After a lively New Year, the weaving yamen began to work again.

Because from this year, that is, the second year of Chongzhen, all the weavers under the jurisdiction of the Suzhou Weaving Yamen, according to Ji Qingwen's arrangement, worked in the weaving workshop of the weaving Yamen all day long, plus Song Yingxing and Tang Ruowang carried out large-scale repair and transformation of the loom, so the efficiency of the weaving Yamen weaving workshop was greatly improved.

The annual production of nearly 2,000 pieces of silk and silk has more than doubled to 4,000.

Therefore, Li Yan and Ji Qingwen calculated an account - these 4,000 pieces of silk can get 2.4 million taels of silver if they are sold, and they can net 2 million taels of silver after deducting the cost, which is equivalent to 160,000 taels of silver every month.

And every year, the wages of the weavers of the weaving yamen are around 120,000 taels of silver; The cost of the training of the two hundred townsmen was about 40,000 taels of silver; In addition, the operating expenses of the weaving Yamen Welfare Workshop are only a few thousand taels of silver - less than a fraction of his income.

In this way, excluding the silver paid to the emperor, Ji Qingwen can earn nearly two million taels of silver every year, as long as he accumulates three or four more years like this, let alone the rich party, Ji Qingwen can become a rich man who rivals the country!

Ji Qingwen is smooth and calm here, but there are constant disputes in the court.

First of all, after the New Year of the second year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen saw that the general trend of the eunuch party had gone and the court politics were gradually stable, so he ordered the court to liquidate the remnants of the eunuch party. Unexpectedly, at this time, the eunuch party was still there, although it was ordered by the emperor himself, the liquidation matter was still very delayed.

The Criminal Department, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the Dali Temple, and other organs focused on the investigation and interrogation of the "Six Gentlemen of Donglin" case, and carried out the investigation and interrogation work for more than ten days, and only reported to the Chongzhen Emperor the results of the death penalty, the imprisonment of two people, and the dismissal of the person -- and the person who was sentenced to death was still Cui Chengxiu, who was already dead.

With Emperor Chongzhen's impatient temper, how could such a result pass in front of him?

So Chongzhen issued an order to sentence all the ten most evil people involved in the "Six Gentlemen of Donglin" case to death, and even the high-ranking officials such as Tian Ji of the Ministry of War, Wu Chunfu of the Ministry of Industry, Tian Ergeng, the governor of Zuodu, and Xu Xianchun, the commander of Jinyiwei, were also merciless.

Su Maoxiang, the secretary of the Criminal Department, Cao Sicheng, and others, who had previously handled the case, were all dismissed from office on charges of rebelling against the eunuch party, and Han Kuang and Qian Longxi, university scholars, presided over the reliquidation of the eunuch party.

With the experience of the previous chief judge, Han Kuang and Qian Longxi certainly did not dare to slack off, and not long after, they took out a list of more than 50 people and handed it over to Emperor Chongzhen's dragon case.

Unexpectedly, Chongzhen was still not satisfied, and sent the list back for retrial, demanding that all evil be eliminated, and hand-picked the names of several eunuchs who must be severely punished.

Han Kuang and Qian Longxi, one of whom had suffered the loss of the eunuch party, and a hardcore Donglin party member, had a common enmity with the eunuch party, and now with the emperor's approval, he naturally would never show mercy to his subordinates, and suddenly took out a list of two hundred and sixty-one people, and ingeniously divided these people into eight classes - of which the first three classes were all executed, and the rest were dismissed, assigned to the army, imprisoned and exiled......

In this way, the eunuch forces in the court were swept away, and the Donglin Party was dominant.

Faced with such a situation, Emperor Chongzhen was dissatisfied again.

Therefore, when it was the turn to elect the first assistant of the cabinet, Qian Qianyi, who was originally the most vocal, was suddenly exposed to a scandal of collusion with eunuchs and profiteers, and it caused a stir for a while, and even he himself wrote directly to the emperor, saying that he lacked morality and talent and was not qualified for the important task of first assistant.

So Emperor Chongzhen pushed the boat down the river and enabled Han Kuang, who was not from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and made great contributions in the process of liquidating the eunuch party, as the first and auxiliary ministers, which was regarded as temporarily stabilizing the government.

In Liaodong, Yuan Chonghuan accepted the supplement of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in the customs because of the absolute trust of Emperor Chongzhen, and began to work with great fanfare after leaving the customs.

