The old man rested his head on the pillow and was silent.

It's a difficult problem, it's complicated, and it's too wide.

No one expected that Lin Hai would suddenly become seriously ill, and seeing that his life span was short, it would be troublesome to replace him.

Six years ago, Lin Hai took office as the salt envoy of the two Huai capitals, and the Yamen served as the salt patrol imperial history, which was that he and the fourth child reached a tacit understanding, and the imperial court would not care about the affairs in this yamen.

Lin Hai is also a reliable person, and he has also won his trust in the past few years, and he has handled many complex and thorny legacy problems in the previous one or two decades very properly, at least he pressed them down, and he did not almost explode like his predecessor and cause chaos.

But now the situation has changed suddenly, if Lin Hai is dead, who will take over the position of this salt patrol imperial history?

It is very troublesome to find a new suitable candidate.

Now that he is not the emperor, knowing that this cannot be a long-term solution, who would easily give up his current position to throw himself into it?

This is a problem, and this must also be a scholar from the imperial examination, and even the background of the person is not suitable, and he must be a jinshi to be qualified to serve as an imperial historian.

The key is that it has to be trustworthy.

It's just too hard.

Just let it go? This is unacceptable to him.

He knows very well that there are too many things here that can't be seen, if they are taken away by the fourth child, even if they don't break out for the time being, but those people will no longer obey their orders, and they may even backfire, he can't tolerate this situation.

Maybe you should have let everything go a long time ago? As soon as this idea came out, he quickly vetoed it, and with the ruthless temperament of the old four, I was afraid that it would be a river of blood.

The only regret is that why did I get dizzy at that time and suddenly want to pass the throne to the fourth?

Emperor Yuanxi himself couldn't figure it out, after being an emperor for forty years, why was he confused at the last moment, being tired and tired was certainly a reason, and there was also despair and sadness, but more importantly, he was worried that something unspeakable would happen, so he would make such a decision in advance, right?

But who ever knew how he could recover his body?

It's just that some things can't be repeated.

It's not okay to let go, it's troublesome to replace the person you like, not to mention, the fourth may not agree, the reasoning should have been handed over to him, but what if it was handed over to him?

Emperor Yuanxi sighed and regretted not being at the beginning, but what could he do?

"Let's take a look." Emperor Yuanxi said for a long time.

"Your Majesty,......" Gu Cheng stopped talking.

"Huh?" Emperor Yuanxi finally turned his head, "Say it." ”

"The news that came back from the emergency report said that after Feng Keng followed Cui Jingrong and his party to Yangzhou, he also frequently appeared in the yamen of the capital salt envoy, and met with Lord Lin." Gu Cheng lowered his head and said softly.

"Oh?!" Of course, Emperor Yuanxi knew who this Feng Keng was, the son of the Shenwu general Feng Tang, the fourth child had just issued an order not long ago to posthumously crown Feng Tang's brother Feng Qin as the Marquis of Hulun, and instructed the Ministry of Rites to approve Feng Ziying to be the Marquis of Hulun who attacked Feng Qin, which was obviously trying to win over Feng Tang and Feng Keng's father and son.

Of course, this Feng Keng is indeed worth wooing, and his strategy of opening the sea to borrow money is said to have been unanimously approved by scholars in the north and south, although there must be some differences here, but in general it has been unanimously approved, which is extremely rare.

"Why is that?" Emperor Yuanxi was puzzled.

Feng Keng is a leading figure among the northern scholars, and he is also the proud protégé of Qi Yongtai and Qiao Yingjia, the leaders of the northern scholars, how could he get involved with Lin Hai?

Lin Hai is a typical Jiangnan scholar, well, but later he was estranged from the Jiangnan scholar.

"It seems that Feng Keng intends to marry Lord Lin's daughter-in-law." Gu Cheng could only report according to the information he had, "But as far as Wei Chen knows, Qiao Gong has already made a decision for Feng Keng to be the daughter of Shen Fu, the prefect of Dongchang Mansion in Shandong, but it should be the room of the long house, so it may be that Feng Keng intends to marry the daughter of the Lin family as his main house, that is, the third room as his wife." ”

The old man realized that this was the fourth child who allowed him to take up the throne at the same time, so that the Feng family's room could continue the heir's incense and title.

This is a powerful hand.

The two sons of the Feng family both died in office, one died in the battle of Hulunsai, and the other died of illness in the general army of Datong, but the original Yunchuan Bo failed to attack the lord because the two sons were no queen, which made the Feng family very resentful.

Later, Feng Tang only succeeded as the chief soldier of Datong Town, and then gave a miscellaneous Shenwu general Xujue, but now the fourth child waved his hand generously, posthumously crowned the Marquis of Hulun, and then agreed to be the lord of the Emperor.

This hand is played quite beautifully, and even Emperor Yuanxi has to admit that his son is better than the eldest (Prince Yizhong), and he is overwhelmed by the set of winning and buying people's hearts.

And this is not the key is to buy Feng Tang, this Feng Keng is to be the lord of the throne, and he will naturally benefit, and Feng Keng is the proud protégé of Qi Yongtai and Qiao Yingjia, the two famous ministers of the Northern Lands.

