The explosion at Wang Gong's factory should be the largest man-made explosion ever made.

Not only did the casualties be huge, but they also caused great economic losses.

Fortunately, it was daytime, and many people had already gone out, which reduced the number of casualties a lot.

If it had happened at night, I am afraid that the number would have multiplied several times.

In addition to the southwest corner of the capital division in ruins, even the three major halls of the imperial palace have been damaged to varying degrees.

The resettlement of the victims and the repair of the palace were huge expenses.

In this explosion, the firearms workshop of the Military War Bureau was completely destroyed.

The gunpowder and firearms workshops were all blown up, a large number of craftsmen were killed or wounded, and even the drawings were burned.

For a while, production could not be resumed at all, and in addition to all the seven or eight thousand catties of gunpowder stored in the store, all the 1,000 flintlock pistols were also blown up.

In the past two years, the imperial court has finally gotten rid of the burden of Liaodong, relying on the levy of "Liaoyu" and the collection of commercial taxes, and the little silver accumulated from trade with the Netherlands, it is not enough to spend it all.

Although Dong Kewei, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, broke both arms in this explosion, it was still worth it for him.

A large number of buildings were damaged in this explosion, and the amount of work of the Ministry of Industry suddenly increased significantly.

The restoration of the palace alone will cost 3.5 million taels of silver, and if you count the places outside the palace that need to be repaired and rebuilt, at least 5 million taels will be invested this year.

Where did the imperial court get so much silver now? In the end, the household department took out 1.2 million taels of silver to repair the "three major halls" of the palace first, and the others could only be put first.

After all, now rumors are spreading in Beijing, and people are panicking.

For example, rumors of immorality continue to circulate today, causing smoke to erupt everywhere, and the peasant uprisings that had gradually subsided have a tendency to rise again.

If the people cannot be appeased quickly, there is likely to be a big mess.

Therefore, the imperial court carried out disaster relief as soon as possible, although it only set up a few porridge sheds and put some porridge to the affected people, but for the Ming court, which has always been inefficient, this is already a rare quick response.

In addition to soup porridge, for the unclaimed corpses, the imperial court could only organize manpower to bury them in a mass grave on the outskirts of Beijing.

But that's all the court can do.

Fortunately, it is summer, and those living on the streets will not freeze to death.

In fact, although there were a total of 20,000 casualties in the explosion, the people who died were only more than 1,000 people, and most of them were only slightly injured.

But there are tens of thousands of homeless people.

The people below reported to the imperial court in this way just to exaggerate the disaster situation, and asked for more silver taels for disaster relief, so that they could take advantage of the opportunity to embezzle.

As the initiator of this incident, Li Xianzhong is still very guilty in his heart.

According to the statistics of the Intelligence Division, about 2,000 people were seriously injured and needed timely treatment.

So he asked Hazia, who was pretended by Su Tai, to administer medicine to the injured people of Jingshi and provide some tents in the name of the Liao State Mansion!

After all, Su Tai had just entered the Guogong Mansion, and he didn't fully understand the situation in the mansion, so it was easy to expose himself.

I just took this opportunity to go out to apply medicine and slowly understand the situation in Fuchu.

At this time, there was chaos in the capital, and even many buildings in the Guogong Mansion were damaged.

Although Li Xianzhong's medicine was suspected of buying people's hearts, it also stabilized the situation for the imperial court.

In the end, Wei Zhongxian still agreed to Hazia's outing.

This move also won Li Xianzhong a lot of prestige, after all, in this explosion, in addition to the palace, it was the Liao Guogong who suffered the greatest loss.

The crystal garden he built at great expense in the north of the city was shattered, and almost all the glass conservatories were destroyed.

Under such circumstances, it is really a great kindness to be able to give medicine to the people of Beijing and send Langzhong for free diagnosis and treatment.

In particular, the Duchess Hazia personally came to the vicinity of Wang Gongchang every day to administer medicine to the injured people, which won a good reputation for herself.

Although the imperial court has been blocking the news of Liaodong, Liaodong's policy of lightly dispensing with small endowments has still spread to the capital, and many homeless people have directly packed their bags and embarked on a journey to Shanhaiguan.

At this time, some imperial historians stood up for impeachment, saying that Li Xianzhong, the Duke of Liao, was buying people's hearts and trying to do wrong!

