"The minister is old and dizzy, and he is not able to use it, so I hereby ask to resign from the position of the first assistant of the cabinet, and hope that His Majesty will approve it. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info" Lai Zongdao glanced up at the emperor and found that the emperor's face was blue and very unsightly. But now the situation is already on the verge of arrows, and it has to be sent, so Lai Zongdao had to muster up the courage to repeat the words of resignation, and after finishing speaking, he lowered his head deeply, waiting for the emperor's decision.

The other officials also stopped discussing and retaining at this time, and they all waited quietly for what kind of reply the emperor would give to Lai Zongdao.

Although the scene was very quiet, everyone's hearts were alive, and some were puzzled by the decision to come to the sect and felt sorry for her; Some are thinking about the emperor's reaction and what kind of decision he will make; is more thinking about the political impact of Lai Zongdao's resignation, analyzing whether the emperor will finally agree to Lai Zongdao's resignation - everyone knows that it will definitely not be approved by the emperor as soon as he resigns from Zong Dao, even if it is an official who the emperor does not want to see or simply resigns at the behest of the emperor, how can the emperor pretend to keep it, after all, ancient scholars like to play that kind of "three changes and three concessions" drama, and only in this way can the emperor fully show that the emperor attaches great importance to talents. Show the kingly bearing of the monarch and the minister.

What's more, judging from the recent situation, the emperor still has great trust in Lai Zongdao, the head of the cabinet, and even handed over almost all political affairs to the cabinet headed by Lai Zongdao. This is also the reason why the ministers were shocked by the sudden resignation of Lai Zongdao, after all, the current saint of Lai Zongdao is strong, and he has almost achieved the status of one person and ten thousand people, and it is the time to show his ambitions, so he should not choose to resign at this time. Therefore, everyone present believed without doubt that the emperor would definitely retain Lai Zongdao immediately, immediately, and in the next second, and did not hesitate to deny his idea of resigning.

Although everyone knew such an obvious fact, it couldn't stop the turmoil in their hearts at all: Lai Zongdao was obviously an old and serious person, and since he had made a request to resign, it meant that he had thought about this matter carefully, and maybe he had this idea in Lai Zongdao a long time ago. And even if the emperor will not immediately agree to the request to resign from the sect, he can still continue to beg for the above-mentioned cultivation, if it doesn't work once, twice, and if it doesn't work twice, three times.

And the possibility of this is still very high in the hearts of the ministers, after all, since Lai Zongdao has proposed to resign, he must be ready to do nothing, and he will definitely continue to beg in the future. Otherwise, if Lai Zongdao was retained by the emperor once and gave up the idea of resigning, and continued to go back to continue to be the head of his cabinet, he would definitely be ridiculed by the world. And if the will to resign from the sect was not so firm, he would not have made a request for resignation in public in front of so many ministers today.

Taking a step back, even if he came to Zongdao and the emperor three times, his repeated resignations and begging were all rejected by the emperor, and his status in the emperor's mind was definitely not the same as before he proposed his resignation, and the most likely situation is that the behavior of coming to Zongdao to resign left a mustard in the emperor's heart, although the monarch and ministers continued to maintain the previous harmony on the surface, but there will still be mutual suspicion in the heart. Maybe the emperor will also start looking for a new candidate for the head of the cabinet, in case Lai Zongdao will really resign from his official position, and when the emperor finds a more suitable candidate than Lai Zongdao, at that time, I am afraid that it will be the emperor's turn to hint or force Lai Zongdao to take the initiative to resign and retire.

Moreover, there is another point that the ministers present have not ignored, that is, Lai Zongdao, the head of the cabinet, is originally of a transitional nature, according to the political laws that everyone is familiar with, at this moment, Lai Zongdao should have long been no longer a cabinet scholar, but in his hometown to tease Sun Cai, not only Lai Zongdao, but other cabinet members such as Yang Jingchen, etc., do not look like they can do it for a long time. Even Lai Zongdao himself thought the same way at that time, and waited for the emperor's hint of resignation at any time, but he didn't wait for a long time.

On the contrary, since returning from the last "tour", the emperor has changed his original policy of administration, and has shown great trust in Lai Zongdao and other cabinet elders, and has safely entrusted all political affairs to him to handle, which has really caught all the officials in the capital off guard. But as the emperor showed a very trusting attitude towards Lai Zongdao and others, their previous efforts all came to naught, and they gradually put away their thoughts that they shouldn't have - the position of cabinet scholar is a radish and a pit, since the emperor has no intention of changing people, then no matter how hard they try, it is all in vain.

