As the sky gradually darkened, the lights in various parts of the restaurant were lit up, and seventy or eighty percent of the seats in the hall were filled with guests. Between the whispers of the guests' glasses of wine, Lee's Restaurant ushered in the most lively dinner time of the day.

When the natural light outside the building completely disappears, leaving only darkness, the whole Li Restaurant is set off by the lights in the building, as if a golden and brilliant heavenly palace has landed in the mortal world, which makes people sigh. At this time, the scholars in the hall were also slightly drunk, and some people couldn't help but let go of their arms, climbed onto the platform on the north side of the hall, and spoke to everyone.

At this time, the scholars who came to power were bold with a bit of alcohol, and as soon as they changed their cautious style during the day, they could not help but directly criticize the officials in the central or local areas by name. Of course, according to the current political situation in the capital, seven or eight of the ten people who came to power were accusing Wang Qi, the governor of Henan.

These scholars gritted their teeth and rebuked the governor of Henan, and the content of the criticism was actually the same, removing those trivial things that could not be proven, the biggest crime of this lord Wang was to exploit the local big households, plunder the people's property and offend the clan.

Although there were also one or two scholars who defended Wang Qi, believing that as the governor of Henan, in order to maintain local social stability under the prevailing circumstances, it was a matter of authority and not a big fault to take such measures. Moreover, the other party did not put these food and supplies into his own pocket, but took them out to help the victims. Therefore, these scholars who came to the stage to criticize Wang Qi may be a little too full of blame.

However, this voice of reason was quickly drowned out by the voice of the scholars of the Fallen King Sect. Most of the families of these drunken and resentful scholars were victims of the imperial court's disaster relief policy this year. Whether it is the grain rationing system or the grain requisition policy, as well as the land reform policy promoted to the south, for the local gentry families, it is a vicious plan formulated by treacherous villains to suppress these gentlemen.

That is, the villain in the court is in charge, and the emperor will be deceived and issue this kind of evil government. And these villains hold the power of the army and the appointment and dismissal of officials, so that these gentlemen are completely unable to transmit their voices to the emperor, because natural disasters cannot rely on the power of the township to resist the orders of the imperial court, which makes everyone have to grit their teeth and let the imperial court cut their flesh on them.

But this does not mean that their hearts have succumbed to the power of the imperial court. Although the gentry were extremely disgusted by the relief measures such as the grain rationing system and the grain requisition policy, it cannot but be said that they were able to survive such a large-scale natural disaster this year without incident.

Therefore, these scholars knew that attacking these disaster relief policies at this moment would not only not be approved by the emperor, but even the gentry and the common people at the bottom might not support them. However, the mistakes made by Henan Governor Wang Qi in the process of disaster relief in Kaifeng gave these scholars a good entry point.

Wang Qi's opposition to a series of disaster relief measures formulated by the imperial court in the first half of the year caused the number of victims gathered around Kaifeng to exceed the local food supply capacity. This led him to completely turn around after discovering the problem, and instead implemented a temporary policy that was more severe than the imperial court's disaster relief measures, while completely controlling the official and civilian materials in the Kaifeng area, and screening the victims outside the city.

Although such measures barely allowed the Kaifeng area to survive, it did not cause a complete collapse of social order. But for him personally, it was tantamount to offending his past supporters, after all, he was originally a member of the Qingliu and the old Donglin Party.

For those Qingliu and some of the old Donglin Party members, Wang Qi, who betrayed them and threw himself into the imperial court, was even more hateful than those political enemies. Now, if they can use Wang Qi's case to vent their dissatisfaction with the imperial court, they don't care whether the policies implemented by Wang Qi in Kaifeng are necessary or not.

They only saw one thing, if the imperial court disposed of Wang Qi, it would be possible to review the disaster relief policy, thus giving them the opportunity to correct the national policy of following a crooked path. And if the imperial court refuses to deal with Wang Qi, after their propaganda, they can turn this year's natural disaster into **, so that the affected people can transfer their anger to the rulers, so as to strive for the replacement of the ruling forces in the court and create opportunities for the gentlemen to come to power.

In such a situation, the butt is more important than the head, so the few scholars who defended Wang Qi with reason were soon scolded speechless by the scholars who were angry with the same enemy, and had to hurriedly settle the bill and leave. Seeing these scholars who supported Wang Qi leave in disgrace, the scholars in the hall suddenly became elated, as if they had won a great battle.

When the scholars in the hall began to make noise, they did not notice that a private room on the second floor gently closed the window facing the hall.

Zheng Zheng, who was dressed in civilian clothes, closed the window and put down the curtain cloth by the way, so the noise in the hall was blocked out of the window, and the room was quiet for a while.