Everyone understands this truth, Li Xianzhong is spending money to buy fame.

But people are willing to spend money, what can you do?

Of course, the court could prevent him from doing so and expel Hazia back to the palace.

But after doing so, if the imperial court cannot pay to replace Li Xianzhong, then it is likely to provoke a popular uprising.

The cost of administering medicine is much higher than that of soup kitchen, Tian Ji said that the household department is powerless, whoever wants to stop Li Xianzhong from administering medicine, then who pays, anyway, the household department does not have so much silver.

As for the displaced people from Beijing who ran to Liaodong, it would solve their big trouble, and if these displaced people all ran away, the imperial court would not need to provide disaster relief.

A month later, Li Xianzhong's "Crystal Garden" was renovated, and all the damaged glass conservatories were rebuilt.

In order to increase the confidence of the people in the capital to resist the disaster, the Duchess decided to open the "Crystal Garden", which was originally not open to the people, to the people for ten days free of charge.

At the same time, Jingshi's glass shop has also been renovated, and a half-price discount on glass has been introduced to old customers.

As long as the glass purchased in the shop is damaged this time, you can buy the glass that needs to be replaced at half price and install it for free.

In fact, the big family is not bad for the silver to buy the glass again, but they are not very comfortable.

As a result, they bought a large number of half-price glass, and some even took the opportunity to buy more glass at half price, and took the opportunity to replace the original place with glass.

In just half a month, the sales volume of glass exceeded that of last year, and the supply exceeded demand.

directly emptied the glass inventory of Jingshi, and Li Xianzhong had to transport all the glass inventory of Liaodong to Jingshi.

Many homeless people were also recruited by the glass shop to become temporary installers.

In this way, excluding the crystal garden for glass and the free application of medicine to Langzhong by the Jingshi, as well as the loss of donating tents, they actually made a lot of money, enough four or five hundred thousand taels of silver.

However, the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Zhu Youxiao, could not come out of the grief of losing his beloved son, although under the treatment of Doctor Wang, he had gradually recovered.

But the disheartened Zhu Youxiao rarely went to court, and most of the time he was just fiddling with his craft in the carpenter's room.

Although the "9,000-year-old" now controls the government, people who have no long-term concerns must have near-term worries.

The Dragon Body of the Emperor of the Apocalypse was deteriorating, making him have to worry about his future.

Although he and the Hakka family presented many beautiful women to His Majesty, their stomachs never responded.

So Wei Zhongxian said: "Divine Doctor Wang, what is the matter with Your Majesty's dragon body, can there be any more dragon heirs?" ”

Wang Huazhen shook her head helplessly, and said: "Your Majesty has not completely recovered in the first place, the last time Concubine Ren was able to give birth to the dragon seed should have been just an accident, but now I am afraid that it will be even more difficult!" ”

"Your Majesty is worried now, even if Weichen's medical skills are excellent, they can't cure Your Majesty's heart disease!"

"But Your Majesty is still young after all, if you can relax a little and come out of the shadow of the crown prince's death as soon as possible, maybe there will be a chance."

"But don't let it be stimulated anymore!"

Although he can report good news to His Majesty but not bad news, but now there is a Sun Chengzong.

Even if he doesn't report it, Sun Chengzong will tell His Majesty.

However, Wei Zhongxian still asked Wang Huazhen to explain His Majesty's situation to Sun Chengzong, lest this old guy have no door on his mouth and say everything to His Majesty.

But now Wei Zhongxian has to face more than just Sun Chengzong.

After the explosion, in order to quell the rumors, the cabinet and Wei Zhongxian arranged for a long time for Dongchang, the Criminal Department, and Dali Temple to jointly investigate the incident with the Wucheng Terracotta Division.

Although they judged that the explosion was mainly caused by the explosion of the gunpowder magazine at the Wang Gong factory.

But there is no evidence, because everything was blown up, and neither the mastermind nor the motive for the sabotage could be found.

On the contrary, the rumors of punishment from heaven are getting more and more outrageous.

After all, the rumor of "warning from heaven" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

There are even some imperial histories who ask the Emperor of the Apocalypse to issue an edict to appease the anger of the heavens.

In order to appease the people's hearts as soon as possible, the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Zhu Youxiao, had to issue an "edict of guilt".

