After not seeing him for a few days, Lai Xing'er could hardly recognize that the person who first walked into the Yanying Hall was the suspicious and unprepared prince who was in the idle yard on Qingming Day.

I saw that he was dressed in a red and yellow robe, wearing a folded turban, a nine-ring jade belt around his waist, and Liuhe Dynasty boots on his feet.

In addition to Xie Liangchen, there were two other people who followed the new emperor into the Yanying Palace. Lai Xing'er recognized one of them at a glance as Liu Yi, who was the head and tail of the dragon, and the other was an old man in his fifties with a purple robe and a gold belt, with a strong figure, and a dignified aura all over his body, but his eyes were very angry.

"Jin Guogong, this place you have chosen for me is really quiet. If I remember correctly, this was the place where the first emperor and the talents of the Hanlin Academy talked about poetry and painting. The emperor turned a blind eye to Lai Xing'er, who was standing in the hall, and said to Li Jinzhong.

"Your Majesty is right," Li Jinzhong replied, "Although this Yanying Hall is small, it is facing Zhongshu Province in the south and Zuozang Treasury in the west, which is not only convenient for His Majesty to convene his courtiers to discuss matters, but also conducive to customs defense, and the old minister really can't think of a more suitable place in the palace than here." ”

The strange old man opened his mouth and asked: "Master Li, the last general was transferred back to Beijing, I don't understand why the emperor wants to come to this side hall to discuss matters if you don't need to put a good Xuanzheng Hall and Zichen Palace?" ”

Although he didn't talk much, he had an aggressive momentum, and he was obviously a battle-hardened general.

"Uncle," the emperor didn't wait for Li Jinzhong to answer, and said to the old man first, "Although the Zhang family is dead, she has been widely known in the palace for many years, and now I am afraid that more than half of the palace people in the Daming Palace have been involved with her, and it will take time to find out the identities of these many palace people one by one, exile or replace, first, it will take time, and secondly, there will be no considerable number of suitable candidates, therefore, the Duke of Jin Guogong suggested to me that he should choose a safe place outside the Zichen Hall in the inner court, and use it exclusively for business, military and political affairs." Uncle was transferred to General Yulinwei this time, and Uncle Lao will have to worry more about the customs defense here in the future. ”

The old man frowned and sighed: "I can't think of the palace, and I won't stop!" The emperor discussed a matter, and he had to go to such a remote place, speaking of which, this is not a courtier. As he spoke, he glanced at Li Jinzhong with sharp eyes.

Li Jinzhong naturally heard that there were thorns in his words, and he was dissatisfied with the emperor's urgent summoning of his uncle Wu Bi back to Beijing to take charge of the guards, so he used Wu Bi's words to play to the emperor: "The minister originally wanted to tell His Majesty about this matter a few days later, but since the uncle mentioned the defense of the palace today, the minister said a few words:

If it weren't for the edict of the first emperor to take precautions in advance, so that the prison army would be assembled in the wall of the heavy Xuanmen, once the incident was rushed, the consequences would be unimaginable. It can be seen from this that it is no longer appropriate for the Yulin Wei army to be the guard alone, and the ministers have the courage to expand the number of shooting soldiers in front of the palace to 3,000 people, so that the ministers can lead them in case of accidents. ”

Wu Bi didn't wait for Li Jinzhong's words to fall, stepped forward and grabbed the placket of his chest, and was about to hit him with a fist, and scolded in his mouth: "Arrogant eunuch, you dare to covet the power of the Forbidden Palace, you can't rebel." ”

Seeing this, the emperor hurriedly shouted: "Uncle, stop, the Duke of Jin is a good minister who assists me in ascending to the extreme, and you must not make a mistake." ”

Li Jinzhong's face was fearless, let Wu Bi tug at the placket of his clothes, and said coldly: "Don't be annoyed, general, and listen to what I say: more than half of the Yu Linwei under Zhang Liang has been wiped out, and most of the remaining soldiers have been expelled from the capital and scattered all over the country. After the general arrived, he brought 2,000 people from the Shaanzhou government army to Yulinwei, I don't know if there is such a thing? ”

