Chapter 465 464 Disciple of the School of Mind

On February 9, the 41st year of Jiajing, the imperial examination was held in Beijing. The candidates from Jiujiang Prefecture were sent to the examination hall by Lao Kan and others. Wei Guangde was a little busy in the past two days, so he handed the matter over to him. Otherwise, as the highest-ranking official in Jiujiang in Beijing, this should have been done by his fellow villager.

It was because the news brought by Chen Ju had a big impact.

The first thing was that Lan Daoxing's words and deeds were strange, and the whole story must be found out.

As for the second thing, Wei Guangde hurriedly wrote a letter to Nanjing and Jiujiang early in the morning of the next day and sent someone to deliver it as soon as possible.

That night, Wei Guangde's brain was not very bright. He was very clear about his condition, so he did not do anything. However, when he woke up, although his head still hurt a little, it did not prevent him from thinking about things.

Hu Zongxian wanted to place a deputy general on Yu Dayou's head, and Wei Guangde's way of dealing with it was naturally to intercept.

If you want to create this new position, you must have recommended someone. I will take the initiative to communicate with the Ministry of War and directly seek to let Yu Dayou take the position of deputy general.

Yu Dayou fully meets the requirements of this position in all aspects. I don’t know if Hu Zongxian will vomit three liters of blood after knowing this.

As for the change of Poyang garrison commander to lieutenant general, naturally, it can only be handled by my father-in-law Xu Pengju. If you want to grab territory from the former military governor’s office, especially Jiujiang, an important place, I guess my father-in-law will definitely be furious.

What territory does the former military governor’s office have? It governs Huguang Dusi, Fujian Dusi, Jiangxi Dusi, Guangdong Dusi, Huguang Xing Dusi, Fujian Xing Dusi, Xingdu Liushou Si and Zhili Jiujiang Wei.

Among them, the three Dusi of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong have been taken away by Hu Zongxian, and even most of the garrisons in Nanzhili have been taken away. Now his eyes are on Jiujiang Guard, the only directly affiliated guard. This is the rhythm of completely emptying the front army governor's office.

Wei Guangde didn't know before, because he stayed in the corner of Bengshanbao. Now Wei's father is already a thousand households, and he has entered the guard command system, and he knows a lot more.

Jiujiang Guard is not only guarding Jiujiang, but also cooperating with Jiujiang Bank to control the ships in this waterway.

Many ships that are not convenient for the bank to pay attention to cannot pass through Jiujiang without the tacit consent of Jiujiang Guard. This is also a gray income for Jiujiang Guard.

In fact, in the past, only some ships of Nanjing nobles came and went, but now the business has expanded to the field of private salt, with the Nanjing Weiguo Mansion taking the lead and contacting the entire Yanjiang Guard to escort the big business.

Jiujiang is such an important link, how could it be easily transferred to others.

What kind of position is the Poyang garrison mentioned by Hu Zongxian? It is just a general officer who manages the Nanhu water camp, and his main responsibility is to eliminate the water bandits in Poyang Lake.

In terms of rank, it is the first level of the guard commander, equivalent to a guerrilla general. The person in charge can be the guard commander Tongzhi or Qianshi, or even a thousand-household official.

In the military system of the Ming Dynasty, the command is divided into three levels, and the lowest level is naturally the guard commander.

For example, the commander, Tongzhi and Qianshi of Jiujiang Guard belong to the guard commander, and most of the official records of the Ming Dynasty are called "commander".

The second level is naturally the provincial Dusi Yamen, which is similar to the military district level in later generations. It has multiple guards under its jurisdiction and belongs to the first level of the commander. The highest official is the commander, and the next level is also Tongzhi and Qianshi.

The highest level is the commander-in-chief, that is, the general officer of the Five Military Commandery. The official positions are left and right commanders, co-governors, and assistant governors. People with such official positions are either serving in the two capitals of the south and north, or serving as generals in the nine border towns.

According to Hu Zongxian, the garrison of Poyang was promoted to the level of lieutenant general, which means he was promoted to the level of commander-in-chief. In Jiujiang, as the commander of the guard, the Jiujiang Guard naturally had to obey orders.

After thinking clearly at home, Wei Guangde wrote a letter to Prince Yu's Mansion. Naturally, he waited for Prince Yu to come out of the backyard and talked to Prince Yu about the matter alone. The matter of Jiujiang Guard was naturally not in this conversation.

To investigate the feud between Lan Daoxing and Yan Song, it was better to let Prince Yu's Mansion send someone privately, and he was too lazy to intervene.

Prince Yu's Mansion is now in the capital, and there are many people under it.

