The time came to the beginning of March of the sixth year of the Apocalypse.

Since ancient times, whether it is the people or the imperial court, March and April are not good days, because this time is the season of green and yellow.

For the people, March and April happen to be the days when the crops are not yet ripe and the old grain has been eaten, and many people can only dig wild vegetables or even scrape tree bark all over the mountains to satisfy their hunger, and in serious cases, they can only rely on selling their sons and daughters to survive the famine.

The same is true for the imperial court, by March and April, the money of the imperial court has been exhausted, but the Cao Yun in Jiangnan has not arrived, and at this time it is also the most headache for the cabinet elders. Official documents from all over the country asking for the allocation of money and grain flew like snowflakes, but the treasury and granary of the imperial court were so empty that they could run rats, and they could cry to death when they looked at the empty warehouse.

Some people may say that Beijing should be better as the capital, right? In fact, it is the same, there is still no shortage of people selling their sons and daughters at the feet of the Son of Heaven, after all, at this time, the landlord's family has no surplus food.

However, this year, the situation has changed a lot, because since February this year, a food called potatoes has appeared on the market, which is oval in shape and the size of a fist. People who have eaten it say that it tastes good and can be eaten as a staple food, and the most important thing is that its price is not expensive, only 3 yuan of silver per stone of potatoes.

What does this food price mean? This price means that people only need to buy enough food for a family of four for a month at one-third of the usual price. No...... Not only that, every year in March and April, the price of grain in the capital will rise from the usual 1.2 taels of silver per stone to 1.6 to 2 taels of silver per stone.

In Shaanxi, Shanxi, and other barren provinces, the price of grain will even soar to three taels or even four taels of silver, and many families will even be forced to sell their children to survive this season. So as soon as the potatoes came out, the entire Jingshi was shaken, and hundreds of people cheered for it, and it can be said that its appearance saved countless families.

Of course, nothing in the world is absolute. Some people like nature and some people are sad, and some people even have an unforgettable hatred for this kind of thing, and it is not someone else who hates potatoes, it is those grain merchants in the capital.

In previous years, every March and April was the time when the grain merchants made a windfall, the grain merchants and landlords manipulated the price of grain to make a windfall, they put money in prints, bought the land of homesteaders at low prices, and even forced tenants who could not pay the rent to sell their sons and daughters to make money, but the appearance of potatoes broke their dreams, and each stone of potatoes only cost 3 yuan of silver, which was enough to force those profiteers who wanted to hoard Juqi to jump off the building.

As the saying goes, cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents, and the grain merchants are naturally unwilling to be cut off, and they have also thought about finding out the guy who sold potatoes for cabbage and breaking the body into pieces, but when they inquired clearly, many people couldn't help but be dumbfounded, because the plaque of the grain store selling potatoes clearly wrote six golden characters of the Ming Royal Commercial Bank.

After seeing this signboard, if those grain merchants don't know that this business house has something to do with the Ming Emperor, it is simply insulting their IQ, it stands to reason that the average businessman knows that the background of this grain store is the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and then he should run as far as he wants, and no one will dare to find trouble with the emperor, but there is no absolute, and there is no shortage of people in this world who are blinded by money.

"It's too unusual, it's too unusual!" Zhu Youxiao, who was watching the folds in the imperial study, angrily threw the folds on the dragon case to the ground, "How many people have been saved by the cheap grain sold by the Ming Royal Commercial House, these imperial histories not only do not support me, but instead accuse me of competing with the people for profit, are their consciences eaten by dogs?" Go...... Call Wei Zhongxian to me! ”

Soon, Wei Zhongxian, who was on an errand in the superintendent of ceremonies, hurriedly came to Zhu Youxiao's imperial study.

After seeing Wei Zhongxian coming, Zhu Youxiao pointed to the twists and turns on the dragon case and gritted his teeth and said, "Wei Zhongxian, how did you become a eunuch with a pen and a celebrant eunuch?" There are so many excerpts against the sale of cheap grain, and I will find out the names of all the people who wrote these excerpts at once, and I will give them all their official positions. ”

Looking at the thick stack of folds on the dragon case and the folds that were scattered all over the ground, Wei Zhongxian couldn't help but get a little big, and he said helplessly: "Your Majesty, all these folds have been read, these folds are all written by the officials of the Imperial History Observatory and the Six Branches, but there are many nobles and magnates standing behind them, if you take their officials away, then the Imperial History Observatory and the Six Branches will be empty, are you sure you really want to do this?" ”

"It's empty, is it possible to eat hairy pigs without Zhang Butcher?" The young and vigorous Zhu Youxiao was so angry that he didn't believe in evil and said a word.

"It's nothing, but how can we guarantee that the Imperial Historians who will replace them in the future will not be like them?" Wei Zhongxian stretched out his hands and put on a desperate expression.

Zhu Youxiao glared at Wei Zhongxian and said unhappily: "Is it just okay to let these people accuse me indiscriminately?" If that's the case, what else do I want you, Wei Zhongxian, to do? ”

is different from another historical time and space, this time and space due to the appearance of Yang Feng, Zhu Youxiao became more and more dissatisfied with Wei Zhongxian's incompetence.

Regarding Zhu Youxiao's accusation, Wei Zhongxian could only kneel down and kowtow: "The slave is incompetent, let Your Majesty suffer, the slave and the maid really deserve to die!" ”

Looking at Wei Zhongxian who was kneeling on the ground, Zhu Youxiao's eyes showed a helpless look, and he waved his hand weakly: "That's it, you get up, this kind of thing is not something that the eunuch of the ceremonial eunuch Bingbi can solve, but I asked you but asked the wrong person, you go down." ”

"Whoa!"

