The First Gongsheng of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 745: A fulfilled self

cabinet.

At the end of a day's work, Liu Jian and Li Dongyang can go home, and Wang Ao is the one who stays behind to guard the room at night.

After the expansion of the cabinet, with the presence of Wang Ao and Cheng Minzheng, the four-member cabinet seemed to make everyone a lot more relaxed, and the task of night duty fell more on Wang Ao. At least in the three months since Wang Ao joined the cabinet, he has always been diligent, talking less and doing more, and has gradually gained the recognition of Liu Jian and Li Dongyang.

"Zhang Bingkuan has been quite quiet recently."

Liu Jian and Li Dongyang walked side by side all the way to the palace gate. When they were about to part, Liu Jian suddenly said something.

Li Dongyang smiled and said, "Perhaps in Zhang Bingkuan's eyes, our cabinet has been quiet recently."

These words sounded like a joke. At least in the eyes of the two cabinet members, it was very good that they had not had any direct conflict with Zhang Zhou recently. They could let go of anything that happened. Anyway, it was not easy to lead the team in the government and the opposition, so they might as well just give up.

The cabinet seems to be in a bad state, but compared with Zhang Zhou's side, it seems that neither side is stronger than the other, because Zhang Zhou has always been in a bad state in the government.

Liu Jian said, "The war has broken out in the northwest, and Zhang Bingkuan will not remain idle forever. Is there any news about Yu Qiao recently?"

Li Dongyang was startled.

The two hadn't mentioned Xie Qian for a long time.

It seemed that after Xie moved to Binhai City, he was no longer one of them. He was already a thing of the past. It seemed that Liu Jian would only think of this old friend when he felt the crisis approaching.

"Go ask." Liu Jian saw Li Dongyang's reaction and knew that neither of them cared about Xie Qian. He reminded him, "It has been more than half a year since Yu Qiao was convicted. After all, His Majesty does not intend to let him continue to bear the crime. If there is a chance, let him come back."

Li Dongyang sighed, "I'm afraid he won't be able to live with himself after he comes back."

Previously, Xie Qian was the third in command in the cabinet. If Xie Qian comes back this time, what position will he be ranked?

Continue to let him be third?
But after all, he was not sent back to his hometown to observe the mourning period, but was exiled for a crime. Once Xie Qian came back, he would probably argue with Wang Ao or Cheng Minzheng over who was superior. Given Xie Qian's character, he might not really want to argue. By then, he would probably be driven out of the court early and completely laid off.

Liu Jian said: "Or, consider letting Jiefu or Shuhou join the cabinet."

Li Dongyang could tell that Liu Jian seemed still very dissatisfied with the current cabinet structure.

It looks like there are four people, two against two, but how does this meet the expectations of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet?
The next step is definitely to bring new upstarts such as Yang Tinghe and Liang Chu into the cabinet.

Li Dongyang asked: "Won't you consider Wang Dehui?"

Liu Jian shook his head and said, "If one of the father and son is a cabinet minister and the other is in charge of the army in the northwest, it is easy to form a situation where the tail is too big to be removed. Wang Dehui is also diligent in his work in the Hanlin Academy. In the future, he can be made the Minister of Rites. His qualifications should be enough."

Li Dongyang couldn't help but smile bitterly.

If it had been in the past, personnel arrangements in the court would have been a matter of just a word from them.

The so-called court recommendation was more like a play in front of the emperor. The civil officials had basically made a decision on who to recommend for promotion and who to demote, and the person who led all this was Liu Jian.

Now Liu Jian feels that he can continue to influence the personnel arrangements in the court, but he seems to have forgotten that the Ministry of Personnel is no longer under their complete control. The current Minister of Personnel Lin Han is like a loach, offending neither side in the court nor the country, and at the same time no one can grasp his lifeblood.

Old man Lin seems to have no good qualities and has a lot of bad habits, but he enjoys a high reputation among the literati. The only thing that is despised is that he has an affair with women at an old age... Of course, there is nothing to criticize him for, as there are still people like him in the court.

Apart from this personal virtue, people from all walks of life respected him very much.

As a result, the cabinet's control over the Ministry of Personnel gradually slipped away. Now Liu Jian's desire to influence personnel arrangements seemed to be just an ideal situation, or even just a way of satisfying his own desires.

……

……

After summer.

Xie Qian recovered from his illness, and his work in Binhai City gradually became easier.

After overcoming the psychological barrier, he began to realize that it didn't matter where he worked, and in Binhai City, it seemed that he could learn more, come into contact with more people and things, and see more scenes. More importantly... there were people here who were worth learning from.

Of course not Zhang Zhou.

