The Ming Dynasty: Starting with the Carpenter Prince!

On the same day, the Censorate's direct office.

Yang Lian slammed the copy heavily onto the table!

"See that? 'Also covering the expenses of the Liaodong Military Governor's Office'! This time, Xiong Tingbi can't escape!"

Zuo Guangdou sat opposite him and slowly took the copy over to examine it closely.

In the past half month, Yang Lian had written three memorials to impeach the Military Commissioner's Office, all of which were suppressed by Fang Congzhe due to inaccurate figures. At this moment, Liu Yijing entered the cabinet with a single stroke, and the accounts were personally presented by the Crown Prince at the Imperial Lectures, with the Ministry of Revenue officially handling the verification.

Everything is ready; all that's left is to begin the surgery.

Zuo Guangdou did not respond.

He read the copy from beginning to end, and then from end to beginning.

"Brother Yizhi?" Yang Lian urged him, "Say something!"

Zuo Guangdou put down the copy.

"Da Hong, let me ask you a question." He looked directly at Yang Lian, "On the day of the lecture, how many numbers did Your Highness rank?"

Yang Lian was taken aback: "Puhe troop numbers, armor thickness, and the Six Paths of the Vanishing Hand. Three things."

"Three things." Zuo Guangdou nodded. "The number of soldiers in Puhe refers to the actual number but not the number, but it doesn't say it was deducted by the military governor. The thickness of the armor refers to the acceptance by the Ordnance Bureau, which is Zhou Yingqiu's signature, not Xiong Tingbi's. The 'six paths of the drifting hands' refers to the route from the capital to Liaoyang, with the Liaoyang Military Governor's Office being the last one."

His words, each one sharp and forceful, were like a heavy hammer blow.

"None of these three incidents directly point to the military governor's office."

Yang Lian was immediately stunned.

For the past two weeks, he had been single-mindedly focused on "how to use the Crown Prince's power to bring down Xiong Tingbi," without ever considering the true purpose of the Crown Prince's accounts. Now, after Zuo Guangdou's revelation, a chill ran down his spine.

"You mean...His Highness is protecting Xiong Tingbi?"

"I dare not say for sure," Zuo Guangdou shook his head, "but His Highness's 'investigation' and Grand Secretary Liu's 'investigation' are definitely not in the same direction."

Yang Lian fell into a deathly silence.

The two sat facing each other for a long time. Outside the room, the wind grew stronger.

"Then what should we do?" Yang Lian finally spoke. "We've been following Grand Secretary Liu's lead for half a month. Now, to pull back..."

"It's too late to pull it back," Zuo Guangdou sighed. "The regulations have already been signed today. Once Grand Secretary Liu strikes, His Highness will surely protect him. And if he does, he will create a rift with our Donglin faction."

Yang Lian's expression grew increasingly grim.

"Da Hong, what exactly are we Donglin members striving for, enduring hardship since the Wanli era?" Zuo Guangdou's voice was extremely low. "We're not after anyone! We're after the Qing dynasty and the reform of the bureaucracy! If Your Highness truly wants to protect Xiong Tingbi, then he's wrong, not us. But if we're wrong to treat Your Highness as an outsider, then we're truly wrong."

"You mean, you want to persuade Grand Secretary Liu to back down?"

Zuo Guangdou shook his head.

"It's no use trying to persuade him. Grand Secretary Liu has been suppressed by Fang Congzhe for three months since he entered the cabinet. He finally seized this opportunity to establish his authority, and no one can persuade him otherwise."

Yang Lian asked anxiously, "Then what should we do?"

"Watch," Zuo Guangdou slowly uttered two words, "and see how His Highness responds."

He turned his head and looked at the gloomy sky outside the window of the main room.

"Da Hong, let me give you a word of advice. Ever since His Highness left the East Palace and stopped that bowl of red pills in the Qianqing Palace, I have often felt that our Donglin faction does not understand him well enough."

"If a rift truly develops this time, the one who will clean up the mess will probably not be Grand Secretary Liu, nor Grand Secretary Fang."

"Who is that?"

Zuo Guangdou did not answer.

He picked up the now-cold teacup and took a small sip.

……

At dusk on the same day, in the rear hall of the Eastern Palace.

Zhu Youxiao sat in front of his desk for a long time.

On the left side of the desk lay a copy of the Ministry of Revenue's audit regulations, with the twelve characters "also covering the expenses of the Liaodong Military Governor's Office" heavily circled in vermilion ink.