However, it was not only Li Xianzhong who took advantage of this matter to make a big fuss, but the Donglin Party and the Fushe also felt that this was a good opportunity to crack down on Wei Zhongxian's eunuchs.

The first to launch a counterattack was Qin Tianjian, who was an institution that monitored the celestial phenomena, and was usually silent and anonymous, and this catastrophe gave them the right to speak.

Qin Tianjian Zhan said: "Waiting for the sixth day of the fifth month, when the earth sounds, like the sound of a thunderbolt from the northeast position, to the southwest, there are clouds blocking the sky, and it has not dispersed for a long time. ”

Zhan said: "The earth is singing, the world is attacking each other, and the women's temple is in chaos. ”

He also said: "There is a sound in the earth, which is a fierce elephant." and there shall be calamity in the land, and there shall be voices and mingles in the land, and their towns shall perish. ”

Among them, there are two sentences that are particularly critical, that is, "the women's temple is in turmoil" and "its city will perish", the woman is a woman, the temple refers to the eunuch, and the temple person is the ancient name of the eunuch.

The combination of women and temples means that women and eunuchs join forces to make trouble, which is also too obvious.

Of course, this woman refers to the nurse of Emperor Zhu Youxiao of the Apocalypse, Mrs. Fengsheng, and this temple person is not Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Zhongxian was furious and ordered the Qintian Prison to be directly put to death.

But what he didn't expect was that Wei Zhongxian's behavior of "killing people and killing people" accelerated the spread of this kind of speech.

Now except for Liaodong, there is almost no place to spread the "Son of Heaven's Loss of Morality".

Fueled by the Donglin Party and the Fushe Society, everyone now knows that the explosion in Beijing was due to the "eunuch party disorderly government", which caused the heavens to be angry and resentful, so the heavens sent down punishments.

Qintian Prison was brutally killed by Wei Zhongxian because he told the truth, which aroused the anger of the people!

As a result, Wei Zhongxian's ancestral halls were smashed by the people all over the country, and the angry people robbed the tributes and demolished the ancestral halls, so that the government had to send soldiers to watch over them day and night.

If it's just the people making a fuss, forget it, and the position of Gu Bingqian, the first assistant to the cabinet, has also loosened.

He actually wrote a letter suggesting that some Donglin Party members who were imprisoned in the Imperial Prison be transferred to the Criminal Department and tried through normal judicial procedures.

You must know that Gu Bingqian spent a lot of thought in order to take refuge in Wei Zhongxian.

This Gu Shoufu is seventy-six years old this year, and he worshiped under Gonggong Wei 4 years ago.

At that time, it was popular to be a righteous son for "nine thousand years old", but Gu Shoufu was a scholar after all, and he was a little embarrassed to speak directly at his age, making Wei Zhongxian a stepfather.

However, these did not bother him, so he made his youngest son the righteous grandson of Wei Zhongxian, so that he could rightfully become the righteous son of Wei Gonggong.

But now it is obvious that this Gu Shoufu is a little scared, and he is showing favor to the Donglin party.

Regarding Gu Bingqian's suggestion, Gonggong Wei also quickly responded.

He directly ordered his subordinate Sun Yunhe to secretly execute all these Donglin Party members in prison.

This scared Gu Shoufu a lot, and he hurriedly called him sick.

"Nine thousand years old" Wei Gonggong told everyone with practical actions that as long as the Emperor of the Apocalypse does not fall, he is still the Wei Zhongxian who calls for wind and rain.

Even if you pretend to be celestial, it will be useless.

In order to let His Majesty have a good distraction and keep a cheerful mood. Wei Zhongxian and Mrs. Fengsheng decided to accompany Zhu Youxiao to Xiyuan for rowing.

In fact, the Emperor of the Apocalypse does not have many hobbies, except for carpentry work, that is, engaging in "internal exercises" in the palace and rowing in the West Garden.

Since practicing the Yulin Camp, Zhu Youxiao has lost interest in "internal exercises".

After all, after having a real strong army, who still has the heart to accompany a group of eunuchs and palace maids to play "playing house"?

So in addition to doing carpenter work, going to Xiyuan to row a boat has become a rare adjustment to Zhu Youxiao's life.

Zhu Youxiao rowed differently than others, he didn't like to stay on the big boat and drink wine, watch beautiful women dance or enjoy the scenery on the lake.

