In a few days is the winter solstice, according to the practice of this dynasty, the ministers must go to the palace gate to kowtow to the emperor, and then the emperor will give food. And the emperor himself was not accompanied by this meal, but was usually accompanied by the palm seal of the celebrant of ceremonies.

This year is a bit tricky, firstly, the cabinet ministers have not yet been added, and now the cabinet has two auxiliary ministers in name, one is Ye Xianggao, and the other is Li Tingji.

The trouble is that Li Tingji, who is known as "Miao Zhu Ge Lao", ran away by himself three months ago, and it is said that the reason for this pavilion old man to escape was that Zheng Guifei asked someone to ask him for words, and Li Ge Lao, who was unwilling to flatter the concubine, was angry and quit.

Whether the real reason is like this, outsiders have no way of finding out, but one thing is clear, that is, this "old man of the temple pavilion" lived in the broken temple for five years, and after giving the emperor one hundred and twenty-three resignations, he really couldn't stand it and left.

Fortunately, the emperor did not become angry because of this, and asked Tiqi to arrest Li Ge Lao from the way back to his hometown in Fujian, but ignored it.

I don't know if the emperor was intentional or negligent, anyway, Li Tingji, who has gone home, is still on the list of ministers.

Last month, Dufu Ye presented a letter to Gao Xiang's palace, reminding the emperor that he should issue a decree to grant Li Tingji to the minister, and then the emperor should push for additional ministers.

The method of adding cabinet ministers was released half a year ago, and the most important one of them is to change the former cabinet ministers to be selected from Hanlin background, and to be selected from among local governors.

This article was deliberately created by the Donglin Party for their think tank Li Sancai.

In order to push Li Sancai into the cabinet, the Donglin Party took great pains, not only came up with such a way to supplement the cabinet ministers, but also won Li Sancai the post of household secretary in advance. In this way, there is no legal problem for Li Sancai to enter the cabinet.

However, there was no reaction in the palace. Not only did he not react, but even the name of Li Tingji, who had already left, was still hanging in the cabinet.

Gu Xiancheng, who had just returned to Wuxi from Tongzhou, was worried that the emperor had not officially decreed the dismissal of Li Tingji's ministers, which meant that as long as Li Tingji was willing, he would still have the opportunity to return to Beijing. In that way, even if his friend Li Sancai enters the cabinet as he wishes, his ranking in the cabinet is still below Li Tingji.

And the cabinet is a place where seniority is arranged, Li Tingji and Ye Xianggao are both Jinshi in the eleventh year of Wanli, even if Ye Xianggao does not become the first assistant in the future, it will be Li Tingji's top, and there is no matter of Li Sancai.

In view of this, Gu Xiancheng gave Ye Xianggao a letter of repair, asking him to try to meet the emperor once no matter what, and solve the hidden danger of Li Tingji, so as not to make the major events that Donglin had planned for two years from being inconspicuous.

After Ye Xianggao received Gu Xiancheng's letter, he also paid more and more attention to this matter, so he decided to find a way to meet the emperor on the day of the winter solstice.

But although he is the first assistant, he has only seen the emperor twice since he took office. Therefore, the emperor can be seen wherever he wants. Whether you can see the emperor or not depends on whether the inner court can help.

If Chen Ju, who was close to the Donglin Party, was still there, Ye Xianggao would definitely not have such a headache, but Chen Ju was dead, and Sun Xian and Jin Zhong were elected to avoid suspicion, and they would not contact the foreign dynasty at the moment. This year's winter solstice for the emperor as a cabinet minister is another master of ceremonies Zhang Cheng.

This Zhang Cheng is from the Zhejiang Party, and the leader of the Zhejiang Party, Shen has always been able to be the first assistant, and Zhang Cheng has contributed a lot. After Shen Cheng stepped down because of the demon book case, Zhang Cheng restrained a lot, and now he is living in a simple house. If it weren't for the fact that the palm print had not been officially determined, Zhang Cheng would not have taken this errand.