Recently he has been obsessed with studying accounting, using Arabic numerals, various new calculation methods, and some reasonable bookkeeping methods.

Xie Qian also gradually looked like an accountant.

He learned all this from Huang Zhaoshi, who was both his teacher and his immediate superior. He learned very quickly, after all, he was a cabinet minister. Although he was not good at other things, his awareness was first-rate, and then...

Xie Qian even forgot about returning to Beijing and began to enjoy his life.

He finished work early that day and returned home. Before he even entered the door, he saw his son Xie Zheng asking someone to carry a box of things back.

"What is this?" Xie Qian walked over and asked.

Xie Zhengdao said, "Father, why did you come back so early? The government just issued a batch of errands and sent people back to handle them. These are the ones I was assigned."

Xie Qian frowned and asked, "You still have so many things to do in the government office?"

Xie Qian worked in an accounting office in the city, while Xie Zheng was assigned to the City Lord's Mansion.

Of course, Xie Qian didn't like the name of this kind of yamen. He would rather call the City Lord's Mansion "Fu Yamen", as if it was the site of a prefecture, or even not a complete system, at most a place similar to a prefecture.

Xie Zheng said helplessly: "During the war in the northwest, a lot of military food and supplies were transported by sea. The city has received a lot of food recently, plus the supplies that have been transported out, and there are not many people in the government office, so the task has been more difficult recently."

"Why aren't there enough people?" Xie Qian frowned and asked, "How much food have been transported here?"

Because Xie Qian's accounting firm was only responsible for business within the city, the transportation of court materials was not handled by the accounting firm.

In other words, with Xie Qian's current position and job, he is not yet capable of handling such high-level affairs.

Xie Zhengdao: "Father, you may not know that there are a lot of soldiers transferred here. In addition to those supplied to the northwest, there are also those shipped to the capital, Taicang. Although the canal is flooded in summer, the river surface is not dredged, so that large ships cannot sail, and a ship cannot carry much food and supplies. The food transferred from the south, even the food from Huguang, is shipped by sea."

"Oh? First go along the Yangtze River to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and then transfer north?" Xie Qian asked.

"Probably." Xie Zheng said, "Father, please forgive me. I still have to go in and handle some official business. These are just the catalogue and other things. There will be more errands waiting for me later. I'm afraid I can't listen to your teachings more recently."

"Haha, my son, do your job well and don't worry about me. I can do the job myself."

Xie Qian smiled.

It's rare that a son is so sensible. In this living environment, he still maintains absolute respect for his old father.

That's good. …

……

When Xie Qian watched his son go into the backyard, a smile appeared on his face.

"It's better to have something to do than nothing." Xie Qian breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, I suddenly felt a little lost.

He is clearly a cabinet minister, an absolutely powerful official in the Ming Dynasty, but now he has fallen to this point, sorting out accounts for people in a small place, and even his family members are affected.

Normally his work is very fulfilling and he doesn't have time to think about these things, but now that he suddenly has some free time, he can't help but think too much about it.

Just when Xie Qian was about to enter the inner courtyard to drink some tea and do some health-preserving activities, he saw his little granddaughter Xie Junnu, skipping into the courtyard with a schoolbag on her back.

"you……"

Xie Qian looked at his granddaughter curiously.

Although I know that my granddaughter is currently studying at a girls' school in the city, I still feel a little awkward seeing her dressed like this.

Because my granddaughter not only wears a school bag of the same size, but also a school uniform of the same size.

Xie Junnu came over and bowed to him, saying, "The lady teacher said that we should be especially respectful to elders, especially those who are scholars. Your granddaughter greets you, Mr. Xie."

"What sir?" Xie Qian said speechlessly, "Grandfather is grandfather, don't mix up the generations."

Xie Junnu grinned and said, "Grandfather, I was taught by a female teacher. I can call anyone I meet sir, because there must be one teacher among three people."

Xie Qian asked, "Have you just started studying the Analects?"

Xie Junnu said: "You can learn the Four Books and Five Classics, and you can learn more knowledge. There are many kinds of classes every day. The Four Books and Five Classics are Chinese, and the rest are mathematics, and there are social studies and other courses."

"Society? Why?" Xie Qian was confused.

Xie Junnu said: "It is the environment that people live in. The female teacher said that society is divided into different classes and we play different roles in it. In addition to cultural courses, we also have half a day to study practical courses, but they are not available every day. At present, we are still in the beginner class."

"Uh……"

Xie Qian was confused by what he heard.

But I also felt that my granddaughter spoke very professionally.

"Grandfather, do you want to know what your grandson has learned?" Xie Junnu asked expectantly.