Instead, he likes to go on deep water adventures in small boats, and sometimes he likes to role-play.

Previously, the Hakka family often pretended to be a peasant woman to pick lotus flowers, and Wei Zhongxian often pretended to be a fisherman to go down to the net to catch fish.

The two often accompanied Zhu Youxiao to play in the West Garden in a boat.

Originally, a few people were drinking and having fun on a big boat in the shallow water area north of Xiyuan Bridge, but Zhu Youxiao felt that it was boring.

So he secretly took two little eunuchs and drove the boat to the deep water to the south.

Of course, this matter can't be hidden from Wei Zhongxian, but considering the two little eunuchs who accompanied Zhu Youxiao, one is his subordinate Liu Siyuan, and the other is Wang Tiqian's subordinate Gao Yongshou.

Both of them were only seventeen or eighteen years old, the same age as His Majesty, and they were both confidants, so he didn't think much about it.

After all, it is not the first time that His Majesty has taken a small boat to venture into deep water.

Emperor Apocalypse took the two little eunuchs to row all the way and directly to the deep water area in the lake.

Zhu Youxiao was still very happy, looking back at the shore from time to time and smirking, and he was full of joy for a while.

But suddenly a strong wind blew on the lake, and for a while, the wind and waves were strong, and it directly overturned His Majesty's boat.

Seeing that after His Majesty fell into the water, the eunuchs and palace maids on the shore were all shocked!

The Hakka family was so frightened that the six gods were ownerless for a while, and when she looked at Wei Zhongxian, she found that Gonggong Wei had plunged into the water all of a sudden and went to rescue the driver.

At this time, Wei Zhongxian was far away from the place where Zhu Youxiao fell into the water, and if he swam over, it was estimated that His Majesty would have sunk to the bottom.

However, Wei's loyalty still played a good role in exemplary.

The eunuchs on the shore ran to the nearest desk to Zhu Youxiao and dived, while the rest of the people hurriedly rowed frantically towards the water where the accident occurred.

The steward Tan Jing swam to Zhu Youxiao's side first, and successfully rescued His Majesty ashore.

Wei Zhongxian didn't bother to change out of his wet clothes at this time, and anxiously waited for Divine Doctor Wang to take His Majesty's pulse.

Soon after, Wang Huazhen came out and said, "Your Majesty is fine, but I choked on two mouthfuls of water, and I have spit it out after my treatment." ”

The surrounding eunuchs and palace maids also breathed a sigh of relief, if His Majesty had three long and two short, they would all have to be buried together.

As for the two little eunuchs who fell into the water with His Majesty, no one cared about their lives or deaths, anyway, the corpses would naturally float up after a while.

Even if they are lucky enough not to die, they will probably have to be killed with a rod.

Wang Huazhen said to Wei Zhongxian in private: "These slaves and maids are really too careless, Your Majesty's health is not very good, and this is even worse." ”

Obviously, Wang Huazhen didn't tell the truth in front of everyone just now.

He said: "Originally, Your Majesty could delay it for at least six or seven years, and after this explosion and falling into the water, I am afraid that there will be two years of life at most, and please 'nine thousand years old' to make plans as soon as possible!" ”

Wang Huazhen's words made Wei Zhongxian have to face the reality that the Emperor of the Apocalypse will die soon.

According to the ancestral system of the Ming Dynasty, if His Majesty has no heirs, then the successor to the throne will be Zhu Youzhen, the king of letters.

He has not treated Zhu Youzhen well over the years, not only did he not let him meet Zhu Youxiao, but even the little eunuchs under him have been bullying him, I am afraid that he has already hated himself.

But who would have thought that Zhu Youxiao would die soon at a young age, and now he has no regret medicine to take.

However, even if he didn't offend King Xin, he probably wouldn't be able to trust himself like Emperor Tianqi and hand over the power of the court to himself.

Therefore, under no circumstances can King Shin be allowed to inherit the throne.

But fortunately, at the beginning of this year, Queen Zhang Yan had already chosen Princess Zhou for King Xin.

In addition, the construction of the palace of King Shin had begun two months ago, and the top priority was to drive King Shin out of the palace first.

