The most reckless man in the Ming Dynasty.

Chapter 306 Yang Tinghe

Zhu Chenhao not only wanted silver mines, he also wanted iron mines.

This touched Tang Hao's bottom line.

You can do whatever you want with the silver mines, I'll even give you a few more.

But iron ore is definitely not an option, as it is on the list of Emperor Zhu Houzhao.

Tang Hao didn't want to dance on the rope and make himself unhappy.

“Iron ore is definitely not an option!”

"We can discuss the silver mine issue!"

Hearing this, Zhu Chenhao's eyes suddenly lit up.

Of course he knew that iron ore was unlikely, and he said that just to bargain.

Secondly, he also wanted to test Tang Hao. Zhu Chenhao wanted to see whether this Marquis of Zhongshan was really as loyal to the Emperor as the rumors said.

But now it seems that this is not the case.

Tang Hao brought Zhu Chenhao to the study, and the two had a secret conversation.

There is a Japanese feng shui map in the study, which clearly marks the locations of Japan's gold and silver mines, and of course the iron mines, but this has nothing to do with Zhu Chenhao.

"These are the gold and silver mines of Japan."

"The Iwami Silver Mine is too big a target, and too many forces are paying attention to it."

"Your Majesty also intends to arrange for people to mine it personally, so it is unlikely that what you want will be possible."

Tang Hao pretended to be analyzing rationally, which made Zhu Chenhao frown.

The Iwami Silver Mine, which has hundreds of millions of silver coins, is undoubtedly the best target.

If Zhu Chenhao could get it, the silver mined every year would be enough for him to win people's hearts and bribe court officials.

However, Zhu Chenhao had to admit that what Tang Hao said at this moment was the truth.

After all, Prince Ning was preparing to rebel, so he should have acted cautiously instead of taking risky actions with such a large target.

"To put it bluntly, even if I really gave you the Iwami Silver Mine, would you dare to accept it?"

Tang Hao looked at Zhu Chenhao with a half-smile, and sweat was already oozing out of the latter's forehead.

He really didn't dare to accept it, and he really didn't dare to do so.

"So, choose a few other smaller mineral deposits that are easily overlooked by His Majesty the Emperor."

"Now all forces are focusing their attention on the Iwami Silver Mine, which is a good opportunity for Prince Ning."

"For example, the Sama Silver Mine and the Besshi Silver Mine actually have less silver than the Iwami Silver Mine, but they are easier to mine and won't attract attention."

Zhu Chenhao's eyes suddenly lit up and he looked at Tang Hao with admiration.

"Lord Tang is indeed a man of extraordinary wisdom!"

"In that case, I want this Biezi Silver Mountain!"

As expected, Zhu Chenhao had a lot of problems, but he had one good point, which was that he listened to advice.

Of course, it was impossible for Tang Hao to give him a Japanese silver mine for nothing.

"Of course you can, but what can I get?"

Marquis Zhongshan asked with a smile, and now Zhu Chenhao couldn't be tricked.

What he can get is actually asking for benefits.

Zhu Chenhao tentatively gave his price.

"Thirty percent of the annual silver mine income?"

Hearing this, Tang Hao's face suddenly turned gloomy.

"Prince Ning, I agreed to sit down and talk with you only for Guli's sake!"

"But you don't seem to have any sincerity at all!"

Tang Hao placed the teacup heavily on the table.

"To put it bluntly, I mined this Biezi Silver Mine myself, so doesn't all the income belong to me?"

"You, Zhu Chenhao, used what I gave you and took out a small 30% profit as a bargaining chip. Are you humiliating me?"

You use the things I gave you as bargaining chips?

When Zhu Chenhao heard this, he immediately realized his problem.

Seeing Tang Hao getting angry, Zhu Chenhao immediately changed his words and said, "Lord Tang, calm down. It was the little prince who didn't think clearly!"

"How about this, Lord Tang, just speak up. As long as the little king can do it, I will do it without hesitation!"

Well, this is what is called sincerity.

Tang Hao smiled when he heard this and picked up the teacup again.

"It's actually quite simple."

"I can give you the silver mountain of Biezi."

"But you must help me in the court tomorrow!"

"If it is done tomorrow, then the Biezi Silver Mountain will belong to you, Zhu Chenhao. If not, forget it. You will get nothing in Japan!"

After hearing this, Zhu Chenhao was stunned at first, and then looked at Tang Hao deeply.

