After the orthodox emperor ascended the throne, he issued a series of edicts, one of which was not noticeable but of great significance, that is, the orthodox emperor obeyed the edict of Emperor Xuande and officially determined that Beijing was the imperial capital of the Ming Dynasty, and was no longer "in the line".

This means that the official seals of the yamen of the various ministries and courtyards in Beijing will be changed from "walking in a certain yamen" to "a certain yamen in the Ming Dynasty", although there is only a difference of two words, but it avoids the pain of moving the capital, and ends the controversy between the ministers of the two factions in the imperial court around whether to move the capital or not.

Due to the young age of the orthodox emperor, the Ming dynasty officially fell into the hands of twelve auxiliary ministers headed by Yang Shiqi and Zhang Fu, although Li Yuntian was not the auxiliary minister explicitly appointed in the edict of Emperor Xuande, but he had the identity of the auxiliary minister, so he would participate in the discussion of major affairs in the court.

Originally, according to the meaning of Empress Dowager Zhang, who has become the empress dowager, she wanted the orthodox emperor to issue a holy decree and officially appoint Li Yuntian as an auxiliary minister, which could be justified.

However, Li Yuntian politely rejected the kindness of the Empress Dowager, he now has too many affairs at hand, where can he still have the energy to deal with the large and small affairs of the court, so in his opinion, it is good not to have the title of auxiliary minister, otherwise he will be troubled by trivial matters in the court, as for the false name of the auxiliary minister, he does not value it.

Moreover, after the orthodox emperor inherits the unification, the power structure of the capital will be reshuffled, and then a new round of struggle between the various factions will definitely start in order to obtain more benefits, and the auxiliary ministers will be the center of this whirlpool, Li Yuntian does not want to intervene in this matter and waste unnecessary energy in vain, he has two important things to complete.

These two important things are Emperor Xuande's last wishes, one is to expand the capital, with the development of social economy, the capital is not only more and more prosperous and the population is more and more dense, the existing capital can no longer accommodate the huge population, so it is necessary to expand the capital.

The second is to pacify the Japanese troubles, since the Hongxi Dynasty, the coastal Japanese plagues have become more and more rampant, and even dozens of wandering Japanese robbers have rampaged in Nanzhili, which not only makes the army of Nanzhili helpless but also frightens the farce of closing the city gate of Nanjing, so Emperor Xuande hated the Japanese plague and was determined to eradicate it, and also gave the coastal people a bright future.

Before Emperor Xuande died, he deliberately handed over the expansion of the capital and the pacification of the plague to Li Yuntian, and in his opinion, no one in the Ming Dynasty could do these two things well except Li Yuntian.

The reason is very simple, the expansion of the capital requires a lot of money, the most profitable in the Ming Dynasty is Li Yuntian, the rest of the ministers have no business acumen at all, and taxes alone are obviously unable to support such a huge urban construction project, plus Li Yuntian has a complete management system does not have to worry about someone taking advantage of it, so he is the best candidate to preside over the expansion of the capital.

As for the pacification of the Japanese invaders, Emperor Xuande had already realized under the influence of Li Yuntian that in order to eliminate the coastal troubles, it was necessary to "sparse" rather than "block", after all, more than half of the current Japanese invaders were poor people forced to make a living in the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty, so how to improve the livelihood of the coastal people was a key factor.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, Li Yuntian's ability to govern places is unparalleled, and even the wild and bitter cold places like Jiaozhi and Liaodong have been governed by Li Yuntian in an orderly manner, let alone the people in those coastal areas.

What is particularly important is that Emperor Xuande saw the importance of trade with overseas countries from the overseas trade of Jiaozhi, coupled with Li Yuntian's proposal to operate Qiongzhou Island and Xiaoliuqiu Island to eliminate the foundation of the Japanese in the sea, so that Emperor Xuande had the idea of gradually lifting the sea ban, and he believed that Li Yuntian, who was old and serious, could handle this matter well.

Therefore, Li Yuntian successfully withdrew from the complicated political situation in the capital by expanding the capital and pacifying the Japanese invaders, and wholeheartedly operated the territory and industry of the Jiangwutang, and anyway, the interests of the Jiangwutang did not conflict with the interests of all the forces in the court.

