Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 225, Great feudal ministers

At this time, all the ministers in the hall were in an uproar.

When they heard Fang Yong gave the last two spots to them, sparks flashed in everyone's eyes and they showed excited expressions.

The Grand Council is equivalent to the cabinet.

There are only eight places in the whole country. You can imagine how great the power is. To be admitted will be a great benefit for both individuals and families.

The court meeting had not yet ended, but the ministers had already begun to think about how to attack their political opponents and compete for seats.

Fang Yong looked at this scene and felt very satisfied.

He chose to throw out these last two spots, intentionally letting everyone fight over them, letting these insects fight each other, so that he could free up his hands and quickly consolidate his own strength.

The so-called Grand Council was nothing more than his one-man show. With the military power in his hands, he was not afraid even if all eight seats in the Grand Council were filled by Emperor Longqing's men.

The most important issue facing Fang Yong at the moment is not the Grand Council, but the issue of military farming in Zhili and Shandong.

He was busy with wars before, and although he conquered Shandong and Zhili, he did little to govern them. Now that spring plowing is approaching, if he does not start to implement military farming, a lot of food will be lost.

However, if one wanted to carry out military farming, it would inevitably provoke resistance from the gentry and landlords.

Although Fang Yong has the ability to suppress all the rebels, he himself will suffer great losses. There is also Xu Shaobao who is jumping across the river in Zhejiang who needs to be dealt with, so it is better to split up some of the enemies if possible.

Win over a group, defeat a group, and then defeat the group that you won over.

This is the best approach at this time.

Next, Fang Yong recommended (arranged) positions for other members of his team.

Niu Jin was appointed as the governor of the Beijing camp, Zhou Shuan as the commander of the imperial guards, Li Sheng was in charge of the imperial guards, Zhang Yuan was in charge of the Beijing-Tianjin navy, and so on.

Due to various factors, Fang Yong did not rush to include Zhili and Shandong into his fiefdom. Instead, Zhai Xun was appointed as the governor of Zhili and Ma Qing was appointed as the governor of Shandong. (Ma Qing is the real name of Ma Laohei)
After the court was dismissed, Emperor Longqing was sent back to the Yangxin Palace and placed under house arrest.

Li Ni was responsible for accompanying the child throughout the whole process, and played the role of a loyal protector of his master.

The ministers in the court were divided into several groups and dispersed.

The most important faction among them was the Confucian faction, which was a group of officials led by Meng Shen.

Then there were the clean officials, namely officials like Cheng Fan.

There are also the Guo Party and the Cui Party, which are the factions of Guo Bai and Cui Shu.

The Minister of Justice was a nobody. After the New Deal, the Ministry of Justice became the bottom department among the six ministries, and its power was squeezed to the lowest level. Therefore, the Minister of Justice gradually withdrew from the struggle for power.

On the surface, the noble families are united.

But in fact, according to the different relationships between each family, it is divided into several factions.

Originally, there were not so many factions in the Daxi Dynasty.

During the reign of Emperor Longqing, the Kong faction, the Qingliu faction, the Guo party, and the Cui party were actually all in the same boat.

The Kong faction has been working hard to manage their Shandong.

Cheng Fan ran his hometown of Shanxi. He controlled the Ministry of Personnel, was in charge of the power to promote officials, and arranged a large number of his own disciples in Shanxi.

Fortunately, all these people have been killed by Wu Sheng.

Guo Bai was originally the Minister of Personnel and Cheng Fan's right-hand man. Later, he became the Minister of War and was in charge of the Ministry of War.

Finally, Cui Shu was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue. He never forgot his original intention and engaged in corruption.

The four of them worked together as one, and also brought the Minister of Works to benefit from the cooperation. In three years, they managed to make Da Xi poorer and poorer, while they themselves became richer and richer. Only now have they been forced to separate.

Now, Kongpai and Qingliu are determined to win the remaining two places.

There are also several nobles who want to compete for the corresponding places.

Although Guo Bai and Cui Shu had already obtained the quota, they could not allow the remaining quota to be taken by their political enemies, so they had to take action in secret to stop it.

