Chapter 398

"What is Gao Gong doing?"

After Wei Guangde recounted the plan that Gao Gong had told him in the restaurant before, Yin Shizhen's face turned ugly and he said dissatisfiedly.

He was upright by nature, but he was not a fool. If he were stupid, he would not be able to pass the Jinshi examination, he would not be elected to the Hanlin Academy, and he would not be sent by Emperor Jiajing to assist King Yu.

"Who made me do something wrong?"

Wei Guangde just sighed and stopped talking, but Yin Shizhen did not shut up.

"A few days ago, I felt that Gao Gong had changed a lot. He was very arrogant when he spoke and acted. It is not an exaggeration to say that a villain is domineering when he succeeds. I never expected that he would become like this after only a few good days."

At this time, Yin Shizhen was already a little angry. He suddenly stood up and was about to walk out, but was held back by Wei Guangde.

"Brother Zhengfu, where are you going?"

Seeing Yin Shizhen's current state, Wei Guangde felt bad. If Yin Shizhen made a big fuss with Gao Gong, he would really put himself on fire.

Although he could also see that what Gao Gong told him seemed to have not been informed to Prince Yu's Mansion beforehand, and Prince Yu might not know about it.

It's a bit like cutting things off first and telling them later. Do the things first and then talk to King Yu. King Yu probably won't say anything at that time, after all, it's already like this.

"You can't be so stupid. Let you go to Fujian and promise you the position of governor or governor. This will cut off your path to the cabinet."

At this time, Yin Shizhen spoke directly.

"Why"

In response, Wei Guangde just sighed, then let go of Yin Shizhen's hand and sat back in his seat.

"Why don't I know, but what can I do?"

After Wei Guangde sat down, a trace of pain appeared on his face and he said sadly.

Yin Shizhen frowned and said, "I'm looking for Gao Gong, how could this be possible?"

"Don't go. It's not good for me or you."

Wei Guangde replied.

"How dare he ask me to go to Fujian or Zhejiang?"

Yin Shizhen said immediately.

"Maybe he can really do it."

Wei Guangde glanced at Yin Shizhen, then pointed to where he was sitting, motioning for Yin Shizhen to sit down, and then continued: "In the name of doing good for King Yu, get rid of everyone around King Yu.

From now on, the only person King Yu in the capital can rely on is Gao Suqing. We will all be out at that time, and then we will tell King Yu that we can help him control the world, and our promotion will be under his control. "

"Does he still have Sima Zhao's ambition?"

Yin Shizhen, who sat down, frowned even deeper and spoke uncertainly.

"Whoever lends his courage depends on whether he dares to do it. Sima Zhao doesn't know how to do it, but Yan Song's second is hard to say."

Wei Guangde was willing to risk everything at this time. From Gao Gong's changes in these days and his attitude towards himself, he could feel that Gao Gong was a real villain.

Since he is a real villain, there is no need to show any affection. It's just that he doesn't want to break up in front of him. Why don't he dare to say it in private?

"No, I have to go back to Prince Yu's Mansion and explain the matter clearly."

Yin Shizhen was about to stand up again, but Wei Guangde stopped him when he put his hand on the armrest.

"What's the use of talking about this now? It's still true. After all, they are doing it for our own good."

Wei Guangde shook his head and said: "I only blame myself for not doing things confidentially and making mistakes.

Besides, will King Yu trust you and me, or Gao Gong? "

Before, Wei Guangde always addressed Gao Gong as "Su Qing" in front of them, but now he is too lazy to talk about etiquette and just calls him by his first name.

"We will discuss this matter later. Even if we plan this now, it may not be possible. After all, His Majesty still has the final say."

At this time, Wei Guangde could only hope that Emperor Jiajing could see through Xu Jie and Gao Gong's tricks. As long as they stopped him when the time came to appoint the governor of Fujian and called him back to the capital, there would still be a chance for everything.

To achieve the long-term plan, Gao Zhong and even Huang Jin in the palace need his management.

No one in the court could help him, so the only people who could speak for him were the people in the palace.

Wei Guangde had already felt that Emperor Jiajing's character determined that he could use people like Yan Song, relatively strong officials, but King Yu's character was not suitable.

As long as Emperor Jiajing discovered Gao Gong's character flaws, and considering King Yu's situation, he would definitely need to support someone who could compete with Gao Gong and restrain Gao Gong from monopolizing the government.

By then, Wei Guangde wouldn't mind publicly standing against Gao Gong or even Xu Jie.

With the emperor's support, Wei Guangde believed that there would be some people standing by his side, at least most of his fellow villagers and contemporaries would choose to lean towards him.

It's not time to break up now, so Wei Guangde naturally doesn't want Yin Shizhen to do bad things. The timing is wrong.