According to the plan formulated in Xuande in the ninth year, Li Yuntian will go to the southeast coast in the tenth year of Xuande to lead the naval division to clear out Qiongzhou Island and Xiaoliuqiu Island, where the Japanese are entrenched.

In late March, just when Li Yuntian was in full swing preparing for his southward journey, he suddenly received an edict from the Empress Dowager asking him to enter the palace to see him.

Li Yuntian did not dare to slack off after receiving the order, and hurriedly took a carriage to the Forbidden City.

Because the civil and military ministers in the young court of the orthodox emperor originally wanted to ask the empress dowager to listen to the government and exercise imperial power on behalf of the orthodox emperor as the emperor's grandmother, after all, the imperial power is in the hands of the Son of Heaven, although Yang Shiqi and Zhang Fu and other auxiliary ministers are prominent in power, they are only courtiers who assist the orthodox emperor after all, and they cannot overstep their responsibilities in the affairs of state power, and they need to be decided by the empress dowager.

However, the Empress Dowager refused to listen to the government on the grounds of the ancestral system of Ming Taizu, but this does not mean that she will ignore the affairs of the court, and the orthodox emperor is now unable to personally recruit her, how can she hand over the power of the court to the ministers of the court?

But no matter how powerful the Empress Dowager is, she is just a woman, and she is not proficient in government affairs, so she followed the example of Emperor Xuande, reused the celebrant who was supported by Emperor Xuande, and handed over the recitals reported by the auxiliary ministers to the eunuchs of the ceremonial supervisor for review, and then reported the results to the empress dowager, and used the ceremonial eunuch to contain those auxiliary ministers.

As a result, the originally troubled celebrant ushered in a new dawn after the death of Emperor Xuande and had a new backer.

However, unlike the previous period of Emperor Xuande, because Emperor Xuande delegated some power to the auxiliary ministers, the auxiliary ministers reported to the empress dowager were the major affairs of the imperial court, and the rest of the daily affairs could be decided by the auxiliary ministers, so that the power of the celebrant was also reduced accordingly, so that it could no longer compete with the auxiliary ministers as before.

The reason why Emperor Xuande did this was to prevent the internal court and auxiliary ministers from fighting for power after the orthodox emperor ascended the throne, so that the political situation of the Ming Dynasty would be disturbed.

Obviously, after the death of Emperor Xuande, the Empress Dowager will definitely shoulder the heavy responsibility of maintaining imperial power, because the relatives of the Ming Dynasty are forbidden to engage in politics, then the only person who can be trusted and relied on by the Empress Dowager is the inner court, and Emperor Xuande does not want to compete with the Empress Dowager and the auxiliary ministers in front of the orthodox emperor's pro-government, so the situation will be unimaginable.

In fact, the reason why the inner court of the Ming Dynasty rose and became a very special existence in the ancient feudal society was closely related to the Ming Taizu's restriction on the imperial family and relatives to participate in politics, so that the emperor used to balance the courtiers was only the inner court.

Cining Palace.

Although Cining Palace is the queen mother's bedroom, according to common sense, the Zhang family, who is already the queen mother, wants to move out of Cining Palace, but because the orthodox emperor is young and does not have a queen, the Sun family, who has been promoted to the queen mother, still lives in Kunning Palace and has not moved to Cining Palace, so Zhang naturally does not need to change the dormitory.

Moreover, the Zhang family is now the master of the harem, and even the Sun family does not dare to let her leave Cining Palace.

"Minister Li Yuntian knocked to see the Empress Dowager." In Cining Palace, Jin Ying, the eunuch of the master of ceremonies, bowed and stood beside Zhang's side, and Li Yuntian immediately understood what was going on after seeing Jin Ying, and knelt down and saluted Zhang's quietly.

"King Zhongwu is flat." Zhang smiled slightly, and beckoned the waiter on the side to bring a chair to Li Yuntian.

"King Zhongwu, look at these two movements." After Li Yuntian sat down, Zhang asked the chamberlain to hand over the two pieces to Li Yuntian.

