Chapter 341 Chapter 340 The Emperor's Attention

"But, I know that a few years ago, a eunuch died suddenly after taking the elixir, but it has not happened again in recent years. How can this medicine still exist? It is not certain that you can make such a medicine. Lu Bing happened to be there."

When Yan Shifan started talking, King Jing figured out what he called the method.

To put it well, it is definitely the best method, but it is difficult to control.

King Jing thought that with Yan Shifan's intelligence, he only needed a little hint from him to think that the method was a good method, but it was difficult to operate. However, he did not expect to see Yan Shifan just twist his fat neck and shake his head left and right.

Is that a head shake?

King Jing was slightly surprised, and then he was sure that Yan Shifan did not seem to think that this matter was difficult to implement. It seemed that he had a thorough plan.

So, King Jing just stared at Yan Shifan and said, "Brother Donglou, what do you think? Tell me."

"Your Highness, do you know what those elixirs look like when they are refined? What do they look like when they are taken?"

Yan Shifan said.

King Jing frowned slightly when he heard the words, and then shook his head.

He had no interest in practicing Taoist immortal arts, at least not now, so he naturally would not ask how the elixir was made.

"Those so-called elixirs are just countless medicinal materials mixed together. Most of them are not elixirs when they come out of the furnace, but medicine, and ointment."

Yan Shifan saw King Jing shaking his head, and he spoke to himself: "I heard that the people in the alchemy room have to bathe and change clothes before opening the furnace. After opening the furnace, they collect the ointment, knead it into the shape of elixir, put it in a jade bottle and send it to His Majesty, and then test the medicine."

"You mean, you made some moves in the process and chose to do it when Lu Bing was in the palace?"

King Jing immediately thought of something and spoke up.

Yan Shifan nodded, "After all, Lu Bing has a special status, and he must find the right time to act, otherwise he will not have a second chance if he fails once."

At this time, King Jing already understood the reason why Yan Shifan came to him to talk about this matter. Obviously, he was good at getting information from those people in the palace, but it was difficult for him to accomplish anything big.

The influence of Prince Jing in the palace is greater, at least it is much easier to arrange these people than Yan Shifan.

The whole plan is aimed at Lu Bing, not Emperor Jiajing, which is an important reason why he can encourage Prince Jing to take action.

King Jing is not brave enough to do such a thing.

If it is just to arrange people, it doesn't seem to be difficult to kill an important official in the court, not to mention that it is an enemy.

Prince Jing knows that Yan Shifan is a very careful person, and it is absolutely impossible for him to explain the matter in just a few words. He must have a more complete plan.

"Tell me in detail, I would like to hear the details."

Although Prince Jing did not agree to it, he asked about the detailed plan, which made Yan Shifan know that he had persuaded him, so he told Prince Jing his plan in detail.

It is actually irresponsible to say that poison is added during the kneading process after the pills are out of the furnace, and all the pills must be poisonous, so that it can be said that the pills are mis-distributed.

If the poison was only used to test the pills, if Emperor Jiajing became suspicious and sent someone to test the pills again, it would be possible to expose the truth.

However, no matter the timing of the poisoning or the news that Lu Bing entered the palace, this would involve people in the palace, and Yan Shifan could not intervene. He could only give advice and let King Jing find someone to arrange it.

"It's a bit troublesome to do this, but it's safer."

After Yan Shifan finished talking about his plan, he continued: "At first I thought it was simpler, that is, to make a poison pill and put it in a jade bottle, and replace it with another one when Lu Bing tested the pills, but when I thought about the subsequent investigation of the pills, I gave up this idea."

After Yan Shifan finished speaking, King Jing just nodded slightly.

If we follow the latter method mentioned by Yan Shifan, we only need to find the right person, that is, the eunuch responsible for taking the pills, but it is not safe.

Emperor Jiajing is likely to let the eunuchs test the pills to confirm that the pills are indeed strong before giving up the pursuit.

The former method requires more manpower and is more likely to expose trouble, but it is indeed safer. The most important thing is that the elixir is indeed too strong. Whoever eats it will die. Naturally, no one will suspect anything. Everything is just an accident.

"This matter is serious. Let me think about it for a few days."

Although King Jing agreed with Yan Shifan's words in his heart, he still did not agree on the spot. After all, Lu Bing is a first-rank official in the court. He needs to carefully consider and plan before deciding whether to do it.

Moreover, even if he really wants to do it, it cannot be done in a short time. It is also necessary to secretly mobilize reliable personnel, which is also a time-consuming matter.

In short, this matter is not simple and cannot be agreed to rashly.

