My father is Jiajing

Night falls and the lights come on.

The palace lanterns outside the Wenhua Hall also began to light up.

Zhu Zaigui was sitting in a warm room in a side hall, looking at the pile of congratulatory letters on the table, and could not help rubbing his brows.

There were nearly two thousand officials of high rank in the capital, and all of them had to write a congratulatory letter to celebrate Emperor Jiajing's move to the Wanshou Palace, which amounted to nearly two thousand congratulatory letters.

"how's it going?"

Zhu Zaigui did not like the smell of ambergris in the hall, but today was a special day and Zhu Zaigui had to stay sober and focused, so he asked Meng Chong to order a bottle of ambergris to refresh himself.

At the same time, the sky outside the hall darkened and lights were lit inside the hall.

The newly lit candlelight stretched Zhu Zaigui's shadow very long.

He looked at Hai Rui and others in the warm room who were helping him review the congratulatory letter.

Hai Rui stood up and bowed, saying, "We still need a congratulatory letter from Li Ran, the Censor of Henan Province of the Censorate."

After hearing this, Zhu Zaigui couldn't help but frown slightly.

Zhu Zaigui did not have much impression of Li Ran, or even had no impression of him at all.

But now this person's congratulatory message has not been delivered yet, which makes Zhu Zaigui feel uneasy.

You should know that in order for Emperor Jiajing to move smoothly this time, Zhu Zaigui called Hai Rui to his side and asked him to review the congratulatory messages with him.

The reason was that they were worried that Hai Rui might suddenly have a brain tumor and, according to the original course of history, would have to submit a congratulatory message at this time that directly pointed out the mistakes of Emperor Jiajing.

So in order to prevent this from happening, Zhu Zaigui called Hai Rui to watch over him.

However, at this time, there were still people who had not submitted their reports on time. How could Zhu Zaigui feel at ease?

Zhu Zaigui's face darkened, and a hint of coldness appeared in his eyes.

After midnight tonight it will be the auspicious day for Emperor Jiajing to move into the Wanshou Palace. All officials in Beijing must submit congratulatory messages to celebrate. But at this critical juncture, there are still people who dare to dither and test Zhu Zaigui's patience and temper. Isn't this a challenge to Zhu Zaigui's patience and bottom line?

"What happened to Li Ran?"

Zhu Zaigui asked in a calm voice, but no one present knew how to answer Zhu Zaigui's question.

For this situation, the only thing to blame is Li Ran, who is too transparent and low-key in his daily life, so that he was ignored.

Meng Chong carefully held a candle and placed it on the table next to Zhu Zaigui, "Your Highness, it's time to serve the meal."

Zhu Zaigui glanced at Meng Chong, then at Hai Rui and the others. They had also been with him here for several hours and were probably hungry.

And how does the saying go?

It's called: The emperor doesn't need hungry soldiers.

Of course, Zhu Zaigui couldn't let Hai Rui and his men work on an empty stomach.

Zhu Zaigui hummed calmly, "Go and ask the kitchen to prepare dinner for Hai Rui and the others."

Hearing Zhu Zaigui asking for the meal to be served, Meng Chong felt relieved. You know, from this morning till now, except for some snacks in the middle, no other meals had been served.

Therefore, Meng Chong was also worried that Zhu Zaigui would starve to death, so he took the risk and reminded Zhu Zaigui in front of him.

Now that Zhu Zaigui agreed, Meng Chong naturally felt relaxed.

"Yes, slave, go right away."

After saying this, Meng Chong hurried away to serve the meal.

Zhu Zaigui, Hai Rui and others were still left in the hall.

Zhu Zaigui thought for a while and continued, "Go and get the Left Censor-in-Chief."

The Zhongshu Sheren, who was in charge of delivering messages and calling people in the palace, immediately bowed slightly to Zhu Zaigui, and then hurried off to find someone.

Moreover, today was a special day, and none of the major officials in Beijing dared to leave their posts early.

Therefore, if we go to find the Left Censor-in-Chief at this time, he will definitely be able to find him quickly.

Zhang Yongming, the Left Censor-in-Chief, who was also waiting in the Censorate at the moment, did not hesitate at all when he saw the Secretary of the Wenhua Palace coming to summon him. He quickly picked up the official hat on the table in front of him and put it on. He then quickly followed the Secretary of the Wenhua Palace to meet Zhu Zaigui.

Zhang Yongming was also promoted by Zhu Zaigui, but his promotion path was different from that of Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others. He was a person who was promoted step by step.

So, I am a bit older.

But even so, no one would look down on him.

After all, those who can reach this level of officialdom have achieved some success to some extent.

