Li Xu sat in the Qingliang Palace, his mood was very complicated.

The Yuanfu ceremony held in the Mingtang Palace had ended in a hurry, and the ceremony was presided over by Han Gang himself, and when he brought the crown for the emperor, almost all the officials in Bai Yujing knelt down in front of the emperor.

From that moment on, everyone knew very well in their hearts that the era that belonged to the Empress Dowager Wen had passed, and the era that belonged to the emperor had just begun.

All this came so suddenly, but Li Xu knew the deepest reason.

Empress Dowager Wen didn't know that compared to Li Xu, she was just a puppet with a higher degree of freedom.

The authority of the imperial court comes from three aspects, one is absolute military power, that is, whether it has absolute command over the military power possessed by the imperial court. Now the military power of the imperial court is completely pinned on the Shence Army and the Tianwei Army, and the Shence Army and the Tianwei Army are firmly controlled by the eunuchs through the Privy Council, and the Queen Mother does not have absolute military authority.

The second is the appointment and dismissal of personnel, the officials selected by the imperial court, transfers, and denunciations, all through the officials and the Zhongshu men, even if the queen mother wants to appoint Wen Min to serve in the middle, she is also constrained by Han Gang, Lu Zhen and others, and cannot make the trip. The Empress Dowager does not have arbitrary power for many personnel positions in key positions, even after Li Congxian became the military envoy of the Western Zhejiang Capital, the position of the right Jinwu general vacated by him was not filled by the Empress Dowager.

The third is the control of wealth, the treasury of the imperial court, the inner treasury of the palace, and the queen mother cannot interfere. Whether it is the wealth materials that belong to the household management or the wealth materials in the palace, the control of the queen mother is very weak. The only thing she could do was to plug her own people in some of the most important positions, but it didn't work very well.

The barrel of the gun, the seal handle, the money bag, the three most important things are not in the hands of the Queen Mother, how can the Queen Mother be undefeated?

The political system of the Yu Dynasty, from the Qin and Han dynasties to the development of the Wei and Jin dynasties, the core of all systems is to serve the emperor alone, and the emperor naturally has authority beyond everything in the system.

So Li Xu knew very well that if the Queen Mother didn't have the courage to send assassins to kill herself, then her desire to abolish the emperor was just a pipe dream.

After the end of the Empress Dowager's regency, the emperor who had just served the Yuan had just issued the first decree.

The number of people in the inner palace was reduced, and a large number of court ladies were released, and according to the practice of the past, these poor women who were recruited could not leave the court until they were thirty years old to fend for themselves if they could not be favored by the emperor.

After careful consideration, the emperor left almost all the palace maids except for the Shanggong Bureau and a few other palace maids with weaving functions, and the emperor also sent a breakup fee to these women.

The money was allocated from the inner treasury, and it took Li Xu a lot of effort to persuade Cheng Qili to agree to this expense, but Lieutenant Tianwei Jun thought that it was already the emperor's grace to release people early, and even if the money was handed over to these girls, they might not be able to keep it.

But Li Xu finally persuaded Cheng Qili that each girl received a resignation fund of 50 copper coins and 30 pieces of silk, and their future husband would not have to bear the burden of forced labor in the next three years.

Of course, this number is too large, so Cheng Qili resolutely opposes it, so Li Xu changed to pay it in ten years, which means that there are five copper coins and three silk severance severance payments every year.

According to statistics, nearly six thousand palace maids will leave the palace, and this number also makes Li Xu realize how huge his harem is.

The reason why these palace maids are allowed out of the palace comes from two considerations, the first is that a considerable number of these palace maids have a close relationship with the queen mother, which is an unstable factor in the harem. The other is to reduce the expenses of the court and establish the reputation of the emperor, these more than 6,000 mouths are raised by the emperor. And the act of letting the palace maid leave the palace and send a sum of money can establish a good reputation for Li Xu's benevolence.

As the second-ranked boss in the inner court, Chen Chaoen's main task now is to establish a roster of palace maids and identify who should leave the palace. The affairs of Qingliang Hall should now be mainly in charge of a eunuch named Huang Shiliang, this Da Jue is Cheng Qili's righteous son, and this can be regarded as a change of eunuchs.

The Empress Dowager still lives in the Mingtang Palace, and Li Xu neither wants to live in the palace with a giant phoenix on the top, nor does he want to relegate the Empress Dowager Wen to the cold palace. He asked Chen Chaoen to seal the windows on the third floor from the inside with an iron fence, and arranged for seven or eight stout eunuchs to keep an eye on the Queen Mother, preventing her from killing herself, and the Queen Mother was going to die, and it was best to die after seven or eight years.