Wu Bi snorted and replied in a rough voice, "So what? This matter has been approved by the emperor, and there is nothing wrong with it. ”

Li Jinzhong "snapped" and shook off Wu Bi's hand that was holding his shirt, bowed down and played to the emperor: "Now that Zhang Liang is still on the run, Your Majesty has violated the precedent and allowed Wu Bi to use the local government army led by him to fill the division of the guards. ”

The emperor looked embarrassed and explained: "The lack of personnel in Yulinwei makes it difficult to recruit sufficient manpower in a short period of time. This matter has nothing to do with it, and the Duke of Jin Guo should not be careful. ”

Li Jinzhong immediately retorted: "According to the order of this dynasty, the children of non-imperial officials and officials are not allowed to enter the emperor's guards, and most of the sergeants and soldiers of the Shaanzhou Prefecture Army are local rogue farmers, and they are not suitable to serve as palace guards in terms of background and combat effectiveness, this is one of them;

His Majesty did not issue an edict to recruit sergeants for Yu Linwei, how do you know that no one is recruited, Yu Linwei's identity is glorious, once Your Majesty gives an order, the ministers think that the princes and princes of the court, the children of hundreds of officials will be enthusiastically recruited, and it should not be difficult to recruit three or five thousand people between the ten months, this is the second;

Since the Taizong of this dynasty set up a hundred cavalry battalions outside the sixteen guards to serve as the guards, until the first emperor expanded the dragon army for the left and right compartments, the inner court set up elite divisions to guard against the unexpected has been followed for a hundred years, according to the current situation in the palace, the north and south of the government to unify the forbidden army is more conducive to the peace of the palace, this is the third.

According to these three articles, the minister asked His Majesty to expel the army of Shaanzhou, not to recruit strong men, part of them to supplement the Yulin Guard, and the other part to form the Northern Ya Forbidden Army, so as to complete the defense of the inner court. ”

The emperor was upset by his order on the left and the first emperor on the right, he was going to take this opportunity to cut Li Jinzhong's military power, but he accidentally asked Li Jinzhong to seize the handle, not to retreat but to advance, and actually proposed to form another army and monopolize the defense of the inner court.

He kept signaling to Liu Yi, who was silent after entering the hall, with his eyes, hoping that he could stand up and help him get rid of Li Jinzhong's entanglement, but Liu Yi turned a blind eye, standing there calmly looking around at the furnishings in the hall, and had no intention of speaking at all.

"The Jin State is highly commendable for his advice and sincerity in seeking the country." The emperor had no choice but to resort to a delaying tactic.

"Since I ascended to the pole, I have always asked myself, if I did not have the loyal assistance of the king, how could I be where I am today. I still remember what happened on that Shangyuan night two years ago, when if Mr. Liu hadn't arrived in time and the Duke of Jin had come back to protect me, I was afraid that I would have been falsely accused of being the mastermind of the rebellion and would have fallen into a situation from which I could never recover.

This time, the Zhang family initiated the palace disaster, intending to take advantage of the first emperor's funeral to kill me, and the Jin State had to obey the edict of the first emperor, lead loyal and brave people, purge it in one fell swoop, and help me to enter the succession. Therefore, before the collapse of the first emperor, he issued a special decree to reward loyalty with the dignity of the prince, which set a precedent for the eunuchs of this dynasty to be crowned dukes.

Although the matter of the Janissaries is important, it is actually a trivial and trivial matter, and I have called Mr. Liu to return to the court, and I have mentioned to him many times that my dynasty wants to establish the two national policies of the Northern Rebels, the Southern and the Foreign Domains, so why should the Duke of the Kingdom diligently devote himself to this detailed matter and ignore the major affairs of the country? ”