Without money, what is the point of being a traitor?

Chapter 293 Pei Yuan's Renshen Strategy

Seeing Pei Yuan's bright and cheerful smile, Zhang Lian could no longer hold back and urged a maid, "Go to the backyard and take a look. Why haven't you sent the guests away yet?"

Pei Yuan didn't say anything either, just drank his tea with a smile on his face.

As long as Zhang Lian is unhappy, he will be in a state of full happiness.

Mood is something very subjective.

After a while, the servant came to report that the guests had got into the car and were ready to leave.

Jiao Yan'er and her companions were female guests and were entertained by Zhang Lian's wife and daughter.

By coming over to say this now, the servants also understood Zhang Lian's intention to drive away the guests.

Thinking that the guy in front of him was Song Chunniang's father-in-law, and just now, Song Chunniang took advantage of Jiao Yaner's identity as an official's wife to sneak in to see the girl openly, Pei Yuan couldn't help but smile secretly.

He was also afraid that this guy would get upset and really go and impeach him tomorrow.

Ever since Ma Shun, the commander of the Imperial Guard, was beaten to death in the imperial court, and the civil servants who beat him were not held accountable, the Imperial Guard has been completely demystified in the eyes of all the civil and military officials in the court.

In the eyes of those civil officials, a mere captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard dared to harass the Censor and was simply courting death.

I am afraid that the memorial will be handled by the cabinet ministers before it reaches the emperor.

Pei Yuan didn't offend Zhang Lian too much. After he was done, he put on his armor first. "Don't think too much, Censor Zhang. I have been away on business for a year and just returned to the capital today. Although I have heard about the affairs of the court, it has nothing to do with me."

"As for my concubine, she is of noble birth, so it's not surprising that she knows your daughter. As for the details, you can ask her yourself."

Pei Yuan stood up, bowed and smiled, "Goodbye."

Zhang Lian frowned and said nothing when he heard this, but he politely stood up to see him off.

When Pei Yuan walked out of the courtyard, he saw the curtains of the carriage were lowered. Song Chunniang was sitting in the driver's seat, looking at Pei Yuan with concern.

When Pei Yuan got closer, he asked, "Are you okay?"

Pei Yuan looked at Song Chunniang's frank appearance and felt a little suspicious for a moment.

Could it be that I had misjudged her and she didn't want to take advantage of the opportunity to cause trouble?

Seeing Zhang Lian looking at Song Chunniang with some suspicion, Pei Yuan introduced her to him with a sense of evil, "This is General Song from our evil-suppressing Thousand Households Unit."

Zhang Lian was surprised when he heard this, "General Song?"

When Zhang Lian saw Song Chunniang wearing men's clothes, he felt it was inappropriate, but he just thought it was a woman doing it for convenience when going out.

I didn't expect that he was also holding a position in the Imperial Guard.

Pei Yuan explained, "Our Qianhu Office is mainly responsible for visiting the places where monks and Taoists practice. Some nunneries and Taoist female practitioners' places cannot be disturbed by men, so we have to use some female officials."

Zhang Lian seemed to understand what he said, but he got the general idea.

Upon hearing that the person on the other side was also an official appointed by the imperial court, he casually bowed.

Song Chunniang had no awareness of being a victim. Instead, she took the opportunity to say, "The young lady and Yunjun had a very good chat just now. If there is any correspondence in the future, I will bother you on your behalf."

Zhang Lian heard this but did not respond immediately.

No matter what, his daughter of the Imperial Censor cannot get too involved with a concubine of the Imperial Guard whose origins are unknown. If the news gets out, what will happen?

If this concubine is a prostitute, the consequences will be even more disastrous.

Pei Yuan, however, looked at Song Chunniang with admiration.

You are good at seizing opportunities.

As a rapist who destroyed Zhang Yunjun's reputation, you can now enter her house openly.

Thinking that if Song Chunniang had a sister to sleep with, she might not think about her sister every day, Pei Yuan also wanted to help.

He whispered to Zhang Lian, "To be honest, my concubine is the granddaughter of Jiao Fang, the former Grand Secretary of the Cabinet. I am willing to marry her because she saved my life."

Zhang Lian couldn't hide the shock on his face. "What? Jiao Fang's granddaughter? Jiao Fang, the former Prime Minister?"

Although Pei Yuan explained it clearly, Zhang Lian couldn't help but ask another question.

Pei Yuan tried to pretend that he didn't care and nodded "hmm".

Zhang Lian, as an upright official, spoke bluntly. He looked at Pei Yuan in disbelief, "How can you be worthy of Jiao Fang's granddaughter, and be her concubine?"

No matter how bad Jiao Fang's reputation is, he is still the former Prime Minister of the Cabinet!
The man standing at the top of the contempt chain for civil officials.

How could this captain of the Jinyiwei have the virtue and ability to take Jiao Fang's granddaughter as his concubine?

