Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 190 Still Yang Yiqing

Liu Meng knew that he would be punished for misrepresenting military intelligence, but he was still unwilling to publicize the military achievements of Emperor Zhengde or even the entire group of nobles and military generals, because doing so would only affect the status of their civil service group.

However, what Liu Meng did not expect was that Cai Kuan was unwilling to cooperate with him, and even reprimanded him for delaying military affairs. He and Ma Wensheng immediately suspended him from his post.

"Don't forget that you are civil officials! What you are doing will only make the military officials rise!"

Liu Meng yelled at the closed door, then sat back in his chair angrily.

He rose from the position of Imperial Censor to the Governor of Fujian, and only became the Governor in the early fourth year of the Zhengde reign. He did not understand the behavior of the civil officials such as Cai Kuan who valued military achievements over civil affairs, and finally he could only scold them again:

"Since ancient times, people who are good at both civil and military affairs, whether they use civil affairs to become military affairs or martial arts to become civil affairs, are not on the right path. Now, Cai Kuan, Ma Wensheng and others are indeed not on the right path!"

Liu Meng felt extremely uncomfortable with the feeling of being locked up, but when Zhang Lun shouted that he would cut him into pieces, he still hid in the corner in fear, and was glad that he was locked up by Ma Wensheng, otherwise he was really worried that he might be hacked to death by Zhang Lun.

Zhang Lun now understood the mind of the literati, and he wanted to eat Liu Meng alive for almost letting the little prince go. Fortunately, he managed to capture the little prince again.

Ma Wensheng led his troops into Hetao without waiting for Zhu Houzhao's order.

Recovering Hetao has always been his long-cherished wish. After learning that the little prince was captured alive and there were no Tatar cavalry left in Hetao, he would naturally recover Hetao immediately.

Zhu Houzhao received the news about the recovery of Hetao in September of the fifth year of Zhengde.

The recovery of Hetao meant that the Ming Dynasty's border defense could be further strengthened. The Ming Dynasty could directly rely on the Helan Mountains, Lang Mountains, and Daqing Mountains to guard against the Tartars in the north, and could harvest countless fertile fields. At the same time, there were many pastures with lush grass and water, which could also provide more good horses.

In addition, before this, Zhu Houzhao asked Qiu Yue to lead 15,000 cavalry of the Ming Dynasty to rescue the right wing of Mongolia and cripple the little prince's 50,000 cavalry, and even capture the little prince alive. He also ordered the border towns to attack the little prince's rear.

The Ming Dynasty's military achievements in the fourth year of Zhengde can be described as brilliant.

Recover Hetao!

Not only did they cripple the Mongolian left wing, they also severely damaged the Mongolian right wing and captured the little prince alive!

Although Zhu Houzhao had not yet achieved great success in civil and political affairs, his military achievements had already been greatly enhanced.

Zhu Houzhao would certainly not allow some civil servants with ulterior motives to downplay his martial arts achievements and hide them in the vast ocean of books. He wanted to write about his brilliant achievements in the fourth year of Zhengde!
Therefore, Zhu Houzhao issued an edict to Zhang Lun under the guidance of the cabinet, ordering him to escort the little prince to Beijing, and he wanted to hold a grand ceremony to present the captives.

At the same time, Zhu Houzhao also ordered the cabinet to discuss rewards and awards together with the six ministries. Qiu Yue, who defeated the left wing of Mongolia, Zhang Lun, who captured the little prince alive, and Ma Wensheng, who recovered Hetao, were all to be awarded titles based on their merits.

but.

In this life, Zhu Houzhao would not create a great general to defend the country and confer a title on himself like Zhengde did in history.

However, just as Zhu Houzhao was preparing to publicize his military achievements, he received news that Prince Anhua Zhu Zongqiang had launched a rebellion.

