.

In the future, he will only be responsible for the memorial of Confucius, and will no longer be involved in local government affairs. The term of office of the enshrined officials is 10 years, and the Confucian sects take turns to recommend the list, and the cabinet appoints them. Anyone who has been convicted of a crime, a person who is mentally insane, or a person who colludes with foreign people to betray the interests of the Ming Dynasty is not allowed to hold this position..."

After listening to Wang Chengen's Chongzhen's statement on the Yansheng Gong case, Huang Liji finally breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. Since Su Changqing publicly opened fire on the correspondence between Yan Sheng Gong and Kublai Khan in the Daming Times, black materials about Yan Sheng Gong in the past dynasties have been emerging.

A family like Confucius has not suffered much after the change of dynasty, and it is natural that they have no scruples in their daily activities. For example, the contemporary Yan Shenggong who was poisoned was just a side branch disciple before he was canonized by the Emperor of the Apocalypse, but as soon as he sat in the position of Yan Shenggong, he flew high, and even the people in the house dared to say anything in front of the guests, there are only three families in the world: my family and Jiangxi Zhang and Fengyang Zhu. Jiangxi Zhang, Taoist morale; Fengyang Zhu, an upstart, a small family.

For this kind of domineering atmosphere that even the royal family does not pay attention to, it is conceivable that they are rude to the local people who are not Kong clans. It's just that in the past, everyone looked at the face of the saint and didn't want to make enemies with the Kong family.

Now, because of the poisoning of the contemporary Yan Shenggong, the entire Confucian Mansion has been observed by people all over the world with a magnifying glass, and these rude words and deeds in the past have naturally spread all over the world.

Although there are many scholars who are happy to see the Yansheng Mansion unlucky, there are also some scholars who do not want the Confucian Mansion to continue to be hacked, they feel that they should leave some dignity for the saint, and they can't knock down the entire saint's bloodline with a stick.

This kind of confrontation between scholars and scholars soon spread to the court. As the head of the cabinet, Huang Liji is also in a dilemma about this, because if he falls to either side, he will be hostile to the other. And as things continue to ferment, now the supporters on both sides are huge groups from the court to the market, and even Huang Liji does not dare to take a stand easily.

Chongzhen borrowed Wang Chengen's meaning to give him a chance to step down, and also gave those officials and scholars who supported the Yansheng Mansion a chance to step down. After Huang Liji convened his cabinet colleagues to discuss for an afternoon, he thought that the current Confucian Mansion was already panicked, and if he could take the initiative to resign the title of Yan Sheng Gong to protect the entire Confucian Mansion, the Confucian Mansion should not refuse. Even if the Northern Sect refuses, they can find the Southern Sect to come out.

After asking Lu Qi to go to Wenhua Hall to spread the word, Zhu Youzhen asked Yi Bangcai and Wang Heng to call the two guards over. These two people are from Qingzhou, Shandong, and Nanyang, Henan, and they were transferred to the imperial army shortly after graduating from the Army Military Academy.

After Lian Shanxiang brought the two to Chongzhen, he stood aside and stopped talking. After the two guards finished saluting, Zhu Youzhen said to the two: "I asked you to come over, in fact, there is a task for the two of you to do, but this mission has to go overseas, and the hardships in the middle are probably extraordinary, and the time is probably a year or two, are you willing to accept this task?" ”

Yi Bangcai is from the Shandong Weisuo Army, and Wang Heng is from Wu Xiucai, both of them are full of confidence when they enter the Army Military Academy, hoping to enter the new army after graduation to show what they have learned and make contributions. But unexpectedly, he was taken away by Lian Shanxiang and became a royal guard.

If it is those soldiers in the old army, they probably still think that the treatment of the imperial guards is not bad, and they can continue to show their faces in front of the emperor, maybe when they will be developed. However, for the graduates of the Army Military Academy, the first place to go is the Army General Staff, the second class is the New Army, the second class is the border army, and the imperial guards are the worst place to do nothing.