When Shen was there, there was a fierce dispute with the Donglin Party, and Zhang Cheng did not make trouble for the Donglin Party in the inner court, so it was very difficult for Ye Xianggao to meet the emperor through Zhang Cheng.

However, it is not impossible.

Zhang Cheng has a nephew, which is a breakthrough.

This person's name is Cheng Shouyi, and he is now being exposed by officials in Fu'an, Shandong.

Speaking of which, Cheng Shouyi is also a smart person. In the thirty-fourth year of Wanli, Kunning Palace suddenly caught fire, and a fire burned Kunning Palace cleanly, and the Ministry of Industry reported that the repair cost alone would cost more than one million taels of silver. At this time, the Ming Dynasty, Ningxia spent more than 2 million soldiers, more than 4 million to aid the Korean war against the Japanese, and used another million taels to quell the Banzhou rebellion. As a last resort, Wanli had no choice but to send large number of mine supervisors and tax envoys to all parts of the country, in the hope of being able to recover the tax profits and revenues that could have been handed over to the national treasury through the hands of eunuchs.

Cheng Shouyi didn't know where to hear the news of the fire in Kunning Palace, and volunteered to the Ministry of Industry to say that he was willing to pay 10,000 taels of silver to fund the palace work. Wanli was overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly asked about this person's official position, and replied, "Bai Ding! After Wanli heard this, he didn't think about it, and immediately passed on the edict and awarded Cheng Shouyi the position of "Zhongshu Sheren" and served in Wuying Palace.

This position is much higher than that of Wei Liangchen, the newly promoted Wenhua Palace, which shows that Emperor Wanli likes to use talents in an eclectic manner. Provided, of course, that the person can bring him benefits.

The official of Zhongshu Sheren is not a big official at the moment, but with an official body, it is terrible. Cheng Shouyi made persistent efforts, and Shangshu said that there are mountain mines in his hometown, which are rich in reserves, and if the mine is opened, the silver obtained can help the palace workers.

Cheng Shouyi's invitation was presented by Zhang Cheng to the emperor's desk, and later the foreign court learned that Zhang Cheng was Cheng Shouyi's uncle.

The nephew suddenly took out a huge sum of money to donate to an official, and then suddenly said that there was a mine, and things went smoothly, and the plan of the person behind this naturally surfaced.

Mining is a good thing, how could Wanli not approve it, when the decree was lowered, Chen Zeng, the eunuch of the palace carrying warehouse, took Cheng Shouyi and went to Shandong to open a mine together.

Chen Zeng, who entered the palace in the ninth year of Wanli, worshiped Zhang Cheng at that time.

Because he knew Cheng Shouyi's backstage, Chen Zeng was extremely stammered with Cheng Shouyi, on the surface, he was the supervisor of Shandong Mine, but secretly Cheng Shouyi dominated everything. Behind Cheng Shouyi, there is a line of Beijing dragging behind.

Chen Zeng and Cheng Shouyi went to Yidu County, Shandong. I thought that the mine would be opened by order, and the place would be convenient, but I didn't want to be the commander of Yidu County, but I looked down on Chen Zeng, a eunuch, and disdained to associate with him. Cheng Shouyi was furious and secretly asked Chen Zengxing to open the mine, so Chen recruited more than 1,000 people to go up the mountain to dig the mine, and Cheng Shouyi personally supervised the work.

This move made the gentry of Yidu dissatisfied, because as soon as the mine supervisor arrived, the profits of Yidu no longer belonged to them, and the crowd was angry. Moreover, they found out that the person behind it was Cheng Shouyi, and this Cheng Shouyi used to be just a white ding, a merchant selling along the street, but now he is bullying them with the power of a eunuch, how can he bear it.

Sage from the township, who is willing to call a mud leg to cover it!

So the gentry went to the county government to complain, and Yidu knew that the county did not dare to disobey for the sake of the wind evaluation, and the Shangshu impeached Chen Zeng for corruption and abuse of the people, and demanded that the mine supervisor and tax envoy be withdrawn. After Cheng Shouyi found out, he also called Chen Zeng Shangshu to expose the county order and the squire for obstructing the mine, destroying the mine, and embezzling more than 10,000 yuan during his tenure.