However, the resignation of Fang Cai Sect completely ignited the small flame that was about to be extinguished in their hearts, and the officials present all had extremely keen political senses, and they immediately smelled that there might be an opportunity to be promoted to the rank of knight and rank in the cabinet in the future. Originally, although the development direction of the Ming officialdom deviated from the original track under the interference of the emperor's "patrol", with Lai Zongdao just proposing to resign and return to the field, the officialdom situation of the Ming Dynasty will most likely be on the right track again and return to the road that should have been taken.

The "abnormal" state of officialdom in the short period of time when Xiao Mu returned from his "trip" seems to be like a comma of history, although it has caused a little wave, but in the end it may still be drowned by the torrent of the original history.

Therefore, almost all officials who are still a little ambitious in their hearts are thinking about the direction of officialdom in the future. From the beginning of the sect, his final attribution is the most accurate weather vane of the Ming officialdom - as long as he really resigns and returns to the field in the end, then it will definitely cause an earthquake in the Ming officialdom, and the rest of the pavilion elders who should have been covered and left will definitely not be able to keep their positions, and it is very likely that they will also beg for cultivation one after another, and other officials will naturally contribute to it to help them realize their desire to enjoy family fun as soon as possible. If there are one or two people among the other cabinet elders who don't know what to do and don't leave their seats, then there is no doubt that they will become the targets of all other officials in the court, after all, the seats of cabinet scholars are limited, and if you don't take the initiative to give them up, others will have to take it personally.

However, not all the people present are ambitious, there are still some officials who are not enterprising, and they are concerned about a different angle:

For example, Xu Guangqi has little interest in competing for the position of pavilion elder, and what he has always cared about is the methods he advocated in his life on how to increase crop yields, how to build guns and cannons, and how to calculate the laws of celestial motion. However, Xu Guangqi, who did not like to compete for power and profit, became a scholar of the Ministry of Rites and a scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion in the original history, and was the second assistant of the official cabinet; And those who tried their best to connect with each other in order to enter the cabinet but could not, there are a lot of people, such as Qian Qianyi, in the original history, Chongzhen never succeeded in entering the cabinet, but even the original official position did not have to do, can only go home to relax, this really can't help but make people feel emotional.

Therefore, in Xu Guangqi's eyes, the act of coming to Zongdao to ask for resignation and returning to the field is to put pressure on the emperor, and it is a way to express the emperor's dissatisfaction with preventing the little eunuchs from worshiping Confucius, and to make the emperor take back his fate.

Naturally, this method is not original to the sect, and many ministers in history have used this method of retreating to advance to persuade the emperor and put pressure on the emperor. Among them, the most famous is Wang Anshi of the Northern Song Dynasty, in the process of Wang Anshi's implementation of the law change encountered great resistance, there are many officials for Wang Anshi's new law did not approve, but fiercely opposed, this once made Wang Anshi decide to change the law of the Song Shenzong is also very hesitant in his heart, for the continuation of the implementation of the new law or the return to the old system is also forward-looking. Just when Song Shenzong's attitude was ambiguous and the implementation of the new law was hindered, Wang Anshi also proposed to resign and go into hiding, and in the end, he was naturally retained by Song Shenzong, and the new law was continued.

Therefore, in Xu Guangqi's eyes, the practice of coming to Zongdao is also to imitate Wang Anshi, and the purpose is to persuade the emperor not to obstruct the new batch of Mengtong to worship the Holy Master.

How can you tell if Xu Guangqi's guess is correct (although it is not actually right)? This is also very simple, that is: the emperor will naturally be very surprised by the resignation request of Lai Zongdao, and will definitely care about the reason, and ask some words of "why does Aiqing want to resign and return to the field", and then Lai Zongdao will no longer insist on resigning, but take the opportunity to say something such as "The Ming Dynasty is dignified, but the state of etiquette is not there" to arouse the emperor's interest, and then persuade the emperor's behavior. If things develop along such a route, then Xu Guangqi's guess can be proved correct.

Although so much has been analyzed, for these officials who have gone through so many ups and downs and can still stand tall in the officialdom, but are ranked as important ministers, this is just a matter of a few thoughts. Therefore, no matter whose guess is correct, in the final analysis, it still depends on the emperor's reply and the reaction of Lai Zongdao, so the ministers almost held their breath and waited for the emperor's response.

The same is true of Lai Zongdao himself, although he knows in his heart that the emperor will definitely not agree to his resignation request immediately, but he is still very nervous in his heart, waiting anxiously for what the emperor is going to say.