However, this time the rebellion manifesto of Anhua King Zhu Zongqiang was not to attack Liu Jin as in history, but to purge the court and execute powerful officials such as Ma Wensheng, Jiao Fang, Xu Jin and others!
The reason for killing Ma Wensheng was that when Ma Wensheng was clearing the military farms in the border towns, he forced Zhu Zongxian to hand over many of the civilian and military farms that he had embezzled.
The reason for executing Jiao Fang, Xu Jin and others was naturally self-evident. It was because the cabinet intended to rectify the salt administration, which infringed on the interests of him as a vassal king.

As early as August of the fourth year of Zhengde, Tang Ren, the chief censor of the Ministry of Revenue, submitted a memorial to the court suggesting that the court should rectify the salt administration to strengthen border affairs and restore the system of paying grain in exchange for silver, thus marking the beginning of the discussion on rectifying the salt administration.

The news of the cabinet's approval soon spread to the powerful gentry. As King Anhua often engaged in border trade, he was naturally unwilling to let the court rectify the salt administration and cut off his own source of income.

Although all this came from Zhu Houzhao's instruction, and the clearing of military farms in border towns was not just aimed at Zhu Zongxuan, but all the powerful people in the border towns were cleared out, and the salt administration had not yet begun to be rectified, and even the illegal sale of salt to the little prince had not been thoroughly investigated.

However, under the guidance of Ningxia health workers Sun Jingwen, Meng Bin and other literati, Anhua King Zhu Zongqi had long had the intention of rebellion.

Now, having heard that Zhu Houzhao had not returned from his northern expedition and that the Ming army had suffered a disastrous defeat, Prince Anhua thought the time had come and he directly launched a rebellion. He first killed the governor An Weixue, the general Jiang Han, the garrison eunuch Li Zeng and others, and then prepared to seize the ferry in an attempt to prevent the government troops from entering Ningxia Wei.

However, Cai Kuan had already been instructed by Zhu Houzhao to deploy defenses in advance, which prevented the rebels from seizing the ferry. Then Cai Kuan personally led the army across the river, and in less than ten days, he put down the rebellion of Prince Anhua.

The rebellion of King Anhua seemed like a joke, but the officials in the border towns took it very seriously and reported the matter to the capital in an urgent manner, along with a manifesto.

"Guyuan Governor Huang Ke reported that Prince Anhua was plotting a rebellion. The edict called for the execution of the treacherous ministers who had seized power. This has caused a great shock in Guanzhong. Your Majesty, please send a large army to suppress the rebellion as soon as possible! Otherwise, the consequences will be unpredictable. It may cause chaos in Guanzhong and unrest in the world!"

Zhu Houzhao picked up the memorial and smiled faintly, saying to Xu Jin, Jiao Fang and others: "This is not reporting the enemy situation, this is clearly to scare me. He, the Prince of Anhua, is just a vassal king, without troops and power. What can he do to make these people so shocked? Although I grew up in the deep palace, I am not a timid person. I ordered the Shaanxi General to take the opportunity to suppress the rebellion, and at the same time, strictly enforce military discipline and not disturb the people!" "I obey your order!"

Xu Jin and Jiao Fang both secretly admired their majesty's wisdom. They could see at a glance that these border officials were openly reporting the rebellion of Prince Anhua to the court, but in fact they were telling the court that it was because these treacherous officials filled the cabinet and made drastic changes to state affairs that caused dissatisfaction among the princes. They wanted to scare Zhu Houzhao and had to kill these treacherous officials to appease the princes' anger.

Fortunately, his majesty is far-sighted and these officials' tricks are not enough to easily fool him.

Because of this.

Regarding the rebellion of King Anhua.

The emperor, the cabinet, the Ministry of War and even the General Staff of the Imperial Guard all remained calm.

The cabinet continued to study with the Ministry of Revenue how to reform the salt administration.

Emperor Zhu Houzhao started to act as a nanny, playing with the three cute children or touching Ruyi's increasingly bulging belly every day.

The General Staff of the Imperial Guard is summarizing the Ming Dynasty’s future foreign military strategy.

The Ministry of War will determine how many officers and soldiers will be needed to defend Hetao after it is recovered.