Under such circumstances, various forces were secretly working hard and showing off their abilities to compete for the last two places.

At the Jia family, Jia She came back from the court meeting with a sad look on his face.

At this court meeting, Fang Yong did not make any arrangements for the Jia family.

This made Jia She very uneasy.

Fang Yong has conquered the capital, and now he is no longer needed to help smuggle weapons and equipment.

Now that he is no longer useful, who knows if the other party will still remember him?

In the family, only Jia Lian currently has some role to play in Zezhou.

Apart from this, there is nothing good about it.

Jia She couldn't help but let his mind run wild.

Could it be that General Fang was angry because of Yingchun?

At that time, in Taihang Mountains, a large amount of black blood flowed out of an old man's mouth.

The old man looked at Wei Xing with a grim smile. "I won't say anything."

As soon as he finished speaking, he died on the spot.

Wei Xing looked at the other person with an unpleasant expression.

At this time, his soldiers came to report: "General Wei, we have tortured them. The rest of them were hired temporarily. We don't know the details of the grain team."

Wei Xing took a deep breath and looked at the rice on the grain carts with a serious expression.

Most of the rice was just average.

But there was an extra truckload of rice…bigger than the others!
Everyone knew very well what this meant...

Suddenly, there was a noise from behind.

However, it was Fang Yong's men who arrived and told Wei Xing that the capital had been breached and ordered Wei Xing to withdraw his troops.

Wei Xing then ordered the troops to withdraw.

The subordinate asked: "General, what about the rice..."

Wei Xing closed his eyes and said:
“How many people have seen that car?”

The subordinate said, "General, it's just the two of us."

Upon hearing this, Wei Xing tightened his grip on the hilt of his knife...

But when he opened his eyes and looked at the brother who had followed him since the Nanjing Uprising, he was ultimately unable to bring himself to do it and put down his knife.

"Remember, I'm the only one who saw this, you don't know anything, understand?"

The subordinate nodded solemnly.

Wei Xing sighed.

I hope it’s not the worst outcome he imagined.

There is only one truckload of rice, so I don't think it belongs to that person.

Most likely it was just some idiots who did this...

"withdraw!"

The army withdrew from Taihang Mountains.

In the capital city, the ceremony of conferring the title of king will be held soon, and the Grand Council has also begun work on the construction.

The news of Fang Yong's enthronement as king spread quickly, and if nothing unexpected happened, it would cause a stir in the world.

After the court meeting, Zhai Xun did not stop at all, but directly led his troops to take charge of the military farming work in Zhili.

The Grand Council was just a title to him.

He is responsible for much more than that.

Zhang Yuan led the navy and worked with Zhai Xun.

Zhai Xun was responsible for stabilizing the aristocratic families that were deeply rooted in Zhili and negotiating with them. Zhang Yuan took direct action against those small and medium-sized landowners and reclaimed their land under various names. Those who cooperated would be rewarded, and those who did not would also be rewarded. The rewards varied according to the population size.

Fang Yong still lives in the Qianqing Palace.

As for the military farming issue, people were killed in large numbers in the outside world, and memorials were sent to the palace like snowflakes every day.

Fang Yong didn't even look at it, but just handed it to Guo Bai and Cui Shu to deal with.

What is the purpose of letting these two people enter the Military Affairs Council?

Isn't it just to bear the bad reputation for Fang Yong?
Guo Bai and Cui Shu dealt with these memorials with bitter faces.

Can they mess with the Huaiyin Army?

Not to be messed with.

Anyone with a normal brain could tell that Zhai Xun and Zhang Yuan were acting exactly as Fang Yong wanted.

So what should they do?

What else can be done.

Those who write letters to "state their grievances" can only suffer!
At the same time, Fang Yong sent people back to Huaizhou to pick up Daiyu, Baochai and others to attend his coronation ceremony and the ceremony of taking a concubine!

Originally, I wanted to wait another two years before making Daiyu the queen.

But now that he has the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, he can...

Of course, the old man took it back too.

After all, he is my father.

(End of this chapter)