Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 184 Confident Hu Weiyong
The next morning, the golden sun slowly rose from the other side of the mountain in the early morning light.

The capital city began to fall into another busy day. No matter whether it was civil and military officials or ordinary people, everyone set out for their destination.

Today's morning court in the capital was different from previous ones. Hu Weiyong, who had already received the news, was ready and stood in front of a mirror looking at his clothes.

This mirror has a great origin.

In the past, mirrors were made of copper that was polished with water. Once it was polished smooth and could reflect a person's shadow, the copper mirror was completed.

Although bronze mirrors can reflect human figures, the colors are not very good. The color of copper itself makes the image not very clear.

The mirror Hu Weiyong was using at this moment was exactly the same mirror as the one used in modern society.

People can see clear colors reflected from it.

"Well, this little bastard Yang Chen really has some skills. He can actually make such a magical thing."

Ever since Yang Chen met Hu Weiyong, Yang Chen began to disappear in front of him.

For Hu Weiyong, this meant that the other party was avoiding him.

The mirror in front of you is one of the products produced from the experimental base where Yang Chen is located.

So far, it has very extensive sales channels throughout the Ming Dynasty, and many people choose to spend a high price in order to get a mirror.

The price of the mirror in front of Hu Weiyong alone was as high as one thousand taels of silver.

The bigger the mirror, the higher the selling price. And officials in the capital and other places have spare money to sell them.

Ordinary people can only buy a palm-sized mirror to see the colors that originally belong to them.

After leaving his own mansion, Hu Weiyong headed for the imperial city. On the way, he saw many colleagues. They might be sitting in sedan chairs, some were walking, and there were also many people riding horses.

Without exception, they were all summoned by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Many people were surprised to see Hu Weiyong still appear in the capital.

You know, Hu Weiyong has disappeared from their sight for a long time.

In the eyes of most people, Hu Weiyong was just a pawn abandoned by the emperor, but now he can reappear with a very confident look, which makes them feel scared.

Because during the time when Hu Weiyong was under house arrest, many people took advantage of his misfortune and did all kinds of things to him. The most common thing they did was to treat him as a joke and brag about him during dinner time.

Considering Hu Weiyong's ability as prime minister, it would not be difficult for him to find out who was behind the scenes plotting against him while he was under house arrest.

Now this group of people are worried that this investigation will happen to him, and then it will be difficult to resolve the situation.

When the ministers arrived at the gate of the capital, they once again checked each other's appearance to prevent any dirt from appearing on their bodies. After they entered, there would be special people to check them.

According to Zhu Yuanzhang, attending court was a very serious matter and could not be ignored.

Ministers' daily clothes come in many varieties.

There are different standards for sacrificial robes, court robes, official robes, office robes, casual robes, etc. for each occasion.

Today they are wearing court robes.

At the side, Teng Yi asked his servants to tidy up his crimson court robes of a first-rank official.

Although he was attending court, he felt very unhappy.

The reason was because of the task Zhu Yuanzhang assigned to him some time ago.

When making suggestions, it is necessary to propose that all officials use money to purchase daimyo government bonds to support the expedition to Japan.

After returning from this incident, Teng Yi couldn't figure out how to start the conversation so as to minimize the cost and avoid making everyone hate him.

There was no way. Once he did this, it would be equivalent to Teng Yi betraying everyone and officially standing by Zhu Yuanzhang.

This betrayal does not refer to a betrayal of political stance, but rather describes his betrayal of his official principles.

Whenever he thought of this, Teng Yi cried silently in his heart, but he could do nothing.

He remained in this depressed mood until the Hongwu Gate opened.

Entering the gate is the imperial road in the middle. All officials need to perform complicated etiquette, during which everyone is required to talk. If caught, there will be severe punishment.

After crossing the Waiwulong Bridge and the river, they officially entered the imperial palace from the imperial city.

The crowd of people finally arrived at the center of the palace's large square.

What greeted them afterwards was the sound of the big Han general beating a cowhide drum.

When the first voice appears, all officials need to start standing in their respective positions.

When the second drum sounded, they needed to get ready and make sure again that there was nothing eye-catching about them.

When the third drum sounded, Zhu Yuanzhang appeared from one side slowly and formally sat on the dragon throne that many people dreamed of.

He calmly glanced at the team of officials, and finally his eyes fell on Hu Weiyong.