As he thought, Prince Yu had no good feelings for Lan Daoxing, or he hated all the alchemists who pretended to be gods in front of Emperor Jiajing.

This is not because of the teachings of Gao Gong and others, perhaps his own life experience is the most important reason.

However, as Wei Guangde thought, after Prince Yu knew that Lan Daoxing had discredited Yan Song in front of Emperor Jiajing, the previous bad feelings on his face dissipated slightly.

"Father still trusts them now. If they can do something to rectify the court, it will be good."

Prince Yu said lightly, "Just do as you say. I will ask Li Fang to send someone to check and check other people by the way to see if they have any grudges with the Yan family."

As for Yu Dayou's affairs, Prince Yu also expressed his support without reason.

"Yu Dayou was originally the general of Zhejiang, and now he is just appointed as the deputy general, which is very suitable."

Prince Yu said this to Wei Guangde at the time, asking him to contact the people of the Ministry of War under the name of Prince Yu's Mansion to handle this matter.

In the past, Prince Yu might not care about these military affairs, but now the situation is different.

If the empire's borders are to be peaceful and stable for a long time, it is not possible without capable generals, and now he has realized the importance of finding these generals.

If he wants to enjoy the happiness in the harem in the future and not be disturbed by border affairs, then he must plan ahead, find these people, and use them in the future.

Yes, in King Yu's view, facing and solving problems is that simple, as long as you find the right way.

Wei Guangde's nearly one year of teaching at Yu Wang's side actually made Yu Wang become utilitarian, hoping to solve problems in the simplest way.

If the northern Tatars want to cause trouble, they will find good generals to garrison the border. If the Tatars dare to come, they will fight back to see who can outlast the other.

As for the most important thing for the border army to become stronger is sufficient military pay. According to Wei Guangde, the interests of the empire have been divided up by the royal nobles. Trying to steal money from them will probably cause civil strife in the empire.

Civil strife was the most annoying thing for King Yu.

In this case, ignore the interests that have been distributed and turn your attention to other aspects.

The tax department, bureaus and river channels were not allotted to the feudal kings. The salt tax benefits were also divided up by the court and royal nobles. There were other things, but they had been divided up long ago.

But it doesn't matter. Without these, then we will focus on the things still left in the hands of the court, one is the banknotes, and the other is the city ships.

The empire carries so many goods from north to south every year, but the bank only receives hundreds of thousands of taels of tax money, which is not enough, absolutely not enough.

Since the Yi people like our Ming Dynasty goods, we can sell them to them. They will buy them from the Japanese pirates, and the court will participate in the distribution of profits.

When those coastal merchants objected, they asked the royal nobles to deal with them. If they could not be suppressed, they threatened to withdraw the benefits granted to them.

This is an exchange, exchanging benefits for benefits.

If you want to keep your profits, you have to bully those businessmen. Anyway, they have been doing this for a long time and have developed a very skilled routine.

In the past, Gao Gong taught King Yu the great principles and let him know what etiquette, justice, integrity, loyalty and filial piety were. However, Wei Guangde taught him the interests behind the great principles.

The essence of any transaction is a process of exchange of interests. Participants weigh the pros and cons and make the final choice. The truth is just a cover-up on the surface to hide the fact of exchange of interests.

What King Yu has to do is to keep his eyes open, see clearly the true face of the participants, their demands, and balance their interests without affecting his own.

Wei Guangde didn't know the impact of his words and deeds on King Yu, but King Yu's reaction was in line with his needs, and he naturally obeyed.

Not long after, Li Fang, who was waiting outside the door, was called into the room by King Yu and arranged the task of tracing the recent situation of Lan Daoxing and other alchemists.

Although Li Fang was a little confused, she still obeyed the order.

In the next two days, Wei Guangde visited the residences of Yang Bo, Minister of War, and two ministers.

Although Yang Bo is the Minister of War, the system established by the Ming Dynasty is not a one-word statement. If Yang Bo's will conflicts with the two ministers, they can certainly write a letter of impeachment.

Of course Wei Guangde didn't want to see this, so he targeted the three bosses of the Ministry of War from the beginning.

Just when Wei Guangde was running about Yu Dayou's affairs, a carriage stopped outside the gate of a Taoist temple outside Beijing. The curtain opened to reveal an old man who was over sixty years old. He reluctantly got out of the carriage with the help of his attendants.

The old man got out of the car, looked back at the carriage, and said with some regret, "I'm old, it's so hard to get off the carriage."

"Master, let's take the sedan next time."

A follower whispered in the old man's ear.

The old man just shook his head, looked at the Taoist temple gate and asked, "Has he arrived?"

"Already arrived."

The attendant replied.

"Then let's go in."

The old man said and walked towards the gate of the Taoist temple.

