At the same time that Chen Zizhuang left the Qian Mansion, Zhu Hongsan met a person in his own study in the Chu Palace, this person was Ma Mingyuan, Ma Lao'er!

Ma Mingyuan is forty years old this year, and when he was in the prime of life, he was exposed to Zhu Hongsan for nearly a year, and he was much calmer, and he was no longer as domineering as before.

Zhu Hongsan is very satisfied with the current Ma Mingyuan, this is good, how can you see a rainbow without experiencing wind and rain? Ma Lao Er can only be released when he grows up and fight Tong Yangjia to death. Now Tong Yangjia's power has become a little uncontrollable, and most of the Ma family's forces have taken refuge in Tong Yangjia before.

In the past, the court was roughly divided into two factions, one was the Huguang faction and the other was the Guangdong faction. The Huguang faction was made up of people brought by Zhu Hongsan from his hometown of Wuchang, plus some literati who had fled from Huguang to Guangdong, and this faction currently occupied most of the official positions in the court. Of course, the Huguang faction is not monolithic, and is roughly divided into the Ma family, the Tong family, and the Feng family. In the past, the Ma family headed by Ma Lao Er had an absolute advantage, but since Ma Lao Er was demoted, the Huguang faction joined the Tong family one after another in order to compete for power and profit with the Guangdong faction. Facts have proved that Tong Yangjia is also a veteran of fighting in the horizontal boxing nest, after coming to power, he made every effort to integrate the Huguang forces, and the people of the Ma family were excluded if they did not join him, and they were united with the Feng family, and now Tong Yangjia's power has become dominant in the Huguang faction.

This is not what Zhu Hongsan wants to see, the Huguang faction is his own foundation, and he must safeguard their interests, but in order to gain a firm foothold in Guangdong, he must also safeguard the interests of the Guangdong faction. Therefore, Zhu Hongsan took advantage of this cabinet adjustment to suppress the forces of the Huguang Tong family, and added two local officials in Guangdong to the cabinet to enhance the capital of the struggle between the Guangdong faction and the Huguang faction. At the same time, this was not enough, and Ma Mingyuan, who had been grinding his teeth for half a year, was released, and let him go out of the mountain and fight Tong Yangjia to death.

Ma Mingyuan has seen through the hot and cold world at home for half a year, and his home used to be like a city, but now he is completely cold in front of the house. The downfall of Ma Mingyuan also involved Zhu Hai's position, and it was rumored in the palace of the king of Chu that Zhu Huai, the eldest son born to the Dong sisters, had the same degree of honor as Zhu Hai. This news made Ma Mingyuan very scared, he knew that his foundation was on Zhu Hai, if Zhu Hai didn't come to the stage, he would turn over sooner or later, if Zhu Hai's position as the son of the world was gone, then whether he and the Ma family could save their lives were not to say. With Zhu Hongsan's ruthlessness, if he changes the heir, he must be in order to clear the obstacle for the heir, so as to kill the Ma family.

Ma Mingyuan knows his lord very well, don't look at his sister Ma Xiaofang, but this kind of relationship between men and women is nothing in big things. After thinking about it at home, Ma Mingyuan felt that he still had to find someone to say good things for himself. Ma Xiaofang can't do it, the more she says good things about herself, the more Zhu Hongsan is afraid of herself, and she can only go to Feng Ruoshu after thinking about it. Because the Feng family and his own Ma family have the same fundamental interests, that is, they hope that the heir is Zhu Hai, if Zhu Huai is replaced, Ma Mingyuan dares to guarantee that he will lose his head on the first day Feng Ziyu will be able to lose his head on the second day. As for the unhappiness with the Feng family before, it was completely insignificant in front of the core interests.

Ma Mingyuan's trip to the Feng family was very successful, and the old thing Feng Ruoshu also saw the crisis, and the Feng family had promised to say good things for themselves on the right occasion.

Ma Mingyuan didn't wait long for news to come from the palace of the king of Chu, Zhu Hongsan was going to be the emperor, the queen was Ma Xiaofang, and Zhu Hai also became the prince as he wished. Ma Mingyuan was completely relieved when he heard the news, as long as Zhu Hai didn't fall, he would have a chance to go out of the mountain.

Then the edict of the king of Chu arrived in the Ma Mansion, and Ma Mingyuan was reinstated as the first vice prime minister of the cabinet, responsible for the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Taxation, Ma Mingyuan's authority was not less at all, and at the same time, the eldest brother Ma Jiyuan's family Fu Wenlong also entered the cabinet in the same year, and the power of the Ma family was slightly greater than before.

Looking at Ma Mingyuan, who was kneeling on the ground, Zhu Hongsan sighed and said, "Second brother, get up!" Come on, get a chair for Mr. Ma! ”

The small yellow door on the side brought Ma Mingyuan an embroidered pier, and Ma Mingyuan thanked Zhu Hongsan and sat down.

"Second brother, what have you been doing at home all this time?"

"When I returned to the prison country, the minister knew that he was guilty of a lot of sin, and he reflected on himself every day for more than half a year."

"This is very good, in the future, the financial affairs of the DPRK and China will be handed over to the second brother, and now that the Manchu Qing Dynasty has fought in Fujian, there will be continuous wars in the future, and the financial work is very heavy!"

Ma Mingyuan hurriedly stood up and showed his loyalty. "Don't worry, I've been thinking a lot about it in the past six months, and after taking office, I want to set up the central bank that I told me before, so that the private funds can be used by us, and we will not delay the Northern Expedition of His Royal Highness!"

Zhu Hongsan nodded, now it is time to release the gold-sucking monster of the central bank, or it is really uncertain to use Guangdong to fight against most of China.