"However, Brother Zhengfu, you must also remind Brother Yifu in private to be cautious in your words and actions to avoid being plotted by villains.

Whether it is for King Yu or the world, people like Yan Song must never appear again. "

At this time, Wei Guangde had already compared Gao Gong to Yan Song.

After listening to Wei Guangde's words, Yin Shizhen sat there quietly for a long time before gradually calming down.

I don't know what he thought, but in the end he just nodded slightly.

Everyone has their own ideas, and Wei Guangde doesn't want to delve into it, he just hopes that his words can give Yin Shizhen a warning.

According to the normal historical trend, Chen Yiqin joined the cabinet in the early years of Longqing and served as a cabinet minister for four years. However, in the first two years, Gao Gong and Xu Jie fought in the cabinet, and Gao Gong naturally wanted to win over Chen Yiqin to fight against Xu Jie.

Two years after Xu Jie fell, Chen Yiqin was also squeezed out of the cabinet by Gao Gong and forced to retire.

Yin Shizhan succeeded Chen Yiqin, but Yin Shizhan was forced to retire with Gao Gong because of "political differences" less than a year after he entered the cabinet, and even caused the "cabinet boxing" incident.

However, the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty seemed to have been accustomed to fighting over a disagreement, so most people were not surprised by this.

After sending Yin Shizhan away, Wei Guangde began to plan his own plan. Of course, he could not sit and wait for death. He had to go through the eunuchs. He thought about waiting for two days to talk to Chen Ju. Now there was no rush anyway. The official documents would go to Fujian and then return. It would take at least half a month for the court to make a decision.

This could only be done under the condition of the court's extremely fast operation efficiency, but Wei Guangde did not doubt that the decision concerning himself would be delayed. Whether it was the first assistant Yan Song or the second assistant Xu Jie, or even Gao Gong who had half a foot in the cabinet, they all hoped to send him away.

Unexpectedly, he was so annoying.

Wei Guangde sighed in his heart. He thought he had good relationships with people, but he offended all the dignitaries in the court without making a sound. It was really not easy to get along in the officialdom.

Wei Guangde remembered some things he had read in the later generations, saying that officials could not be greedy for a little comfort. The official career was like sailing against the current. If you don't advance, you will retreat.

Once you step into the officialdom, you can only think about continuous progress, unless you just want to be a transparent person in the system and be a clerk at the grassroots level for your whole life.

In the past two years in the capital, most of the silver given by the family has been spent. Except for 20,000 taels that were taken out for lending and collecting interest every year, the rest were used to purchase ginseng from the previous year. Now the price of ginseng from the previous year has risen sharply in the capital, and even in the whole Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde didn't ask much about the silver that was loaned out, but he could probably guess that it was all borrowed by his fellow villagers in Jiujiang.

They certainly didn't lack silver, but they had to pay interest to the Wei Mansion every year.

With such an income, Wei Guangde's life in the capital was quite comfortable, at least he didn't have to worry about money.

Thinking of the silver, Wei Guangde naturally considered how much to send to Chen Ju and the people in the palace. To maintain the relationship, it is not possible without the bond of interest.

Chen Ju is a well-behaved person, but he also likes money, but he knows which money can be taken and which money cannot be taken, and is more cautious than most people in the palace.

However, this time, Wei Guangde had some other ideas.

It is probably not possible to send silver directly. It is better to form a closer interest relationship, so that even if he goes to Fujian, the relationship between the two sides will not be alienated.

As for what method to use to strengthen the connection, Wei Guangde has been thinking about this for a long time.

To be honest, Wei Guangde knows less about the famous officials of the Ming Dynasty than the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty. There are really many celebrities among the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty in later generations.

Zheng He who sailed to the West, Wang Zhen in Tumu Fortress, Liu Jin, headed by the Eight Tigers of Zhengde, Huang Jin beside Emperor Jiajing, and the eight thousand female ghosts under Emperor Carpenter.

Bah, it seems that I have the same surname as him. If I end up in the record of treacherous officials in the Ming Dynasty, I might be arranged like this.

Wei Guangde sat in the duty room and thought about it. However, Wei Guangde's initial plan, from the information Zhang Ji had found out so far, seemed to be a little lacking. It seemed inappropriate to play with finance now.

Yes, Wei Guangde planned to open a money house.

Since those merchants were willing to take money from him and pay him interest, why not make it bigger and stronger?

At this stage, the financial industry in the Ming Dynasty had not developed at all. In addition to pawnshops, there was only private lending.

Private lending is actually usury, but the reason for its formation cannot actually be blamed on others. It is really caused by the limitations of development.

