Spoiler History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 785

[At the beginning of the fourth year of Hongwu, it was not only Liu Ji's escape that finally made Li Shanchang make up his mind.

According to historical records, the real beginning of the Hu Weiyong case was at the end of the third year of Hongwu.

In the great reward ceremony of that year, the Secretariat finally officially confirmed two prime ministers, namely, the left prime minister Li Shanchang and the right prime minister Xu Da.

Although Xu Da was the prime minister, he was traveling between Peking and Shanxi to train troops. At the same time, he was also in charge of the defense of the northern line and accumulated strength to go out and attack the Yuan Dynasty. Therefore, this prime minister was only a figurehead.

Li Shanchang was the opposite. Although he was officially appointed as the Left Prime Minister in the third year of Hongwu, he was already enjoying the power of the Left Prime Minister when he was awarded the title before the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, unlike other meritorious officials, Li Shanchang received PROMAX iron certificates of immunity from death as his reward. Others could be exempted once, but he could be exempted twice, and he could also protect his son once. One certificate was worth two and a half.

There was a situation where there was no title to be given and no advancement to be made. In addition, there was a fellow townsman named Xiao Hu in the Secretariat, so Li Shanchang planned to take a step back and wait and see the situation.

Nominally, he was sick, which sounds reasonable, but Li Shanchang was only 57 years old that year, while in history he lived to be 77, so this vague illness was more like an excuse.

The left prime minister was ill, but someone had to take care of government affairs, right? Naturally, Yang Xian, a native of eastern Zhejiang who was the left prime minister at the time, quickly stood up:

If Li Shanchang really retired due to illness, wouldn't I have to be promoted from deputy to full-time?
According to the "History of Ming Dynasty", Liu Ji had a heart-to-heart talk with Zhu Yuanzhang before he fled, and Zhu Yuanzhang asked Liu Ji who could be the prime minister.

Although this dialogue is most likely processed by later generations, the comments on the characters made through Liu Ji's mouth are still relatively accurate from Zhuge Liang's perspective after the event.

For example, it is said that Li Shanchang was able to reconcile the generals, and that Wang Guangyang was rather shallow. More emphasis was placed on the evaluation of Yang Xian and Hu Weiyong, saying that Yang Xian had the talent of a prime minister but not the ability to act as a prime minister, and that he had stronger personal desires, while Hu Weiyong was like a bad horse, and that if used to drive a car, the car would inevitably overturn and cause bad things.

Yang Xian surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang one year later than Hu Weiyong. Although he also missed the window period of the Elders Group, unlike Hu Weiyong who could only run errands and write letters, Yang Xian really jumped at the chance to risk his life, so he quickly became Zhu Yuanzhang's confidant. He even entered the Secretariat one year earlier than Hu Weiyong. Moreover, as a native of eastern Zhejiang, Yang Xian also understood clearly:
He didn't come to give Li Shanchang gold, he came to throw sand in Li Shanchang's way.

What disappointed Zhu Yuanzhang was that Yang Xian did not think of himself as a grain of sand, but as a thunderbolt.

Faced with the idle Li Shanchang, Yang Xian made the three clear-cut moves that a new official would make. First, he kicked out his Huaixi people and replaced them with people from eastern Zhejiang. Secondly, he had the right deputy prime minister Wang Guangyang exiled to Hainan through false accusations by the censor.

And what Yang Xian will do next is also predictable: there can only be one prime minister in the Secretariat, and that is Prime Minister Yang!

However, this behavior provoked a counterattack from Li Shanchang and Hu Weiyong. The two people from Dingyuan worked together to pack up all the negative information about Yang Xian and sent it to Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang's response was simple: he just killed him and that was it.

After all, what Zhu Yuanzhang needed was a Secretariat that could check and balance each other but get things done, rather than a Secretariat that was always engaged in factional strife and only knew how to attack each other.

After Yang Xian was executed, Zhu Yuanzhang had few options, so Wang Guangyang was hastily recalled and appointed as the right prime minister, and Hu Weiyong, who had contributed, was promoted to the left prime minister. This could be regarded as a new restraining structure of the Secretariat.

But what Zhu Yuanzhang did not expect was that even when faced with the temptation of power as prime minister, Wang Guangyang would directly take action. He was either voting in favor or drinking heavily. Instead, the actual person in charge of the Secretariat became Hu Weiyong.