Otherwise, how can you get promoted?
Zhang Yongming's achievement was that he was not afraid of the powerful for many years. Even though he was just a Censor in the Criminal Department of Nanjing, he was not afraid of Yan Song and his son, who were at the peak of their power at the time, and he impeached Yan Song, Yan Shifan and others for their crimes one after another.

Later, after Yan Shifan's case broke out, Zhang Yongming, who had been promoted to Deputy Censor-in-Chief, was credited with some contributions and became a role model of the Qingliu faction.

Therefore, after Ouyang Bijin retired due to the collapse of Yan Song's power, many people jointly recommended Zhang Yongming as the new Left Censor-in-Chief.

Zhu Zaigui did not interfere in his appointment.

After all, politics is sometimes like this. If you want the people below to be obedient and work hard, you still have to give them some necessary benefits and sweet treats.

Otherwise, if he always holds power in his own hands, becomes suspicious of everyone he looks at and hesitates to use anyone, wouldn't he become Xiang Yu who "doesn't give away the seal even if he plays with it"?

What's more, Zhu Zaigui did not have the courage and heroic reputation of Xiang Yu.

Therefore, Zhu Zaigui should not have too much hesitation and doubt when appointing people.

Therefore, Zhang Yongming was appointed by Zhu Zaigui as the new Left Censor-in-Chief to lead the entire Censorate.

Zhang Yongming did not disappoint Zhu Zaigui's trust in him. During his tenure as the Left Censor-in-Chief, he always took it as his responsibility to rectify the situation and advocated restoring the tradition of censors in the Censorate daring to speak out.

However, this approach will definitely offend people.

Therefore, Zhang Yongming is actually very sad now. There are always some people who take the opportunity to attack him and want to force him to retire.

However, due to the lack of real substantive evidence, Zhang Yongming has been able to live in peace over the past few years.

After arriving at the Wenhua Hall, Zhang Yongming looked up at this palace, which is now considered the political center of the Ming Dynasty, and felt inexplicably moved.

After all, the political situation now is that the emperor is in seclusion and Prince Yu is regulating the country, which is something no one in the world had expected.

Therefore, when he arrived at the Wenhua Hall, Zhang Yongming also had a strange feeling of "meeting the emperor".

It was as if the master of this hall was also the "Son of Heaven" whom he had to respect!
The Secretary of the Central Secretariat led Zhang Yongming into the Wenhua Hall.

After entering the warm room where Zhu Zaigui was, Zhang Yongming immediately bowed to Zhu Zaigui who was sitting behind the desk, "I, the Left Censor-in-Chief Zhang Yongming, pay my respects to the Prince Regent!"

Zhu Zaiqi looked up at Zhang Yongming and waved his hand, saying, "Mr. Zhang, please don't be polite."

Zhang Yongming bowed again: "Thank you, Your Majesty!" Zhu Zaigui got straight to the point and said: "I just asked Hai Rui and his men to review the congratulatory memorial to be presented to Your Majesty tonight, and found that there is an imperial censor named Li Ran in your Censorate who has not yet submitted the congratulatory memorial. I wonder if Mr. Zhang knows about this?"

Zhang Yongming was also shocked when he heard this. He quickly said, "I have already told all the censors in the Censorate to submit a congratulatory memorial to Your Majesty. Li Ran hasn't submitted it yet. I will go and urge him to do it now."

Zhu Zaiqi looked at the anxious Zhang Yongming. He didn't waste any words and just waved his hand and said, "Okay, Zhang Qing, hurry up and don't waste time."

Zhang Yongming bowed again hurriedly: "I'll take my leave."

Watching Zhang Yongming leave, Meng Chong brought up the prepared meal.

Zhu Zaigui also waved his hand and asked Meng Chong to distribute the food to Hai Rui and others.

After receiving the meals, Hai Rui and others bowed to Zhu Zaigui to express their gratitude.

At the same time, Zhu Zaigui also took the top copy of the congratulatory letter compiled by Hai Rui and others and took a look at it.

This congratulatory message was from Xu Jie, the chief minister of the cabinet.

The content of his congratulatory letter was as steady as ever. Not only was the handwriting neat and the language gorgeous, but the entire letter was full of compliments to Emperor Jiajing.

He is a pleasure to watch. No wonder he could remain as stable as a rock in the cabinet for more than ten years with his talent for writing poems, and was always trained by Emperor Jiajing as a backup to Yan Song.

It turns out that he was really good at praising and flattering Emperor Jiajing!

After reading Xu Jie's congratulatory letter, Zhu Zaigui put it aside and picked up the second one to read.

The second one is Li Chunfang’s congratulatory message.

Now Li Chunfang has been ranked second in the cabinet because he entered the cabinet early.

Yuan Wei and Yan Ne, two cabinet members who should have been ranked above Li Chunfang, can now only be ranked below her.

Moreover, it seems that the lives of these two people are not particularly long. In the original history, they seemed to have died of illness within these two years.

