It is said that if a butterfly instigates its wings, the whole world will change, but no matter how Lu Hanqiang, a big living person, jumps up and down, the Xiaoice River period at the end of the Ming Dynasty in history still arrives as promised, perhaps, he is just a person, not a butterfly. ┡Ｅ』 ㄟ．『

As the winter gets colder and colder, after a few rare heavy snowfalls, the summer is getting hotter and hotter, basically there is no rain, the drought in various places, especially in the northern provinces, is more serious, and the western part of Shanxi in Shaanxi Province is from spring to summer, it is not a drop of rain at all, which leads to a large-scale famine, and a large number of peasants abandon the land to become homeless people, for a bite to eat, gather together to become a very destructive rogue.

Every day, there is an endless stream of panic reports from all over the country and the raging reports of the rogue gangsters, piled up on the cabinet and the emperor's case, which makes the bigwigs and Chongzhen simply breathless.

The city of Beijing is not immune, as the drought gets longer and longer, all the people begin to become anxious and panicked, with the feeling of liver fire is generated, the case rate in the Shuntian Mansion continues to rise, and the fatal thing is that at this time, there are always some people with ulterior motives, in the disseminator himself to conjure up the reason, among which the rumors of slandering the new emperor are even more rampant, so that the five cities of the imperial capital and the officials of the Shuntian Mansion are busy with their feet on the ground.

Outside Beijing, every dragon temple is full of incense, and all the monks and Taoist priests are dispatched, and they have also joined in this vigorous upsurge of praying for rain, and have obtained a lot of benefits in it.

And now, thick clouds have finally risen again on the horizon, black and oppressive, accompanied by lightning and thunder, like a mountain and a sea of mountains pressing towards the capital of this old empire.

This kind of heavenly wrath and coercion not only did not make people feel a trace of awe in the fury of heaven and earth, but almost made the entire city of Beijing, whether it was dignitaries and dignitaries, ordinary people, and even homeless beggars lying on the streets, rushed out of the place where they could shelter from the wind and rain, involuntarily opened their hands, looked up at the sky, howled, and hoped that there would be rain to land on the already dry earth.

Things had to come to this point, because this imperial capital, which had been quite smooth in previous years, had no rain for four months since a light rain in March, and the springs in the city had dried up, and even the wells in their own yards were all muddy mud.

In the Forbidden City, in every wide courtyard or square, there are countless eunuchs under the supervision of the steward, or simply in the anxiety of the heart, all kneeling full of palace maids and eunuchs, everyone extremely devoutly bowed their hands and prayed, looking up at the rolling dark clouds and thunder and lightning, praying that this would no longer be an empty joy. At this time, the queen concubine also knelt in the Buddhist hall and prayed sincerely, hoping that God would be merciful and not punish the emperor who had just ascended the throne and made great achievements.

This time, the weather from the northwest was urgent, and it was too late to set up the ceremony, so Chongzhen took the officials of Qin Tianjian and hurried to the Temple of Heaven, hoping that through his prayers, God could see the suffering of his son, and then rain down, even if it could not solve the crisis of the great drought, at least it could solve the dilemma of draft in the imperial capital to calm people's hearts.

At this time, people deeply realized that the old saying that there is no food in the hand and there is no panic in the heart, in fact, the lack of water in the mouth is even more frightening.

The Temple of Heaven was empty and solemn, all the accompanying ministers and eunuchs knelt outside the Temple of Heaven, only the emperor Chongzhen sat in the center of the main hall, the main door of the Temple of Heaven was opened, and the strong wind rushed in with the moisture that could be smelled, tearing Chongzhen's weak body, and the earth-shattering sound was amplified by the empty hall, which made people feel thrilling every time.

Of course, he is the Son of Heaven, and there is no need to bow down to the Dragon King. According to the regulations, the dragon king is in charge of the rain, and he is in charge of the people on the earth, in terms of level, the division of labor is different, the level is comparable, and it seems to be a little higher than him, but at this time, it is not the time to compare with the dragon king, and if you want to ask for someone, you have to put down your body, and sit in the main hall of the Temple of Heaven with devotion and pray to the heavens.

"It's raining, it's raining, please." Young Chongzhen was no longer praying, but pleading. Now, he has begun to come out of the joy and ambition of just ascending the throne, and after truly understanding the national fortunes of this old empire, all that remains is frustration and powerlessness.