The Marquis of Zhongshan attaches so much importance to what will happen in the court tomorrow, it is obvious that he is going to make some big move!
"Before you agree, I would like to ask Lord Tang, what exactly do you want to do tomorrow?"

"Even if I want to help you succeed, you should at least let me be mentally prepared, right?"

Tang Hao smiled and nodded, then told his plan.

Zhu Chenhao's face was filled with horror when he heard this, and his brows furrowed even more as he listened.

"Lord Tang, the civil officials and gentry will definitely not agree with you doing this!"

"No!" Tang Hao shook his head, "They will agree!"

Zhu Chenhao wanted to refute, but Tang Yu's voice suddenly sounded outside the door.

"My Lord, the Prime Minister of the Cabinet is here to visit you."

As soon as these words were spoken, Tang Hao and Zhu Chenhao's faces changed.

After a brief silence, Tang Hao looked at Zhu Chenhao expressionlessly.

"Your Highness Prince Ning, did you come here on foot?"

"No... no..." Zhu Chenhao replied hesitantly: "I came here by carriage!"

"Where is the carriage? Is it at the front gate of my mansion?" Tang Hao asked gritting his teeth.

The latter laughed twice and didn't dare to say anything more.

Seeing this, Tang Hao shook his head speechlessly.

"Prince Ning, let me teach you a lesson!"

"Since you want to do something big, you should act with caution!"

"Otherwise, you'll be like a child carrying gold through a busy market, your wolfish ambitions will be obvious!"

Zhu Chenhao was stunned when he heard this, and sweat broke out on his forehead again.

"Thank you Lord Tang for your reminder. I understand."

"Get lost!" Tang Hao urged impatiently, "Get lost through the back door! Don't run into Yang Tinghe! Otherwise, you can expect the civil officials to impeach you and me for collusion tomorrow!"

Zhu Chenhao didn't dare to say a word and hurriedly slipped out through the back door under the leadership of Tang Yu.

A moment later, Yang Tinghe entered the study and looked at the two teacups, and he understood what was going on.

Thinking back to the fight with the villain Zhu Chenhao these days, Yang Tinghe couldn't help but feel a little angry, so he said sarcastically: "Marquis Tang is really popular! Even the arrogant Prince Ning has to come to visit in person!"

"Yang Tinghe, if you have to fart, just fart. If you have nothing else, get out of here!"

Tang Hao cursed impatiently: "I don't have time to talk nonsense with you here!"

He, the Marquis of Zhongshan, would never tolerate these bitches.

Anyway, I'm not the one begging them now, so why do you keep pretending to be so high and mighty?

Yang Tinghe was choked to death, and seeing that Tang Hao was really not going to serve him tea, he became even more angry.

However, the situation was stronger than the people, and the matter of Japan was of great importance, so Yang Tinghe, the leader of the gentry, had to come in person.

"Lord Tang, do you have any arrangements regarding the Japanese matter?"

"None of your business!" Tang Hao spoke harshly again, "I don't need to report to the Prime Minister about what I do, right?"

"Japan is now under wartime control. If you want to know something, please ask the Minister in Japan, Liang Chu. I have no comment on any other matters!" Well, Tang Hao's attitude was very bad.

It’s mainly because of Yang Tinghe’s position.

The reason why this guy was able to enter the cabinet and become the prime minister was because of Tang Hao's recommendation and Zhu Houzhao's promotion, so he was able to become the prime minister of the cabinet at the age of 40.

But after that, Yang Tinghe chose to follow Liu Jian's old path, stabbing the emperor in the back and standing on the side of the civil officials and gentry.

In other words, the Emperor Zhengde's teacher, who had originally been dedicated to promoting reforms, felt urgently that the power of the civil officials and gentry had been greatly damaged because Tang Hao and Zhu Houzhao had brought royal family princes into the court, so he had to choose to protect the interests of the civil officials and gentry.

Even so, Yang Tinghe lost the trust and favor of His Majesty the Emperor because of this.

Zhu Houzhao was too lazy to pursue the matter because Yang Tinghe was the emperor's teacher.

But Tang Hao was different. The reason why he chose to use Yang Tinghe's hand to hand over "The Illustrated Emperor's Mirror" was to promote Yang Tinghe, urge him to enter the cabinet and take power as soon as possible, and then cooperate with him to implement the new policy.

The political ally he chose betrayed him and chose to protect the interests of the gentry. Tang Hao certainly had reason to be angry and was qualified to be angry.

Yang Tinghe felt the full malice from Marquis Zhongshan and for a moment he didn't know how to start talking.