Pei Yuan wanted to show off in front of Zhang Lian, but he was unexpectedly met with contempt from Zhang Lian.

Pei Yuan said angrily, "I will take a concubine next month. Jiao Huangzhong might come in person by then. If you don't believe me, I will invite you to watch the ceremony."

Seeing that Pei Yuan spoke with confidence, Zhang Lian also became a little confused.

Zhang Lian had heard about Jiao Huangzhong's activities in Beijing and his attempt to regain his official position, and he was even preparing to write a letter to impeach him.

Jiao Huangzhong's logic is very simple. Both his father Jiao Fang and Jiao Huangzhong were squeezed out of the court by Liu Jin. No matter what their previous positions were, at least on the eve of Liu Jin's downfall, the father and son of the Jiao family and the traitor Liu Jin were already in hostile camps.

Now that Liu Jin has fallen, even if the Jiao father and son cannot enjoy the fruits of victory together, at least they should be able to restore their original treatment, right?

So these days, Jiao Huangzhong has been jumping up and down, trying to whiten himself and change his color.

The eunuchs headed by Zhang Yong remembered the kindness that Jiao Fang had shown them in the past, and had turned a blind eye to Jiao Huangzhong. However, many upright civil servants could no longer hold back.

With the large number of officials from Jiangxi returning home, it was only a matter of time before Jiao Huangzhong was questioned and expelled.

Then Zhang Lian's mind moved, and he immediately thought sensitively, if this was all true, then could it be that Jiao Fang's granddaughter had also encountered something embarrassing?

Zhang Lian immediately thought of his daughter.

Out of concern, I couldn't help but say, "We should get along well."

Jiao Fang's granddaughter has married successfully and is living a normal life.

Although being a concubine was not a good idea, she was able to live a complete life after all.

My daughter has already been wronged, is she going to have to sacrifice her whole life for it?

What will happen when they grow old?

Zhang Lian had thought about marrying into an ordinary family, but the hardest part of this matter was probably the hurdle in their hearts.

Now seeing that Jiao Fang's granddaughter had become someone's concubine, Zhang Lian inexplicably felt a sense of relief.

If Yunjun interacted with her more, perhaps she would be able to slowly adjust her mentality and face her future life more bravely.

Pei Yuan and Zhang Lian said goodbye again and went straight home with their personal soldiers.

On the way, Song Chunniang kept trying to take credit, "How is it? No one would have thought that the family of a captain of the Imperial Guard would hide in the house of the censor."

Pei Yuan was a little confused when he saw Song Chunniang's behavior.

After returning home, Pei Yuan helped Jiao Yan'er out of the car. Song Chunniang was tactful enough not to disturb them and went to the back yard to find her own residence.

Although Pei Yuan's house has two courtyards, it is not very large.

There are main halls in the front and back, and wing rooms on both sides, roughly arranged in a triangle.

If everything is packed up, and a little bit of space is squeezed in, it would be possible to arrange some personal guards and servants. Pei Yuan's family was penniless before, and the house behind was abandoned. He lived in the front yard, and some worthless sundries were placed in the side rooms on both sides.

Because creditors often came secretly to rummage through the house, even though no one took care of it, it was clean and tidy, with little dust.

Pei Yuan had already planned to use Zhihua Temple as his base for stationing troops and storing silver in the capital, but it was not convenient to accommodate his female relatives there, so he had to make good use of it.

Pei Yuan planned to tidy up the back yard and turn it into a backyard for his living.

There were side rooms on both sides of the back house, one for Song Chunniang who had nowhere to go, and one for a few maids.

Pei Yuan planned to use the main hall in the front yard as a place to entertain guests.

There were two side rooms, one for a few servants and the other for a few personal soldiers.

Pei Yuan had been busy all day and it was already late.

After a quick dinner, he let the Yun father and son leave with their servants, and asked his personal soldiers to find a place to rest.

After so many days of living in the open air and now having a house, naturally no one would be pretentious.

Pei Yuan's mind was a little confused and he didn't have the energy to do anything else.

He thought about everything that happened today, slowly reviewing it, reorganizing his thoughts, and planned to make a complete plan for the next seven years of Zhengde.

The first realization was that Zhu Houzhao was obviously more difficult to deal with than he thought.

It would be impossible to plot against this king who was very opinionated and aggressive without systematic and detailed planning.

The next question is how should he, a Jinyiwei who is at the bottom of the officialdom's contempt chain, gradually extend his actual power.

If he cannot find a breakthrough and enter the mysterious channel of power, no matter how much power Pei Yuan has secretly accumulated, when he wants to deal with a certain person, he may be fighting against a system.

For example, if Pei Yuan took action against Zhang Lian today, things would certainly be done easily, but the entire Kedao officialdom might have a stress reaction the next day.

