Half a month has passed since the Guangzhou incident, and the city of Guangzhou has already returned to its former prosperity. It's just that on the docks in Guangzhou, there are many more criminals with flail on the ship bound for Luzon, and I heard that they are all officials, the unlucky ghosts of this Guangzhou incident. However, these people have just added an after-dinner topic for the people of Guangzhou, those who should make money are still making money, and those who should be farming are still farming, as if the incident of half a month ago has nothing to do with them.

In fact, the Guangzhou incident seemed to have dealt a great blow to Zhu Hongsan, but those who knew the inside story knew that it had no impact on Zhu Hongsan at all, but only caused great damage to Zhu Hongsan's family. The most important thing is that the eldest wife Ma Xiaofang died, and his second daughter Zhu Yu was missing. Afterwards, Zhu Hongsan also asked people to search all over Guangzhou City, but they found the carriage in which Zhu Yu was riding, and the mother-in-law on the carriage had also been hacked to death, and Zhu Yu's whereabouts were unknown.

In addition to these, Zhu Hongsan has no losses, his foundation is all in Dongguan, if Li Chengdong goes there to burn and kill, then Zhu Hongsan has the heart to throw himself into the river.

Seeing that the security of Guangzhou City was really a problem, Zhu Hongsan decided to form a Praetorian Guard. He ordered that on the basis of Duan Fei's regiment, it should be expanded into a division, with Zhu Hongyi as the division commander and Zhang Sanqiang as the deputy division commander. One division had five regiments, three regiments were stationed in Guangzhou, two were in the city, and one was outside the city. There were also two regiments stationed in Dongguan to protect Zhu Hongsan's life* Genzi Iron and Steel Works and Arsenal.

Just when Zhu Hong's three major forces were expanding the army, these ministers in the cabinet were not idle. Now that there are two vacancies in Guangdong Province and a large number of vacancies in six counties, none of these prime ministers of the central government have three relatives and six relatives, and they can still let go of such a good opportunity this time. For a time, the seven prime ministers were playing with each other, stabbing knives with black hands. In the end, the Huguang faction got the quota of one government and four counties, and the others were obtained by the Guangdong faction, which can be regarded as a tie.

Just when the court was fighting for the official position, a two-person sedan chair came from the Prime Minister's Mansion in Beicheng one night.

The small sedan chair came to a stop two hundred meters away from Chen's house, and a family member next to the sedan came to the door of the house. In the past few days, because of the selection of officials by the imperial court, the front of Chen's mansion has become a market, and a large number of literati are waiting in front of Chen's mansion, wanting to get an official and a half-post from Premier Chen.

The seven-rank official in front of the prime minister, this is still modestly said. Chen Zizhuang is now the prime minister, and his concierge is not to mention the seventh grade, but the fifth grade Zhizhou has to wait honestly when he comes to the door.

At this time, the porter saw a person walking over to the side, seeing that he was also a family member, he hurriedly stepped forward to stop him and asked, "Where are you, do you know the rules?" Line up at the back! ”

The family smiled and said, "Bother this eldest brother to give this greeting to your master!" ”

"My master? Who do you think you are? Now in Guangzhou City, except for the emperor, you can see my master casually! ”

The man then took out a piece of paper from his bosom and stuffed it into the porter's hand.

"This big brother, you've worked hard to make a trip!"

The porter opened it and looked, good fellow, a hundred taels of silver, a lot of money. Although he is the porter of the prime minister's house, he usually receives three taels or five taels of silver, but it is the first time he has seen one hundred taels at a time.

The porter put away the silver ticket and said to the family: "I see that you know the rules very well, just wait, but it's hard to say whether my master can see you!" After speaking, the porter took the greeting post and went in to report to Chen Zizhuang.

Chen Zizhuang is now on fire at home. On what fire? Now that the queen Ma Xiaofang is dead, and the position of the queen is vacant, if his Chen Zizhuang's daughter is not a widow marrying, Chen Zizhuang really wants to put his daughter on the throne of the queen. But his daughter Chen's background is too low, and now she doesn't even have a grade in the palace, just the lowest noble. But Chen Zizhuang has no good candidates in his hands, most of Zhu Hongsan's wives are not locals, and a few local people either die early, or come from low backgrounds, and they really don't have the capital to fight for the master of the harem.

When Chen Zizhuang was depressed, his family sent in a letter of worship, with four words written on it, the old man of Dongjian.

Chen Zizhuang was stunned for a moment, wondering why he came. But in a total of happy hearts, I was really sleepy and sent a pillow to think about something. But now that there are too many outsiders at the gate, let's let him in through the back door.

"You go and arrange for someone to come in through the back door." The family didn't expect that a worship post would really work, so he hurriedly went out to arrange for someone to detour through the back door and enter Chen's mansion.

The old man of Dongjian is Qian Qianyi's self-title, but this title is only known to some of his friends, and it is not widely spread. This time, Qian Qianyi saw that there was no owner in the harem, and he also thought carefully, after all, his daughter was the side princess canonized by Hongguang, and her status among Zhu Hongsan's wives was second only to Ma Xiaofang, and she also gave birth to a son two years ago. Now that the queen is dead, is it possible for her own daughter to take the throne? Is it possible for his grandson to be the crown prince? However, now he is not in Nanzhili, and Qian Qianyi is not Donglin Juzi now, but a second minister who is not welcomed, so he came to ask to see Chen Zizhuang, hoping that his old friend can help.

In fact, Qian Qianyi is also accurate, Chen Zizhuang's daughter is a widow and remarried, which is completely incapable of becoming a queen. And there is no one to choose from the Cantonese faction. But the opposing Huguang faction has a lot of candidates for the queen, needless to say Ma Ruyan, the power of the Ma family is there, and the second concubine of Dong Zhen and Dong Huan is the goddaughter of Tong Yangjia. And if the Cantonese faction wants to suppress the Huguang faction, they must do something on the empress issue.

