Having vaguely guessed something, Zhao Junchen asked slowly: "Oh? I don't know what's going on, but even His Highness would be doubtful?"
Zhu Hejian narrowed his eyes slightly and asked softly: "Father, he will be on a southern tour in a few days, and as the regulations of the southern tour become more and more strict, most of the important officials in the court may follow him. In this way,
, in Mr. Zhao’s opinion, who will be guarding the capital and acting as the agent of state affairs during my father’s southern tour?”
Having said this, Zhu Hejian smiled slightly and said: "As far as I know, my father often asks the prince about his opinions on various state affairs these days, which was rarely seen before. (Novel Network)"
Zhao Junchen didn't care and said: "It is a matter of course that His Majesty leaves the capital and the Crown Prince oversees the country. Although His Majesty the Crown Prince has little experience and a little lack of reputation now, if he has the help of veterans, he will not do anything.
questionable."
Zhu Hejian nodded and said: "That's true. If Mr. Zhou, the chief minister, is there to help, then everything will be foolproof. But Mr. Zhao may not know it yet, right? The day before yesterday, my father summoned three cabinet ministers to discuss state affairs and talked about the southern tour.
At the time of the incident, I asked the three elders who were willing to go south with him? Who was willing to assist the prince in guarding the capital? It was just a casual comment, because Lord Zhou, the chief assistant, was highly respected and was a natural choice. Shen and Huang
The elder would not argue with him. However, what no one expected was that the chief minister actually agreed to go on a southern tour with his majesty. However, his majesty had already spoken, so he could only agree. But in this way
, the candidate to assist the prince in supervising the country can only be chosen between Mr. Huang Ge and Mr. Shen Ge."
After a pause, the smile on Zhu Hejian's face suddenly became meaningful. He took a deep look at Zhao Junchen, whose expression changed slightly, and smiled softly: "I just don't know, between Mr. Huang Ge and Mr. Shen Ge,
Who will assist the prince then? If they assist the prince, I wonder if they can be as comprehensive and foolproof as the chief assistant? However, after the prince got the news, he is full of confidence. Regarding this, Mr. Zhao, what do you think?"
After the words fell, Zhu Hejian looked as humble and polite as ever, but without waiting for Zhao Junchen to reply, he nodded to Zhao Junchen and left.
Zhao Junchen's face was a little gloomy, watching Zhu Hejian walking towards where Zhu Hepu was, and then watching the two brothers standing together, whispering something to each other, it seemed that Zhu Hejian was explaining to Zhu Hepu
What happened before and after meeting Zhao Junchen just now.
Maybe it happened right in front of Zhu Hepu's eyes, or maybe Zhu Hepu's trust in Zhu Hejian was beyond imagination. Judging from Zhu Hepu's expression, he didn't have the slightest doubt, just some complaints, as if he didn't want Zhu Hejian and Zhao Junchen to let go.
There was too much contact. "You are really brothers and sisters. In this case, just watch it slowly..." Seeing such a scene, Zhao Junchen suddenly smiled, shook his head gently, and murmured to himself
In the meantime, he also turned around and left.
The reason why Zhao Junchen gave Zhu Hejian so many precious medicinal materials in the first place was to create opportunities for the two parties to come into contact and take the opportunity to find out Zhu Hejian's true intentions.
Zhu Hejian obviously also understood what Zhao Junchen meant. Today, he took the opportunity to express his gratitude, almost without hiding anything, and revealed his true attitude to Zhao Junchen, almost under the nose of Prince Zhu Hepu, and revealed to Zhao Junchen
An extremely important news.
During Emperor Deqing's southern tour, Prince Zhu Hepu supervised Guoguang, and the important cabinet minister who served as an assistant was not Zhou Shangjing! It was one of Shen Changmao and Huang Yourong!
