The old man Pan Sheng was in a commotion, first lost the secretary of the Ministry of Rites that he was currently holding, and then recommended Shen Shixing's in-law Xu Xuemo to take over the vacant uncle.

If there is no problem here, Gao Pragmatic is willing to write the high characters upside down!

However, what is the crux of this problem is very debatable.

At first glance, the most likely situation in this matter is that Pan Sheng, the old guy, saw that Shoufu had changed, so he jumped to Shen Shixing's side according to his usual style, and the root of this commotion is nothing more than standing in line.

But this is suspicious, because although Pan Sheng has not had a strong sense of existence in the cabinet for several years, he is old and sophisticated, and it is impossible not to know the true situation of the cabinet.

What is the real situation? Although the cabinet is now headed by Shen Shixing, due to the sudden death of Yu Youding, Shen Shixing is now a loner, as long as he wants to oppose the opinions or suggestions of the Shixue school, no matter how big or small, he has to come out in person to show the carriage and horses, which is actually relatively taboo in the cabinet.

Why taboo? Take the example of Gao Gong to know that Gao Gong was undoubtedly strong enough in the Longqing Dynasty, but he actually had helpers in the cabinet, such as Zhang Juzheng, who tried every means to invite him back to Beijing, was his helper at that time. And one helper is not enough, Gao Gong invited Guo Pu back under Gao Pragmatic's suggestion - in the original history, he lifted Gao Yi up, but the two are not bad in their original intentions, they are both looking for helpers.

It can be seen that even if he is as strong as Gao Gong of the Longqing Dynasty, he also knows that he cannot be alone in the cabinet, and he must adhere to the principle of "one hero and three gangs" in order to grasp the situation firmly.

The situation that Shen Shixing is facing now is even worse than when Gao Gong returned to Beijing when he first returned, and although his holy family is not bad, it is definitely not as good as Gao Gong in the past. At this time, would an old fox like Pan Sheng really choose to stand on the side of Shen Shixing, the first assistant who has little chance of winning, without saying a word?

I'm afraid this is a question mark.

Another point is that Pan Sheng's position in the cabinet is fundamental, which can be summed up as "basically neutral, slightly biased from the wind direction".

This attitude is to put it bluntly, which side is strong and which side listens, but at no time does it come forward, and every time it shows the appearance of "the general trend is like this, I can't do it".

The advantage of this attitude is that it does not offend the "real prime minister" who controls the direction of the wind, nor does it offend the other faction too much, and the other faction is not a child, and of course knows the weight of his old Pan. He can't object at all, he just takes advantage of the situation to make a statement, do you still want to put him to death, and finally completely rectify him to the side of the "real prime minister"?

Who would be so naïve? The neutrals are all able to fight as hard as they can, and if they can't win it, they should try to keep him from going against themselves.

After all, it is not the harshest period of party struggle in history at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and it has not reached the point where it is either you die or I die, and everyone still maintains the last clarity of thought.

So from these two points, two basic conclusions can be drawn: first, Pan Sheng himself does not need to jump into the fire pit; Second, Shen Shixing is unlikely to force Pan Sheng to clarify his position.

This is too strange, Gao Pragmatic drank two teas in a row, but he didn't straighten out the reasoning. After all, you can't come to a conclusion that Old Man Pan is simply crazy, right?

You can't joke like this when it comes to politics, even if you are really crazy, you have to look at his actions as a deliberate decision.

It is better to think more than to be overlooked. This is a consistent principle of high pragmatism.

But this matter now seems to have reached a dead end, and it doesn't make sense when you look at it horizontally and vertically.

"It doesn't make sense, that is, there must be something I haven't been able to grasp." Gao Shishi's fingers tapped lightly on the table, and his mind kept recalling some of the recent actions of Pan Sheng and Shen Shixing, carefully examining whether there might be some kind of connection between these actions.

Oh, by the way, and Xu Xuemo.

Xu Xuemo is Shen Shixing's in-law, which is the first thing that everyone in the Shixue School will think of when they hear this name. However, at this time, Gao Pragmatic suddenly felt that he should not be confined to prejudices first, and always look at the problem from this perspective, and now he should jump out of this shackle and examine it from a higher angle.

What kind of person is Xu Xuemo? This person is Shuming, a word of words, a native of Taimur Mountain, and a native of Jiading, Suzhou Prefecture, in the south. He is the gold list of Jiajing for 29 years, and his qualifications can be described as extremely old, but he is not young, he is already sixty-four years old (imaginary age).

The people of Suzhou, that is, Shen Shixing's fellow villagers, it is not surprising that they became in-laws.