Li Yuntian bowed to Zhang and opened the two pieces of music and carefully examined them, these two pieces were jointly played by the auxiliary ministers, one was to remove the town guards and eunuchs in the provincial capitals, and the other was to set up a Nanjing counselor with a civilian official, and send the minister of civil and military affairs to serve as the town guard of Jiangxi, Henan, Huguang and Shandong.

Looking at these two pieces in his hand, Li Yuntian couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart, it seems that the ministers of civil and military affairs in the court have been quite dissatisfied with the inner court, so not long after the orthodox emperor ascended the throne, he took these two pieces to weaken the power of the inner court.

The thirteen political envoys of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the thirteen provinces, since the first year of Hongxi, after Emperor Xuande ascended the throne, began to set up town guards in the provincial capitals on the grounds of peace and security, and later gradually promoted to the town guard eunuchs.

According to the custom formulated by Emperor Xuande in the third year of Xuande, the town guards and lieutenant officials in the provincial towns and cities of each province had the following powers: supervising civil and military officials, dispatching officials and troops to suppress the people's resistance, suppressing local tyrants, arresting fugitives, increasing administrative and military settings to the central government according to the needs of local public security, coordinating the official affairs of civil and military officials and divisions, prefectures, and county agencies in the province, and appeasing the displaced population.

It can be seen from this that the power of the eunuchs in the provincial towns and cities is very great, and they can start to Emperor Xuande and suppress the local three divisions, which is no different from the function of the governor, and is the largest force in the inner court outside the court.

This made the local three divisions and the civil and military ministers in the court quite dissatisfied with this, which can be described as full of complaints but helpless, who let them put too much pressure on the young Emperor Xuande, so that Emperor Xuande had to find a way to balance them.

Now, the Wenchen group and the Xungui group in the court finally seized the opportunity and launched a fatal blow to the inner court on the occasion of the orthodox emperor's accession to the throne, wanting to remove the eunuchs guarding the provincial capitals of the thirteen provinces.

The reasons for the auxiliary ministers to dismiss the eunuchs in the towns and towns of the thirteen provinces are very good: "The former internal official Zhang Da and others were sent to guard the towns there, especially to appease the army and the people and guard against thieves. The soldiers and civilians have all been in peace, and now they have returned to Beijing, and the people who followed them in the original year have been returned to the various guards. In all areas under their jurisdiction, it is especially advisable to be appeased by the military and civilians, so as not to disturb the military and guards. In the event of a grass attack, the officers and troops were immediately transferred to arrest them, so as not to leave the people in trouble. ”

Of course, the intention of the auxiliary ministers was very clear, that is, to drive out the eunuchs who were the town guards of the provincial capital, and to return the power to the three departments of the provinces, so as to prevent the inner court from interfering in local military and political affairs.

When the auxiliary ministers were discussing this matter, they wanted to notify Li Yuntian to come, after all, this was a major government affairs of the Ming Dynasty, but they were stopped by Zhou Zheng on the grounds that Li Yuntian had been busy preparing for the pacification of the Japanese troubles recently.

Zhou Zheng did this not because he was worried that Li Yuntian would be distracted by this matter, but because he didn't want Li Yuntian to get involved in the endless struggle between the civil and military clique and the Xungui clique and the inner court.

Jin Ying secretly observed Li Yuntian's expression, and there was a trace of anxiety between his eyebrows, he was sure that the dismissal of the eunuchs stationed in the towns and towns of the thirteen provinces was only the first step for those auxiliary ministers to deal with the inner court, and he would definitely try to weaken the inner court in the future, and there was no good way to face the united inner court of the Wenchen group and the Xungui group, only to rely on the empress dowager.

But if Li Yuntian can help the inner court, then the pressure on the inner court will be greatly reduced, unlike the civil and military ministers in the court, the relationship between Li Yuntian and the inner court has always been very friendly, and he has always maintained neutrality in the struggle between the inner court and the Wenchen group and the Xungui group, which is the biggest and only external help that Jin Ying can hope for. R1148