As for Zhu Hongsan's other wives who are not qualified to compete for the queen at all, the most valuable is Zhu Yujiao, the princess of Kunxing in Chongzhen, but her identity also determines that she cannot be a queen at all. Zhu Hong's banner is Zhu Di's bullshit, isn't it, this time he can do it himself, if he uses Zhu Di's blood to be the queen, isn't he slapping himself in the face? There is also an ethical issue, according to the genealogy Zhu Yujiao should be Zhu Hongsan's cousin, the Ming Dynasty did not have a law that you can get married in five generations, but there is a law that you can't marry with the same surname. This point is that Zhu Hongsan must also be careful to avoid it, so now Zhu Yujiao in the palace has no identity at all, which is one of the reasons why she cannot become the queen.

There is also a valuable identity is the county lord Zhu Youjia, now she has given birth to a daughter and a son for Zhu Hongsan, but her identity is similar to Zhu Yujiao, and Zhu Youjia has been married before and has given birth to children, and she is not a candidate for the queen at all. The others are even more complete, the Yan family is from a water bandit, and there is no hope at all; Bian Yujing is very favored by Zhu Hongsan, but he was born as a prostitute, and he has no children and no hope.

In this way, there are only Ma Ruyan, Qian Yuting, and the Dong sisters who have hope. Among them, Qian Yuting is the most promising, he is the daughter of Old Man Qian, plus he is canonized by Hongguang, and his status is there. And Ma Ruyan and the Dong sisters are both concubines, but now that the Ma family and Tong Yangjia are in power, they can completely get back a point.

Qian Qianyi also thought of this, and found that he did not have any hope in Guangdong, and there was no suitable candidate for the Guangdong faction.

Chen Zizhuang stood at the door and welcomed Qian Qianyi into the study, and after the two sat down, they began to talk about the mountain, no, exchange academic ideas.

Qian Qianyi saw that Chen Zizhuang didn't ask why he came first, and couldn't help but curse in his heart. "This Chen Jisheng, why didn't he find out so treacherous when Nan Zhili was in the middle of the matter, this is to force me to speak first!" What Old Man Qian didn't know was that the butt decided the head, and when Chen Zizhuang was in Nanzhili, he didn't care about himself, and he came out to say a few words if he didn't like it, anyway, this country doesn't need him to govern. But now it's different, the whole of Guangdong is taken care of by Chen Zizhuang, what does he dare to say nonsense?

Qian Qianyi thought about it, let's say it first.

"Jisheng, Brother Fool came this time to ask if the cabinet has a certain selection of the queen?"

Chen Zizhuang was noncommittal, and asked rhetorically: "Brother Mu Zhai, I don't know if you have any good candidates?" Tell me about it! ”

"Your Majesty's concubine Qian, but the side princess canonized by Emperor Hongguang back then, has a noble character, virtuous and virtuous, plus gave birth to the prince Zhu Xun two years ago, I think she is a competent candidate for the queen!"

After hearing this, Chen Zizhuang scolded Qian Qianyi for being shameless, and praised his daughter for not boasting so much.

Chen Zizhuang didn't say anything, picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea.

Seeing Chen Zizhuang's appearance, Qian Qianyi knew that he didn't offer the conditions, and he waited for him to raise the price.

"Jisheng virtuous brother, I have a son, seventeen years old this year, who has made a name for himself, and has not yet married, I heard that Jisheng's younger brother Chen Zisheng has a daughter of the same age, can you marry a dog?"

Hearing Qian Qianyi say this, Chen Zizhuang thought for a while, the seventeen-year-old is not ordinary, and he will be a jinshi before twenty-five. In addition, marrying Qian Qianyi can get in touch with Nanzhili's Donglin Party, Chen Zizhuang knows that those-stirring sticks are not sweet and vinegar, but they lose their teeth. Now the emperor is succumbing to Guangdong, if the Northern Expedition is not successful in the future, then everything will be suspended, but if the Northern Expedition succeeds, his Guangdong faction needs the help of the traditional scholar group of Nanzhili, and then the identity of Qian Qianyi's family can come in handy.

Thinking of this, Chen Zizhuang nodded and said with a smile: "Brother Mu Zhai, don't worry, my niece is fifteen this year, just the right year, everything is on me!" ”

Chen Zizhuang made a pun, Qian Qianyi heard him say this, put his mind at ease, it seems that his daughter is almost over.

And just when the Cantonese faction and the Donglin faction formed an alliance, the two bigwigs of the Huguang faction also put aside their grievances and sat down to discuss the queen's affairs.

Ma Xiaofang's death was hit by Ma Mingyuan the most, he had already put all his hopes on Zhu Hai, including his own daughter-in-law promised to Zhu Hai, if the queen could keep Zhu Hai's position at this time, it was really uncertain. Although now her niece Ma Ruyan is also a competent candidate for the queen, Ma Ruyan has a son, and her son Zhu Jiang is one year younger than Zhu Hai, what if Ma Ruyan becomes the queen and encourages Zhu Hongsan to set up another prince? His more than ten years of painstaking management have completely failed. He can't talk to his eldest brother Ma Jiyuan about this, and he is really not sure about this changed eldest brother. Ma Ruyan is not treated by Ma Jiyuan, it is also his own daughter, and Ma Jiyuan has some opinions because he is in the cabinet and he can't enter the cabinet. And at this time, it was difficult to protect the eldest brother from Ma Jiyuan, and he had other thoughts, that is, to cross himself to support Zhu Jiang, and then replace him with himself.