This was certainly not a good idea. Given Zhu Hepu's temperament, Zhao Junchen didn't have to think too much to figure out what Zhu Hepu would do during Emperor Deqing's southern tour. He would take the opportunity to suppress the various factions in the DPRK. They will never make things easier for the various factions in the DPRK. They may even take the opportunity to collect evidence of the crimes of Zhao Junchen and others.
If he is assisted by Zhou Shangjing, then Zhao Junchen will naturally not worry, because Prince Zhu Hepu will definitely not be able to defeat Zhou Shangjing. Moreover, in recent years, Zhou Shangjing has even consciously suppressed the expansion of power of his own faction in order to avoid too much suspicion from Emperor Deqing. , and will not do too much while Zhao Junchen and others are accompanying him on his southern tour.
However, only Zhou Shangjing has such ability. If it were Shen and Huang, let alone whether they could suppress the crown prince Zhu Hepu alone, Zhao Junchen would not trust these two people's vision and forbearance. , if they take advantage of Emperor Deqing's southern tour, these two people take the opportunity to expand their power, and then cause a backlash from other factions. In the chaos, they may benefit Prince Zhu and the fisherman.
By the way, because of the news brought by Zhu Hejian, Zhao Junchen roughly guessed the purpose of Huang Yourong's banquet with him, Shen Changmao, Zhou Shangjing and other important officials of the court.
Obviously, it's for negotiation.
After the lantern viewing and palace banquet, when Zhao Junchen left the Forbidden City, the sky was dark and it was already late.
When Zhao Junchen entered the palace, he came with dozens of carriages, but when he left, he only brought four red lanterns.
These four red lanterns were given by Emperor Deqing when he was appreciating the lanterns. On them were four golden characters personally written by Emperor Deqing, namely "loyalty", "virtuous" and "goodness", which were tied to Zhao Junchen. What he has done since he became an official in the court can be described as extremely ironic.
Perhaps, in the eyes of Emperor Deqing, Zhao Junchen could make him happy and make everything go smoothly for him, which was enough to deserve these four words. However, when Emperor Deqing gave these four lanterns to Zhao Junchen, At that time, the expression on Prince Zhu Hegu's face was extremely strange. If he hadn't been worried about the birthday of Emperor Deqing, he would probably have contradicted him in public, right?
In this birthday ceremony, Zhao Junchen stole the show from beginning to end. In front of all the officials, Zhao Junchen also showed an appropriate feeling of pride.
However, when Zhao Junchen left the Meridian Gate in a sedan, the joy in his expression was completely gone. His face was expressionless, his brows slightly furrowed, and he was thinking about something.
Zhao Junchen was thinking a lot, not because of the information Zhu Hejian revealed to him. There is still a lot of time before Emperor Deqing's southern tour, which is enough for Zhao Junchen to do a lot of things. Even if the prince eventually supervises the country and Shen Huang assists the government, Zhao Junchen will still have a way to deal with it. .
What really worried Zhao Junchen was that such important news actually required Zhu Hejian to reveal it to him. Without Zhu Hejian, Zhao Junchen would have kept this matter secret for a long time.
Sitting in Zhao Junchen's current position, he is not afraid of anything going wrong. Even if it is a big problem, he can always find a solution. But what he is most afraid of is that after something happens, he will be late to notice or even not aware of it.
But now, Zhao Junchen found that he was in such a dangerous situation.
Seeing that he was far away from the palace in the sedan chair, Zhao Junchen opened the curtain of the sedan chair and greeted Xu Qingyan who was following him: "Qingyan, I have something to ask you."
Seeing that Zhao Junchen finally spoke, Xu Qingyan quickly approached and asked, "Master, do you have something to tell me?"
As someone close to Zhao Junchen, Zhao Junchen had a lot of thoughts in his eyes. Xu Qingyan noticed it when Zhao Junchen left the palace, so he never dared to talk to Zhao Junchen.
Zhao Junchen nodded and asked: "Let me ask you, have you given away all the money I asked you to give to the eunuchs in the palace a few days ago?"
