Ming Dynasty: I risked my life to teach the prince, the emperor begged me not to die

Chapter 393 The storm is coming
Li Guang was beaten badly, but fortunately Chen Ce spared his life and allowed him to escape back to the inner palace.

Be careful next time you give money.

……

By early July, Li Guang had come to the Sijing Bureau to deliver several batches of money to Chen Ce. This time when he came to the Sijing Bureau to deliver the money, he happened to be seen by Jin Gui.

Jin Gui found ways to ask the eunuchs in the inner palace and learned that Li Guang was secretly giving money to Chen Ce. He frowned and returned to the East Palace Academy, where he found Yang Tinghe.

"Master Yang, I met Chen Ce today."

When Chen Ce was mentioned, Yang Tinghe's face turned unfriendly. He snorted and said, "Why did you mention this person to me?"

This man relies on the emperor's favor towards him and is arrogant and domineering all the time. Sooner or later, something bad will happen to him!

Now Yang Tinghe doesn't want to hear the name Chen Ce.

However, Jin Gui said, "He seems to be colluding with the eunuchs in the inner palace, and the two are doing money transactions in private."

Yang Tinghe was stunned for a moment, his expression suddenly became serious, and he asked Jin Gui seriously: "Chongsui, this is a serious matter, are you sure?"

If this is true, it would be enough to drag Chen Ce into the abyss!
It has been a serious crime for an outer court official to collude with the inner palace since the founding of the Ming Dynasty! If there is solid evidence to prove that Chen Ce colluded with the inner palace supervisor, as long as the operation is done properly, it is enough to use this evidence to kill Chen Ce!
Jin Gui said hurriedly, "It is confirmed. I have asked the eunuchs of the Inner Palace Supervisor, and the clerks of the Ministry of Finance can also testify that the eunuch who holds the seal of the Inner Palace Supervisor has gone to the Ministry of Finance to give money to Chen Ce more than once."

Yang Tinghe was silent for a moment, then said to Jin Gui: "I know about this, please don't make it public, I will investigate it."

Yang Tinghe knew that if he told Emperor Hongzhi about this matter privately, the biggest possibility was that a big matter would be reduced to a small one.

But if Chen Ce was impeached in front of all the officials for colluding with the Empress, even if Emperor Hongzhi wanted to save him, the officials would probably not allow it!
It was the beginning of July, and the court meeting on the first day of the seventh month had just passed. Yang Tinghe had no intention of taking any action. He secretly calculated that if he wanted to completely overthrow Chen Ce, he could only wait for the grand court meeting on the full moon day in the middle of this month.

During this period, Yang Tinghe could collect relevant evidence. Although he was not qualified to attend the grand court meeting, he could inform the Censorate of the matter the day before the meeting and let the Censorate impeach Chen Ce on his behalf.

……

The Yongding River Workshop manufactured warships very quickly. After using the assembly line, this batch of new warships was completed around mid-July. The Ministry of Industry immediately delivered them to the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of War ordered this batch of new warships to be sent to the southeast.

At the same time, within this half month, Chen Ce also supervised the construction of Shuntian Welfare Home. The welfare home was built on Zhengyang East Street, covering an area of ​​50 acres, and had a school, canteen, dormitories, etc.

By July 14, the construction of the welfare home was officially completed, and Chen Ce ordered Li Zhen to bring in all the twenty-odd children from the south of the city.

At the same time, the welfare home also hired more than ten workers and an old scholar to teach literacy.

Today, Madam Wu brought Xiaohua and Chen Ce to the welfare home. The children were all smiling happily. A little girl came to Xiaohua timidly and whispered, "Is he your husband?"

puff.

Chen Ce almost spit out a mouthful of tea, but Xiaohua said shamelessly: "Not yet, I can only marry Brother Chen when I grow up."

Madam Wu: “…”

A group of children came to the central hall. They knew that this welfare home was built by Chen Ce, and they knelt down and kowtowed to Chen Ce to express their gratitude.

