"You mean, His Highness the Fifth wants that bitch Wei Zhongxian to rise to power?"

In the side hall of the Supervisor of Ceremonies, Wang An was sitting behind a desk with a thick memorial on the table.

These memorials were all submitted by the cabinet to the Supervisor of Ceremonies for approval. Cao Huachun sat on the left side of the desk in front of him.

Cao Huachun looked at his godfather Wang An's face and could only remind him:

"What Your Highness means is to ask your godfather to go to Nanjing to rest for a while, let Wei Zhongxian and the Hakka family be proud for a while, and then deal with them."

"Right now, the Hakka family is favored by Long Live, so going against the Hakka family is not a good choice."

"Hmm..." Wang An frowned and responded, thinking constantly in his mind.

To be honest, if Zhu Youxiao was impartial and engaged in a one-round power struggle, he could easily kill Wei Zhongxian and Hakka.

But what's embarrassing right now is that he is a member of the late emperor, and the late emperor passed away before he could secure his throne.

This made his situation a little embarrassing.

As a person selected by the inner study hall and valued by the famous eunuchs Feng Bao and Chen Ju during the Wanli period, Wang An knew how dangerous his current situation was.

This situation occurred most frequently in the Tang Dynasty.

In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, most of the eunuchs who held military power did not dare to deal with their masters.

But the embarrassing thing is that due to the short lifespan of emperors in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, they often died within a few years of taking the throne.

After the death of the emperor, the eunuchs had no backing, so they had no choice but to take desperate measures and use military power to coerce and establish an emperor who they could control.

Of course, such a thing was impossible in the Ming Dynasty, and Wang An knew it very well.

First of all, the inner court's pure army has basically no fighting capacity. At most, it can only deal with some palace ladies.

As one of the twenty-four eunuch yamen, only the Yuma Supervisor has military power.

Previously, the Royal Horse Supervisor was still under Wang An's control. Even if there were only a few thousand capable of fighting among the more than 20,000 troops, it would be enough to intimidate Zhu Youxiao.

But now, Zhu Youjian took the lead. On the first day Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne, he took away the military power of the Royal Horse Supervisor, leaving him with no one to use.

In this way, he became a chess player without chess pieces.

Thinking of this, the expression on Wang An's face kept changing, either gloomy or hesitant, but in the end he did not dare to rebel because he had been influenced by the loyal and patriotic education in the Neishu Hall since childhood, as well as the stories of Yue Fei and Yu Qian.

"well……"

After a long time, Wang An sighed and could only say to Cao Huachun:

"You go back and tell His Highness the Fifth Prince that I know. When His Highness the Fifth Highness speaks, I will walk down the slope to Nanjing."

"If His Highness the Fifth is of any use to me, just ask him to speak."

"Godfather..." Cao Huachun couldn't bear it. After all, Wang An had taken care of him for more than ten years, and he couldn't do the kind of thing that Wei Zhongxian did like repaying kindness with hatred.

In fact, when Zhu Youjian asked him to tell Wang An about this, he was quite resistant.

But he is Zhu Youjian's slave after all, and it is impossible to go against Zhu Youjian's ideas.

As for Wang An, he also saw Cao Huachun's intolerance and could only comfort him:

"Don't feel bad. Our family has now surrendered to His Highness the Fifth Prince. With you in the capital to help us, we won't be bullied even if we go to Nanjing."

Wang An's words are true. As long as Zhu Youjian wants to protect him, he is willing to go to Nanjing. Then he is the veritable first eunuch in the Nanjing Palace.

Moreover, the eunuchs there would not dare to have anyone competing with him for power, and their lives would definitely be more comfortable than in the capital.

"I have accumulated a lot of savings over the years. You go to Fu'an and ask him to give you half of the silver and take it to the East Palace to His Highness the Fifth Prince."

"Just think of it as...I surrender to His Highness the Fifth Prince."

"Yes..." Cao Huachun couldn't help but tilted his head, and Wang An also raised his hand and waved:

"You should go back. Our days in the capital are numbered, and I don't know if I can survive until I come back."

"Don't worry, godfather. As long as the child is still here, he will definitely make arrangements for his safety in the capital!" Cao Huachun dusted off his robe, knelt on the ground and kowtowed three times to Wang An.

After that, he stood up, bowed and walked out of the ceremonial office.

The huge side hall of the Supervisor of Ceremonies gradually became silent, and under Wang An's arrangement, Cao Huachun went to his house in the capital and pulled out a cart full of money.

When he returned to Xu Qin Palace with the money, the imperial city had just closed the palace door, and he also handed the gift list in his hand to Zhu Youjian's hand.

"Your Highness, this is the gift list given to you by my godfather, totaling sixty-four thousand taels, plus two boxes of jewelry and jade."

Cao Huachun handed over the gift list, and Zhu Youjian took it, took a look at it and said:

"Logically speaking, I shouldn't ask for your money."

"But I am really short of money right now. When you are free, tell your godfather to work hard in Nanjing. It is best to find out some of the eunuchs in the Nanjing Palace and the various forces in Jiangnan."

"The clearer he understands, the greater the chance he will come back in the future."

"Yes!" Cao Huachun nodded and saluted, and then stood obediently on the first floor of Zhu Youjian's couch.

Zhu Youjian, on the other hand, took this gift list and was thinking about the layout of Jiangnan.

There are many reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, including natural disasters, man-made disasters, official corruption, tax resistance by gentry, and people's backlog.

Among them, the most important one is tax collection, and tax collection naturally involves collecting taxes from squires and merchants.

Commercial taxes and customs duties, as long as one of these two can be received, it will be enough to alleviate the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty.

But at the same time, these two taxes mainly exist in the Jiangnan area of ​​​​South Zhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi.

Apart from anything else, even if these three places do not pay commercial taxes, resist taxes, and resist salt and iron taxes, they still support about 30% of the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

Once commercial taxes can be collected in these three places, Zhu Youjian himself will not have to be stuck in the southeast.

But the problem is that the squire officials in Jiangnan are not easy to get along with.

Throughout the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, officials from these three places had been in control of the government.

Even during the Hongwu period, they dared to initiate an imperial examination case in the north and south before Zhu Yuanzhang's death. They wanted to test whether Zhu Yuanzhang was really dead, so they didn't mention it now.

Zhu Youjian doesn't have many cards to play now. Even if he controls Yumajian's army in the future, he won't be able to defeat Jiangnan with only 20,000 people.

But he has a very useful knife in his hand, that is, the Six Gentlemen of Donglin, headed by Yang Lian.

It would be better for him to push the Donglin Party to fight against the Zhejiang Party, the Qi Party, and the Chu Party than to go out and break up with the civil servants himself.

However, from a historical perspective, Yang Lian and others of the Donglin Party were idealists after all, and were ultimately defeated by the major rural parties behind Wei Zhongxian.

Even though in history Chongzhen ascended to power and killed Wei Zhongxian, a closer look shows that all those who died were little shrimps, and the strength of the township party was still intact.

Therefore, it is not an easy way to collect taxes and business taxes.

At the very least, he must first understand the structure of Jiangnan before he can know which faction he can win over and which faction he can attack.
Chapter completed!