So in the 45th year of Jiajing and the early years of Longqing, in order to find positions for his team, the number of cabinet members of Emperor Longqing in history was always around five or six in the first few years of his reign.

It was not until the fourth year of the Longqing reign that the number of cabinet members gradually returned to three or four.

But unfortunately, God only gave Longqing six years.

Therefore, even if Longqing was willing to delegate power to ambitious and capable officials such as Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng to continue to reform and innovate, the final results would not be as great as expected.

Moreover, due to the tradition of infighting among Ming Dynasty civil officials, Gao Gong, Zhang Juzheng and others were unable to maintain their delicate relationship of cooperation after Longqing.

Therefore, after Longqing, Zhang Juzheng and Feng Bao teamed up to play a little trick on Gao Gong and excluded him from the list of assistant ministers.

Then began the ten years of Zhang Juzheng's cabinet implementing reforms.

But unfortunately, it was only ten years.

So sometimes some things seem to be destined. No matter how hard people try, in the end, it is still a regrettable emptiness.

Zhu Zaigui looked through Li Chunfang's memorial, the content of which was similar to Xu Jie's.

This shows that Li Chunfang was able to receive successive promotions from Emperor Jiajing at such a young age, and that he was extremely skilled in flattering Emperor Jiajing.

It’s a pity that Zhu Zaigui didn’t buy it, or rather, Li Chunfang’s way of flattery was not what Zhu Zaigui liked.

Therefore, when Li Chunfang was on Zhu Zaigui's side, he rarely wrote such brilliant and flattering articles.

Zhu Zaigui flipped through the letters one by one, waiting for Zhang Yongming's reply boredly.

Suddenly, after Zhu Zaigui had read through countless memorials, Zhang Yongming finally hurried over.

Zhang Yongming walked quickly towards the Wenhua Hall, holding in his hand the sealed congratulatory letter prepared by Li Ran.

"Here comes the congratulatory message, here comes the congratulatory message!"

Zhang Yongming shouted excitedly.

After hearing Zhang Yongming's voice, Zhu Zaigui suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.

It seemed that in the TV series "The Ming Dynasty 1566" that he had watched, Zhao Zhenji shouted like this when he sent the last congratulatory message to Emperor Jiajing.

Although the congratulatory message was not sent directly to Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Zaigui had a strange feeling and felt that there must be something wrong with this congratulatory message.

When Hai Rui and others heard the congratulatory message, they couldn't help but look up.

They had been staying in Wenhua Hall for almost a whole day just for these congratulatory messages.

Now I finally see the light of "getting off work".

Hai Rui and others couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Meng Chong also immediately went over to greet him, quickly took the sealed congratulatory letter from Zhang Yongming, and then happily handed it to Zhu Zaigui.

"Congratulations, Your Majesty. Congratulations, Your Majesty. The congratulatory letters to His Majesty have finally been collected."

Zhu Zaigui reached out to take the congratulatory letter handed over by Meng Chong, and glanced at the seal wrapped around the letter.

Zhu Zaigui felt a mysterious feeling in his heart, as if he could see through the sealed door and see what was inside.

It seems that the content here is the "Memorial on Public Security" written by Shanghai Rui in history.

So at this time, Zhu Zaigui took a special look at Hai Rui.

Hai Rui looked at Zhu Zaigui in confusion. He didn't know why Zhu Zaigui looked at him at this time.

Zhu Zaigui slowly tore open the seal on the congratulatory letter. He looked at the cover of the letter that was revealed inside - This is a respectful report from Li Ran, the Censor of Henan Province of the Censorate!
When Zhu Zaigui saw these words, a faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

These words were written in a truly vigorous and powerful style, completely different from the previous festive-looking handwritings.

Zhu Zaigui sneered in his heart and slowly opened the memorial.

"I have heard a sage say: 'In times of peace, be prepared for danger. If you are prepared, you will be safe.' Your Majesty is now moving to the Wanshou Palace. Although it is a grand event, I think that at this time, you should also think about the national economy and people's livelihood."

"Your Majesty has Prince Yu promote commerce and undermine the people's foundation, and has used the Shunyi Industrial Park as the source of evil to compete for the people's interests. Then he promoted the Beijing Special District and undermined the ancestral official system. Later, he promoted hardened roads to gain small profits and hinder people's livelihood. Now he is building large ships and developing military preparations, which shows signs of militarism."

"So I risk my life to speak out and ask Your Majesty to come back and look at the ministers, to restore order and correct Prince Yu's mistakes."

Zhu Zaigui burst into laughter after reading it.

I thought this congratulatory message was directed to Emperor Jiajing, but I didn't expect it was directed to me.

It seems that what I have done over the years has indeed affected the interests of many people.

Otherwise, why would this happen at this critical moment?
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