Jingtai Fengyun: The First Absurd Emperor of Ming Dynasty

Chapter 275 Wang Wen and Zhou Chen Proposal to Allow Important Officials from Inside and Outside to Visit the Queen Mother
As a result of Zhu Qiyu's solicitation, no one had an opinion.

Now the civil servants in the court have become polarized.These cabinet scholars and six ministers who sit in Beijing and hold great power firmly follow the emperor; then the middle and lower civil servants, as well as local officials, including the important officials in Nanjing, all have their hearts towards the emperor.

However, with the blessing of righteousness and fame, although there are many officials who are close to the Supreme Emperor, they have nothing to do with Zhu Qiyu.

No matter how dissatisfied, the emperor is the emperor after all, as long as Zhu Qiyu refuses to abdicate voluntarily, the ministers' resistance and rebellion will not work.

The only way is to burn incense at home every day, praying that Zhu Qiyu will not have a son.

It's a pity, Zhu Qiyu has a total of fifteen favorite concubines, as long as they can give birth to five or six adult princes, it will be difficult for the Emperor's faction to make a comeback.

So now the Emperor's faction and the Shanghuang faction are beating wolves with hemp sticks, and they are afraid at both ends.The emperor's party is scratching their heads because they cannot be attached to the hearts of the people, while the emperor's party is desperate for the emperor's heir who will inevitably come.

Especially now, the entire Yuquan Mountain is tightly surrounded, except for the emperor, fifteen favorite concubines, and four little maids who can occasionally enter to send messages, and the rest of them will die if they trespass.

Zhu Qiyu directly delegated the right to act cheaply to the personal guards, and those who trespassed on Yuquan Mountain would be executed on the spot without asking for instructions.

Therefore, it is really difficult to tamper with the emperor's fertility.

First of all, the emperor would not poison himself.

Secondly, the concubines will not poison themselves.

As for the four little maids, they can only stay in the concierge at ordinary times, and they can only enter Yuquan Mountain to send messages when there are urgent military and political affairs.After delivering the letter, you can't stay there, you have to go out immediately.

Zhu Qiyu's wonderful operation of returning to the garden and living in the field really disgusted the entire Emperor's faction.

If the emperor lives in the Forbidden City, there are at least 21 ways to make the emperor lose his fertility.

But now, the emperor is full of leisure and ambition, and is even preparing to grow vegetables and rice by himself.

It's really disappointing. The loyalists of the Emperor's Faction have already begun to complain about Xuanzong and Queen Mother Sun in their hearts.Originally, Xuanzong had only two sons, and they were all raised in the Forbidden City.

As a result, under the control of Queen Mother Sun, Xuanzong lived to be 37 years old, with only two sons in total.

That's fine, the key is that the other one is kept outside the palace.It's all right now, people don't want to enter the palace at all, and even hate the Forbidden City extremely, which is in stark contrast to the two emperors Zhengtong and Xuande who loved the Forbidden City to death.

Therefore, the cabinet bachelors and six ministers, who are quite familiar with the cruelty of court struggles, find it a little funny. The 'young and inexperienced' emperor was not trapped in the Forbidden City, but the Empress Dowager Sun, who had decades of experience in court struggles, was burned without a fixed place and was forced to live in a small Yinghua Palace.

Now even the title of Holy Empress Dowager could not be kept.

Regarding Wang Wen's crazy proposal, after a short period of astonishment, everyone present quickly echoed it.

Among this group of important ministers, Chen Xun, Zhou Chen, and Yu Shiyue were three people with relatively moderate political stances, but after Zhu Qiyu's beating just now, they didn't dare to say anything more.

Wang Wen, Jiang Yuan, He Wenyuan, Luo Tong, He Yi, and Huang Pu are all hardliners who insist on doing one thing without doing two.

Hu Wei, Wang Ao, Yu Qian, Shang Ren, and Peng Shiquan, the important officials of the emperor's faction, were all driven to Nanjing.