The difference between the two parties was that they arrived in Beijing at the same time, but Yizhi knew that there was also a joint letter from the governor of Shandong and the governor of Shandong, and the local officials in Shandong unanimously demanded that the emperor immediately remove the mine supervisor and withdraw the mine envoy.

This lawsuit is now in the hands of Ye Xianggao.

Ye Xianggao did not immediately express his position, because not long ago, because of the merchant riots in Huguang and Yunnan, the murder of the mine tax supervisor caused the emperor to protest with a hunger strike. Therefore, Ye Ge Lao thought about talking about it after a while, lest the emperor couldn't think about it for a while, and he would come to persecute him again.

Besides, he also has a request for the emperor now.

This "request" is a matter of addition by the cabinet ministers. In addition, there is another matter, Ye Xianggao is also very troubled, that is, Kedao impeached Li Chengliang for colluding with Jianzhou to rebel.

The two things seemed to be incompatible, but the careful and keen Ye Xianggao saw a hidden line from it, a hint of a signal that was extremely dangerous to Donglin.

The mine tax envoy was an old policy more than 10 years ago, when the Donglin Party had not yet come to power, so the blame could not be attributed to Donglin. But it is his Donglin Party that is in power at the moment, so if it is not handled properly, the emperor can no longer bear it, and it is difficult to say whether it will be attributed to him, the sole assistant Ye Xianggao.

Ye Xianggao thought to himself that if he stepped down and Li Sancai failed to enter the cabinet, the momentum of the Donglin Party's prosperity in the past ten years would definitely be hit. If the people who enter the cabinet are people from the three parties, then I am afraid that it will be the white terror of the Donglin people who are in danger when Shen has always been in power.

And Li Chengliang's matter involves his Donglin Party's policy on border affairs. Historically, the Donglin Party has not advocated spending too much national strength and energy on border affairs, and has focused on seeking stability and seeking nothing to do in border affairs, and has opposed the national policy of mobilizing large armies to wage war at every turn in the early years. Those who can be wooed will never retreat, those who can be appeased will never be forced to rebel, those who can be solved with money will never be solved with a knife, and those who can be settled by official positions will never use the so-called righteousness to oppress people.

The reason for this is that since the three major expeditions, the treasury has indeed exhausted the treasury over the years. The country has no money, and if there is a side matter, the army will move and it will be thousands of dollars and food. Where does the money come from?

With the shrewd character of today's son, he will definitely not levy any agricultural taxes to make up for the shortage of the state treasury, otherwise there would not be so many mine taxes to make the toss and arrogance throughout the country.

If the army is really going to move, where the emperor's eyes will be staring, Donglin knows it. Isn't it a competition with the people for profit?

What they represent is the interests of the people, and they cannot allow the emperor to compete with the people for benefits. But some words are not easy to put on the table, and you can't say to the emperor that it doesn't matter if you are poor, as long as we are rich. It is not a decent thing for the country to retreat and the people to advance.

Therefore, the inaction of Huang Lao is the most suitable for the needs of Donglin. The country has nothing to do, and it doesn't need much food to operate. The emperor stayed in the palace honestly, and he had no place to toss. The affairs of the court, big and small, are all solved by the courtiers for you, what is not satisfied?

Ye Xianggao was born in the poor, but it doesn't mean that he, the only assistant, is poor. Since the day he passed the imperial examination, he was no longer a pauper. Since the day he became the leader of Donglin, he has represented not only him Ye Xianggao, but the tens of thousands of Donglin Party members behind him.

Without the strong support of the Donglin Party, without the strong help of Gu Xiancheng and Li Sancai, there would be no Fuqing Xianggong today.

Therefore, in public and private, Ye Xianggao can't let Li Chengliang lose power. Li Chengliang is in one day, and Liaodong is safe for one day. As soon as Liaodong is safe, the country will be fine. The country has nothing to do, and there is no need for any money and food.

No matter how hard the mine tax inspector is, compared to the dispatch of the army, it is always a drop in the bucket. This account, Ye Xianggao's calculations are clear.