The two who were thinking about how to transfer out the imperial guards heard that the emperor was going to assign them tasks personally, but after a moment's pause, they gritted their teeth and said: "When the ministers entered the military academy to study, they came with the idea of going to the soup for Your Majesty. ”

Zhu Youzhen immediately smiled and said, "Okay, with such ambition, there is nothing you can't do." Sit down, and I'll tell you what I want you to do. ”

After Yi Bangcai and Wang Hengzhan sat on the sofa on one side tremblingly, Lian Shanxiang took out a roll of maps from the porcelain ** on one side and spread it out on the coffee table in front of them and the emperor.

Map reading and recognizing maps is the basic course of the Army Military Academy, and the two quickly recognized that this is a half-enlarged map of the world. The map mainly draws the outline of the coastline of the Ming Dynasty, the Indochina Peninsula, the Southeast Asian archipelago, and the South Asian continent.

Zhu Youzhen pointed to the map and said: "The coastline of the Ming Dynasty, the Ryukyus, and the Taiwan Islands, you should be familiar with these. Vietnam, Cambodia, the Lancang Kingdom, the Kingdom of Siam, and the Malay princely states gathered on the Indochina Peninsula, the Philippine Islands of the Spaniards, the Borneo Island and the Spice Islands where the Boni Kingdom was located, and the Batavia, Java and Sumatra Islands where the Dutch were located, and the Ming Dynasty also sent merchants to collect geographical, climatic, cultural and ethnic information about these regions.

But after leaving the Strait of Malacca, we have very little detailed information about the Indian Ocean region. There are two things in this area that the Ming Dynasty urgently needs to know.

One is the Kingdom of Burma, although Myanmar and my Ming Dynasty have a land junction, but that area is a dense forest area, the land is a miasma, and it is difficult for our people to live here. Therefore, the Burmese attack on our country is as comfortable as lounging at home, but if we want to settle accounts with them, it is difficult for us to cross the reckless forest.

I have heard that the essence of the Kingdom of Burma lies in the coastal plains near the Indian Ocean, so I hope that you will investigate this area and understand its geography, climate, products, and ethnic characteristics for future use.

The other region is this continent, which Europeans call the Indian continent, and it is said that this continent is now in a situation of confrontation between the north and the south, and the Mughal Empire in the north is extremely powerful, and the southern princely states are losing one after another.

I need you to go to the north and south to investigate and gather all the information about the Mughal Empire, as well as to learn all kinds of information about the southern princely states. The most important thing is to know the state of cotton cultivation and cotton cloth production on this continent..."

Seeing that Yi Bangcai and Wang Heng were a little difficult to understand why they wanted to collect information on cotton and cotton cloth from the Indian mainland, Zhu Youzhen first changed his words and explained to the two of them.

“… This year, the cotton cloth that I put into the market in Daming has reached nearly 70 million horses, even if according to the lowest tax amount, five cents per horse, it has also contributed 3.5 million yuan to the country's tax revenue. Not to mention that one-tenth of them are exported overseas, earning high profits for our country.

However, my Ming cotton cloth can be sold for 2-5 yuan a horse, regardless of whether it is in Saiwai, the Western Regions, Tibet, Korea, Japan, and Ryukyu. Only in the Southeast Asian islands and Indochina Peninsula, the price of cloth has dropped from 2 yuan a horse to 16 yuan a horse. On the basis of an investigation by the Customs and Maritime Association, we believe that the Dutch have brought in Indian cotton cloth to compete with us in this area.

Since last year, the rise of cotton and cotton thread has led to the domestic cotton cloth reaching 115 yuan per horse, plus freight, cotton sales in Southeast Asia can only protect the capital. Such a situation obviously hinders the investment of China's commercial capital in the cotton textile industry... To put it simply, it has affected the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

If there is a problem with the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty, there will be a problem with the reorganization of the army of the Ming Dynasty, and if there is a problem with the army, it will be difficult for the reform promoted by the imperial court to succeed.

So, we have to understand that the scale of cotton planting and the production of cotton textiles on the Indian continent, assuming that we can find a way to destroy the production of cotton cloth in India, we will not only eliminate a competitor in the cotton textile industry in Southeast Asia, but also find a much wider market for cotton cloth.

This is a major event related to the future fortunes of my Ming Dynasty, so I hope that you will treat this mission as a decisive charge against the enemy, and you must not take it lightly..."