Prince Chongzhen

Chapter 269 Forget it, it's only a matter of time

After repelling the Tartars and taking control of the southern provinces, Zhu Cilang's position had actually become stable.

To put it bluntly, now almost all the troops that the Ming Dynasty can mobilize to fight tough battles are under his control, and the civil service group and local forces have chosen to lie dormant temporarily under the war and suppression.

Looking south of the Yangtze River, it is almost impossible to find any force that can openly compete with him.

If he continues to follow the procedures and cooperates properly with all parties, it is not impossible to expect the capital to return to Beijing in another three to five years.

By then, Zhu Cilang would surely be able to gain a historical status comparable to that of a founding monarch for his contribution to rebuilding the Ming Dynasty. It could even be said that because he gained this achievement from foreign enemies, his status would be slightly higher than that of Guangwu.

But he also knew that this was just a cover-up, and the internal conflicts were only slightly alleviated due to the massive loss of population.

If it is not possible to carry out drastic reforms to the old pattern of interest distribution, then given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, it can only live in a corner and will be absolutely unable to participate in the competition for the world.

If the situation continues to develop in this way, the Ming Dynasty will probably end up being the same as the Ottoman Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire. The participation of this behemoth Ming Dynasty may even lead to signs of integration in the West, which has always been like scattered sand, making future generations face a situation that is several times more difficult.

This was not Zhu Cilang's imagination. After being scattered for hundreds of years, Europe did show a trend of active integration when it encountered powerful foreign forces twice.

However, the first time, there was no wise leader and the opportunity was missed in vain. The second time, as the whole world was divided and disintegrated, they took two steps forward and three steps back.

If Zhu Cilang led the huge but weak Ming Dynasty to participate in the fight for the world at this time, who knows whether Europe would embark on the road of unification under external pressure?

Therefore, if Zhu Cilang really wants the Ming Dynasty to extend its reach overseas, then he cannot be content with the status quo. Sorting out various internal relationships and re-stimulating the vitality of the Ming Dynasty are things that must be done in advance.

But it is easier said than done.

Even though the generals and civil officials will think for a long time because of Zhu Cilang's words, and his orders will be generally executed, if he dares to touch the interests of a certain group, then the ministers who are still humble and obedient now will show their sharp claws, and it is even possible that the entire government or province will surrender again.

At this point, some people may wonder why we don’t wait until we have eliminated external enemies before dealing with internal problems.

But there is a very important problem here.

That is, when Jiangbei is restored, Zhu Cilang's strength will certainly be greatly enhanced, but the power of the vested interest groups will also expand rapidly.

If he wants to adjust the interest structure under such circumstances, the resistance he will face will definitely be far greater than it is now.

From this we can draw a ridiculous conclusion: with the recovery of the Ming Dynasty, the time left for Zhu Cilang did not increase, but decreased.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty is still in the process of recovery. Whether it is civil officials, gentry, or military generals and nobles, they are all licking their wounds left by the war.

As long as Zhu Cilang acts covertly enough and does not use radical means to arouse the vigilance of all parties, then by the time the vested interest groups come to their senses, the power he controls may be able to withstand the frenzied counterattack.

He did a good job on this point.

Up to now, all parties have been able to find reasonable explanations for Zhu Cilang's various actions. Even though he has a strong control over the central government of the imperial court, and even though the knife he has stabbed into the local forces is still getting deeper and deeper, but except for a few individuals, everyone believes that Zhu Cilang is an emperor who acts according to the ancestral system.

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All this is based on a premise: he cannot lose his life for no apparent reason.

After all, no matter how hot the water is, the frog will eventually realize something is wrong when the temperature reaches a certain critical point. Before that, Zhu Cilang's first priority is to manage the people around him as hard as possible.

Therefore, when Xu Yinjue tactfully expressed his unwillingness to let his daughter enter the palace, he immediately thought of a possibility and then made a similar test to the three elders.

However, he still failed to find anything unusual during the test, and did not obtain any relevant information from Wang Fuping.

In this way, he could only ask Wang Fuping to pay attention to relevant information while passively strengthening his vigilance.

Although he did not make any obvious moves, Wang Fuping, who knew Zhu Cilang's style of doing things well, realized from this reaction that His Majesty was already in a very alert state.