Once the officials of the Ministry of Rites take action, other civil officials will see that the target is the Jinyiwei who have nothing to do with them, and they will probably rush forward as well.

When these forces gathered together, even Zhu Houzhao had to admit defeat and torture Liu Jin to death.

Therefore, Pei Yuan had to keep his mind steady, like a spider weaving a web, patiently arranging it link by link.

In addition to these, Pei Yuan also gained something.

That is when he suddenly realized the value of the Censor.

The politics of the Ming Dynasty emphasized "governing the outside with the inside and governing the big with the small." The official positions of these censors were not high, but these censors who had supervisory powers could exert great power.

According to what Zhang Lian said today, he even planned to confront Liang Chu, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet.

Zhang Lian, the Censor-in-Chief, was only of the seventh rank, but he had the opportunity to directly attack the Grand Secretary of the dynasty.

However, the seventh-rank Censor could be directly appointed from new Jinshi.

For example, Lu Wan, who was the leader of a group of people beating eunuchs at Suzhou No. 1 Middle School, was directly transferred to be an imperial censor when he passed the imperial examination and was selected as an official.

This also means that if Pei Yuan can find some imperial censors, it is entirely possible for him to quickly train a group of civil servants in the officialdom.

Moreover, there is a ready-made example by Lu Wan, and the method is not complicated.

Pei Yuan can completely reproduce a batch of "Lu Wan" in proportion on an assembly line.

That is.

First select the candidate you like.

Then let this scholar find a powerful eunuch to criticize him.

Secondly, he passed the imperial examination.

The newly appointed Minister of Personnel Yang Yiqing was informed of the matter again, and he naturally became the Censor.

perfect!

Considering the alliance between Yang Yiqing and Zhang Yong, the eunuch who was criticized cannot be Zhang Yong, so there are still six choices among the Seven Tigers.

Xiao Jing...

Pei Yuan has no intention of provoking Xiao Jing for the time being. As a living history in the inner palace, Pei Yuan is now completely unable to figure out who is behind this guy.

Pei Yuan and Xiao Yan now have leverage over each other, and their relationship is barely passable.

Xiao Yan had no idea how much of an impact his backstabbing of Pei Yuan in order to get a promotion had had on Pei Yuan.

At present, Xiao Yan is a red name in Pei Yuan's eyes, but Pei Yuan is, if not a green name in Xiao Yan's eyes, at least a yellow name.

We should concentrate on doing big things now, and there is no need to turn against the Xiao family for the time being.

Of course, there is another choice, that is Lu Ting.

Pei Yuan and Lu Ting have a better relationship, so this operation is safer. However, this behavior will have a great impact on Lu Ting's prestige and easily hurt the relationship between the two.

Moreover, Lu Ting will soon return to the court with a great victory. If we criticize him at this time, I am afraid that no civil or military official in the court will support us.

Pei Yuan silently went through the names of the remaining six tigers.

Or should we just work harder according to Qiu Ju's Huang Yao?

In any case, Qiu Ju was going to be pushed out by Zhang Zhong.

Pei Yuan put the matter aside for the moment and continued thinking.

Now, time has come to the point where Pei Yuan has no patience to wait for the next imperial examination. The best way is to lobby the emperor to hold a special examination this year.

This matter...can be done by Lu Ting.

Nearly three hundred Jinshi candidates can be selected in one special examination.

Theoretically speaking, all these Jinshi candidates should appreciate Lu Ting's favor.

Moreover, if any of these 300 Jinshi scholars achieve great success, future generations will inevitably mention Lu Ting's achievement in pacifying the Bazhou Army whenever they mention this year's Renshen Special Examination.

Lu Ting now has the qualifications to take the position of the Chief of Imperial Household Department, but he has no foundation in the outer court. As long as Pei Yuan mentions this matter to him, he will definitely be very interested.

Then, I was admitted...

Lu Ting has already agreed to let Ouyang Bi Jinneng. If the scale of the favor is expanded, it may affect the interests of many parties, and Lu Ting may not dare to get involved.

It seems I have to figure out a way to deal with this matter myself.

The next step was to get the Minister of Personnel, Yang Yiqing, to interfere in the selection of Jinshi officials.

There were certain accidental factors when Wang Shu asked Lu Wan to be the censor. However, if Pei Yuan wanted to achieve his goal, he needed to make the promotion of the entire plan inevitable.

For example, on the eve of official selection, a large number of censors were dismissed, or there were difficult major cases in the local area, and a large number of personnel needed to be drawn from the court.

Pei Yuan thought silently and gave his own judgment. He thought he could give it a try...

Pei Yuan sorted out all the links and finally roughly decided on the future development strategy.

Next, it’s time to deal with the most difficult thing.

Pei Yuan looked at the roof with confusion in his eyes. Where should he find a group of obedient and well-behaved candidates?
(End of this chapter)