prosperous age

Chapter 465 Chapter 464
At the beginning of February in Jiajing 41, the ninth capital examination, the candidates from Jiujiang Prefecture were sent to the examination room by Lao Kan and others. Wei Guangde was a bit busy in the two days, so he left this matter to him, otherwise, as the highest-ranking official in Jiujiang in the capital, This should have been done by his fellow countryman.

Without him, the news brought by Chen Ju really had a big impact.

The first thing is that Lan Daoxing's words and deeds are weird, and the reason must be found out.

As for the second matter, Wei Guangde hurriedly wrote letters to Nanjing and Jiujiang in the early morning of the second day, and sent someone to send them there as soon as possible.

That night, Wei Guangde's mind was not bright, he was very aware of his state, so he didn't do anything, but when he woke up, although his head still hurt, it didn't prevent him from thinking about things.

Hu Zongxian wanted to install a deputy commander-in-chief on Yu Dayou's head, and the way Wei Guangde thought of to deal with it was naturally to cut off Hu.

If you want to create a new position, there must be candidates to recommend, so I will communicate with the Ministry of War first, and directly seek Yu Dayou to be the deputy commander.

Yu Dayou fully meets the requirements of this position regardless of various conditions, so it is not known whether Hu Zongxian will vomit three liters of blood after knowing this.

As for the change of Poyang's garrison to a general, it can only be handled by the old man Xu Pengju. If he wants to grab the territory from the former military governor's mansion, it is Jiujiang, which is an important place, and the old man will definitely go crazy.

The former military governor's mansion has those sites. It has jurisdiction over Huguang Capital, Fujian Capital, Jiangxi Capital, Guangdong Capital, Huguang Xingdu, Fujian Xingdu, Xingdu Left Behind, and Zhili Jiujiangwei.

Among them, the three capitals of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong have all been taken away by Hu Zongxian, and even more than half of the Nanzhili garrison has been taken away. Now they are looking at Jiujiangwei, the only directly subordinate guard. Overhead the rhythm of the former military governor's mansion.

Wei Guangde didn't know it before, he just stayed in the corner of Bengshan Fort, now that Wei's father has a thousand households, even if he has entered the guard command system, he knows a lot more.

Jiujiang Guard not only guards Jiujiang, but also cooperates with Jiujiang Chaoguan to control the ships passing through this water area.

Many ships that are inconvenient to attract attention, if they want to pass through Jiujiang, it is impossible to do it without the acquiescence of Jiujiang Guard, which is also a gray income of Jiujiang Guard.

In fact, in the past, some noble ships from Nanjing came and went, but now the business has expanded to the field of private salt, with Nanjing Wei Guogong taking the lead and contacting the entire Yanjiang guard to escort the big business.

How could such an important link in Jiujiang easily change hands?

And what kind of position is the Poyang garrison in Hu Zongxian's mouth, but it is the general who manages the Nanhu Water Battalion, and his main responsibility is to exterminate the water bandits in Poyang Lake.

In terms of rank, it is the first level of the guard commander, which is equivalent to a guerrilla general. The person in charge can be the commander of the guard or the official, or even the officer of a thousand households.

In the general system of the Ming Dynasty, the command was divided into three levels, and the lowest level was naturally the first level of guard command.

For example, the commander of Jiujiang Wei, Tongzhi and Qianshi belonged to the commander of the guard, and most of the official records of the Ming Dynasty were called "commander".

The second level is naturally the provincial capital yamen, which is similar to the level of military regions in later generations. It has multiple guards under its jurisdiction and belongs to the command level of the capital.

The highest level is the Commander-in-Chief, that is, the generals of the Dudufu of the Five Armies. The official positions are the Left and Right Commanders, Tongzhi, and Qianshi. Bian Zhongzhen served as the commander-in-chief.

According to Hu Zongxian, when Poyang's defense is upgraded to a general, it is promoted to the level of the commander of the capital. It is also in Jiujiang, and the Jiujiang guard, who is the commander of the guard, naturally has to obey orders.

After figuring things out at home, Wei Guangde wrote a letter and went to King Yu's mansion. Naturally, after King Yu came out from the backyard, he talked to King Yu alone about this matter. Of course, the matter about Jiujiangwei was not included in this conversation.

To investigate the affair between Lan Daoxing and Yan Song, it is better to let Prince Yu's Mansion send someone privately, so he doesn't bother to intervene.

Prince Yu's Mansion is now in the capital, and there are quite a lot of people below.

Just as he thought, King Yu didn't like Lan Daoxing, or he hated all the alchemists who played tricks in front of Emperor Jiajing.