Xie Qian smiled and said, "Forget it. I'm busy too. You still have schoolwork, right? I heard from your grandmother that you've been busy with schoolwork recently, which is a good thing. Make yourself more fulfilled...Take me to meet your female teacher later and see who's teaching the class."

"Yes, Grandfather." Xie Junnu bowed respectfully again and said, "I will visit your home later. I wonder if Grandfather is home. Your grandson will go to school first."

"Yeah. Go ahead."

Xie Qian looked at his granddaughter's back again.

He obviously did not expect that not only did the first generation of the Xie family find the joy of work, but the second generation also began to be busy with official duties, and now the third generation has also begun to intensify their studies.

Every generation seems to have found its purpose in life.

"Zhang Bingkuan, Zhang Bingkuan, if you keep going on like this, everyone will fall into your trap." Xie Qian said with a smile on his face, "I just don't know when you will come back. Then I will ask you what you are going to do! If you continue to torment the Ming Dynasty like this, sooner or later... there will be a big change."

……

……

Northwest, Ningxia, Huamachi.

Of the five armies that marched out to attack the grassland, the fastest was naturally the cavalry led by Ma Yi and Zhang Rui, who were originally scheduled to each take their own turns.

For example, Ma Yi is now the general of Ningxia and works for Ma Zhongxi, but Ma Yi is also very afraid of Ma Zhongxi, so he took the opportunity of sending troops and did not go to Ningxia Zhongwei to report to Ma Zhongxi at all. Then he and Zhang Rui personally led more than 6,000 cavalry into the heart of the grassland.

Ma Yi wanted to replicate Wang Shouren's heroic deeds and sweep across the grassland, preferably to terrify the Tatars and make them dare not fight.

But as they advanced deeper, they soon encountered trouble.

The heavy rains in recent days made the journey very difficult, and because the firearms were exposed to moisture, Ma Yi had to temporarily suspend the march and set up camp near the mountain pass to ensure that the firearms would not be eroded by more wind and rain.

"Marquis Pinglu, we have traveled more than 300 miles out of the border, and we have only found sporadic signs of Tatar activity. If we continue walking for a few days, we may be close to Guanshan, which is the heartland of the Tatars. Should we wait for the follow-up troops?"

Zhang Rui was a little worried.

After all, he was a general trained by old-school meritorious officials, and he felt that advancing deep into the enemy's territory alone was not necessarily a good thing.

He also believed in the concept of the right time, right place, and right people. At least in his opinion, the Ming army had none of these three.

Ma Yi and his men were inside the tent. They could hear the sound of rain hitting the tent above their heads, as well as the sound of wind coming through the cracks in the tent.

Ma Yi said, "I never thought that the grasslands had enough rain this summer. If we hadn't sent troops to the grasslands, the Tatars would have taken advantage of the lush grass and water on their grasslands this year to accumulate a lot of war resources. By the end of the year, they would have attacked us and we would have been exhausted from resisting. Right now, we have the upper hand."

Zhang Rui smiled bitterly, as if he wanted to say that our focus seemed to be different.

"I have heard the intelligence that Guo Ye Bu received." Ma Yi said, "The follow-up troops are not advancing very fast, especially in Pianguan. There is still no news that An Bian Hou has led his troops out of the pass. Of course, we are far away from there, and the Tatars may have cut off our connection with the east route. We cannot communicate with Pianguan, so it is not easy to cooperate in a surprise attack."

Zhang Rui asked: "So, we will fight the Tatars alone?"

"Young Master, it's not that I'm eager to attack, it's really... Look, all the troops have come out now, even the troops led by Duke Cheng are advancing at a fast speed. Others may even say that they should cooperate with each other and respond to each other from afar. But what about you? Are you really willing to let Duke Cheng take the limelight in the northwest, in our own territory?"

Ma Yi seems to take good care of Zhang Rui.

What he meant was that your father, Duke Yingguo Zhang Mao, had lost the war in the northwest and was now unemployed at home.

And this time we are attacking with five armies. If you don't suppress Zhu Fu, won't he jump over the head of your Duke of Yingguo's Mansion?
If you have an opportunity, of course you have to seize it yourself instead of waiting for others to give it to you.

Zhang Rui said: "It may not be easy to fight today."

Ma Yi smiled and said, "You don't have to worry about that. Just like last year, the last thing you have to worry about in a summer war is the firing of firearms. The Tatars may think that our firearms can't be used on rainy days, but in fact... the impact is far less significant. On the contrary, their own cavalry will be more likely to get stuck in the mud if they charge over, so we can wait for them to tire themselves out."

(End of this chapter)