After listening to everyone's opinions, Zhu Qiyu, who was already winning, smiled and said to everyone: "Which one of you is responsible for paying homage to the Empress Dowager, and expressing condolences to the Empress Dowager and Empress Yisheng on my behalf?"

Chen Xun replied: "Your Majesty, I think that all of us cabinet scholars and six ministers should go to pay homage to the Empress Dowager together, which is grand."

Zhu Qiyu nodded, and secretly smiled in his heart: What Chen Xun means is that if there is something that offends others, everyone should do it together, and no one can escape.

When the matter came to this point, Zhu Qiyu was about to stand up and go home to soak in the hot springs with his beloved concubines.

At this time, Zhou Chen suddenly replied: "Your Majesty, I think that since the empress dowager wants to cancel the title of 'Shangsheng', the title of 'Yisheng' should also be canceled by the empress dowager."

Zhu Qiyu asked curiously: "Those two are both empresses, how can they be distinguished?"

Zhou Chen replied: "It can be distinguished by the palace where they live. For example, one is called the Queen of the North Palace, and the other is called the Queen of the South Palace."

"Nangong, haven't I already decided to live with the Crown Prince?"

Zhou Chen replied: "It's better to move Empress Qian to Nangong instead. After the Supreme Emperor returns, she can live with Empress Qian in Nangong. In this way, there is no need to worry about rebuilding Qianqing Palace."

Zhu Qiyu nodded: "How can I have the heart to drive the Supreme Emperor to live in Nangong, how about this, you let Empress Qian and Empress Zhou discuss it themselves.

Anyway, the Forbidden City is such a big place, so I don't care, although they can do whatever they want. "

Although he didn't want to pay attention to the mess in Taishang Royal, Zhu Qiyu still gave great praise to Zhou Chen for being able to quickly find his way back and actively express his loyalty.

Zhu Qiyu agreed to allocate a quarter of the proceeds from the ransacking in Shanxi to the Ministry of Industry for the construction of the outer city of Beijing.It also approved the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Industry to take the lead in setting up a new factory in the outer city, and go all out to cast Jingtai Tongbao.

The tax exemption and corvee exemption for the first three years really put a lot of pressure on the court.Now with the right to mint coins, as long as there are copper mines, there will be a steady stream of financial resources.

Although it is not as refreshing as the previous emperors to print precious banknotes and plunder the wealth of the people in a down-to-earth manner, it is the work of a benevolent emperor and a wise ruler who will win both the government and the opposition.

Zhu Qiyu drew a few more big cakes for the crowd before going home from the court.

When the important ministers returned to the capital, they immediately requested to see the empress dowager.

Empress Dowager Sun didn't think too much about it, thinking that such a big event would be just a routine greeting from the important ministers.

The next day, the morning of the nineteenth day of the first lunar month.

Chen Xun, Wang Wen and others came to listen to the propaganda outside the gate of Qianqing.

Wang Jin, Wang Cheng, Shu Liang, and Zhang Yong, a total of four supervisors of rites, came out together to pick up the important ministers and headed to the Yinghua Hall together.

Now there are seven ceremonial supervisors in Beijing. Chen Mian and Ruan An have lost power because of fires in the Qianqing Palace and Compassionate Palace.

Now the Supervisor of Rituals is very powerful, and the oldest person with qualifications is Wang Jin, plus the four eunuchs who followed Zhu Qiyu in childhood, there are a total of five real power holders.

This time to pay homage to the Empress Dowager, four of them were mobilized in one go.

When everyone entered the Yinghua Hall, the Empress Dowager Sun had already stood up with all her strength and went to the main hall to accept worship.

People's hearts are already floating now, so Empress Dowager Sun dared not make a sickly posture again, so as not to deepen her image of weakness and powerlessness in the hearts of outsiders.

After everyone finished their salutes, Empress Dowager Sun glanced around, feeling quite chilled: there were more than a dozen eunuchs and ministers, and none of them were sent by the emperor.

(End of this chapter)