In view of this, Li Shanchang felt that he could finally retire due to illness with peace of mind.

But neither Zhu Yuanzhang nor Li Shanchang expected that compared with Hu Weiyong, Yang Xian was as pure as a little white flower. 】

Currently, the only three people who can be regarded as founding heroes in the Huagai Palace are Li Shanchang, Li Wenzhong and Xu Da.

Xu Da already knew the cause of his death, and he had been in the border town for a long time, so he was only thinking about destroying the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty, so he didn't care much about Hu Weiyong's affairs.

Li Shanchang felt a little uncomfortable on his back - his clothes stuck to his back due to cold sweat, and he felt a little chilly. The most relaxed person was Li Wenzhong. After all, before and after the incident of Hu Weiyong, he was either on the expedition in Bashu and the north, or training troops in the local area. He had never been involved in this matter, not to mention his close relationship with the emperor's family...

So when he heard Guangmu say that the military officials and nobles were tainted with the spirit of the Yuan Dynasty, Li Wenzhong was quite dissatisfied:
"Brave and courageous spirit is not unique to the Hu people, so why are you criticizing them so much?"

Xu Da shook his head, not agreeing, and whispered:
"The bloody courage of the Han and Tang dynasties is different from that of the Song dynasty, and it is also different from the bloody courage of the Hu Yuan dynasty. We know about the events of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties only from books, but the situation of the Hu Yuan dynasty is right before our eyes."

His uncle's words made Li Wenzhong a little silent.

In fact, Guangmu's words were not wrong. As a veteran who had fought in many places, he knew very well that before the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the strong presence of barbarians in the army had always been an unavoidable problem.

It is not new that all Han people speak the language of the Hu people. After all, during the reign of Hu Yuanzhi, the Han surnames were severely exploited. It is normal for one generation to admire the Hu customs and try to survive by submitting to them in five or six generations within a hundred years.

The warrior who eventually fought against the Yuan Dynasty with his uncle was not only brave and fearless, but also disobeyed orders and did not abide by regulations. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, he, Li Wenzhong, and his uncle spent a lot of time training troops and governing the local areas. Wasn't their purpose to wipe out the barbarian dust?
The four words my uncle mentioned, "restoring China", are easy to say, but to do them we need everyone to be united and work slowly.

However, his uncle Xu Da was able to gain fame in later generations, but he was just ignored and was even worse than the stubborn Lan Yu. Why was that?

As soon as these thoughts went through Li Wenzhong's mind, he heard people on the other side of the screen saying that Li Shanchang was narrow-minded. That would have been fine, but the vivid sentence "How would Old Zhu live without Old Li?" made him laugh out loud on the spot.

As expected, a question followed:

"Li Wenzhong, what are you laughing at!"

Li Wenzhong suddenly felt a little aggrieved, because he clearly saw that his uncle Xu Da's mouth corners were also curved a lot. Why didn't he go and ask his commoner brothers?

Although he secretly criticized, on the surface, Li Wenzhong pointed at Li Shanchang and swore confidently:
"Son...I am laughing at the future generations who will tarnish the reputation of the great censor!"

"I have offended the Grand Censor with my words, but I have not been scolded to death."

"It is obvious that his words are untrue, and it is obvious that the Grand Censor is a humble person!"

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at Li Wenzhong for this answer, and then comforted Li Shanchang who didn't know what to do:

"People in later generations have joked that I am the reincarnation of the Song emperor who studied Buddhism. Such speculations should be regarded as jokes."

This made Li Shanchang breathe a sigh of relief, and Li Wenzhong nodded:
"Grand Censor, just treat this as unofficial history. I can testify that you really confiscated the two hundred gold coins!"

Li Shanchang's breath, which was about to be released, was suddenly stuck in his chest for a long time, and he could only grit his teeth and say:

"Then I would like to thank Duke Cao first."

"Thank you, I'm not worthy of it." Li Wenzhong waved his hand and said sincerely:
"When you have time, please let me see the iron certificate as a token of gratitude. That will be enough."

While the two nobles were bickering, Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the screen in silence, glancing at Li Shanchang from the corner of his eye:

Seventy-seven?
(End of this chapter)