He took a multi-pronged approach, and carried out several things at the same time, such as training new soldiers, reorganizing the old army, building fortresses, and organizing military cantonments.

On Ji Qingwen's side, the production of the weaving yamen under his jurisdiction was extremely smooth, and the output and quality of silk were greatly improved, and only two months after the beginning of the second year of Chongzhen, he sold five hundred pieces of royal colored brocade through Zheng Zhilong, and suddenly earned 300,000 taels of silver.

With these 300,000 taels of silver, Ji Qingwen paid off the money for the four guns he had "robbed" before, and bought 200 muskets at a price of 100,000 taels each.

It is worth noting that these muskets are all flintlock pistols newly invented in Europe, and after the transformation of Song Yingxing and Tang Ruowang, a rain cover is installed above the flint, which completely solves the drawbacks of arquebuses that cannot be fired in rainy days, and fully guarantees the long-range firepower of Ji Qingwen's rural brave regiment when practicing combat.

His actions are not big or small, but everything is within the control of his teacher Sun Chengzong.

After Ji Qingwen got the artillery from Zheng Zhilong, Sun Chengzong sent a letter asking him to draw the artillery into a pattern and send it to the capital. And the musket purchased this time had just arrived, and before it was hot, Sun Chengzong wrote another letter and asked Ji Qingwen to immediately send ten muskets to the Arsenal Department of the Ministry of War to be imitated.

The reason why Ji Qingwen's every move was well known to Sun Chengzong, he didn't have to think about it to know the reason, wasn't it because he was placed next to him, Li Yuanyin, a big spy?

So Ji Qingwen specially found an opportunity to have a one-on-one interview with Li Yuanyin, only to hear him say: "Commander Li, you see that you came to me, on the surface to help me organize the army, but secretly you came to monitor me. I know that. But you see, I have been working in Suzhou Weaving for almost a year, when have I ever done anything illegal and undisciplined? Even if you do it, it's also to run an errand for the emperor, isn't it ......"

Ji Qingwen made his words completely clear, which made Li Yuanyin feel quite embarrassed, and hurriedly explained: "Lord Ji's thoughts will be known at the end, but it is also the duty of the last general to report to the top, and he is also doing errands for the emperor." What's more, the last general has never said half a bad word about adults, which is also a sign of heaven and earth! ”

"That's not what I meant. I mean, can you report to the top a little more vaguely, not so detailed, not so aggressive, just deal with the above, the handsome. Ji Qingwen said, "You see, this year's Chinese New Year, the red envelope I gave you is 1,000 taels of silver, and I gave Suzhou prefect Kou Shen only 500 taels, which is not a bad treatment for you, right?" ”

Although Li Yuanyin is not a big corrupt official like Yan Song, he doesn't want to be a big Qing official like Hai Rui, and he accepted the red envelope that Ji Qingwen gave during the New Year.

The so-called "collecting money from people and eliminating disasters for others", this truth, Li Yuanyin, who has been immersed in officialdom for more than ten years, is of course well aware of it, and after listening to Ji Qingwen's words, he had no choice but to nod and say: "I know, the last general will know in his heart in the future." ”

The two of them were talking, but they saw Li Yan walking in quickly.

He is Ji Qingwen's confidant who is also a teacher and friend, and he came to talk to Ji Qingwen, the five-grade weaving admiral and the minister of the Qin Mission, and never used that set of false courtesies to ask for a meeting, pushed the door and entered his study, handed over a document worriedly, and said to Ji Qingwen: "Brother Ji, take a look at this thing." ”

Ji Qingwen took the document and looked at it, but it was a ticket issued by the household department to himself, on which a large paragraph was written, to the effect that Shanxi and Shaanxi encountered drought last year, and most of the two provinces had no harvest, and until February this year, the local grain depots at the county and government levels have all been used for disaster relief, and the provincial-level Yicang and Changping can not support much time - therefore, in order to prevent the hungry people from causing trouble, it is urgently necessary for Suzhou Weaving Yamen to transfer 50,000 taels of silver, which will be immediately sent to Shanxi to buy grain from the nearest rich households to help the victims.

Ji Qingwen finished reading the paperwork, handed it to Li Yuanyin casually, and said: "Look, it's all your fault, now everyone in the court knows that I have money, and as soon as I open my mouth, it will be 50,000 taels of silver, alas! ”