At this time, listening to the thunder and lightning outside the Temple of Heaven, while praying for rain and rain as soon as possible, I was more worried about whether my dilapidated house could withstand the storm.

As time went on, Chongzhen's thoughts slowly began to return to the complicated court from praying for rain sincerely.

The current court has finally lost the eunuchs and traitors, and has become a world of gentlemen. This would have been a good sign.

However, the true gentlemen of the Northern Song Dynasty Shenzong Renzong, whom he envied when he was reading history books, did not appear, but a group of hypocrites who could only boast about what appeared.

The gentlemen of the Great Song Dynasty, such as Bao Zheng, such as Wang Anshi, Fu Bi, Wen Yanbo, such as Sima Guang Fan Zhongyan, who is not a generation of talented and responsible heroes, they also have fights and differences, but they are fighting for the country and disagreeing for the country, no matter what they do well or not, but the original intention is to hope that their home country will be prosperous and prosperous.

And now the gentleman in his court doesn't taste right no matter how he looks at it.

Although they are all dignified, all of them are more personable, and they all talk about the way of saints at length, and they seem to be able to be a generation of grandmasters in terms of knowledge, but what is the point of what they do and say?

Selfish.

In this paragraph, Chongzhen carefully tasted what they did after the dynasty, and more deeply realized the consequences of what they did.

The treasury is more empty than when the eunuchs were in power, and the internal treasury is more embarrassed than when Wei Zhongxian was in power.

And now in their own court, looking at the excitement of you attacking me every day, it is simply a hall, in fact, I really say a strategy, as long as it is not with their taste, immediately they will become a monolith, resolutely block themselves, and once they do not follow their methods, they will immediately be arrogant and will not stop until they achieve their goal.

Chongzhen also knows that the emperor controls the court, in fact, what he does is to balance, let two or three forces have different voices in the court, definitely not only one voice, and then choose the most appropriate voice to do things. For example, he supported Donglin's comeback, and defeated the eunuchs with the help of Donglin, how handy he was at that time, he was comfortable in the middle, and finally earned the name of the son of Zhongxing for himself.

But now things have begun to be out of their control, the eunuchs have been defeated, and they are so simple, just like a sentence in the Dream of Red Mansions written by Lu Hanqiang, the white snow is really clean.

At the beginning, Chongzhen didn't want to divide the virtuous and traitorous with the view of the portal, and he learned from all aspects that not all the people who attached to Donglin were virtuous, and there were many people who wanted to make a name for themselves, and there were also people who were famous and famous. But now the portal has been distinguished, the words and deeds of the subordinates are all expressed in the door, the eunuch party is trying to overturn the case, Donglin is opposed to it, and the eunuch case is now unable to suppress it no matter what, so the court was completely cleared under the double blow of Donglin and the eunuch party himself doing too much evil.

It's a pity that it's clean, but the opposition that the emperor needs most in the court is gone, this is good, the ministers are all interested in their own interests, and they really do two everything, everything that harms their own interests are opposed, and everything that is beneficial to their own interests is supported, and now, he has simply become a real puppet. Thinking of this, Chongzhen couldn't help but feel hot, clenched his fists tightly, and wailed at Haotian: "God, you handed over this tattered empire to me, but you didn't give me a group of capable ministers, I also know that the Son of Heaven controls the court to do balance, but your old man opened his eyes and looked, all the ministers ran to one side, how can I balance without another force?" What balance do I take? ”

A blast of thunder came in from outside the hall again, and this explosion had no effect on Chongzhen, who had already fallen into meditation.

When the gentleman just starts fighting for his own interests, they are more terrible than the villain, at this time, he needs an opposing voice to appear, hoping that a lonely minister appears,

In fact, the so-called lonely ministers only have two roles, one is to use them to oppose the majority of the officialdom, to replace the emperor's own voice, and the second is to use them to calm the officialdom or public anger. I saw a lot of such examples when I was self-taught, such as Shang Ying, such as Chao Cuo, such as that who.

At that time, he was still amazed by these iron-clad struggles against the powerful power groups at that time, and he was still regretting that the emperor at that time finally had to kill them to quell the anger of the people, and hated those lonely ministers who killed their most loyal ministers and slandered the emperor's black heart.

Now it seems that after he became this emperor, after he was in the current situation, he deeply understood the hardships of those emperors at that time.