As the old man approached, the door seemed to be sensing something. A wooden door gently opened inward, revealing a gap just big enough for one person to enter. The old man and several followers walked into the Taoist temple from here.

The carriage that had been left outside the door had restarted without any haste at this time and continued to move along the avenue, but there were only a few figures missing around the carriage.

There was a lot of time between the carriage stopping and leaving. Not long after, a panting figure appeared on the way the carriage came. He ran to the Taoist temple gate and looked around, then looked down at the ruts on the road, and then continued towards the road. Chase in the direction of the carriage.

Behind a big tree on the roadside in the distance, a figure quietly watched everything happening in front of the Taoist temple.

"Your Highness."

Wei Guangde was called here by Li Fang. After entering, he found that there was no one else in the room except King Yu.

"Please take a seat."

King Yu seemed to have come back to his senses after hearing Wei Guangde's words, and said to him with a forced smile.

"What did Yang Shangshu of the Ministry of War say?"

After Wei Guangde sat down, King Yu asked.

"Yang Shangshu of the Ministry of War and the two ministers have agreed that if Your Majesty asks the Ministry of War to select the deputy commander-in-chief of Southern Jiangxi, they will recommend Yu Dayou for this position."

Wei Guangde smiled easily.

The two days of lobbying went very smoothly. Perhaps because of the favor of Prince Yu's palace, or because they saw that Yu Dayou did have strong commanding abilities, the Ministry of War did not object to recommending Yu Dayou.

"That's good. I will make great use of Yu Dayou in the future. It's great to be able to upgrade my rank back now."

After Prince Yu nodded slightly, he turned his head and glanced at Li Fang beside him, "It's better for you to tell me."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Li Fang agreed, then took a step forward and told the two of them some clues he had discovered in recent days.

"The people below didn't find any connection between the Yan family and Taoist Lan."

Wei Guangde said with some surprise.

"No, I sent someone to check all of Daozhang Lan's recent itinerary and found no conflicts with the Yan family.

Also, I have contacted the palace, and Taoist Master Lan did say this in front of the emperor that day, and soon after, Mr. Yan Ge came to Xiyuan to ask for an audience. "

Li Fang replied.

"You mean this was all a coincidence?"

Wei Guangde asked with a slight frown.

"At first, I did think so, but yesterday I received news that our people had spotted Mr. Xu Ge riding a carriage out of the city."

At this time, Li Fang looked a little weird and said: "Shandai may not have thought of where Xu Ge was going when he left the city."

Wei Guangde was slightly moved when he saw Li Fang's face, and guessed: "Is he going to see Lan Daoxing?"

Wei Guangde just said the words casually because he saw Li Fang's strange expression, but he didn't expect that what he saw was Li Fang's nod.

"Mr. Xu Ge and Lan Daoxing have a private connection?"

Seeing Li Fang's actions, Wei Guangde didn't know that there must be a hidden secret, and it seemed that Li Fang had already figured it out, otherwise he wouldn't have reported it to King Yu, and even called himself to know about it.

"The people we followed Taoist Master Lan did follow to a small Taoist temple outside the city, and Mr. Xu Ge's carriage also passed there later. The people monitoring it were just not sure whether it was Mr. Xu Ge who entered the Taoist temple."

At this time, Li Fang finally told Wei Guangde what his men had discovered yesterday, and then continued: "However, according to the description of the person who monitored Taoist Master Lan, the carriage once stopped in front of the Taoist temple for a while, and someone got off the car and entered the Taoist temple. The carriage left after that, and we followed Mr. Xu Ge’s people and passed by there.”

"Wait a minute, Eunuch Li, you also sent people to follow Mr. Xu Ge?"

Wei Guangde suddenly noticed a problem and asked hurriedly.

"A few days ago, we didn't find any bad blood between Taoist Lan and Yan Ge's family, so we sent people to also keep an eye on Xu and Yuan, the two elders. After all, if something happens to Mr. Yan, they will be the ones to benefit."

Having said this, Li Fang turned to Prince Yu and said, "I didn't inform His Highness before. Please punish me."

"Okay, let's not talk about this. You'd better tell Shandai what you found."

King Yu just shook his head and then ordered.

Wei Guangde remained calm, but when the two of them were not paying attention, he secretly glanced at the seemingly stupid and harmless King Yu.

"Yes, Your Highness."

Li Fang bowed, stood up straight, and then said to Wei Guangde: "We found out that Master Lan is a disciple of Xin Xue."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde opened his mouth slightly, seeming to understand the reason why Lan Daoxing and Xu Jie were in contact.

Xu Jie is the disciple of Xinxue with the largest official position in the Jiajing Dynasty today.