Guo Xiyan was executed, and the small earthquake caused by his memorial in the officialdom of the capital was quickly calmed down.

No one complained for him. After all, it was the result of the discussion of the six departments. Even the Censorate, which likes to find faults in eggs, did not discuss the matter in a memorial afterwards, such as not being convicted for speaking.

The official document sent to Nanjing had been sent out, but the mutiny of the Zhenwu Camp in Nanjing was still being discussed in the court, and the person in the vortex was not a high-ranking official in Nanjing, but someone in Beijing.

The memorial of the Censorate impeaching the Minister of Revenue Ma Kun was kept by Emperor Jiajing, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the censors of the Censorate.

In their view, Ma Kun was the culprit of this incident. Huang Maoguan was just faithfully carrying out his orders. In fact, his death was quite unjust. Therefore, they, who were dedicated to the public, vowed to seek justice for Huang Maoguan.

Since one memorial was kept by Emperor Jiajing, the second and third memorials would be submitted until Emperor Jiajing made a statement.

The Tongzhengshisi was flooded with impeachment memorials from the Censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate for two consecutive days. At this time, the happiest people were Yan Song and Yan Shifan, father and son.

They had already made preparations for the replacement of the six ministries. In their plan, they wanted to make a major rotation of the officials of the six ministries.

Ouyang Bijin, who replaced Zhao Wenhua as the Minister of Works, was one of the protagonists of this adjustment. Because of his contribution to the reconstruction of the palaces destroyed by fire, Ouyang Bijin was given the title of Left Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, but his actual position was still the Minister of Works. This naturally gave Yan Song the idea of ​​transferring him to a more important government office.

Although Ouyang Bijin often showed resistance to his decisions, he would still faithfully execute most of the orders, after all, they were still relatives.

This time, Yan Song planned to let Ouyang Bijin live in the Ministry of Personnel, and the former Minister of Personnel Wu Peng was transferred to the Ministry of Households as an obedient puppet to replace Ma Kun.

In this way, relying on the foundation laid by Yan Shifan in the Ministry of Works, they had both the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Households in their hands, and they could continue to work hard to make money on the national treasury.

Ouyang Bijin entered the Ministry of Personnel, and with his usual strong performance, he would also reassure Emperor Jiajing.

Ouyang Bijin was able to stand firmly in the core circle of the Yan family, not because of how loyal Ouyang Bijin was to the Yan family, but because of the relationship with Yan Song's wife Ouyang, otherwise such a guy who looked like a good match but was actually not in good terms would have been kicked out long ago.

And Ouyang Bijin was also because of this, so most of the time, as long as it did not involve fundamental principles, he would turn a blind eye and pretend not to see it.

However, once he touched the bottom line, he would not hesitate to argue with Yan Song and Yan Shifan, and even wrote a petition to ask Emperor Jiajing for a judgment.

With this situation, Emperor Jiajing naturally favored him. In addition, he was outstanding in ability, so under the intentional or unintentional promotion of Yan Song, Ouyang Bijin's position in the court was as solid as a rock and unshakable.

At this time, the gate of the residence of Ma Kun, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, was "the color of the evening is the same, and the gate is deserted and the horses are few". The scene of the bustling traffic and countless visitors before no longer existed.

After the incident in Nanjing, Ma Kun had an ominous premonition.

Huang Maoguan had consulted him about the things he did in Nanjing. Even though he had been transferred to Beijing as a minister, the power of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue was still firmly in his hands, and his minions were naturally Huang Maoguan and other old subordinates, who were responsible for the completion.

The mad dogs in the Censorate targeted him and filed a crazy memorial to impeach him. Although Ma Kun felt that he was wronged, he was forced to do what he did. If Beijing had not transferred a large amount of reserves from the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue, why would he resort to such a desperate measure?

In fact, strictly speaking, withholding military pay is also saving money for the court, but he forgot the soldiers and the people in their families who were crying for food.

The court was in trouble, and the families of the soldiers were even more difficult.

At this point, it was useless for him to say these things. If something went wrong, he would have to take responsibility.

From the moment he knew that the Censorate impeached him, Ma Kun chose to stay at home and refused all visitors. He submitted a petition and stayed at home.

This is also the performance of officials in the Ming Dynasty after being impeached. They don’t have to do anything and wait for the results of the investigation. It is not considered dereliction of duty. The power of the Ministry of Revenue is naturally represented by the Left Assistant Minister.

Yan Song did not vote on Ma Kun's first memorial, but sent it directly to the palace. After the censor of the Censorate raised the second impeachment memorial, Yan Song was waiting for Ma Kun's second memorial. He would vote on this memorial to express his belief that Ma Kun should bear the main responsibility for this incident.

