【First Update】

The weather on this day was not very good.

It was almost noon, and the sky was still very dark.

In the past year, the palace has replaced the doors and windows of many palaces with glass windows, but the Wende Hall still has to light a giant candle to ensure the light in the palace.

These arm-thick giant candles are made with a small amount of ambergris and agarwood crumbs, and after burning, the aroma lingers in the Wende Hall.

Han Gang sniffled, he always felt a little uncomfortable with this aroma produced by burning. In particular, the ventilation situation is not too good, and the aroma of ambergris lingers in the hall.

In the past, there were not so many ambergris, and the palace was rarely generous enough to use ambergris candles in a large hall like Wende Hall.

However, with the development of Jiaozhou and the development of domestic maritime transportation, Quanzhou and Guangzhou Yisi not only added new specialties such as sugar and cotton cloth, but also reduced the prices of old specialties such as silk, porcelain and tea. The number of maritime merchants from Dashi has more than doubled in just a few years. The profits paid by the city have increased accordingly, and there are naturally many more goods from overseas, including ambergris.

In addition, the increase in overseas products such as ambergris is also due to the start of in-house production of glass products and perfumes. In the past, glass and perfume were at the top of the list of luxury goods that big food merchants could sell to China, but now, boxes of goods have been shipped away. In order to be able to achieve trade, it is necessary to increase the share of other commodities, ambergris, ivory, precious stones, spices, all of which are used to fill the vacancies.

However, in his published notes, Han Gang had already revealed the true face of ambergris, which was nothing more than something excreted by a giant whale in the sea, and it could barely be said that it could be similar to musk. If you cut open a large piece of ambergris, you can see the remains of food eaten by the giant whale inside. In an earlier issue of Nature, there were also contributions to the study of spices from the West, and in this paper, they also agreed with the truth about ambergris revealed by Han Gang.

As the truth about ambergris was revealed, the consumption of ambergris in the palace immediately became much less. But the courtiers were often rewarded from the court. The outer halls frequented by the Queen Mother, such as the Chongzheng Hall and the Inner East Gate Hall, have been decreasing when using ambergris agarwood candles, but in large halls such as the Wende Palace, they no longer hesitate to use valuable ambergris candles.

Women are always a little bit clean. This is not surprising.

However, the price of ambergris has not decreased in the slightest because of the revealed details, and it is still more expensive than gold. It's like musk, there are many people who know the origin of musk - when Han Gang mentions ambergris in the book, he also mentions the origin of musk in passing - but the price of musk has not been reduced much.

Han Gang has no hobby for ambergris, but when the benefits of ambergris are so high that people dare to go out to sea to catch whales and take incense, then the source of sailors for the ocean-going navy will no longer be a problem.

In the shroud of the aroma of ambergris, an attendant added a stroke to the white screen in front of His Majesty.

This is the second court push since the founding of the Great Song Dynasty.

After the triennial Jinshi Science Rite Examination, and the Examination of the Science and Technology Pavilion where all the examiners were expelled, it once again became the focus of attention in the court.

After half a month, several of the electors who participated in the Tingtui before have left the capital, and a few others cannot participate due to different reasons, but there are also newcomers who have arrived in the capital, and a total of 25 people have participated in the Tingtui this time.

The faces of the electors have changed, and the candidates who have signed up for election have also changed slightly.

Except for Han Gang, who has become a person in the two prefectures, Lu Jiawen, Zeng Xiaokuan and Li Ding, who were defeated last time, all participated in this election without exception. And the other one, many people didn't expect that Wang Juqing recommended Li Suzhi to participate in the election.

Except for a very small number of insiders, no one could have imagined that after Shen Kuo, who was most likely to participate in the election, chose to give up, Li Suzhi would be promoted.

Li Suzhi once served as the third envoy and had the qualifications equivalent to the two officials, although he went to serve as the Zhigongju, he could not participate in the court push, but as the electee, if he did not plan to vote for himself, he could participate in it.

In accordance with the unwritten election regulations, among the recommended candidates, three were elected for the Queen Mother to make the most difficult choice. If there are only three people participating in the court push, the court push is meaningless at all, and it is not immune to criticism.

Han Gang naturally can't tolerate such a thing, maybe in the future, but at least for now, this new thing must be protected until it becomes a practice that can be continued. Therefore, Han Gang had already contacted Li Suzhi before he entered the Tribute Academy, and Wang Juqing's side was even simpler, a matter of a few words.

However, the fact that Lee Su-ji became a candidate did not change the current situation of the lack of votes for the Korean Party. Far behind Lu Jiawen, Zeng Xiaokuan and Li Ding. Even if Lu Jiawen, Zeng Xiaokuan, and Li Ding all chose to abstain, unlike the previous election, they voted for each other after agreeing, and Li Suzhi's votes did not catch up with much.

This second election, because of the applicants, seems to be unfazed.

This time, Zeng Xiaokuan had the highest number of votes, Lu Jiawen and Li Ding were tied, and the gap with Zeng Xiaokuan was only one vote, and Li Suzhi was at the end.

Li Suzhi was eliminated as a result, and the top three votes entered the last stage.

For such a result, many people had expected it before the start of the court push. Among the three people, Zeng, Lu, and Li, who will become the lucky one selected by the Queen Mother is the target of speculation.