But why did Pan Sheng recommend Xu Xuemo? Pan Sheng is a native of Zhejiang, and he is not a fellow villager with Shen Shixing and Xu Xuemo, and his title on the gold list is earlier, which is the eye of Jiajing's 20 years, and it is not the same year of Shen Shixing and Xu Xuemo.

Hell, he can't be a junior for no reason, right? If the juniors want to carry it, then there are simply too many people he can carry - this old man has been the secretary of the Ministry of Rites for so many years, and he has a lot of protégés, but his power in the cabinet is not very "real", I'm afraid that even the protégés can't be promoted, and there is still time to take care of Xu Xuemo's idle affairs?

Besides, Xu Xuemo is now a waiter in the Criminal Department, and his status is not low, and he can be regarded as one of the bigwigs of the Heart School, so he can be promoted by Old Man Pan? Shen Shixing is also the first assistant, even if it is not convenient for him to recommend his in-laws, but there is no way to be accommodating - for example, if Shuhua, the secretary of the Criminal Department, finds an opportunity to promote him, wouldn't Shuhua return the favor and recommend Xu Xuemo to take over his position?

As an official, the sedan chair carries people, I don't understand this reason, what kind of mix, it's not much more Tsinghua to go back to my hometown and travel in the forest early?

Yes, it's a dead end again.

Gao pragmatically picked up the teacup with some annoyance, and found that the third cup of tea was also empty. He was stunned for a moment, shook his head, stood up, and let out a long breath of turbidity.

While he was troubled, Gao Mo asked to see him outside the door.

Gao pragmatic let him in, and then asked, "Did you find out anything?" ”

Gao Mo bowed slightly and said, "Back to the master, there are some clues from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but I don't know if it is related to Pan Ge's actions this time." ”

"Say!" Gao Shishi's eyes lit up, and he immediately said.

Gao Mo didn't say much, opened a book that looked like an account book in his hand, flipped to the position where the bookmark had been inserted in advance, and said: "Two months ago, two maritime merchants in Zhejiang sold a total of twenty-seven berths in Ningbo private port to Pan Yi at a low price far below the market price - this person is Pan Ge Lao's nephew. ”

Gao Shishi's eyes narrowed suddenly, and a gleam flashed in his eyes.

"There must be something else going on?"

"The master has seen thousands of miles, and there are indeed still there." Gao Mo turned two more pages, looked at them, and said: "On the side of Songjiang Xu's private port, the shares held by Liu Shouyou's family were divided into two, and half of them were privately transferred to Pan Yi, and the reason used was to be hired. ”

If you are hired, it must be a marriage. However, who is the marriage between the Xu family and the Pan family, this Gao pragmatic person is not interested in asking more, he just needs to know the meaning of this.

"Hehe, that's what happened." Gao pragmatic nodded, already understanding the root of the problem in his heart, but he still subconsciously asked: "Is there anything else?" ”

Who knew that Gao Mo replied: "Yes, there is." ”

Gao Pragmatic was stunned this time, and frowned: "Shen Shi...... Shen Yuanfu shouldn't have any port shares in his hands, right? ”

"It's not Shen Yuanfu, it's the other two - they also sold some shares at a low price, and even some ships to Pan Yi." Gao Mo flipped through the account book in his hand and said: "The value of the port shares is about 110,000 taels to 130,000 taels, while the market price of the ship is higher, about 178,000 taels. When added together, it can be calculated as 300,000 taels. ”

"Such a big deal?" Gao Pragmatic couldn't help but be a little surprised.

300,000 taels, one-twentieth of the annual income of the imperial treasury. If this money is saved, it is even almost enough to fight a battle of Yunnan and Burma (only counting the part spent by the imperial court).

"Which two families paid for this?" High pragmatism is up.

"Wang Xijue, Xu Xuemo."

Gao was stunned for a moment: "Wang Xijue? ”

Xu Xuemo is the final beneficiary of Pan Shengsao's operation this time, and it is not surprising that he participated in it, Gao Shishi had already estimated it in his heart just now. But Wang Xijue ...... Why did he get involved too? Isn't this guy worried at home, and even inexplicably learned some immortal tricks from Wang Shizhen's daughter who claims to be an immortal? (Note: This matter has been mentioned above, which is a historical fact and is recorded in the official history.) )

Gao Mo simply replied, "Yes, master, it is Wang Xijue." However, it was not handled by him personally, but it was no different - it was the Wang family's foreign steward who was in charge of this matter. ”

No wonder the "amount involved" is as high as 300,000 taels, the Wang family was already the richest man in Suzhou many years ago, and the thickness of the family can be imagined with the toes and fingers, and it is definitely not worse than the 300,000 taels - this is Suzhou, and it has paid nearly one-tenth of the world's land with a place of flowing gold. How is the richest man in Suzhou getting me, is it necessary to doubt it?