Dong Tian, ​​the Junior Secretary of the Dali Temple, submitted a memorial on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival in the fifth year of Zhengde, saying that the rebels were powerful and that Your Majesty should immediately send important officials to lead the army to quell the border threat.

After receiving this memorial, Zhu Houzhao naturally burst into laughter. He only asked the cabinet to draft it and approve it first, and let the cabinet discuss in court to decide who would lead the army.

Soon, the results of the cabinet's meeting were placed in front of Zhu Houzhao, and the result of the meeting was to appoint Yang Yiqing as the general manager of military affairs, Jingyang Earl Shenying as the commander-in-chief, and the eunuch Wei Bin as the military supervisor.

Zhu Houzhao naturally did not really want to let these people lead the troops to war. He just wanted to see who was so eager to achieve success and get to the top in secret.

Yang Yiqing?
Zhu Houzhao remembered that in history it was Yang Yiqing and Zhang Yong who took advantage of this expedition to attack Prince Anhua to conspire with Zhang Yong to get rid of Liu Jin.

However, in this life, Zhang Yong had already been executed.

Because Liu Jin, the emperor, let civil servants such as Ma Wensheng and Jiao Fang take some blame for him, Liu Jin, the seal of the Imperial Household Department, was not so hated in the world. At most, he was accused of being in cahoots with treacherous officials, just like Feng Bao in the Wanli period in history.

Zhu Houzhao now began to get used to figuring out people's hearts. After all, the trajectory of history was changing, and he had to think more. For example, now he was wondering why Wei Bin was the eunuch who was pushed out by the court to supervise the army in this life.

People's hearts are hidden. Although Zhu Houzhao knew that none of the officials in the court had simple thoughts, he had no way to guarantee that he could grasp other people's minds. The only thing he could conclude now was that Yang Yiqing, Wei Bin and Shen Ying all wanted to gain credit. In addition, these people might want to take this opportunity to plot to get rid of someone, just like Yang Yiqing joined forces with Zhang Yong to get rid of Liu Jin in history.

Although this incident is different from the original historical incident, Zhu Houzhao discovered that Yang Yiqing was the key in the similarities. Whether it was this incident or in the original history, Yang Yiqing was promoted by the court to be the general governor (just waiting for Zhu Houzhao's order).

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao was certain that Yang Yiqing must be unable to bear the loneliness or was thinking of getting rid of someone.

Zhu Houzhao now knew that he didn't have to worry about the civil officials directly dealing with him, because there was already a group of officials who shared the same interests as him.

In addition, his severe crackdown also made officials who were dissatisfied with the new policies aware of the consequences of offending the emperor. However, Zhu Houzhao believed that these civil servants who were good at infighting would still shift their spearheads to the cabinet officials in power in the court, or perhaps even the eunuchs of the Imperial Household Department.

The cabinet chief Jiao Fang actually didn't quite understand why the emperor agreed to the suggestion of the Dali Temple Junior Official Dong Tian to send troops to quell the rebellion, so one day, he couldn't help but ask:

"Your Majesty! Didn't you intend to send troops to quell the rebellion and only let Cai Kuan do it when the opportunity arises? Why do you want to hold a court meeting now and ask all officials to recommend someone suitable to lead the army?"

"I agree to hold a court meeting and send troops to fight, but I don't want them to really go on the expedition. The Ming Dynasty does not have so much money and food to waste on such useless efforts. How can we know the thoughts of the people below if we don't do this?" Zhu Houzhao said, and ordered the cabinet and the Ministry of War to temporarily hold off on drafting the decree to appoint Yang Yiqing and others to send troops, and wait a month before making a decision.

Upon hearing this, Cabinet Chief Minister Jiao Fang secretly sighed at the unpredictable mind of the Emperor and nodded in agreement.

Yang Yiqing was not a man who was willing to be under someone else's control. He knew that what he wanted was to make achievements and enter the cabinet. However, he was almost sixty years old and had not yet become a minister, so he wanted to seize the opportunity of Prince Anhua's rebellion to make another achievement.

But Yang Yiqing didn't understand Zhu Houzhao's thoughts.

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