On the right is the ruined tent of Puhe, which had intimidated the court officials on the day of the imperial lecture.

He spread out a clean sheet of white paper in the very center.

Hold the brush and dip it in ink.

The pen tip moved very slowly across the white paper, writing the first name.

Liu Yijuan.

Zhu Youxiao stared at the three words and twitched the corner of his mouth.

urgent.

This Donglin Grand Secretary is now extremely impatient. He is determined to use the thorough investigation of the military governors as a means to establish his authority and sacrifice his own reputation, using the heads of border generals to tarnish his Donglin official hat.

With a slight turn of his pen, he wrote down a second name.

Fang Congzhe.

As he wrote this, Zhu Youxiao's eyes suddenly turned cold.

stable.

The old Grand Secretary was truly as steady as Mount Tai. Without firing a single shot, he watched as the Donglin faction raised their swords, intending to use these upright officials to force me to reveal all the secrets of the Crown Prince.

One moment urgent, the next steady.

One is wielding a butcher's knife and hacking wildly, while the other is watching the show with his hands in his sleeves.

The high-ranking officials in the central government of the Ming Dynasty were truly calculating and scheming.

Zhu Youxiao then continued writing.

Father Emperor is ill and has not yet issued a decree.

Finally, the pen tip landed on the next name.

Xiong Tingbi.

These three characters were written with great force, as if penetrating the paper.

The torture instruments in the imperial prison don't recognize any merit in defending Liaodong. Can this grumpy and stubborn general really hold out?

He suddenly picked up the purple brush again and gently added three words next to Fang Congzhe's name.

Qi Shijiao.

Qi Dang's troublemaker, the vicious dog that bites people in the Sixth Department's corridor.

Zhu Youxiao's gaze narrowed slightly.

Quiet.

Qi Shijiao has been too quiet lately, and Fang Congzhe has also become quiet.

The Grand Secretary's quiet demeanor suggests deep cunning, but for the censors to also remain quiet is anything but ordinary.

As for the reason?

Without him.

Dogs that bite never bark.

The fact that these two people fell silent at the same time must mean they were secretly plotting to cast a wide net and spread the word.

He was certain that the gust of wind would reach Donglin's ear precisely. Once the wind arrived, Donglin's blade, aimed at Xiong Tingbi, would only swing even faster.

He thought he had won the game at the banquet three days ago.

Looking back now, I'm shocked to realize that it was just a prelude to a successful start.

Liu Yijing added those twelve characters extremely quickly. So quickly, before the blade had even cooled, that he plunged them viciously into the flesh and blood of Liaodong, before the Eastern Palace could even begin its preparations. Fang Congzhe went even further. He neither made a move, nor uttered a sound, nor even launched a single attack.

Simply not stopping them is enough.

As he was deep in thought, Zhu Youjian entered through the door carrying a stack of ten-day reports. Seeing his elder brother staring intently at the blank paper, he quietly sat down on the opposite seat without disturbing him.

After a long while, Zhu Youxiao finally raised his head.

"By inspection."

"Your younger brother is here."

"You'll have to take on more of the work at the training institute these next few days," Zhu Youxiao said, his voice deeper than usual. "There are two trainees I'm sending to Liaodong with the Ministry of Revenue's inspection team. As for the rest, you can handle them."

Zhu Youjian straightened his back and solemnly replied, "Your subject understands."

"There's one more thing," Zhu Youxiao said, pushing the copy on the left side of the table towards him. "Read it and see."

Zhu Youjian leaned closer to examine it closely, read out the twelve characters one by one, and then looked up at his elder brother.

"Your Majesty, is this... an investigation into Commander Xiong?"

"Yes."

"Then—then what Your Majesty said in court the other day about the 'soldiers on the front lines'—" Zhu Youjian frowned, as if desperately trying to sort things out in his mind, "If Commander Xiong is investigated, what will happen to the soldiers on the front lines—"

He didn't finish speaking.

At the age of nine, Zhu Youjian had already unknowingly touched upon the most bloody and unspeakable taboo in officialdom.

Zhu Youxiao looked at his younger brother and spoke after a long while.

"Your Excellency, remember this."

Sometimes in this world, the knife meant to save lives and the knife meant to kill can look like the same thing.

Zhu Youjian seemed to understand, but not quite.