Gao Shishi even suspected that the Zhang family in Puzhou was not as rich as the Wang family in Suzhou, after all, although the monopoly of the Changlu salt field was very powerful, the Zhang family's rise in the business world was shorter than that of the Wang family. It always takes time to accumulate this wealth, and not everyone can build a Jinghua Group in more than ten years like his pragmatism.

The crux of the problem was found, but the edge behind it made Gao pragmatic a little unable to sit still.

He asked Gao Mo to leave all the relevant information for him to check and confirm by himself, and then asked Gao Mo to rest first, and carefully studied the context of the events in the room.

Now that these things have surfaced, then Pan Sheng's actions can be explained, and it is no longer a dead end, which is the only good news in the bad news at the moment, which can allow him to avoid blindness.

However, the meaning behind this incident made Gao Pragmatic really gasp.

When Gao Mo told the information, he remembered what Wu Xun, the son of Wu Dui, had analyzed with him before (Note: See "Fu Liaodong" volume, chapter 233 "Humility does not let go").

It seems that the Zhejiang maritime families did not choose to simply engage in a "Zhejiang Maritime Trade Alliance" or "Zhejiang Maritime Alliance" in the end, but at least contacted the representatives of the civil official group in Nanzhili, that is, the bigwigs born in the area of Nanzhili in the Xin School - united.

The specific development process of this matter is not very clear, and it is impossible to speculate in detail, but generally speaking, it may be the result of the unsuccessful alliance between the Zhejiang maritime family and the nobles of Nanjing, and turned to the bigwigs of the Heart School for help.

Gao Pragmatism can conclude that don't look at the evidence in his hand at the moment, he only found that Xu Xuemo and Wang Xijue gave Pan Yi shares and ships, but there must be other interests behind it. And this transfer of interests must be the bleeding of Zhejiang maritime merchants, supplemented to Xu Xuemo and Wang Xijue - Xu and Wang will not buy Pan Sheng at a loss, they should actually be the spokespersons of the DPRK and China that the Zhejiang maritime family is ready to spend money to support.

Among them, Xu Xuemo needless to say, his qualifications are not bad, but he is a jinshi in Jiajing for 29 years, and he is already a waiter in the criminal department, and he can find an opportunity to take the position with a little push - no, Pan Sheng took the initiative to let Xian!

And Wang Xijue is even more powerful, don't look at people now Ding Wei is in the township, he is the Huiyuan of the Jiajing 41st year examination, and the list of the court examination is one of the iron triangle of "Shen Shixing, Wang Xijue, and Yu Youding".

It can be said that if it weren't for the fact that his father was seriously ill before, and he needed to go back to his hometown to take care of his father by the way, and then he was really worried, then since Shen Shixing and Yu Youding had entered the cabinet, his entry into the cabinet was basically an ironclad thing. Even in terms of his prestige in the court and Shilin, he should at least have a better chance than Yu Youding.

Gao pragmatic calculated, and found a big problem: Wang Xijue's period of worrying is about to expire!

"Damn, one ring and one ring!" Thinking of this, Gao Shishi couldn't help but gently pat the table and scolded in a low voice: "The level of the Heart School has improved now...... Or is it that since Shousuke has always been our person before, they can't play even if they have the level? ”

But anyway, now that the situation is in front of him, Pan Sheng, the old man, should have been knocked down by sugar-coated cannonballs, and even planned to use his own means to give way to the Heart School.

It's ironic.

Sugar-coated cannonballs have always been my high-level and pragmatic forte, who knew that this time it was actually taken by the Heart School, who would dare to believe it?

However, "how much Zhejiang maritime merchants give, I Jinghua will give double" This kind of thing is not considered, not that it is reluctant to pay, the key is that there may be regional factions in this matter - Pan Sheng himself is from Zhejiang, and he is not very young, and he has been working normally for two or three years. If he offends the deep-rooted Zhejiang maritime merchants, no one dares to guarantee what situation he will face when he returns to his hometown in the future.

It may not be possible to kill people directly, but if a few "remnants of Japanese robbers" emerge in places like Zhejiang, Pan Sheng's family will be wiped out...... It's shocking, but it's not really a big deal. You must know that when the Japanese were rampant in the past, how many high-ranking officials' homes were ransacked? Everyone is used to it.

Even if it doesn't become so rampant, when Pan Sheng himself dies, if there is no rising star in his family who can be the pillar of the DPRK, wouldn't it be easy for Zhejiang Maritime Group to kill their family? Therefore, since Pan Sheng chose to "join the enemy", there is no need to fight for it.

There was no turning back from the bow.

Gao Shishi sighed softly and shook his head slightly.

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