This is not because of the teachings of Gao Gong and others, perhaps his own life experience is the most important reason.

But just as Wei Guangde thought, after King Yu knew that Lan Daoxing had smeared Yan Song in front of Emperor Jiajing, the previous hatred on his face dissipated slightly.

"Father still trusts them very much now. If they can do something to rectify the imperial court, it will be considered good."

King Yu said lightly, "Just do as you said. I'll ask Li Fang to send someone to check later, and check other people by the way, whether they also have grudges with the Yan family."

As for Yu Dayou's matter, Yu Wang also expressed his support for no reason.

"Yu Dayou was originally the chief soldier of Zhejiang Province, but now he is entrusted with the position of deputy chief soldier, which is very appropriate."

That's what King Yu said to Wei Guangde at the time, telling him to use the name of King Yu's Mansion to contact the people in the Ministry of War to handle the matter.

In the past, maybe King Yu didn't care about these martial arts, but now the situation is different.

In order to achieve long-term stability on the border of the empire, it is impossible to have no capable generals, and now he has realized the importance of finding these generals.

If I want to be able to enjoy happiness in the harem in the future and not be disturbed by side affairs, then I must plan ahead, find these people, and use them in the future.

Yes, in Yuwang's view, facing and solving problems is as simple as finding the right way.

Wei Guangde's nearly one-year teaching by Yu Wang's side is actually to make Yu Wang more utilitarian, hoping to solve the problem in the simplest way.

If the Tartars in the north want to make trouble, they will find excellent generals to garrison the border, and if the Tartars dare to come, they will fight back to see who can spend the most.

As for the strength of the frontier army, the most important thing is sufficient military pay. According to Wei Guangde, the interests of the empire have been divided up by the nobles of the royal family. If they want to steal money from them, it may cause civil strife in the empire.

Civil strife is the most annoying thing for King Yu.

That being the case, those interests that have already been distributed will not be concerned about it, and they will turn their attention to other aspects.

The tax department, bureau and river channel office were not distributed to the vassals, and the salt tax benefits were also divided up by the imperial court and royal nobles, and other things, but they had been divided up long ago.

But it doesn't matter, without these, let's focus on the things that are still in the hands of the court, one is the banknotes, and the other is the city ship.

There are so many goods from the empire to the south and north every year, but the customs only receives a few 10 taels of tax money, which is not enough, absolutely not enough.

Since the barbarians like my Ming goods, let’s sell them to save them from buying from the Japanese pirates, and the imperial court participates in the distribution of benefits.

Those coastal merchants objected, so they let the nobles of the royal family deal with them. If they could not be suppressed, they threatened to take back the benefits granted to them.

This is an exchange, exchanging benefits for benefits.

If you want to keep the benefits you get, you have to bully those businessmen. Anyway, they have been doing this for a long time, and they already have a very skilled routine.

In the past, Gao Gong taught King Yu the principles of propriety, justice, shame, loyalty and filial piety, but Wei Guangde taught him the interests behind the principles.

The essence of any transaction is a process of interest exchange. Participants weigh the pros and cons to make the final choice, and the truth is just a cover-up to hide the fact of the exchange of interests.

What King Yu has to do is to keep his eyes open, see clearly the true faces of the participants, their demands, and balance their interests without affecting himself.

Wei Guangde didn't know the influence of his precepts and deeds on King Yu, but King Yu's reaction was in line with his needs, so he naturally obeyed.

Not long after, Li Fang, who was waiting outside the door, was called into the house by King Yu, who arranged to track down the recent situation of Lan Daoxing and other alchemists.

Although Li Fang was a little confused, she still followed orders.

In the next two days, Wei Guangde visited the mansions of Minister of War Yang Bo and the two ministers.

Although Yang Bo is the Secretary of the Ministry of War, the system established by the Ming Dynasty is not unambiguous. If Yang Bo's will is against the will of the two ministers, of course they can also file a letter of impeachment.

Of course Wei Guangde didn't want to see this, so he locked his target on the three big men of the military department from the very beginning.

While Wei Guangde was running about Yu Dayou's affairs, a carriage was parked outside the gate of a Taoist temple outside Beijing, and the curtain of the carriage was lifted to reveal an old man over sixty years old, who reluctantly got out of the carriage with the help of his attendants.

The old man got out of the car, looked back at the carriage, and said with a little hesitation, "I'm old, it takes so much effort to get off the carriage."

"My lord, let's take the sedan chair next time."

An attendant whispered in the old man's ear.

The old man just shook his head, looked towards the gate of the Taoist temple and asked, "Has he arrived yet?"

"It has arrived."

The entourage replied.