Zheng Zheng turned around and returned to his seat, and couldn't help but say with emotion: "Now even these scholars who have entered Beijing to take the exam are so passionate about Wang Hanru's case, and the two young brothers are both heroes in the party, do you want to continue to be silent about this matter?" ”

The two young brothers in Zheng Zheng's mouth were Huang Daozhou and Ni Yuanlu, who were sitting on the east and north sides of the square table in the room. The three of them are all Jinshi in the second year of the Apocalypse, and their private relationship is also quite good, and now they have all joined the New Donglin Party, which can be regarded as the backbone of the New Donglin Party.

Today, the three of them booked a private seat on the second floor of this restaurant to eat and drink, in addition to serving as a daily gathering to connect feelings, there is also to communicate on court affairs and party affairs, in order to reach a consensus on the political views of the three people.

Compared with Huang Daozhou and Ni Yuanlu, whose career is still smooth, Zheng Zheng's career is more bumpy. He first offended the Emperor of the Apocalypse because of his "admonition to stay in the middle", and was demoted two levels and rushed home to wait for the alternate. Later, he made "Huang Zhige" for the six gentlemen of Donglin, offended the eunuch party, and had to leave home to avoid trouble.

When Chongzhen's ascension to the throne collapsed and he was ready to re-emerge, his father unfortunately passed away, and he had to stay in his hometown to keep his filial piety. His father's filial piety period had just expired, and his mother passed away, so when he entered Beijing again, he had reached the eighth year of Chongzhen, and he himself was nearly 42 years old.

In the first half of his life, apart from offending people and wandering around, he did almost nothing serious. It is also thanks to the fact that his father and mother are all official eunuchs, and the list of Jinshi in the same year as him has emerged and begun to hold important positions in various departments of the imperial court, so he can stay in the Hanlin Academy in the capital as soon as he is reinstated after being away from officialdom for nearly ten years, instead of going to the local area to endure hardships like those younger children.

But even so, Zheng Jun's good deeds and outspoken personality have not changed. Even if he joined the New Donglin Party, he was also open-mouthed about his comrades in the party and competitors outside the party, and offended a considerable number of officials. There are only a few people who can tolerate his temper, such as Huang Daozhou.

Regarding Zheng Zheng's emotion, Huang Daozhou and Ni Yuanlu did not answer immediately. is different from Zheng Zheng, who wasted most of his life, the two of them have been up and down in the sea for more than ten years, so naturally they will not be as impulsive as Zheng Zheng, but after listening to some remarks from scholars and Qingliu, they want to speak for justice with enthusiasm.

Ni Yuanlu looked at Huang Daozhou and couldn't help but ask tentatively: "Youxuan, what do you think of what Wang Hanru did in Kaifeng?" There are many voices in the party, some sympathize with him, some think he has gone too far, and some think he has betrayed the interests of his party. I heard that Qian Shoufu also had a lot of headaches about how to deal with him, and now he can't recuperate at home. This New Year's month, I'm afraid it's really not very good. ”

Huang Daozhou was still burning the wine with a calm face, but after hearing Ni Yuanlu mention Qian Qianyi's name, his brows finally wrinkled, and he put down the wine glass in his hand and said, "What's so difficult about this?" The court has its own laws, and if it was directly rewarded for its merits and punished for its faults, even if the people of the world are dissatisfied, they will at most complain a few words about the princes, and no one will care about it after a year or two.

But these princes in power were afraid of taking on this bad reputation, and one idea a day, they dragged such a small matter into a major event that antagonized the government and the opposition. Now that the government and the opposition are at one end, a large number of people are dissatisfied no matter how they decide. At this time, how to deal with Wang Hanru is no longer so important, and how to get the government and the opposition not to break up on this issue is the real big problem.

Otherwise, the scourge of party strife during the apocalypse may not be repeated today. I wonder if the two young brothers think so? ”

Hearing Huang Daozhou mention the party struggle, Zheng Zheng finally calmed down a little, but he quickly said excitedly: "It is precisely because of this that we must not let those villains deceive the saint this time, let them continue to occupy the position in the court, and destroy Gangchang."

These villains united with Wei Gelding to deceive the first emperor and oppressed the gentlemen of the Donglin Party. After the Son of Heaven succeeded to the throne, although he exiled Wei Gelding and other eunuch party leaders, he did not clean up those villains who were attached to Wei Eunuch, resulting in these villains still occupying important positions in the court, so that the persecuted sages of our Donglin Party could not reconcile their names, and the righteous men and gentlemen were all saddened.

The foolish brother thinks that if everyone is looking at this case today, if we can use this to clean up a group of villains in the court, then we can take the opportunity to promote a group of virtuous gentlemen to the throne. In this way, the treacherous evil in the court will not be so easy to deceive the saints, which will be conducive to the redress of the names of the first gentlemen..."