However, listening to Chen Chaoen's return, the Queen Mother is in good spirits now, she can eat and drink, but she likes to scold the emperor and Han Gang for being shameless and ungrateful, Cheng Qili, and Chen Chaoen for bullying their masters with slaves, and by the way, they also reprimanded Wen Minxing, Wen Yuanheng and others for being incompetent. Recently, he has begun to scold the benevolence of the Holy Queen's woman, and he has not driven out the old Li family.

Li Xu hopes that the Queen Mother is alive, and he has begun to learn from the wise emperors of the previous dynasty to cherish his reputation.

The will to promote Wen Minxing has reached the Zhongshu Gate, Han Gang is drafting a document, or it won't be long before the emperor's father-in-law Wen Minxing will become the governor of Menxia Province, this move has also made the government and the opposition discuss, maybe the Wen Party has the possibility of a comeback.

Li Xu is going to leave a gatekeeper in the court to prevent Han Gang or Cheng Qili's power from taking the opportunity to expand too much, and this gatekeeper is Wen Minxing. His position and origin were just right for him, and it would paralyze the Wen Party, making them think that the Emperor's attack was over.

The fist can only be fought harder if it is retracted, Li Xu knows this truth very well, in his previous life, there was a politician in Ghost Island who believed in the theory of conflict progress, that is, the so-called three steps ahead, and then two steps back, so that it was actually one step forward.

Li Xu felt that he could do the opposite, taking two steps back and then three steps further. The queen mother usurped the throne, he endured it for three years, and then shot once, the queen mother could only pretend to be a crazy woman on the third floor of the Mingtang Palace. For the Wen Party, he can still endure it for a while, and wait for the situation to calm down before starting slowly.

"Your Majesty, the slaves kicked Miao Siyi over. The white and chubby Huang Shiliang interrupted Li Xu's thinking, although this chubby eunuch looked unattractive, he was a master when he heard Cheng Qili say, but he didn't know how to be a high law.

"Bring it with you. Li Xu nodded, this little eunuch who humiliated himself back then should have some other uses.

The two fat eunuchs brought up Miao Siyi, who was wearing a white underwear, and they were like a mountain on the left and right, holding the bloodstained Miao Gonggong in white clothes, and the Miao eunuch's feminine and handsome face was pale, his eyes were depressed, and he had obviously suffered a lot.

The two fat eunuchs threw Miao Siyi to the ground, and he kept kowtowing to forgiveness.

"Miao Siyi, the saint has something to ask you. ”

Huang Shiliang's duck voice is not as comfortable as Chen Chaoen's tone to Li Xu, but for Miao Siyi, it is no less than black and white impermanence, he instantly came to his senses, and the words that he had been thinking about for a long time immediately blurted out.

"The saint let the slave and maid go, it was all made by the queen mother to the slave and maid, how dare a slave and a person like a mustard make things difficult for the saint......"

Li Xu didn't come to listen to his nonsense.

"Does the Queen Mother have a handwritten letter to entrust you to Dali Temple?"

Miao Siyi immediately said, "Yes." The slave is ......"

Li Xu didn't wait for him to finish speaking, and then asked, "Did you take it back when you handed it over to Xu Youzhi?"

"No, the slave and maid handed it over to Dali Siqing and returned to the palace. This is all done by the queen mother's slave maid, the slave maid is not ......"

"Do you know who the Queen Mother arranged for to steal that bag?"

"The slave doesn't know. The slave and the maid ask the saint to spare their lives, the slave and the maid are really giving ......"

"Miao Siyi, you listen well, I want you to continue to serve the Queen Mother, if my Queen Mother asks about you, you will say that I sent you to spy on her, but you are loyal and willing to do things for the Queen Mother, I want you to keep an eye on the Queen Mother, what she ate, how she felt, what important words she said, and what she entrusted you to do, you will come back and pass it on to me. The Queen Mother will definitely try you, how can she believe that you don't need to teach you?"

"Holy rest assured, slaves and maids can be saved. The slave must keep an eye on the demon queen for His Majesty......"

"Lao Huang. Li Xu commanded.

"The slave is here. ”

"Go and take Father-in-law Miao to change his clothes and ask him to write about what tips he has passed on for the Queen Mother, which foreign ministers he has befriended for what he has done, and how many people in the rivers and lakes the Queen Mother has contacted. ”

Li Xu comforted Miao Siyi and said: "Do it well, I have a very big heart, and a capable person, no matter what mistakes I make, I will use it." ”

Seeing Huang Shiliang take Miao Siyi away, Li Xu continued: "Go and pass Wen Yuanheng to face the saint." ”