When he looked away, he glanced at Teng Yi again, hoping that he would be smarter after a while and not let him down.

After the officials in charge of relevant etiquette went through tedious formalities, Zhu Yuanzhang began to speak.

"Everyone!
After many days, I am attending the morning court again. I am sure you must be curious about why I asked you to come here today.

In fact, there are only two things. These two things were decided after a long discussion between us, the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of Personnel.

First things first!

A few days ago, some news came from the south that Japanese ronin and pirates were constantly harassing the people in coastal areas, resulting in casualties among the people of our Ming Dynasty. Let me ask, in today's Ming Dynasty, even the barbarians in the north have to be wary of them, so why should we be bullied by these short Japanese?

If the people being bullied were your relatives, would you choose to stand by and watch?

The Ming Dynasty is not just the Ming Dynasty, it is also the Ming Dynasty of the people of the world.

In addition, in the early days of the founding of the country, the Ming Dynasty sent envoys to visit Japan. As a result, the Japanese general looked down on us, detained the envoys we sent, and even killed some of the entourage.

In my opinion, this small country of Japan just wants to be rebellious against our Ming Dynasty. If we don’t teach them a lesson in the future, they will definitely want to take over the Central Plains!
We have heard that there are many good things on the Japanese islands, so we decided to send a group of both civil and military officials as representatives to Japan to ask whether Japan is willing to become a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty. If they are willing, then everything will be easy.

But if you don't want to, then the Ming navy will point its sword at Japan! To avenge the people of Ming who have suffered disasters!

Give the people justice!"

Everyone knew that Zhu Yuanzhang had asked them to come here today for some big purpose, but they didn't expect it to be such a big thing. You know, starting a war means that the Ming Dynasty is beginning to fall into conflict.

Some people originally wanted to hide in the dark and carefully make money, but now their plans were disrupted by this sudden change. The Ming Dynasty went to war, and all officials had to get busy. They were needed to deal with any problems. In this situation, no one could hide. Even if they could get away with it for a while, they would be liquidated afterwards, and the ending would be quite miserable. Similar things did happen. It was precisely because of these vivid things that many officials were very opposed to the war initiated by the Ming Dynasty.

The situation in the Ming Dynasty is stable now, which is the environment they expected for corruption.

When the time comes for war to break out, these filthy creatures will simply not be willing to accept it.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang's plan soon gained the support of most military generals.

They shouted at the top of their lungs, "Long live Zhu Yuanzhang, long live the Ming Dynasty" and similar slogans.

Many military generals began to rise with Zhu Yuanzhang during the most chaotic period, and by that time Zhu had already become a powerful figure.

There were very few opportunities for these military generals to achieve success, and when the country was founded, the Northern Yuan Dynasty chose to lie dormant, and the daimyo's military power gradually faded.

Except for a few generals who have strong ability to command troops and still have the opportunity to go to the front line to confront the enemy, the rest of the young people have no chance at all.

They also know that it is because they are too young, but how many soldiers are willing to let their military rank remain at this position forever?

A soldier who doesn't want to be a general is not a good soldier.

When they were confused, Zhu Yuanzhang gave them a chance. How could they not be excited?
It was already a good thing that he didn't stand up on the spot and say that he could go to war on behalf of the Ming Dynasty.

Faced with so many voices, Zhu Yuanzhang raised his hands and signaled everyone to be quiet.

At this moment, Zhu Yuanzhang's appeal reached its highest level.

"This time, we want Duke Cao to lead his subordinates to represent the Ming Dynasty's military commanders on a diplomatic mission to Japan. I wonder if you guys think this is meaningful?"

Since they are representatives of cultural relics, it is naturally quite appropriate to let Li Wenzhong, Duke of Cao, one of the six founding dukes, take action in terms of military force.

The ministers looked at each other, wondering whether this decision was a good one or not.

In the end, everyone thought it was a pretty good and suitable choice.

Only Li Wenzhong himself was very surprised. According to his qualifications, his status as one of the Six Dukes was reasonable.

But there are many people ranked ahead of him, why was he chosen?

More importantly, going to Japan was not to directly declare war, but in the name of a diplomatic mission.

Here, the word "envoy" has a very distinctive meaning.

