The Jingxuan Pavilion, with carved railings and jade inlays, looks particularly elegant under the cover of winter snow that has not yet melted away.
Although there are many palaces in the Forty-Nine City, there are very few that have a southern atmosphere like Zhang Juzheng's mansion.
However, at this time, Zhang Juzheng, Bachelor of Arts, was standing by the window of the small building where the cold wind was blowing, with his brows furrowed and his face gloomy.
It stands to reason that the current overall situation is as Zhang Juzheng expected, and he should not look like this: since he tried every means to lead the government to the direction of having to invite Gao Gong back, Gao Gong recovered smoothly, and Zhao Zhenji had an opponent. If he wants to do this again,
It has become a luxury to have his seniority in front of him; Gao Gong is generally as Zhang Juzheng expected. Although there is no clear conflict with Zhao Zhenji, almost everything he does is disliked by Zhao Zhenji. The relationship between the two
Conflicts will break out sooner or later.
As for Li Chunfang, this Yuan Fu who has no responsibilities has a lot of ink, but neither practical ability nor ambition. He is nothing more than a withered bone in the grave. Once the battle between Gao and Zhao is over, his good days will definitely come to an end. He only needs to
Just sit back and watch, there is no need to rush.
Chen Yiqin, his colleague for many years, still hopes to abide by neutrality and seems to want to consider himself a solitary minister. However, his situation is completely different from his own. If he really wants to be impartial, there is actually no possibility at all. Although Gao Gong mostly feels that in his heart
He can tolerate this old colleague who at least will not do bad things on his own initiative, but Zhang Juzheng is confident that as long as Gao Gong becomes the chief minister, he will definitely try to cure many of the country's chronic diseases in his eyes. Chen Yiqin, who has always been conservative in thinking, will definitely not be able to stand it. However, Chen Yiqin
How could one compete with Gao Gong? Either he would stand up to oppose him and be forced to leave by Gao Gong, or he could resign on his own initiative and become an official with honor... He could not escape the word "departure".
Not only did these matters closely related to his position in the cabinet develop as expected, but even the unexpected Songjiang land withdrawal case, Gao Gong also changed his mind following his own persuasion. He had already written to the south before, and he must be able to handle it.
Press down on the teacher's troubles... This can be regarded as repaying the teacher's kindness back then, right?
It seems that everything is normal and everything is going well.
But after all, Zhang Juzheng's so many years are not in vain. He has been an official for so many years, and he has never liked to talk too much, but he likes to figure out. Not only does he try to figure out almost everything he has experienced and observed, but he also tries to figure out what he has come into contact with and observed.
Everyone who arrives.
Zhang Juzheng sensitively discovered that one thing was not quite right - there might be some inside story that he didn't know about the prince's playmate incident.
This incident seemed to have just started on the emperor's whim, and the root cause was that the emperor doted on the prince and thought about his loneliness at that time, so he suddenly had a whim and found a few young men of similar age to the prince to accompany him.
The prince played for more than ten days.
If the matter only comes to this step, according to past experience, the next step will definitely be to scold the officials, the emperor will give in, then withdraw his orders and give an explanation. Even the emperor can only say what Zhang Juzheng can predict.
Seventy-eight out of ten: The prince has been depressed recently. I am worried that the prince will be depressed and depressed for a long time, so I asked them to accompany the prince to play for a few days. This is a special case, and you don't need to worry about it.
The emperor seemed to have indeed done so, except for one thing: the emperor gave in and seemed to have recognized the situation too thoroughly, so that he not only withdrew his playmates, but also stated that he would select a person with a good character from among the civil servants of the third rank or above in Beijing, and then he would learn from it.
A young man who was outstanding and about the same age as the prince entered the palace and accompanied the prince to study.
Speaking of this matter alone, it seems that the emperor was afraid of being scolded, so he showed favor to the civil servants. However, Zhang Juzheng keenly realized that something was wrong after he quietly sent You Qi to collect evidence.
First of all, the current emperor is no better than before. He has Gao Gong again as a teacher who can protect him from wind and rain, and Gao Gong's current power in the capital is enough to complete this task. Even if the emperor loses his reputation from
Thinking about it, if you don’t want to completely break up with the officials, then you only need to send those children home. Why rush to send one of them to study with the prince?
Secondly, there was something wrong with Gao Gong's behavior in this incident. Logically speaking, given Gao Gong's character and level of holy family, when the emperor first ordered the children to enter the palace to play with the prince, he should have stood up directly
He came out to remonstrate. But he didn't, not only didn't, but even seemed to acquiesce in such behavior. This was too abnormal. Gao Gong himself was also a civil servant, and was actually the first civil servant in the Longqing Dynasty. He actually didn't do anything like this.
reaction, what was he thinking? He couldn't possibly be taking the opportunity to win over the nobles - Gao Gong might have looked at some of the capable and talented generals in a different light, but he would never take those nobles seriously, let alone
Forget about those mere brats.
But at that time, Zhang Juzheng put himself in Gao Gong's shoes and thought carefully for a long time, but he could not figure out the reason why Gao Gong remained silent.
It was not until the emperor later expressed his intention to select a son from the third-rank or above civil servants' home in Beijing to accompany the prince that Zhang Juzheng suddenly thought of the boy from the Gao family he had seen when Gao Gongqi returned to the capital that day.
Could it be that... Gao Gong intended to let his nephew come to the palace to accompany him?
However, even if he had this intention at this time, he had already chosen to remain silent when the emperor did not mention this issue before. Why is this?
Unless, this matter itself was promoted by him behind the scenes!
Perhaps this matter was not due to the whim of the emperor at all, but to Gao Gong's long-established strategy, whose only purpose was to send his little nephew to the prince!
Zhang Juzheng suddenly felt that the wind blowing on his face was a little colder, and his usually solemn and dignified face turned a little white.
When did Gao Gong learn to use these underhanded tricks? Where is his stance? Where is his reserve? Where is his ethics? Where have they gone!
Zhang Juzheng took a deep breath and sorted out his messy thoughts.
According to inquiries, everything was normal during this period of time. Except for the habitual two separate meetings with Gao Gong, whether it was his respect for the cabinet vote or his daily life habits, including his favorite thing of eating donkey intestines.
Even the small details have not changed at all.
But Zhang Juzheng still thought of a key point: as a disciple of the emperor, he was always not very courageous. As for some old systems, unless Gao Gong insisted, he could not move and resolutely not change them. Because doing this
It was rare for the officials to criticize the matter, saying it was against the ancestral system. Historically, only Gao Gong persisted. He had the courage to do it because he had his teacher as a shield.
So there are only two possibilities for this:
First, this matter was indeed done because of the emperor's whim, and later Gao Gong privately gave advice and mixed in some personal goods. If this is the case, it is a blessing among misfortunes.
I'm just afraid of the second possibility: Gao Gong was pushing this matter from the beginning, with the purpose of getting his nephew close to the prince!