Since I thought of the best way to be a lonely minister, I need a lonely minister to appear, and at this time, all the people in the court are Donglin, whether it is the so-called Chu Party or the Shu Party, or any other party, in fact, at the root, it is still the Donglin Party, everyone lives in the big family of the party, and feels extremely warm and sunny, as for biting each other, it is just an internal struggle among the people, just a joke, who wants to give up such a happy life?

"Huang Liji can be counted as one." Chongzhen silently counted the chips in his hand.

The current Huang Liji was supported to power by Wei Zhongxian, and the reason why he was not defeated was because Chongzhen didn't want to overturn everything too quickly and cause great turmoil in the court, but now Huang Liji has come to the end of his fate, and he doesn't want to rectify him, but now the clear stream that is full of the court has begun to black hands against him, just the day before yesterday, those Donglin invariably wrote to ask to be transferred back to Han Yi, who was belittled by Wei Zhongxian and hated the eunuchs, this is a signal from Donglin, that is, they want to turn their backs on themselves" abandon the door and leave talents for the country", and began to purge all the so-called eunuchs inside and outside the court, as well as in the local area, among which there are definitely people who do not have the same political views as Donglin. In other words, Huang Liji couldn't keep it if he wanted to.

There is also Yuan Chonghuan, who is optimistic about himself, is he okay?

After thinking about it again, Chongzhen shook his head lightly and gave up the idea.

Yuan Chonghuan has a history of eunuching, and he originally wanted to make him an example of seeking common ground while reserving differences, and then give a signal to the court bosses, that is, don't make trouble, let's think about state affairs, as a result, the effect is not good, it is quite bad, not only can he say in the hall that he doesn't even believe in five years of recovering Liao, but also has the unanimous support of all the court ministers, according to Donglin's requirements, such a person with a criminal record must be beaten to death with a stick? It's just weird, why is that?

Thinking about it carefully, I couldn't help but suddenly realize that it was not Donglin who thought that he came to power and needed someone to support himself, so as to cover up the rumors that Donglin would only talk about empty talk that had appeared among the people.

Now it's okay, Yuan Chonghuan was not only born in Shilin, but also "once fought." "If he recovers Liao in five years, then it can completely make Donglin's reputation become prosperous for a while, and if it fails, then it will only be a scapegoat for the anger of the people.

It's a pity that this scapegoat who is about to be taken out of civilian anger is not angry for his own people, but for the people of Donglin.

And Yuan Chonghuan didn't see the consequences of forcing him to death, so now he had to get close to Donglin, in order to save Donglin's life when his cowhide was blown in the future.

"Alas, how can a person who hopes Donglin save his life become a lonely minister?"

So who is left? After screening all the candidates who he thought could become Lone Chen, Chongzhen couldn't help but rub his temples, sadly, the Lone Chen he needed was either no one wanted to be it, or he was about to be defeated and couldn't keep it, that is to say, there was really no such candidate. At this time, Chongzhen couldn't help but lament, "Find a substitute for the dead ghost, isn't it, why is it so difficult to find a lonely minister?" ”

Wang Chengen, who was standing in the corner, didn't know at this time that Chongzhen's thoughts had gone off topic from praying for rain to Guchen, but seeing that Chongzhen began to rub his temples constantly, he immediately approached in small steps, and asked in a worried voice: "What is the emperor's discomfort?" Do you want me to come to Xuan Taiyi? ”

Chongzhen turned his head and glared angrily at his companion, who didn't know how to advance or retreat, "This is the time to pray for rain and tell the sky, how can I lack the etiquette to the heavens?" If God blames you, won't it delay the livelihood of the people of this world? ”

Wang Chengen, who was reprimanded, hurriedly knelt down and confessed, but he still didn't worry about Chongzhen's body, and pleaded again: "The emperor is angry, what the emperor said is that this prayer for rain is to be pious, but the emperor still has to focus on the dragon body." Then he climbed two steps forward, and his voice seemed to be suppressed for fear that God would know: "Actually, the emperor doesn't have to work so hard, as long as Lu Hanqiang's newspaper hypes up the emperor's integrity tomorrow, so that all the people in the world know the emperor's piety." ”

"Lu Hanqiang?" When it came to Lu Hanqiang, Chongzhen was a little stunned, but with a thunderstorm outside the hall, an idea drilled into Chongzhen's head, "Lu Hanqiang?" , yes, it's Lu Hanqiang, yes, you scapegoat, no, it's a lonely minister, you are decided. ”