In fact, there was nothing wrong with going to Japan. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang had already summoned the generals to have a superficial discussion on the matter in private. It was a foregone conclusion that the Ming Dynasty would launch a war against Japan in the future.

But now, in addition to him, we also need a civil servant.

Since it is a war, why would he have a civilian official by his side?

Li Wenzhong was puzzled and didn't understand why.

For this reason, he chose to remain silent. As someone who had followed Zhu Yuanzhang for quite some time, Li Wenzhong knew very well how smart his uncle was, and there were traces to all of his decisions.

"Your Majesty! The military commander has been decided, so who will be the civil official?"

Just as everyone was discussing heatedly, Hu Weiyong took the initiative to step forward and speak.

In an instant, everyone's eyes were on him.

Hu Weiyong can be said to have been quite unlucky in recent times.

First, he was ignored by Zhu Yuanzhang, and then he was ignored by everyone during his confinement.

Many people were surprised by his sudden appearance today, and they also wanted to see how His Majesty would treat him next.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at Hu Weiyong with his dragon eyes, smiling widely on his face, and said:
"So it's Weiyong. I'm sorry that you've suffered a lot these days, but don't worry, from today on, I'll make great use of you!
Just now we have decided that the military general will be the Duke of Cao. We originally planned to let Li Shanchang come out, after all, he is also a duke. The military general sent to Japan is a duke, and if the civil official is of too low a status, it would seem that they cannot complement each other, right?
But you know, Weiyong, that Duke Hanguo is so old that he can't walk. If we let him go out of retirement and take a ship to go on a diplomatic mission to Japan, I'm afraid he would be almost killed by the bumpy ride before we even get halfway there.

When that time comes, we will be sorry for his descendants, right?"

Having said this, Hu Weiyong suddenly reacted, cold sweat started to seep out of his back, and his body stiffened uncontrollably.

I wanted to say something, but I couldn't open my mouth.

It was not until Zhu Yuanzhang revealed the news that he was sent to Japan as a representative of civil officials.

"So, Weiyong, we want you to represent the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty to go to Japan. What do you think of this trip?"

When these words were spoken, all the officials were stunned.

"Oh my god! What does your majesty want to do? Prime Minister Hu is actually going to be sent to Japan? He is the prime minister!"

"What do you know? This shows that His Majesty thinks highly of Prime Minister Hu. Prime Minister Hu is so lucky to be able to represent the Ming Dynasty as an envoy to Japan. If this opportunity could fall upon me, I really don't know how great it would be."

"What a bullshit! I think you are all stupid! Your Majesty is officially telling Hu Weiyong that we no longer need him as prime minister in the Ming Dynasty. You will not know how Hu Weiyong offended Your Majesty and ended up in this situation."

"Nonsense! Who of you dares to say that His Majesty has abandoned Prime Minister Hu? I think His Majesty wants to give Prime Minister Hu a chance to make amends. Even if you eat shit, His Majesty will not give up Prime Minister Hu!"

Everyone expressed their own opinions. In short, in their view, Hu Weiyong was in complete trouble this time.

Especially the people in the Secretariat, they felt like the sky was falling.

After working hard for half a lifetime, I never expected that the prime minister himself would go out into the outside world.

Generally speaking, if the mission of a diplomatic mission falls on a military general, it means that the military general will attack the enemy. If it is a civil official who is on a diplomatic mission, he will go with a purpose.

Just like the envoys of the Han Dynasty, in order to give the imperial court a legitimate opportunity to attack, whenever they arrived at a place, they would start using various methods to provoke the other party.

The best thing would be to kill the other party and end up with his head and body separated.

In this way, the imperial court had a reason to send troops.

"Weiyong? Why are you silent? Don't you like our arrangement for you?"

Seeing that Hu Weiyong didn't say anything, Zhu Yuanzhang asked a question even though he knew the answer.

After regaining his composure, Hu Weiyong expressed his opinion to Zhu Yuanzhang with a smile on his face:

"Your Majesty, I am almost fifty now. If I go to Japan, I am afraid it will not be a good idea. Besides, I am still the Prime Minister of the Secretariat. Without me, I feel very painful when I think of Your Majesty handling so many government affairs alone. So."

"So you don't want to go to Japan anymore?"

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at Hu Weiyong's bent body, wanting to see if this guy dared to refuse him in front of all the ministers.

(End of this chapter)