But since he has come, he will not return empty-handed.

So after a brief silence, Yang Tinghe took the initiative to speak: "Lord Tang, although Japan was wiped out by the Ming Dynasty, it is not an easy task to develop it in a short period of time."

"Why don't you just say that the gentry want to get a piece of the pie?"

Tang Hao spoke impatiently, leaving Yang Tinghe speechless.

"What are you pretending to be?"

"You're a whore and you still want to be a saint, right?"

"What I hate most is the behavior of you gentry. It's disgusting!"

He wanted benefits and coveted Japan's wealth, but he didn't speak directly. Instead, he expressed it in various ways to maintain his dignity as a scholar and a child of a famous school...

How disgusting!

Yang Tinghe's face turned pale and blue, but he did not refute.

The gentry and landlords did want the interests of Japan, especially the Iwami silver mine, which had been widely rumored for a long time. Now that Japan has become a slave state of the Ming Dynasty, these gentry and landlords are even more eager to get a piece of the pie.

However, the problem is that all Japanese affairs are under the control of Zhongshan Hou Tang Hao.

Whether it was the Japanese garrison or the fleet heading to Japan, at this moment they all obeyed the orders of Marquis Zhongshan.

Under this premise, the gentry and nobles could only bow to this damned Marquis Zhongshan, and Yang Tinghe came with this purpose.

Instead of fighting secretly and wasting national strength, it is better to cooperate for mutual benefit. Together we can develop Japan's resources and enrich the Ming Dynasty as soon as possible.

"In that case, I'll speak frankly."

"The gentry want the Iwami Silver Mine, and they will be responsible for digging it. All mining taxes will be paid to the court in full. Lord Tang can rest assured about this."

If you want it, you want the biggest one.

The other small gold and silver mines are not attractive at all.

What does it mean to have hundreds of millions of silver?
The gentry naturally set their sights on the Iwami Silver Mine.

Tang Hao looked at Yang Tinghe with amusement on his face, and then sneered: "Yang Tinghe, Yang Tinghe, you really have become a yes-man for the gentry!"

"When His Majesty promoted you to be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, he didn't want you to follow Liu Jian's old path. You, Yang Tinghe, know exactly what His Majesty wants!"

"If you continue to go on like this, you will undoubtedly be courting death!"

Yang Tinghe remained expressionless upon hearing this and remained silent.

Doesn't he understand this truth?

Previously, His Majesty the Emperor had thrown his only son Yang Shen into prison because of the Cui Xian incident.

This unspoken rule of the imperial examination between the master and his disciples has a long history and is well known to everyone. When did it become a way to cultivate cliques?

All the successful Jinshi candidates of Li Tang regarded the chief examiner as their mentor, which resulted in "favor coming from private sources, and no one knew that there was a master anymore". Therefore, some people indignantly expressed that Li Tang was actually killed by his clique.

For this reason, Emperor Taizu of Song issued an edict in the third year of Jianlong to prohibit the formation of master-disciple relationship between examiners and candidates, taking the first step in reforming the imperial examination system: "From now on, successful candidates are not allowed to pay homage to the chief examiner. If they violate the rules, the Censorate will report to the emperor"; they are not allowed to call the chief examiner "mentor or teacher, nor are they allowed to call themselves disciples."

This policy was seriously implemented in the early period of the Song Dynasty, but it became a mere formality afterwards. The factional struggles in the Song Dynasty were more intense and more unscrupulous than those in the Tang Dynasty!
After all, the competition in the imperial examination was extremely fierce.

Even in most cases, the chief examiner will not be partial to one's personal connections, because being a chief examiner is an honor and is very sacred for civil officials. If one is partial to one's personal connections and bends the law, it would be an insult to oneself.

However, since the number of admissions is limited, the examiner still has some room for maneuver for test papers with not particularly large differences in levels. For example, a person's level just happens to be on the passing line for the last admission, but the examiner can adjust a worse test paper to this one, and this person will not be admitted.

By the same token, when Yang Tinghe served as the chief examiner of the imperial examination, it was indeed because of the recommendation of his son Yang Shen that he was impressed by Cui Xian's good calligraphy and talent, so he selected Cui Xian as the top scorer in "The Book of Songs", and Cui Xian was thus able to pass the imperial examination and become a Jinshi; and the reason why Liu Wuchen deposed Cui Xian was simply that he felt that Cui Xian's articles were full of the style of a cruel official, which did not suit his taste. Even though Cui Xian was not inferior to others in terms of literary talent alone, he still deposed Cui Xian. Isn't this unfair?