Empress Dowager Xiang didn't think too much about it, and simply chose Zeng Xiaokuan, who had the most votes, as the deputy privy envoy.

Hearing this result, Lu Jiawen's face immediately became exciting. Because he didn't want to be too conspicuous, he didn't fight for votes, otherwise according to the previous situation, he would have been the first. If this time, the Queen Mother is determined by the number of votes, then she will lose unjustly.

However, no one cared what Lu Jia was thinking, and once again, Zhizhi Yu began to draft an edict on the Wende Hall to remove Zeng Xiaokuan as a privy deputy envoy.

Zhang Dan was thoughtful.

The old practice of locking the small hall at the east gate of the Imperial Interior and the academy seems to have become a thing of the past.

After two consecutive elections, it is estimated that the newcomers in the two mansions will become a member of Zaifu through this way.

There is no customary resignation, Zeng Xiaokuan immediately received the edict after receiving the order - if you really don't want to take office, you can resign before the election, and then resign, except for disgusting people and becoming the laughing stock of the world, there is no meaning.

Again, this is a changed old routine.

But the new convention is more than that. There are also surprises waiting for all the courtiers in the temple.

After Zeng Xiaokuan became the deputy privy envoy, there were new changes in the Zai Zhi class.

The Queen Mother's voice sounded behind the screen: "Su Song can know about the Privy Council. ”

It is not as abrupt as the previous time, when Han Gang was transferred from Xifu to Dongfu, but Su Song's promotion did not have any warning.

When there is no Privy Councillor, the Privy Council is the presiding officer of the Privy Council. However, in the case of a privy councillor, the affairs of the Privy Council are half a level lower.

In the old days, the titles of the first and second in command of the Privy Council were either Privy Counsellor, Privy Vice-Counsellor, or Privy Councillor and Privy Councillor Knower, which basically did not mix and match, and there was only one case in the past where the Privy Counsellor and the Privy Council were in the House at the same time. However, in the past two years, with Lu Huiqing as the privy envoy, Zhang Dian knew about the affairs of the privy council, but it seemed to have become a common practice.

Although last year, Lu Huiqing was reappointed as the Xuanhui envoy for some reason, Zhang Dian was promoted from knowing the Privy Council to a half-level privy envoy, plus Su Song and Xue Xiang, who served as the privy council deputies, made the title in the privy council a little purer. But now, Su Song has taken up the post of Privy Council, and in the Privy Council, it has returned to the era of two sets of titles in parallel.

It seems that the Queen Mother intends to let Su Song open up the gap with Zeng Xiaokuan, the newly promoted privy deputy envoy. However, after two consecutive court pushes, first Han Gang, and then Su Song of Han Gang's line, have all been promoted, one may be Han Gang's trust of the Empress Dowager, and the other, that is, the Empress Dowager has an opinion on the New Party, hoping to use Han Gang to suppress the New Party that is powerful all over the court.

These two things, in fact, are also one and two, two and one.

Although the power of the new party is strong, there are not many members who are desperate, and many members are just tending to be inflammatory, and if the queen mother shows her attitude to support Han Gang and expel the new party, then the power of the new party will be reduced by half immediately.

Han Gang and Su Song were divided into two governments, and at the same time, the four cabinet examiners who deposed Huang Shang were all invited out of the capital, and the signs of the Queen Mother's suppression of the new party became more and more obvious.

However, now Wang Anshi is still in the court, suppressing the civil and military classes with the important affairs of the military and the military. With his merits in the previous counterinsurgency, even if the Queen Mother no longer misses the old feelings, it is impossible to force him out of Beijing.

As long as Wang Anshi is still around, the New Party will not fall. The departure of the four examiners to Beijing was only a small setback, and it was reasonable to say that it was within their duty for the officials of the three pavilions to participate in the revision of the book. Transferred to Xijing to assist Sima Guangxiu in the "Zizhi Tongjian", compared with the original place of work in the imperial city, it is indeed derogatory, but his own position has not changed, so it seems that it is more the result of a compromise between the two sides.

In addition, Huang Shang, who failed on the list, also said that he would go to the border to take office, maybe to Hedong or Hebei, and if he couldn't pass the system, he planned to use his actual merits to reflect his ability.

Both parties left Beijing and went out, and no matter how you look at it, it is not the result of Han Gang's complete victory. Otherwise, it should be Huang Sheng who was specially proposed to enter the imperial examination, and Jian Zhoufu and others went out of Beijing to supervise taxes.

Whether the Queen Mother still wants to maintain balance, or Han Gang has no intention of completely starting a battle with his father-in-law, the power of the new party is still stable.

As long as this situation can be maintained, the number of people who are willing to take risks will never be the majority.

Han Gang didn't plan to change the status quo in the near future, he didn't have enough appetite to swallow the cake left over after the fall of the New Party, and it would be too bad to be snatched by the group of old guys who were eyeing him outside.

After ending the court discussion and coming out of the Wende Palace, he congratulated Su Song first, and then congratulated Zeng Xiaokuan by the way, and on the way to the Chongzheng Palace, Han Jiang came over,

"Yukun, the old man read the few questions you drafted before, why do you think it's wrong."