He did not disagree with this. Although due to his limited vision, Wang Fuping did not quite understand the relationship between His Majesty's reaction today and the strict investigation of the civil servants that Duke Wei had contacted, he still returned to his own yamen as quickly as possible after leaving the palace.

To be honest, Wang Fuping's job is not easy.

On the surface, there are Jinyiwei in Beijing and Jinyiwei in Nanjing. It seems that as long as he can get in touch with the Jinyiwei scattered everywhere, this yamen that once made people tremble in fear will be able to regain its former glory.

However, since Chongzhen appointed Luo Yangxing as the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, this government office that served as the emperor's eyes and ears gradually lost its function. Except for a brief display of its fangs when Luo Yangxing overthrew his enemy Zhou Yanru, it basically became a ceremonial guard or something like that at other times.

If it were just that, it would be fine. Wang Fuping, who had worked in the yamen for so many years, naturally expected this.

But what is even more terrible is that after so many years of neglect, the secret agents sent out in the early years have either grown old or died. If there were not some clues of secret agents left in the Jinyiwei Yamen in Nanjing, Wang Fuping would probably have to rebuild the intelligence network.

"The commander is back."

As soon as Wang Fuping entered the Jinyiwei Yamen, several people dressed as captains surrounded him. Faced with such treatment, he did not show much emotion. He just pointed to the inner court and walked in with a frown.

He was quite familiar with the Jinyiwei Yamen. After all, the Ministry of War was only separated from here by the Five Military Governors' Office, and he would occasionally have dealings with it on official business.

So when Zhu Cilang assigned him to be in charge of all intelligence matters, Wang Fuping's first reaction was to contact the Zhifang Division of the Ministry of War, and his second reaction was to come to the Jinyiwei, a cold office, for help.

The final result was quite good. In the case of Liang Yungou, Wang Fuping figured out the ins and outs of the matter through these channels and his connections in the government office, and used this as a handle to help Zhu Cilang get rid of this stumbling block; while in Hangzhou he contacted the secret agents he had deployed in the early years, which allowed Zhu Cilang to send Fang Guoan to the position where he should be at the right time.

This time it was time for him to take action, but
"Please submit the news of the past few days."

Several thousand households followed Wang Fuping into the courtyard and returned to their respective signing rooms because of this sentence. About three or two incense sticks later, they each returned here with the manuscript.

According to the rules in the north, the real power of the Jinyiwei was exercised by the Zhenfusi, and the other thousand households were mostly doing the job of beating court sticks and raising flags. But the situation in the south was completely different from that in the north.

The Zhenfusi in Beijing was divided into the North and South. One of them managed the personnel files of the Jinyiwei soldiers and military craftsmen, and the other was responsible for punishments and imperial prisons. They were truly powerful. However, the Zhenfusi in Nanjing was just a place to manage household registration files.

Although both yamen were named Zhenfusi, they were completely different institutions in terms of their powers and responsibilities.

Under such circumstances, Wang Fuping's idea of ​​copying the northern structure came to nothing. In addition, the Nanjing Jinyiwei was just a decoration. If he wanted to do his job well, he naturally had to mobilize everyone.

As a result, every thousand households held a stack of manuscripts.

After a while, Wang Fuping read the news reported by his subordinates with some fatigue. After praising them all, he only kept Ma Jinlu, the captain of the Zhenfu Division.

"Old Ma, this news is too evil. Is it made up to fool us?"

After everyone had left, Wang Fuping pulled out a sheet of paper. While he was holding the paper and asked a question with some confusion, Ma Jinlu leaned forward and cried out for injustice only after he had roughly read the contents.

"Surely, Commander, they did say these words!"

"No, what I mean is, how could it be such a coincidence? You happened to have a spy at Minister Hao's house, and that spy could hear the complaints of the two leaders when he passed by?" As he spoke, Wang Fuping couldn't help but suck his teeth. After seeing Ma Jinlu's innocent expression, he helplessly followed up with another sentence: "Tell me, if it were you, would you believe it?"

"I'm not satisfied with what you said. At first, I thought that the people below wanted to exchange false information for money, but we have investigated and asked, and they insisted that everything was true. There is nothing we can do about it. We can't just suppress it and not report it."

After hearing these words, Wang Fuping looked helpless. He then said a few words to comfort Ma Jinlu before letting him leave first.

With Ma Jinlu's departure, Wang Fuping was the only one left in the room. After reading the manuscript carefully several times, he had no choice but to put it back on the table.