Soon he found his henchman Li Yongzhen and asked, "How is the progress of the project of the Xinwang Mansion?" ”

Li Yongzhen said: "The Xinwang Mansion was rebuilt on the basis of the Huiwang Mansion, and it will be very delayed to demolish and rebuild, but it will definitely be completed by the end of this year." ”

Wei Zhongxian said: "I heard that King Xin has always advocated frugality, so you should not build the palace too luxuriously. Since it's a remodeling, some things are already ready-made and painted, don't they look new? ”

"No matter what method you use, it must be completed within a month, and next month our family will see King Xin live in the brand-new King Xin's mansion!"

Originally, they were going to cut corners for the Xinwang Mansion in order to get money.

Now that there is an instruction of "nine thousand years old", it is naturally more unscrupulous.

Directly paint the old things left by the original Huiwang Mansion, throw them away, and replace them with new ones when they encounter something really rotten, but they also use some relatively cheap things.

Zhu Youxiao still loved his brother very much, and allocated 150,000 taels of silver to Zhu Youzhen to repair his mansion, but these people spent less than 20,000 taels in total.

It can be said that this Xinwang Mansion is almost all renovated except for the greenery.

In July, Zhu Youzhen and his entourage happily moved into their own Xinwang Mansion.

It turned out that the most magnificent thing was the gate of the palace and the stone lion in front of it.

Except for the new door, the entire Xinwang Mansion is almost a mess.

It's not even as good as the old goods they have used for many years in the palace.

Dolgon said angrily: "These Wei Eunuch's minions are really too bullying, since they are bullying us like this, the master is a prince anyway, they actually use such a thing to fool us." ”

Wang Chengen on the side glared at Dolgon, and then looked at Zhu Youzhen on the side.

It means that the master is unhappy, and your kid is actually adding fuel to the fire?

Dolgon is 14 years old this year, and he has been with Zhu Youzhen for 5 years.

At the beginning, he relied on himself to stand up for his master and won the trust of Zhu Youzhen.

Zhu Youzhen is different from his imperial brother, his trust in slaves and maids is not long-lasting, and it is impossible for such a thing as pampering Wei Zhongxian for a long time.

However, Dolgon often said things that Zhu Youzhen wanted to say, but it was difficult to say.

Although he was often punished by Zhu Youzhen, Zhu Youzhen didn't hate him, otherwise it would be impossible for him to be his companion eunuch all the time.

Of course, there was another reason why he trusted Dorgon.

It was Nedorgon's younger brother Duoduo who was the eunuch of Kunning Palace, and the two brothers could often deliver news for Zhu Youzhen and Empress Zhang Yan.

Although it was the joy of housewarming, the entrance of his palace was indeed empty at this time.

Although Zhu Youzhen pretended to be very indifferent, after all, the ministers of the Ming Dynasty were not allowed to befriend the vassal king.

However, there are still some minor disappointments about this.

Wang Chengen, who was beside him, said: "The slave maid heard that His Majesty is considering choosing a good fief for the prince, so this palace is just a temporary residence of the prince, and it is indeed a little shabby!" ”

In fact, Wang Chaoen and Dolgon said the same thing, but it is obvious that Wang Chengen gave Zhu Youzhen steps.

His face really softened a lot, and he said: "In fact, according to the ancestral system of the Ming Dynasty, this king should have been a vassal a long time ago, but the imperial brother was reluctant to give up this king, so he stayed for all these years!" ”

Soon after, the palace of King Xin finally welcomed its first guest, the eunuch Duoduo of Kunning Palace.

I saw Duoduo come with a lot of utensils, and said: "The queen is afraid that His Royal Highness will not be used to living in the new palace, so she ordered the slave maid to send all the items of His Royal Highness in the palace of Qinqin. ”

At this time, Zhu Youzhen said with some emotion: "It's still the imperial sister-in-law's thoughtfulness!" ”

Soon Duoduo came to the study with Zhu Youzhen, and after closing the door, Duoduo whispered: "Now Your Majesty's health is deteriorating, and even the queen mother rarely sees Your Majesty. However, a few days ago, His Majesty suddenly asked about the heir to the throne, and the Queen Mother recommended His Royal Highness King Xin to His Majesty! ”

Duoduo's words shocked Zhu Youzhen, due to Wei Zhongxian's obstruction, he hadn't seen the imperial brother for more than half a year, and even his farewell to the imperial brother out of the palace this time was blocked by Wei Zhongxian.

Could it be that the imperial brother's body is already dying?

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