Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 240: The Two Generals
The two men arrived at the same time. After meeting each other, they tacitly called each other brothers, and then entered the mansion together.

When they arrived at the flower hall, they saw Wei Zhongxian sitting there waiting for them. Without saying a word, the two men hurried forward to pay their respects with great ceremony, saying, "Your son greets his adoptive father."

"Get up, get up. We are family, why do you have to be like this? Get up quickly." Wei Zhongxian raised his hand with a smile, but the two men did not stand up immediately. They still bowed respectfully and stood up after the ceremony.

Both men were not young. The younger one, who was wearing the uniform of a second-rank military officer, was Tian Ergeng, who went to Shanxi to announce the imperial edict. The older one, who was wearing the uniform of a sixth-rank civil official, was Cui Chengxiu, the new head of the Ministry of War.

Wei Zhongxian was born in the second year of Longqing, and Cui Chengxiu was born in the first year of Wanli, with only a five-year age difference between them. But Cui Chengxiu worshipped Wei Zhongxian as his adoptive father, which was quite inappropriate, but it was the fact.

Speaking of this matter, we have to mention last year, which was the first year of the Tianqi reign. At that time, Wei Zhongxian had just been appointed to the Imperial Household Department by the Tianqi Emperor. He defeated Wang An, kicked out Wei Chao's opponent, and thus took control of the Imperial Household Department.

Wei Zhongxian's rise to power was orchestrated by Emperor Tianqi, and Wei Zhongxian was very clear about the intention, which was to make Wei Zhongxian a knife and a loyal dog in the hands of Emperor Tianqi, so as to help Emperor Tianqi reorganize the inner court and contain the Donglin Party in the outer court.

Wei Zhongxian took action soon after he came to power and began his series of operations. Everything went smoothly in the inner court. Thanks to the support of Emperor Tianqi and Wei Zhongxian's methods, all those who disagreed with him in the inner court were driven away one by one, thus successfully gaining control of the Silijian.

But it was not so easy in the outer court. The Donglin Party was too powerful. The court was basically controlled by the Donglin Party. Not only that, there were also local forces. How could Wei Zhongxian, a eunuch, fight against the Donglin Party? At the beginning, Wei Zhongxian was ambitious to fight against the Donglin Party, but after two rounds, he was defeated. Not only did he not gain any advantage, but he also suffered a great loss.

Wei Zhongxian immediately sensed something was wrong. Knowing that he was no match for the Donglin Party, he immediately changed his strategy, began to bide his time and accumulate strength, and at the same time took the initiative to ease relations with the Donglin Party.

At this time, Cui Chengxiu found Wei Zhongxian.

Speaking of Cui Chengxiu, he was originally a messenger in the Ministry of Rites. This position was not high, only the seventh rank. He was mainly responsible for conveying the emperor's orders. To put it bluntly, he was similar to an office worker in later generations. At best, he was a secretary and errand runner in the secretariat.

After working in the Xingren Division for several years, Cui Chengxiu finally found an opportunity to be demoted from the Xingren Division to the position of Yushi in the first year of the Tianqi reign. Although the two officials were both of the seventh rank, the power of the Yushi was far greater than that of the Xingren Division, and the Yushi also had the authority to inspect the local areas on behalf of the emperor, which was far beyond the reach of a mere Xingren.

After becoming the censor, Cui Chengxiu's first job was to inspect Huai and Yang, which was a lucrative job. After receiving the order, Cui Chengxiu went to inspect Huai and Yang with great enthusiasm. After arriving at the place, he did a lot of work, but he didn't expect that it was these things he did that offended his immediate superior, the current Chief Censor Gao Panlong.

Cui Chengxiu had just returned to Beijing when the Chief Censor Gao Panlong reported that Cui Chengxiu had accepted bribes while inspecting local areas. Because of this report, the court decided to suspend Cui Chengxiu from his post and await further action.

When the news came, Cui Chengxiu was completely dumbfounded. He never thought that he would suffer such serious consequences after being an imperial censor for only a few months. Once the official order of dismissal came down, his life would be over.

Cui Chengxiu was already quite old. Born in the first year of the Wanli reign, he was already nearly 50 years old. He had worked hard for half his life to get to his current position. Once he lost his official position, all his efforts would be wasted. Moreover, Cui Chengxiu did not admit his crime at all. Gao Panlong's report of his corruption and bribery was simply a revenge for personal gain.

He was a seventh-rank imperial censor inspecting the local areas. What kind of corruption and bribery could he have done? First, he was not a high-ranking official in the court, and second, he did not have a deep background. He inspected the local areas just to do his official business. How could he have done corruption and bribery?

Of course, it was normal for the imperial censor to eat and drink in the local area and accept some gifts from local officials. Officials are also human beings. As long as they are human, they cannot avoid socializing and interacting with each other. Moreover, the income of officials in the Ming Dynasty was very low, and they relied on extra income to subsidize their expenses. The gifts and gifts that Cui Chengxiu received were tacitly accepted by the officialdom. Everyone did the same. He did not accept more, let alone actively asking for them. Everything was within the rules.

Such a situation was actually reported as corruption and bribery? Is there still law and justice? Cui Chengxiu knew very well that the reason why Gao Panlong targeted him so much and used his high position as the Chief Censor to deal with him, a seventh-rank censor, was not because he had received some benefits from the local government, but because Gao Panlong was retaliating against him.

During the inspection tour, Cui Chengxiu went to Huai and Yang, which are located in Nanzhili. In order to achieve results, Cui Chengxiu found some irregularities in the local area and dealt with them severely with the power in his hands. He didn't expect that he wanted to make some achievements, but he got into trouble. Because the person he dealt with was involved with Gao Panlong, who was originally from Nanzhili, he only thought about doing things when dealing with him, but didn't think about carefully investigating the other party's background, thus offending Gao Panlong.