"Then let's go in."

The old man walked towards the gate of the Taoist temple as he spoke.

As the old man approached, the door seemed to sense it. A wooden door opened slightly, revealing a gap just big enough for one person to enter. The old man and a few followers walked into the Taoist temple from here.

As for the carriage that was left outside the door, it restarted without haste at this time, and continued to move forward along the avenue, but there were a few figures missing around the carriage.

There was a lot of time between the carriage stopping and the departure. Not long after, a panting figure appeared on the way of the carriage. After running to the gate of the Taoist temple and looking around, he looked down at the ruts on the road, and then continued to walk towards the road. Chase in the direction of the carriage.

And behind a big tree on the side of the road in the distance, a figure quietly watched what happened in front of the Taoist temple.

"Your Highness."

Wei Guangde was called here by Li Fang, and after entering, he found that there was no one else in the room except King Yu.

"Please sit down."

King Yu seemed to have recovered after hearing Wei Guangde's words, and said to him with a forced smile.

"What did they say about Yang Shangshu of the Ministry of War?"

After Wei Guangde sat down, King Yu asked.

"Yang Shangshu of the Ministry of War and the two ministers have already agreed. If His Majesty asks the Ministry of War to select the Deputy Chief of Southern Jiangxi, they will recommend Yu Dayou for this position."

Wei Guangde smiled easily.

The lobbying for the past two days went smoothly, perhaps because of the face of Prince Yu's Mansion, or because Yu Dayou did have a strong commanding ability, and the Ministry of War did not object to recommending Yu Dayou.

"That's good. I will use Yu Dayou a lot in the future. Now I can upgrade the rank back first. It's really great."

After Yu Wang nodded slightly, he turned his head and glanced at Li Fang beside him, "Let's talk about it."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Li Fang agreed, and then took half a step forward, telling the two of them some clues she had discovered in the past few days.

"The people below didn't find any connection between Yan's family and Daoist Lan."

Wei Guangde said with some surprise.

"No, I sent someone to check all of Daoist Lan's recent itinerary, and found no conflicts with the Yan family.

Also, I have also contacted the palace, Taoist Master Lan did say this in front of the emperor that day, and not long after, Elder Yan Ge went to Xiyuan to ask for an audience. "

Li Fang replied.

"You mean it was all by chance?"

Wei Guangde asked with a slight frown.

"At first, I really thought so, but yesterday I received news that our people once found Xu Ge leaving the city in a carriage."

At this time, Li Fang said with a strange expression: "Shan Loan may not have imagined where Xu Ge always left the city to go."

Seeing Li Fang's expression, Wei Guangde guessed, "Could it be to see Lan Daoxing?"

Wei Guangde just said the words casually because he saw Li Fang's strange face, but he didn't expect that what he saw was Li Fang's nod.

"Elder Xu Ge and Lan Daoxing are in private contact?"

Seeing Li Fang's actions, Wei Guangde didn't know, there must be something hidden in it, and it seems that Li Fang should have found out, otherwise he would not have reported it to King Yu, and even called himself to know about it.

"Our people who followed Daoist Lan did follow a small Taoist temple outside the city, and Elder Xu Ge's carriage passed there after that, but the people who watched were not sure whether it was Elder Xu Ge who entered the Taoist temple."

At this time, Li Fang finally told Wei Guangde what his subordinates found yesterday, and then continued: "However, according to the description of the person monitoring Taoist Lan, the carriage stopped in front of the Taoist temple for a while, and someone got out of the carriage and entered the Taoist temple. Afterwards, the carriage left, and we followed Xu Ge's people and passed there."

"Wait, Eunuch Li, you still sent someone to follow Mr. Xu Ge?"

Wei Guangde suddenly noticed a question and hurriedly asked.

"A few days ago, we didn't find any quarrel between Daoist Lan and Yan Ge's hometown, so we sent people to follow Xu and Yuan. After all, if something happened to Yan Ge, they would be the ones who would benefit."

Speaking of this, Li Fang turned to King Yu and said, "I didn't inform His Highness before, please punish him."

"Okay, let's not talk about this, you should tell Shandai what you found."

King Yu just shook his head, and then ordered.

Wei Guangde remained calm, but when the two of them were not paying attention, he secretly glanced at the seemingly stupid and harmless King Yu.

"Yes, Your Highness."

Li Fang bowed and said to Wei Guangde after standing up straight, "We found out that Daoist Lan is a disciple of Xinxue."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde opened his mouth slightly, as if he understood the reason why Lan Daoxing and Xu Jie had contacts.

Xu Jie is now the most important Xinxue disciple in the Jiajing Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)