Zhu Youxiao offered no further explanation. He carefully folded the note with the name on it, tucked it into his sleeve, and slowly walked to the window.

Outside the window, the sky was already pitch black.

The continuous glazed tiles of the Forbidden City were deeply submerged in the night, making them difficult to see clearly.

He suddenly remembered Fang Congzhe's motionless figure standing alone outside the Wenhua Hall after the lecture.

The person did nothing.

But he did nothing, yet he was doing it in the process!

Zhu Youxiao's knuckles tapped lightly on the window frame.

Three days ago, he thought he had gained the upper hand in the palace. Now, in retrospect, he was shocked to realize that Fang Congzhe had only used three days to casually throw a huge net that he could not see into Liaodong.

This net cannot catch Xiong Tingbi. Xiong Tingbi is being personally watched by Sun Chengzong, and is also protected by the Crown Prince's backup plan.

This net is meant to capture him, the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty!

Force him to reveal his stance.

They forced him to break ties with Donglin.

He was forced to reveal all his hidden cards little by little in one difficult choice after another.

Zhu Youxiao muttered to himself.

The voice was so soft that even Zhu Youjian behind him couldn't hear it clearly.

"Prime Minister, your move was indeed far more skillful than that of Grand Secretary Liu."

……

Late at night on the same day. Under the Six Section Corridor.

After receiving the message from the Imperial Secretary, Qi Shijiao didn't even have time to drink a cup of tea before grabbing a folding fan and heading out the door.

The folding fan is illusory.

In the freezing cold of late November, only a fool would fan himself.

But this fan is his trademark. As a rising star of the Qi faction who passed the imperial examination, his mouth has always been more eloquent than the fan itself.

He first strolled over to the clerk's office and sat there for a quarter of an hour. He chatted with the clerk on night duty about this and that, exchanging a few words about the inspection in Liaodong. Halfway through the conversation, he let out a long sigh, seemingly unintentionally.

"His Highness the Crown Prince has really gone to great lengths to investigate the Liaodong military expenditure this time."

He shook his head and clicked his tongue: "The imperial edicts on the list of those who have been 'reading on behalf of others'—tsk tsk. One says 'urgent,' another 'verify,' and another 'pay attention.' At fifteen years old, he knows how to categorize people into different classes better than an old official who has spent half his life in the court."

The clerk's curiosity was immediately piqued: "Pay attention? For whom?"

Qi Shijiao snapped the fan shut and gently tapped the corner of the table.

"A memorial from the Military Governor's Office. His Highness's comment was 'Pay attention.'"

He paused for a moment.

The word "let it be" hung in the cold, dark air of the room for a full three breaths.

"It is not 'pending investigation'."

The clerk's expression subtly changed.

Qi Shijiao said nothing more. He stood up, slowly patted the hem of his robe, said with a smile, "Excuse me," and turned to leave.

News from the Sixth Bureau Corridor never stays overnight.

The next morning.

"When the Crown Prince reviewed the list, he marked Xiong Tingbi with 'note' instead of 'to be investigated'."

This short sentence, as if it had grown wings, traveled along the corridor of the Six Ministries and reached the ears of the Censorate.

……

That same night, within the inner city of the capital.

Fang Congzhe's men had already disappeared into the night, galloping at full speed towards the private residence of the Imperial Medical Academy officials.

He had two drafts hidden in his sleeve.

One document was a record of prescriptions from the Imperial Medical Academy over the past six months. It was obtained through connections with a trusted clerk in the Imperial Medical Academy, a confidant of Fang Congzhe.

One document details the exact date of Sun Chengzong's first secret meeting with the Crown Prince. It follows an old file from when Sun Chengzong was transferred from the Court of Imperial Sacrifices to become a lecturer in the Eastern Palace.

The retainer was unaware of the connection between the two matters; he was merely following orders.

Little did he know that in the cold dust of the dark night kicked up by his horse's hooves, the two most intelligent people in the Ming Dynasty were engaged in a bloodless, secret war across several layers of deep palace walls.

One is investigating the other's background.

One is calculating the other's backup plan.

What they didn't know at the moment was that the old Khan of Hetu Ala, who was holding the Eastern Pearl, had already issued a military order.

Before spring arrives, be sure to give the Puhe River a good kick.

The snow has not yet arrived.

However, the dead of winter in the Ming Dynasty had arrived ahead of schedule that year.