Zhu Hongsan took out a booklet from the drawer, which was the rules for the operation of the bank in later generations written down by Zhu Hongsan according to his own memory in the past few years.

"Second brother, take a look at this, I'm looking for a few people who understand the operation of the money bank to build the central money bank."

Ma Mingyuan stepped forward to take the booklet, Zhu Hongsan didn't have anything to explain, Ma Mingyuan got up and said goodbye.

The next step is simple, the whole city of Guangzhou mobilized to prepare for the enthronement ceremony of Zhu Hongsan, the king of Chu, for this grand occasion, Zhu Hongsan himself took out two million taels of silver to reward the citizens of Guangzhou, and the old people over sixty years old each received ten taels of silver. The citizens are divided into households, and each household is divided into 10 taels. For a time, millions of people in Guangzhou City praised the benevolence and righteousness of King Chu in unison, and it seems that no matter how good the truth is, it is not as good as money!

There were still five days before the enthronement ceremony, and all the officers above the regimental level and the local officials above the seventh rank of the army of Zhu Hong's third group returned to Guangdong to participate in the celebration. But at this time, bad news came out of the Feng Mansion, Feng Ruoshu Feng Old Man was going to die.

Old man Feng is already seventy years old, and he lives one day less, and his energy and physical strength have seriously declined in the past few years. In addition, half a month ago, he got the best nickname "Wenzheng", and he was even more happy, and he feasted his relatives and friends for a few days, and finally tossed himself to death.

Feng Ziyong came to the Chu Palace's mansion to report the funeral, and Zhu Hongsan also regretted it, he knew that he would not give Old Man Feng a nickname, but he didn't expect it to become a life talisman.

"Second cousin, get up, my uncle's seventy is also a long life, don't be sad!"

Feng wiped away his tears and said, "Your Highness, my father is newly mourned, and the minister invites Ding Wei to return to his hometown to guard filial piety for twenty-seven months!" ”

Specifically, if the parents of a court official die, no matter what official position the person has, from the day he learns of the funeral, he must return to his ancestral home to guard the system for 27 months, which is called Ding Wei. After expiration, you can return to the court as an official, which is called resumption. This system seems to be a bit unkind, the officials do a good job, and they are cleaned up all of a sudden, and no one cares about the things they are responsible for, which not only makes mistakes, but also misleads people's moods. But this system has always been thunderous, no matter how troublesome, successive emperors have respected it, extremely supportive, if you think that this is their brain, eat the ancient, then wrong, people's calculations, that is to the extreme. Because according to the common sense of sociology, only where there is filial piety, there will be loyal ministers, think about it, if a person is not even loyal to his father, how can he be expected to be loyal to the emperor?

Of course, it's not all about Ding Wei, in case the country has something important, such as a war ahead, you can't say: Wait, wait for me in 27 months, Ding Wei will come back and continue to fight. So the Chinese created another system, seizing affection. The so-called seizure of affection refers to the fact that the matter is too urgent and absolutely unable to leave, through the instructions of the emperor, to resume his duties and carry out his work in all kinds of grief. Because it seems inhumane to forcibly pull people back (who generally do not resist) in the midst of pain, it is named "love grabbing".

Looking at the Ding Wei excerpt on Feng Ziyong, Zhu Hongsan said: "Now that the country is in danger, the second cousin must put the country first, and your excerpt will not be approved by the king!" ”

Feng Ziyong also knew that Zhu Hongsan couldn't let himself go at this critical time, and he would definitely win the love, but the court system is here, and the book must be written three times before the emperor can win the love, and the officials can turn their grief into strength and continue to work.

Now it's only the first time, and the second time in three days, Feng Ziyong is now in charge of the Ministry of Rites, and he is busy slapping the back of his head for the enthronement ceremony, and he will return to the cabinet to start work immediately after completing the procedure in Zhu Hongsan.

When later historians studied Feng Ruoshu, they all did not understand why Zhu Hongsan gave Feng Ruoshu the nickname "Wenzheng", you must know that there were few people in the Ming Dynasty who received the title of "Wenzheng", and most of them were ministers who made important contributions. And Feng Ruoshu was the most former Ming official who had been working in the local area, and was later transferred to Beijing to serve as the head of Dali Temple, and his performance was very mediocre. is no different from those old fritters and old bureaucrats at that time, is it because it was Zhu Hongsan's uncle who got the nickname "Wenzheng"?

In fact, these historians did not understand the sinister situation at that time, and Zhu Hongsan's arrival in Guangdong as a foreign force was very difficult in the early stage. Similar to Liu Bei's entry into Sichuan, local intellectuals basically did not support Zhu Hongsan. And Feng Ruoshu used his official positions as the governor of Liangguang and the governor of Guangdong to help Zhu Hongsan gain a foothold in Guangdong. Of course, these are not enough, what Zhu Hongsan is most grateful for is that when Feng Ruoshu served as the first assistant, in order to unite the Guangdong scholars, he could give the throne of the first assistant to Chen Zizhuang, which was too important. Chen Zizhuang's joining completely allowed Zhu Hongsan to gain the support of the Cantonese scholars, which was largely inseparable from Feng Ruoshu's knowledge. So when Feng Ruoshu came to ask for a nickname, Zhu Hongsan immediately took out the highest literati nickname "Wenzheng". It is precisely because of Feng Ruoshu's knowledge that Zhu Hongsan feels indebted to Feng Ruoshu, after the brutal party struggle in the court began, the Ma family and the Tong family were unlucky, and Feng Ziyong, who was the third family of the Huguang faction, had a good death, which was inseparable from Zhu Hongsan's gratitude to Feng Ruoshu.