If you think about it, even if you can't say that you have pulled the Northland scholars and cultural officials over, at least it has alleviated the dissatisfaction of the fourth child in the Shilin who does not like poetry and songs.

"Why does this Feng Keng want to marry Lin Hai's daughter?" Emperor Yuan Xi was a little puzzled.

"Feng Keng happened to save the daughter of Lord Lin when the people of Linqing Dynasty changed, there may be this factor, in addition, the Feng family and Ning Rong's second duke Jia's family are world friends, and the relationship has always been close, and the daughter of Lord Lin has been living in the Jia family since she went to Beijing, Feng Keng often goes to the Jia family and is familiar with the children of the Jia family, so there may be this factor,......

Emperor Yuan Xi was silent.

If this Feng Keng is also involved in the transfer of salt to the Yamen, it will be a little troublesome, I don't know if he really just wants to marry Lin Hai's daughter, or if he has other intentions?

Emperor Yuanxi is more inclined to the latter, so if it is true, then whose intentions is he carrying?

Qi Yongtai and Qiao Yingjia represent the Beidi people, or the cabinet? Or the fourth?

There is no one who does not know what Lin Hai has in his hands, all the transfer of salt to the Yamen, the salt class, the salt lead, except for the part of the salt department fixed to the household department every year, the rest of the excess is retained by the capital transfer salt envoy Yamen for special expenses.

Then there is the annual license fee for the qualification of the nest merchant, which is all collected by the Yamen of the Salt Envoy Division, how many nest merchants are specified, how much the concession fee, and who will act as the nest merchant, all of which are determined by the salt patrol imperial history.

In the past few years, the Yamen has mainly made up for the huge deficit left over from the previous years, and the source of the deficit, Emperor Yuan Xi, is naturally well aware.

The holes brought by going down to the south of the Yangtze River six times are not at all what the local government can afford, and how much he has spent his wanton absurdity in those years, and how many of his favorites have benefited from it, he knows in his own heart, Lin Hai can slowly fill these holes in the past few years, which is already quite good.

"Gu Cheng, this matter should not be alarmed for the time being, you tell the Long Forbidden Captain to keep an eye on it, Lin Hai has not yet sent a letter to me, and I estimate that it is soon, this matter always needs to have a result, although Lin Hai has worked hard for me all these years, but he has to give me an explanation in the accounts." Emperor Yuanxi showed a cold look on his face, "Fourth, I will also greet him, I am not dead yet, there are some things he has to wait for,......"

At this time, Emperor Yuanxi finally showed his decisive side, "This Feng Keng, I am very interested, I didn't expect that a son of Wuxun could still take the road of the imperial examination, and he also selected Shu Jishi, hum, the fourth is generous, the Hanlin Academy revised and said that it was given to ,......, right, I remember that the second son of the Feng family died of illness in the general army of Datong Town, and he also had no heir, so he failed to attack the lord?" ”

After Gu Cheng was stunned for a moment, he thought for a while before saying: "It is true, the three sons of the Feng family, Feng Qin, Feng Han, Feng Tang, Feng Han is sick and died, because he died of illness and had no children, the imperial court only let Feng Tang succeed him at that time, and gave Feng Tang Shenwu General a false lord, and there was no other comfort for Feng Han,......

Emperor Yuanxi nodded, a different color flashed in his old eyes, "I know." ”

*****

"In the past two days, Feng Gongzi and Master Cui have been visiting and investigating the throughput capacity of Yangzhou wharves, the number and scale of ships, as well as the production status of silk workshops and incense workshops, and they are also collecting the number of shops in various industries through the Yangzhou government and Jiangdu County government, such as timber shops, rice shops, cloth shops, money shops and silver villages,......

Wang Wenyan whispered to Lin Ruhai, who was lying in an easy chair, that in the past two days, he had mastered the situation through the channels of the Si Yamen, and the Si Yamen was the first-class existence in Yangzhou City, and he had contacts with various channels, and he also had his own personal connections, so it was not difficult to understand the situation.

"They understand very carefully, on the one hand, they want the government and the county government to provide their own number and business conditions, and then they have to go to the spot check and check on their own, two Guan Zheng Jinshi with a group of officials in the streets and alleys and docks for the past two days, almost according to the ratio of one out of ten to check, and they also specially printed a kind of survey sheet, set up several questions, very detailed, many questions have not even been thought of in the text, such as the ups and downs of the business season, such as the loan situation in the past three years and the ups and downs of entry and exit prices,......"

"What do you think they want to do in this business? Is this for the opening of the sea? Lin Ruhai was also a little puzzled.

Wang Wenyan hesitated for a moment, and finally shook his head, "Wenyan doesn't know, but Wenyan feels that I'm afraid that some of their investigations and understanding are too big, and this is Yangzhou, not Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Ningbo, and Kaihai is not here, this is an inland shipping terminal, what is the point of investigating these industries one by one and finding out the bottom?" What does the court want to do with this? ”

"If they didn't come to open the sea, what are they doing here? Cui Jingrong is not an idle person, nor is he such a boring person. Lin Ruhai shook his head.