The fact that Cui Xian was able to pass the imperial examination meant that there was another scholar who failed to pass the imperial examination and whose position was taken away by Cui Xian.

In fact, when the papers were being marked and evaluated, the spirit of faction had already been formed. The examiners selected the talented people they liked for training and dismissed those who did not meet their wishes. It was all the personal wishes of the examiners, and no one could find any fault with it!
This has been the case with the imperial examinations in all dynasties, and it is a tacit consensus among everyone.

But when it comes to Yang Tinghe, it just doesn't work.

To put it bluntly, this was a warning and reprimand from the Emperor to Yang Tinghe.

I let you be the Prime Minister of the Cabinet so that you can cooperate with me in implementing the new policies, not so that you can go against me!

Yang Tinghe understood all these principles and understood them in his heart.

But what can he do?

Are we going to watch the civil officials and gentry lose their power and the royal family and princes take control of the government?

Is this kind of Ming Dynasty still the Ming Dynasty?

It is wrong in itself for royal family princes to be in power!

His Majesty the Emperor can now suppress these clan forces by relying on Marquis Zhongshan!

What about after a hundred years of the Emperor's life, or when Marquis Zhongshan also dies of illness?
Can the newly enthroned Ming emperor really suppress these royal family members?
This is a hidden danger!
After all, the princes of the royal family are the descendants of Emperor Taizu Gao. They should be locked in a cage instead of being released to show their fangs and claws to the civil officials and gentry!

Yang Tinghe took a deep breath and looked at Marquis Zhongshan in front of him.

"The reason why I chose to protect the civil officials and gentry is not a matter of stance!"

"The princes of the royal family are not allowed to hold power, let alone control the government, otherwise the Ming Dynasty will see the Jingnan Campaign again sooner or later!"

"In fact, I have never understood. Doesn't the Marquis of Zhongshan know these principles? If he knew, why did he encourage His Majesty the Emperor to bring the power of the royal family into the court, laying hidden dangers for future generations?"

That's it!

Yang Tinghe's position was indeed not that of the gentry.

He just wanted to drive these royal family princes out as soon as possible!
Tang Hao suppressed his disgust and his expression became quite serious.

"Who told you that these princes of the royal family will take charge of the government?"

"Their only role is to provide a transition and buy time for the rise of military generals and nobles."

"When the military generals and nobles have successfully risen and can compete with the civil officials and gentry, these princes of the royal family will naturally be expelled from the court one by one. You can rest assured about this!"

Yang Tinghe was startled when he heard this, and then asked: "What is Lord Tang going to do?"

"Tomorrow is a great opportunity, a chance for military commanders and nobles to rise!"

Tang Hao chuckled and said, "Now it seems that you and I have the same goal. You want to drive the royal family princes out of the court, and I want to support the rise of military generals and nobles. In this case, why don't we cooperate?"

"As for the Iwami Silver Mine, since the gentry want it, it's fine to give it to them. Your Majesty still has some magnanimity."

The more Yang Tinghe listened, the more frightened and uneasy he became.

Could this Marquis of Zhongshan be so kind?
I'm afraid it's a trap?

But he doesn't care about the Iwami Silver Mine now. He only cares about the royal family and the princes, and when they will be liquidated and expelled from the court!

“It’s actually quite simple.”

"Isn't Zhu Chenhao the best excuse and reason?"

Tang Hao gave the answer directly.

"After our Prince Ning started the rebellion, His Majesty the Emperor put it down, and then he realized that the royal family princes could not be trusted, so he launched a major purge, expelled all royal family members from the court, and restricted their power. Didn't that solve the problem?"

Yang Tinghe looked at Tang Hao in shock.

At first he just thought that His Majesty the Emperor was praising Zhu Chenhao to death in order to use Zhu Chenhao to purge a group of parasites in the court!
But it was not until this moment that Yang Tinghe finally realized that this was a trap from the beginning!

It has always been a trap since the royal family princes entered the court!

What Marquis Zhongshan and His Majesty the Emperor want is, first, to get rid of the rebel king Zhu Chenhao, second, to suppress the civil officials and gentry, and third, to support the rise of military generals and nobles!

As for Prince Ning Zhu Chenhao, and Yang Tinghe, they both fell into the scheme of this monarch and his minister!

"Zhongshan Hou..."

"Ok?"

"You are such a bastard!"

"???"

(End of this chapter)