The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 294 Nobody Knows the Emperor
After two years, even Emperor Zhu felt that Nanjing City had undergone considerable changes.

Although the city of Beijing has developed rapidly in the past few years, and a large number of rich people have poured in, it is still lacking in prosperity compared to Nanjing City.

The most intuitive impression given to Zhu Cihong is that there are obviously more rich people in Nanjing than in Beijing, and far fewer poor people wearing coarse cotton clothes.

The wide streets are full of traffic and people are coming and going, not only very crowded, but also extremely noisy, with hawking everywhere.

No, under the protection of ten guards with knives, it took Zhu Cihong's carriage an hour to drive into the city from the pier. Conflict and abuse will break out between the guards.

Fortunately, everyone is still restrained, but there are no real hands-on ones.

Even so, Zhu Cihong in the carriage looked at the messy scene on the street, and still frowned involuntarily.

Fortunately, the large group of people stayed outside the city, and he only brought ten people into the city in a carriage, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous.

Although I know that the reason for being so crowded and chaotic is inseparable from the fact that the imperial examination is in progress, but even if the situation is normal, I guess it is not much better.

As a later generation, Zhu Cihong naturally knows that this can no longer be solved by management alone, but by the buildings and streets in Nanjing, which are far from being able to adapt to the current development.

Seeing that the carriage was still moving around the gate of the city after a full incense stick of time, Zhu Cihong completely exhausted his patience, got out of the carriage with his sword in hand and decided to walk, otherwise, if he wanted to reach the palace, he didn't know when he would have to wait .

In this case, it would be useless even to call in the army, because there were too many chariots, horses and sedan chairs on the street, and pedestrians also crossed the street from time to time. The chaotic scene made one's scalp tingle just looking at it.

In addition to the yamen police officers, there are also many garrison troops on the streets. Obviously, the garrison troops and police officers in the entire city of Nanjing have been dispatched to maintain order. It can be done to avoid outbreaks of conflict and large-scale chaos.

For dredging the streets, it is powerless.

There are many wealthy sons dressed like Zhu Cilang on the street, but very few of them carry swords in their hands, let alone the eight guards all carry knives.

It immediately attracted the attention of policemen and soldiers on the street, and pedestrians subconsciously avoided them.

"Stop, don't you know that during this period of time Nanjing is not allowed to carry weapons into the streets?" A policeman came up with a few soldiers, stopped Zhu Cihong and the group.

Zhu Cihong gave one of the guards a wink, and the guard immediately understood what to do, and immediately greeted him with a smile on his face, cupped his hands and said, "Master, my son just arrived in Nanjing today, so I don't know there is such a rule. , please do me a favor..." As he spoke, he took out a few banknotes and stuffed them into the hands of the policeman calmly.

The policeman saw that the several banknotes in his hand were all the latest denominations of one or two taels, his expression softened a lot, and he said: "I was going to take you to the yamen for questioning, but seeing your clothes and appearance He doesn't look like a villain, it's fine to go back to the Yamen, but the sword will be confiscated."

"This... poor man, these swords are made of high-quality fine steel, can you be more accommodating?"

When the guard heard that the sword was going to be confiscated, he showed embarrassment, and took out a few banknotes again and handed them over.

Although the policeman was moved, he looked at the crowd around him, but he didn't answer this time, but shook his head helplessly, and said, "It's not that I'm not accommodating, but I can't be accommodating. Even if I am accommodating, you guys will leave." Not very far."

"That's it!"

The guard didn't know whether to reveal his identity, so he looked at Zhu Cihong with a look of asking for instructions.

Zhu Cilang knew that revealing his identity now would make everyone kneel down to make way for him, but it would also increase the risk factor, so he stepped forward and said, "Well, our carriage is over there, let's put the weapons back into the carriage Go inside, okay?"

"Okay, as long as you don't take out your weapons and just wander around on the street."

The policeman nodded quickly. If the court hadn't issued a strict order during this period, they would not have cared about this kind of thing.

After putting the sword back into the carriage, Zhu Cihong was extremely depressed, but he had no choice but to go to the palace empty-handed under the protection of the guards. Fortunately, walking was much faster than taking a carriage, and it only took half an hour to arrive at the gate of the palace. .

Seeing the emperor's sudden arrival, the imperial guards guarding the gate were all shocked. Although most of these imperial guards joined later and did not know Emperor Zhu, they still knelt down on the ground.

After all, although gold medals can be imitated, I believe that there should be no one in this world who dares to impersonate the emperor, so these Imperial Forest Army dare not stop them at all.

"Get up, everyone, and do your job."

Zhu Cihong waved his hands, and then strode into the palace with his hands behind his back, while the guards behind him loudly announced the arrival of the emperor in order to avoid further explanations and unnecessary troubles.

The imperial guards and court ladies along the way were also so frightened that they knelt down on the ground. Although there were many questions in their hearts, no one dared to stand up and question them.

Looking at this scene, Zhu Cihong couldn't help but think, if some lunatic who is not afraid of death wears a dragon robe and pretends to be the emperor, wouldn't he simply enter the palace?

Then he shook his head. This kind of situation should not happen. The reason why this time is mainly because everyone knows that the emperor is not in the Nanjing Palace, and the imperial forest army guarding the gate is new, so they don't know him as the emperor.

Zhu Cihong just came to the square outside the Fengtian Hall, and then stopped, because although the Imperial Forest Army along the way did not stop them, they all followed, obviously they still had some doubts in their hearts.

Seeing Zhu Cihong stop and look back at them, all the imperial guards fell to their knees again.

Zhu Cihong's brows finally frowned. If he had just entered the palace and the imperial guards guarding the gate didn't know him, it would be reasonable.

But after coming in for so long, none of these Yulin soldiers recognized him as the emperor, which really surprised him.

After all, he lived in the Nanjing Imperial Palace for so long at the beginning, and many imperial guards were also brought over from Beijing.

In fact, Zhu Cihong didn't know that the reason why this happened was because the old imperial guards were sent to various places as leaders to escort the test papers, and they have not yet returned. Those who stayed in the palace to guard were all close Just joined two years ago.

And because Zhang Yan hated eunuchs, almost all the former eunuchs in the palace were sent to the East Factory branches in various places, or to the Royal Shipyard and Salt Factory, resulting in few eunuchs in the huge palace.

The maids in charge of the front palace were also newly recruited in the past two years, and the court ladies and eunuchs who knew the emperor were all in the harem.

(End of this chapter)