And now Ma Kun naturally knows that his situation is worrying. Being targeted by the censor of the Censorate, it will be difficult to pass unless the emperor supports him.

In the study, he paced back and forth thinking about how to deal with it.

Although it feels bad, he will not be willing to sit back and wait for death after tasting the sweetness of power. However, although Beijing is big, he can't find anyone who can help him.

Whether he goes to Yan Song or contact Xu Jie, or goes to Prince Yu's Mansion or Prince Jing's Mansion to seek asylum, he feels very unreliable, and he also knows that although he seems to be free to move, there are already many powerful spies outside the mansion, perhaps among them are Jinyiwei people, and his every move will fall into their eyes and finally be reported to Xiyuan.

"Ah"

Ma Kun naturally did not regret making that decision. At that time, he was the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing. Otherwise, the salaries of Nanjing officials would not be paid.

It is better to offend military households than to offend colleagues in the officialdom. However, he did not expect that the soldiers, whom he regarded as ants, would be so bold as to launch a mutiny, which made the situation completely out of control.

Although the mutiny did not have much impact on Nanjing City, the responsibility was indeed great, because it was the capital.

Looking at the memorial on the desk, Ma Kun hesitated about how to word the memorial better so that he could score points with Emperor Jiajing and get through this smoothly.

As for the deceased Huang Maoguan, although he was his confidant, he messed up the matter. If he had not treated the soldiers harshly and paid the military salaries on time, such a thing would not have happened.

Ma Kun had already found out the cause of the Nanjing incident, and naturally knew that it was not the one penny he withheld that caused the trouble, but the unstable military morale after the plague and Huang Maoguan's failure to pay the military pay in time.

Even if Huang Maoguan wanted to clean up, he couldn't start right after the plague ended. He had to wait for a few days before taking action, and it shouldn't have become what it is now.

Sighing now can't solve the problem, and he can only write another memorial to express his grievances. There is no way, the matter is too big, and the censor will not let go.

Stepping back to the desk, Ma Kun picked up the pen and started writing, but he didn't know that someone in the cabinet was waiting for his memorial.

The next day, Ma Kun's family sent the memorial to the Tongzhengshisi, then transferred it to the cabinet, and then to the Silijian, and was taken to the Yongshou Palace in the West Garden by Gao Zhong in the evening.

Tonight, after the evening study, Emperor Jiajing had to deal with some memorials as usual. The memorials specially reminded by the cabinet would naturally be dealt with first.

After the little eunuch read the memorials one by one, Emperor Jiajing would often express his opinion quickly.

Agree, reject or keep them, and rarely modify the memorials and bills.

Because if the memorials are not appropriate, the cabinet will deny or supplement them in the bills, or give better solutions, so he, the helmsman of the Ming Dynasty, does not need to think too much.

This is the main role of the cabinet, and their power lies in this.

Although it cannot decide the success or failure of a matter, it can influence the judgment of the decision maker and exert a subconscious influence.

When the little eunuch finished reading Ma Kun's memorial and Yan Song's bills and handed them to Gao Zhong, waiting for Emperor Jiajing on the throne to make a decision, he could also approve and return them to the cabinet.

This time there was an exception. Emperor Jiajing on the throne did not speak for a long time, as if he was thinking about something.

After a long time, Emperor Jiajing said, "Look for the petition of apology submitted by Nanjing two days ago, as well as the impeachment petition of Nanjing Kedao. I remember there was also the last petition of Huang Maoguan. Find them all."

The first impeachment of the Censorate was kept by Emperor Jiajing. After all, in his opinion, Ma Kun had been away from Nanjing for some time, so how could he be blamed for the Zhenwu Camp.

But now, Yan Song's draft also said that Ma Kun should bear the main responsibility, which requires Emperor Jiajing to think carefully.

In fact, since the Zhenwu Camp incident was quelled in time and no major turmoil occurred, it did not attract much attention from Emperor Jiajing.

Compared with the mutiny in the border town, the one in Nanjing was just a drizzle, as long as it did not affect this year's summer grain and autumn tax.

However, Ma Kun was impeached continuously. Not only did the Beijing Censorate launch an impeachment with all its strength, but the Nanjing Kedao also impeached him, and the Prime Minister also believed that he was guilty, so he had to take a serious look.

"The radical change started with Ma Kun's proposal to reduce the silver tax, and was completed by Huang Maoguan's investigation and abolition of the wife's grain tax. The Minister Cai Kelian was ill and could not take up his post, and the Deputy Minister Fang Youji, who was in charge of An Qian, was released from his post."