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

Chapter 576 A series of operations
Zhu Houzhao had no time to leave the palace, so he could only let Liu Jin act as a messenger.

Chen Ce was still studying the flintlock rifle, drawing the details of each component in detail. He only stopped his work after Liu Jin arrived.

"Mr. Chen, Zhang Cai's memorial has been sent to the cabinet."

Liu Jin habitually called Chen Ce "Master Chen" and never changed the name.

Chen Ce hummed, took Zhang Cai's memorial, glanced at it, thought for a moment, and said, "The civil officials will definitely fight back. No matter what reasons they give, we don't need to worry about it for now. Let the crown prince transfer Zhang Cai to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and promote him two levels."

"Have you found any evidence against March's officials?"

Liu Jin said: "The Jinyiwei and the Neichang are secretly investigating, but they haven't found any evidence yet."

"Ah."

"Once we find the evidence, we'll hand it over to the Ministry of Justice and have them arrest the perpetrators as soon as possible."

If nothing unexpected happens, once Zhang Cai is promoted, more people will definitely join the team supporting Zhu Houzhao. It will not work to rely on Zhu Houzhao's power alone to deal with the civil servants, nor will it work to use the power of eunuchs to deal with the civil servants. The only option is to cause internal division among the civil servants.

Use civil servants to deal with civil servants, because this group has never been a monolithic entity!
After Liu Jin returned to the palace, he informed Zhu Houzhao of Chen Ce's arrangement. Zhu Houzhao asked the Ministry of Personnel to submit the procedure to the cabinet. After approval, Zhang Cai was promoted to the position of Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate.

The Minister of Personnel Ni Yue did not want to get involved in this dispute. If he listened to Zhu Houzhao, he would undoubtedly stand on the opposite side of most civil servants, and these civil servants would criticize him.

However, if he did not submit the procedures to the cabinet, Zhu Houzhao would definitely be dissatisfied with him as the Minister of Personnel, so Ni Yue had no choice but to ask for sick leave.

This made Zhu Houzhao very angry, but this time, before Chen Ce could take action, Emperor Hongzhi immediately sent Huai En to find Zhu Houzhao and told him to order Ni Yue to stay at home and recuperate, and let Xu Jin, the left vice minister of the Ministry of Personnel, replace Ni Yue to take charge of the Ministry of Personnel, and let Xu Jin draft a memorial to promote Zhang Cai and send it to the cabinet.

Zhu Houzhao immediately followed the instructions of Emperor Hongzhi and asked Liu Jin to convey the imperial edict to the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel.

Xu Jin immediately drafted a memorial and sent it to the cabinet. The cabinet voted on it and submitted it to the Imperial Household Department for approval. In this way, the imperial edict to promote Zhang Cai, the right minister of Shaanxi, could be issued openly.

Without the seal of the Ministry of Personnel, the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department, the emperor had no right to promote officials. Even if such officials were promoted by the emperor, they would not be recognized by their colleagues.

So this is why Zhu Houzhao was so angry when he heard the Minister of Personnel asked for leave on the pretext of illness!

When the news of Zhang Cai's promotion came out, Ni Yue knew that his career as Minister of Personnel was over.

Since he chose to protect himself and didn't want to offend anyone, this was bound to be his fate.

It is almost impossible to extricate yourself from this political turmoil. Either you stand on the side of imperial power or you stand on the side of the civil service group.

After Zhang Cai was promoted, Ma Qidu, the Secretary of State, immediately began to criticize the cabinet, severely accusing the cabinet of being Hong Zhong's accomplice!
The two cabinet elders are now being criticized so harshly that they will basically not leave any good impression in historical records.

The pens of these civil servants are swords on the battlefield. Pang Ji of the Song Dynasty was slandered in the novel "The Generals of the Yang Family", but Pang Ji was not a bureaucrat who did all kinds of evil. This is the pen of the civil servants!

It is almost impossible for the cabinet to extricate itself from this turmoil. They have to take sides. Fei Hong will definitely take sides with Zhu Houzhao, as he is Zhu Houzhao's teacher.

As for Xie Qian, it was fortunate that there were two people in the cabinet, so he did not need to express his opinions. In this way, he was able to preserve his reputation a little.

After Zhang Cai was promoted, many Beijing officials and local officials saw hope and joined the camp to refute Machi.

The two sides had a fierce debate on Hong Zhong's admonition to slaughter corrupt officials on the Japanese island. The writing power of these civil servants was so fierce that some even began to impeach Ma Qi and others as corrupt officials! Seeing their comrades being slaughtered, they were afraid that they would be investigated, so they were so fierce that they led so many people to impeach Hong Zhong!

These words really hurt Machi's heart. Although this was the fact, no one dared to admit it.

However, soon, the Jinyiwei found out that Ma Qi's family had annexed land in Huguang. This gave Zhang Cai evidence to impeach Ma Qi. He believed that without his tacit consent, Ma Qi's family would never dare to do anything wrong in their hometown of Huguang, and he prayed to the prince to investigate Ma Qi immediately.

So Zhu Houzhao immediately ordered the Ministry of Justice to arrest Ma Qi and bring him to justice. The result of the investigation was quick, and Zhu Houzhao exiled Ma Qi to Liaodong!

After Ma Qi was exiled, the officials who had followed Ma Qi to impeach Hong Zhong were all terrified. Soon Zhu Houzhao demoted or slaughtered these officials!

In the end, no one dared to refute Zhu Houzhao anymore.

At the grand court meeting in mid-July, Zhu Houzhao immediately announced that Hong Zhong had made great contributions on the Japanese island and promoted Hong Zhong to the position of Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate!
He was directly promoted two levels and became the second-in-command of the Censorate.

With Hong Zhong's promotion, the turmoil was completely settled, which also announced that Zhu Houzhao had crushed the civil service group with a complete victory in this turmoil!

The civil servants suffered heavy losses. Seven Jieshi Zhong were exiled, fifteen Hanlin Academy scholars were dismissed from office, three officials from the six ministries were beheaded, and one Minister of Personnel was dismissed from office.

……

Far away on the Japanese island.

When the news came, Li Zhong was shocked. Just as Hong Zhong had expected, this turmoil that had lasted for two months ended with the crown prince's complete victory!
"Congratulations, sir, on your promotion."

Li Zhong was very excited. Hong Zhong was promoted to Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate. His future would be bright!
Hong Zhong said calmly: "It's just as I expected. These people want to play tricks on Chen Ce. Although they are old, their skills are still a bit naive!"

It is obvious that this struggle between the civil service group and the imperial power was caused by Chen Ce's involvement, because any discerning person could see that these methods were not those of Emperor Hongzhi.

Emperor Hongzhi would not adopt such radical measures. The only one who could adopt such measures was Chen Ce, and this is also in line with Chen Ce's consistent style!
In fact, it was not only Hong Zhong who made such a guess. People like Ni Yue and Ma Qi were also guessing that these methods did not seem like something that Emperor Hongzhi could do.

The crown prince is still young and he cannot do all these by himself. These methods are link after link, orderly and airtight. The only one who can do these things is Chen Ce, Marquis of Tai'an, who has not appeared for a long time!
Moreover, these civil servants were well aware of the relationship between Chen Ce and the Crown Prince.

Before Machi and other civil servants' groups were defeated and exiled, they organized an assassination attempt on Chen Ce in the capital. Even if they died, they would drag Chen Ce to death with them to vent their anger!
(End of this chapter)