After receiving a letter from the local authorities, Gao Panlong learned that his disciples were punished by Cui Chengxiu and one of them was even dismissed from his official position. He became furious and held a grudge against Cui Chengxiu.

It was for this reason that when Cui Chengxiu returned to Beijing after his inspection tour, Gao Panlong took the evidence collected from the local area to report Cui Chengxiu for corruption and bribery. This report led to serious consequences. Even though Cui Chengxiu claimed that the gifts he received were just normal interactions and he never had the intention of soliciting bribes, the court did not care about Cui Chengxiu's self-defense. In addition, Gao Panlong was one of the core figures of the Donglin Party and held a high position of power. Wouldn't it be easy to deal with him, a mere censor?
For a time, Cui Chengxiu was desperate. Seeing that the court's formal order to dismiss him was about to come down, he had nowhere to turn to, so he gritted his teeth and thought of Eunuch Wei Zhongxian, who was a popular figure in front of Emperor Tianqi.

In order to save himself, Cui Chengxiu went to Wei Zhongxian's house. After seeing Wei Zhongxian, he kowtowed and cried without saying a word. He told Wei Zhongxian everything about his situation and begged him to help him. In order to achieve his goal, Cui Chengxiu even lost his dignity and actually begged Wei Zhongxian, who was five years older than him, to be his godfather.

At that time, Wei Zhongxian was thinking about how to deal with the Donglin Party. Cui Chengxiu's initiative to come to Wei Zhongxian gave him the possibility of winning over court officials to strengthen himself. Cui Chengxiu was very humble and explained the whole story clearly. Seeing Cui Chengxiu, a genuine Jinshi civil official, kneeling in front of him and calling him "adoptive father" with a humble look, Wei Zhongxian, who was born as a gangster, felt quite satisfied and comfortable all over.

After thinking about it, Wei Zhongxian decided to accept Cui Chengxiu. After all, Cui Chengxiu was the first civil servant to surrender to him, which was of great significance to Wei Zhongxian. After agreeing to Cui Chengxiu, Wei Zhongxian began to act. He found Emperor Tianqi and reported the matter privately. After learning about it, Emperor Tianqi knew that Wei Zhongxian had selfish motives for protecting Cui Chengxiu, but he did not agree with Wei Zhongxian's suggestion.

Emperor Tianqi knew very well that his purpose in using Wei Zhongxian was to make him fight against the Donglin Party. No matter what Wei Zhongxian wanted to do, as long as this purpose did not go against his wishes, it would be no big deal to protect a small censor.

Especially since Cui Chengxiu's incident was related to Gao Panlong, who was a backbone of the Donglin Party. Why not use this incident to help Wei Zhongxian and cause some trouble to the Donglin Party at the same time?
In this way, under the operation of Wei Zhongxian and the intervention of Emperor Tianqi, Cui Chengxiu was not dismissed from his post, and the matter was easily passed. Not long after that, Wei Zhongxian helped Cui Chengxiu to be promoted from the seventh-rank censor to the position of director of the Ministry of War. Although the rank of director of the Ministry of War is not high, it is much higher than that of the censor, and this position is very important, and the power in his hands is not small.

As for Tian Ergeng, he had been thinking about joining Wei Zhongxian for a long time. But he was different from Cui Chengxiu. He did not take the initiative to find Wei Zhongxian, but got in touch with Wei Liangqing.

Tian Ergeng's official position was not low. His ancestors had served in the Five Military Commandery. When he met Wei Liangqing, his official position was Assistant Commander of the Commandery, which was a second-rank military officer position.

But although his official position was high, it was not a real position. It looked valuable but had no real power. Moreover, after the Battle of Tumu, the Five Military Commandery existed in name only. Except for the Beijing Camp, which was commanded by nobles in name only, the actual military power had long been in the hands of the Ministry of War.

If Tian Ergeng wanted to make a name for himself, he had to find a strong backer, and the only person favored by the emperor at the moment was Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch. For this reason, Tian Ergeng began his operation, and after deliberately getting to know Wei Liangqing, he got in touch with Wei Zhongxian.

At first, Tian Ergeng only intended to become Wei Zhongxian's disciple and use Wei Zhongxian's power to help him find a good job, among which the commander of the Jinyiwei was his goal. Because he knew very well that the current commander was not the emperor's man at all, and the reason why he had not changed him for the time being was for stability considerations. If he continued like this, it would not be long before the position of the commander would be vacant, and he would have the best chance to sit in this position.

But not long after he got in touch with the person, Cui Chengxiu suddenly showed up and went one step further to directly worship Wei Zhongxian as his adoptive father.

When he heard the news, Tian Ergeng suddenly woke up. He found that he had not done enough and was not as smart as Cui Chengxiu, nor as bold as Cui Chengxiu.

Since he had surrendered, he had to surrender thoroughly. Cui Chengxiu was so old that he could worship Wei Zhongxian as his adoptive father. How could he be so hypocritical when he was much younger than Cui Chengxiu? Thinking of this, Tian Ergeng could no longer sit still. He immediately ran to Wei Zhongxian and presented him with a big gift, claiming that he and Wei Liangqing had always been brothers. Since Wei Zhongxian was his elder, he, as a junior, naturally had to give him this title. If Eunuch Wei did not abandon him, Tian Ergeng was willing to worship him as his father and begged Eunuch Wei to accept him as his adopted son.

In this way, after Cui Chengxiu, Tian Ergeng also became Wei Zhongxian's godson. The two of them, one civil and one military, were extremely respectful to Wei Zhongxian on weekdays. Every time they met Wei Zhongxian, they called him "adoptive father" and stood on his left and right like two generals.

(End of this chapter)