A dozen hired workers and the old scholar learned about Chen Ce's good deeds and praised him.

Yang Yuzhen walked in from outside. This welfare home needed someone to be in charge. Wang Defa was in charge of Shuntian Newspaper Industry, and Mrs. Wu was in charge of the express delivery. Chen Ce planned to hand over the affairs of the welfare home to Yang Yuzhen.

"Godfather." Yang Yuzhen said with a smile, "You are such a kind man, but I have a question."

Chen Ce said, "Go ahead." Yang Yuzhen said, "Now that our welfare home is built, do you think there will be more poor families who don't want to raise children anymore and will send them here?"

"How many children would we have to support then? No matter how much money we have, we can't afford it."

Naturally, this money was not paid by Chen Ce. Although he could obtain financial support from Li Guang continuously, Yang Yuzhen's words awakened Chen Ce.

The Ming Dynasty was different from later generations. The idea of ​​favoring boys over girls was too serious. If some poor families did not want to raise their girls, they would abandon them or sell them at a low price sooner or later.

Chen Ce asked Yang Yuzhen in return: "What would happen if the welfare home was not built and poor families didn't want to raise children?"

Yang Yuzhen blurted out: "Either throw them away and let them beg, or sell them cheaply to others for some money."

"Most parents probably wouldn't let their children beg, so they would choose the latter option, which would allow them to earn some money and also allow their children to have food to eat in the future."

Chen Ce nodded and said, "Yes, wouldn't it be better if there was one more choice?"

amount.

Yang Yuzhen still couldn't understand Chen Ce's advanced ideas. "But if we want to keep this business going, how much money will it cost? And there will be more and more children coming to us in the future. How can we afford to support them?"

Chen Ce smiled and said, "Someone will take care of it for us."

The amount of money Li Guang embezzled was limited, and Chen Ce did not expect Li Guang to send him money continuously.

During this period, Yang Tinghe had been secretly inquiring about his relationship with Li Guang, the eunuch of the inner palace, in the Sijing Bureau. Chen Ce knew that Yang Tinghe had always been at odds with him, and he was collecting evidence. Colluding with the Empress was a good piece of evidence, and Chen Ce guessed that he would most likely use this piece of evidence to impeach himself.

Chen Ce knew all these things, but he did not stop Yang Tinghe. Instead, he asked people from the Finance Bureau to constantly leak information to Yang Tinghe, just to let Yang Tinghe see the opportunity to impeach him.

By that time, Chen Ce could take advantage of the situation to draw the court's attention to the problem of abandoned children in the Ming Dynasty, and have the court take the initiative to maintain the daily expenses of the welfare home.

On July 14, Yang Tinghe submitted a petition to the Censorate.

There will be a grand court meeting tomorrow. If the evidence of Chen Ce's collusion with the Empress is sent over today, the Censorate will be able to impeach Chen Ce in front of all the officials tomorrow. By then, even if the Emperor wants to protect Chen Ce, I'm afraid he won't be able to do so!

On July 15th, there was heavy rain and a grand court meeting.

All the officials had already lined up outside the Meridian Gate, and then entered the gate in an orderly manner and came to the Fengtian Hall for the morning court.

After the meeting of all officials was over, Shi Lin, the Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, I accuse Chen Ce, the proofreader of the Imperial Library, of colluding with the Empress and having a rebellious heart."

As soon as these words were spoken, the hall suddenly became quiet!

Colluding with the Empress Dowager and showing rebelliousness are all heart-piercing words. If the evidence is confirmed, Chen Ce will probably be doomed.

The two uncles of the Zhang family were drowsy at first, but after hearing this, they were no longer sleepy.

Qin Hong and Xu Guan frowned slightly.

Cabinet Chief Liu Jian had an amused look on his face.

A flash of displeasure flashed across Emperor Hongzhi's face, and the expressions of everyone in the court were rather subtle.

(End of this chapter)