The information was not complicated. Ma Jinlu developed a spy in the residence of Hao Jinghua, the Minister of Rites. This spy happened to hear two officials from the Ministry of Rites complaining about Empress Dowager Zou's failure to select concubines according to ancestral rules at a gathering of officials.

If it were any other time, such complaints would also be reported to Wang Fuping, but he would usually just order people to put them back and keep them as backup.

Therefore, he began to suspect that the people below had seen this and fabricated such useless information in order to exchange it for some money from the higher-ups.

This is the difficulty for amateur players.

Most people think that the difficulty of intelligence work lies in obtaining intelligence, but in actual operations, the most important thing is to screen the intelligence.

But Wang Fuping was a latecomer, and his subordinates were marginal figures in the Jinyiwei system. Even if he had the intelligence in his hands, the task of identifying it was enough to consume a lot of his energy.

Should I report this to His Majesty?

Looking at the stack of manuscripts on the table, Wang Fuping couldn't help but hesitate.

He had just been released from prison, so naturally he understood the dangers of the court much better than people of the same level in the yamen.

Wang Fuping knew very well that although he was not well-known now, as time went by and His Majesty's power grew, one day his name would have great deterrent power in the Ming Dynasty.

But he also knew that this position was like a furnace. If he was careless or acted wrongly, it would not take long for him, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, to end up like his predecessors with his family destroyed and his life ruined.

Under such circumstances, he was worried that suppressing this information would cause His Majesty to make an error in judgment, and he was also afraid that if he rashly reported this news that was difficult to verify, he would be charged with frame-up.

Fortunately, Wang Fuping's mind was still clear in the end, and he made the right choice after some hesitation.

"Go and call Lao Ma."

After shouting to the outside of the house, Wang Fuping waited quietly. This time he did not look through the manuscripts again, nor did he frown as before. When Ma Jinlu returned again, he gave him careful arrangements before leaving the Jinyiwei Yamen and going straight to the palace.

He had figured it out clearly. To put it bluntly, the reason he could sit in the position of the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard was that he had gained the trust of His Majesty.

Therefore, when you encounter such a situation that makes you unable to advance or retreat, don't expect to solve it with your own ability. Just report it and let His Majesty handle it.

About three or two cups of tea later, Wang Fuping appeared at the gate of the Qianqing Palace again. When he heard the sound coming from inside, he entered the palace.

"Your Majesty, I have just summoned all the thousand households to question them again."

Now that he had a direction in mind, his thoughts naturally became clear. After he briefly reported the relevant situation, he continued, "I have ordered people to investigate, but I don't know whether I should also keep an eye on the two people in charge before the results are out, so I came to ask your majesty for instructions."

After saying this, Wang Fuping looked up at Zhu Cilang, but to his surprise, the emperor, who had always been confident, actually showed a dilemma like he had before.

Zhu Cilang's dilemma was whether he should continue to keep an eye on the two people in charge, but as for the deeper reason, he was a little hesitant about whether he should expose Wang Fuping's clue too early.

Of course, the fact that he used Wang Fuping to take charge of the Jinyiwei could not be concealed from those who were interested. Even though he deliberately kept it in the dark from the beginning, it was inevitable that a lot of clues would be left out after a few months.

But at this stage, the Jinyiwei has not really shown their fangs during the Jingwu Dynasty. Whether they really don't know or they pretend not to know, at least no court officials have noticed them on the surface.

If he had thought of it earlier, the Jinyiwei would naturally stay hidden for one more day.
"Keep an eye on them, but be careful not to alert the enemy."

This part about conspiracy caused a strong reaction from some book friends. I need to say this. In fact, conspiracy is not that complicated. When you offend enough people, a little here and a little there, as long as someone starts it, a group of people will spontaneously carry it out. Take Tumu Fort as an example. You can understand that Chengbaozong found that someone was reselling arms outside the pass, and then sent people to check the accounts, but the person who checked the accounts died inexplicably. Then he led 7 troops and a large number of auxiliary soldiers to deter. Later, a large number of people including border army generals, court ministers, etc. tacitly pitted him without prior communication. There is a historical document here for reference.

Nie Zhong, a flag officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, recorded: When they were setting up camp, suddenly there were men and horses in bright helmets and armor coming to meet them on the south slope. They were suspected to be warriors, but the scout horses were not equipped, so the army was defeated and captured.

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(End of this chapter)