Lending is only a private act in modern times. Because there is no credit system, lenders cannot guarantee to collect money from borrowers. Therefore, private lending is from large households to small households in the same village and clan. Because the loan channels are narrow and the risks are extremely high, the interest rate is naturally not low.

Although pawnshops will collect collateral for lending, they are naturally unwilling to let the silver fly away in vain when seeing the interest of private lending. Therefore, the interest rate of pawnshops is consistent with the interest rate of private lending, that is, high.

Because the interest rate is high, Wang Anshi's reform in the Song Dynasty came up with a "Qingmiao Law". The original intention was naturally to reduce the burden of borrowing by the lower-class people, especially the special funds for special purposes, and the loans can only be used for agricultural production.

The money house that Wei Guangde envisioned was naturally not run by him alone. He also wanted to introduce some shareholders, including the eunuchs in the palace.

Those people had a lot of silver in their hands.

What Wei Guangde wanted to do was naturally to run a pure money house. In addition to the business of exchanging money and lending, he also wanted to absorb deposits for lending and earn the difference.

As for the silver notes that we saw on TV before, Wei Guangde doesn't have the courage to do it now.

Although there are now similar notes in the folk, they are not the main business of shops, because most of the issuers are pawnshops, and they don't issue many notes, most of which are based on real transactions.

In other words, issuing notes is very risky in the eyes of pawnshops or shops, and it is not their main business. The reason why they retain this function is mainly to facilitate customer transactions.

Wei Guangde thinks that the anti-counterfeiting process is too troublesome to issue silver notes in the bank, and he doesn't have the power. Even if the use of silver notes is limited to the local area and not allowed to be used in other places, he doesn't have such strong credit.

To do lending business, the commodity economy must develop unprecedentedly. Although the economic development of the Ming Dynasty has been good in recent years, the business in the south has been difficult to do because of the Japanese invasion. Many merchants are actually shrinking. Only merchants running to the north are still operating, but they dare not easily expand their scale.

Let's wait and see.

Wei Guangde thought to himself that he would decide whether to pull people in the palace to set up a money house after seeing the report from Fujian. If not, he would borrow money from them and lend it to merchants. He would not make interest. He would be a selfless porter. The main purpose is nothing more than to maintain a good relationship.

Wei Guangde was still waiting and watching. After Gao Gong returned, he sent a message to Xu Jie of the cabinet. Wei Guangde agreed to go to Fujian to serve as a patrol censor.

Xu Jie would not pay attention to what Wei Guangde thought. In his opinion, this was all the business of Prince Yu's Mansion.

Before, the people in the court were adjusted. Gao Gong was going to the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Rites. The position of the Imperial College was vacant. He originally wanted his student Zhang Juzheng to take over Gao Gong's position.

It was just that Zhang Juzheng's rank and qualifications were not enough, so Xu Jie had to settle for the second best and set his sights on Prince Yu's Mansion, intending to send Zhang Juzheng to Prince Yu's Mansion as Prince Yu's lecturer.

This time, the positions of officials in the court changed a lot. Zhang Juzheng's current position as a Hanlin editor was not good enough, so naturally he aimed at the position of a scholar-in-charge or a lecturer, and raised his rank by half a level to the fifth rank.

That night, Xu Jie hosted Gao Gong at his own mansion again, and also called Zhang Juzheng.

"Today, I have drafted the memorials of the two ministers Wu and Gao and sent them to the Silijian."

At the banquet, Xu Jie said casually.

The two ministers Wu and Gao, of course, refer to the Minister of Rites Wu Shan and the Minister of Revenue Gao Yao. They are now discussing the affairs of Prince Jing's Mansion with the Minister of Works Ouyang Bijin and the Chief of Prince Jing's Mansion. Now the memorial is naturally about the renovation project of Prince Jing's Mansion, which Prince Yu's Mansion is extremely concerned about.

The current situation is that the Jing Wang faction is deliberately delaying the construction period, and the court and Prince Yu's Mansion naturally hope to cut the Gordian knot and send Jing Wang away as soon as possible.

Therefore, Gao Gong instantly became energetic after hearing what Xu Jie said.

"What do you think His Majesty will reply?"

Xu Jie's draft will definitely not say that Wu and Gao are wrong, but he will never blame Jing Wang's Mansion. The spearhead can only be aimed at the Minister of Works Ouyang Bijin.

Anyway, some time ago, Ouyang Bijin also submitted a resignation memorial, but it was rejected by Emperor Jiajing.

Ouyang Bijin, now among the six ministers, there are only two people from Yan Song's faction, except for him, and Wu Peng, the Minister of Personnel. Yan Song's power can be said to have been greatly reduced.

"The Ministry of Works should be given a deadline to complete the project. I'm afraid that Minister Ouyang will not stay for long."

Xu Jie glanced at Gao Gong and said lightly.