Xu Qingyan nodded repeatedly and said: "Young master, I have given you a total of 150,000 taels for the things you personally told me, and I have given them all away. Each of the powerful eunuchs in the palace has no less than 150,000 taels."
The few ones are as low as two or three thousand taels of silver.
Zhao Junchen frowned slightly: "Did they accept it happily? When you gave the money, did you say it was my intention?"
Hearing Zhao Junchen ask Xu Qingyan like this, he couldn't help but be surprised and said: "Those eunuchs are all greedy for money. When we gave money to them, they naturally accepted it unceremoniously. Moreover, we were giving money, not throwing it away, so naturally we also gave it to them.
They said it was your wish, young master, and they even praised you for being generous."
Speaking of this, Xu Qingyan asked: "What happened to the young master?"
Zhao Junchen frowned more and more, and said slowly: "The day before yesterday, His Majesty summoned three cabinet elders to discuss the southern tour. In the end, some changes were made. Although such changes were sudden, it was not a big secret, and I didn't.
Got the news."
Speaking of this, Zhao Junchen's expression became a little gloomy.
Hearing what Zhao Junchen said, Xu Qingyan was furious, snorted heavily, gritted his teeth and asked: "Master, you mean, those eunuchs took the money and did nothing?"
Zhao Junchen shook his head and said: "That's not necessarily true. Your Majesty summoned the three elders, and the eunuchs in charge of the palace are probably watching. As long as they can get a little bit of information, they can bring them
A large amount of money. If only one or two eunuchs did not disclose the information to us, it can be said that someone took the money and did nothing. But now all the eunuchs have not disclosed the information to us, especially those close to His Majesty.
Eunuch Zhang De, I don’t know how much money we fed him, and he has always had a good relationship with us, but even he didn’t reveal this information to us, so I’m afraid things won’t be that simple.”
Speaking of this, Zhao Junchen's eyes flashed with contemplation, and he felt that this matter became more and more intriguing.
Since Zhao Junchen returned to Beijing, he has been trying to improve relations with the eunuchs in the palace. Originally, Zhao Junchen planned to start with Liu Qing, the eunuch in charge of the inner study hall. Now most of the eunuchs in the palace are trained by Liu Qing.
As long as you have a good relationship with Liu Qing, you will have a good relationship with the entire eunuch force.
It's a pity that Zhao Junchen has always wanted to meet Liu Qing, but Liu Qing is old and has been sick and recuperating. This young face has been delayed. However, Liu Qing smiled and accepted all the gifts and money Zhao Junchen gave Liu Qing.
He also asked someone to tell Zhao Junchen that as long as Zhao Junchen could guarantee the interests of the eunuchs in the palace, the eunuch forces in the palace would not embarrass him.
And Zhao Junchen did exactly this. Not only did he allow the eunuchs in the palace to insert people into the inner treasury, but the "dividend money" distributed by the inner treasury to each eunuch in charge every year was also 10% more than before.
When the sauce was exclusively made by the inner treasury, Zhao Junchen even gave the profits of the sauce workshop to the eunuchs in the palace.
In this way, after the interests of the eunuchs in the palace were guaranteed, they not only stopped quarreling with Zhao Junchen, but also reciprocated the favor. Zhao Junchen was concerned about all the big and small things that happened in the palace during these days, especially the things around Emperor Deqing.
The news could be obtained in time. When Zhao Junchen presented a congratulatory gift to Emperor Deqing today, the eunuchs in the palace also fully cooperated without any hostility.
But in that case, why did they deliberately conceal the news from Zhao Junchen that Zhou Shangjing was going to accompany him on the southern tour?
Recalling the conversation with Zhang Xiu, the eunuch in charge of Yangxin Palace, Zhang Xiu's completely different evaluations of Zhu Hepu and Zhu Hejian, Zhao Junchen suddenly thought of a seemingly impossible conclusion.
"Could it be that they want Zhu Hejian to tell me the news in person?"!