Wei Zhongxian stood up, took more than ten steps back, and was about to turn around and leave, but heard Zhu Youxiao's voice from behind: "Wei Zhongxian, Yang Feng and Cao Dazhong, when will they be able to get to the capital?" ”

Wei Zhongxian's body stiffened at first, and then he stood up straight and replied in a respectful and somewhat dry voice: "Back to Your Majesty, judging from the six-hundred-mile rush sent by the messenger a few days ago, Lord Yang and Cao Dazhong have already set off to return to the capital ten days ago, and they should be in the capital in three or five days." ”

"You'll be in the capital in three or five days? Good...... Good ......" Zhu Youxiao's face was overjoyed, and he raised his voice: "Wei Zhongxian, you go and make arrangements, when Yang Aiqing comes back, he really has to go outside the city to greet the heroes of the Ming Dynasty." ”

"You're personally greeting!"

Wei Zhongxian was immediately taken aback when he heard this, the emperor personally went out of the city to greet the soldiers returning from the expedition, this has to be a great contribution to the army, or a general who has the merit of expanding the territory can only enjoy the treatment, the Ming Dynasty has not received such a grand treatment since the Yongle period, if you let the civil officials know, you have to blow up the pot.

"Your Majesty, this ...... Isn't that appropriate? ”

"Not suitable?" Zhu Youxiao's eyes froze, and a sharp edge appeared in his eyes, which were always gentle on weekdays, "You tell me, what kind of inappropriate method is it?" Yang Aiqing led the army to Liaodong, first repelled the Daishan, Amin and other troops who came to Jinzhou last year, and captured more than 10,000 Jiannu heads, and now he personally slashed the head of Nurhachi's fifth son, Mang Gurtai, before the battle, and even injured and even killed the thief chief Nurhachi, captured the thief chieftain's Daxu, and killed and rewarded tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. You tell me that such credit is not appropriate, what kind of credit is appropriate? ”

Zhu Youxiao's words shocked Wei Zhongxian's heart, and his eyes made Wei Zhongxian's back even more sweaty.

These days, he has become more and more aware that Zhu Youxiao's whole person has changed a lot, the original Zhu Youxiao's personality is gentle at best, and a little weak at worst, but since the second half of last year, Zhu Youxiao's personality has gradually changed, and he has shown a stronger and stronger side to major events in the court.

In the past, Zhu Youxiao either obeyed Wei Zhongxian in many things, or listened to several cabinet elders, but this year, his attitude has become more and more tough, and even Wei Zhongxian has been beaten by him several times, simply put, he has become more and more like an emperor.

Just like he just proposed to go out of the city to greet Yang Feng in person, if it was Zhu Youxiao who dared to make such a request before, I am afraid that Wei Zhongxian would even coax this emperor who can only be a carpenter back, but now the situation is completely different, he was dissatisfied with Zhu Youxiao just after a little hesitation, Wei Zhongxian can even be sure that if he hesitates again, he will definitely be scolded by Zhu Youxiao.

Wei Zhongxian didn't even understand why the emperor he had seen since he was a child had undergone such a big change, and during this time, he even thought that Zhu Youxiao had no longer trusted him and was ready to remove him from his position as the eunuch of the ceremonial supervisor Bingbi.

In fact, what Wei Zhongxian didn't understand was that in another historical time and space, Zhu Youxiao really cared for him, and even entrusted him to his younger brother Xinwang Zhu Youzhen before he died, but unfortunately Zhu Youzhen was not interested in Lao Wei, and after finding a reason, he clicked him.

In this historical time and space, Zhu Youxiao met Yang Feng, a freak who was born out of thin air, and in the more than a month of Jiangdongmen Thousand Households, Yang Feng brought Zhu Youxiao not only some strange and ingenious things in the eyes of literati, but a change in concept.

In Yang Feng's place, Zhu Youxiao knew for the first time that the earth under his feet was an incomparably huge ball called the earth, and that all things in heaven and earth did not revolve around him, but the earth revolved around the sun in the sky.

He also knew that the Ming Dynasty was not a heavenly kingdom as the literati and ink writers said, and that there were many countries in the far west across the sea, and they were attacking each other, and that a country called Spain had invaded the treasure island located south of the Ming Dynasty.

Not only that, but in that more than a month, Yang Feng also talked about the shortcomings of the Ming court, these things are not Yang Feng's nonsense, but things that have been summarized by later historians. Although the experts of later generations have been ridiculed as "brick families" by keyboard warriors, even if the level of others is again, something that has been studied by so many people for hundreds of years must have been studied thoroughly.

The more you know, the more you will broaden your horizons. He looked at the flies and dogs in the Ming Dynasty Hall again, and more importantly, Zhu Youxiao now has silver in his hands, with the Ming Royal Commercial Bank providing him with funds, Zhu Youxiao's hands suddenly became broader, and with the big killer of potatoes, Zhu Youxiao's confidence is even stronger. As the saying goes, if you have food in your hand, you don't panic in your heart, let alone if you have food and silver.

Wang Tiqian, the eunuch with the palm print of the celebrant who Wei Zhongxian had called, told Zhu Youxiao that he would personally go out of the city to greet Yang Feng in a few days.

Wang Tiqian was also embarrassed after hearing this, since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, under the suppression of the cultural management group, the status of the martial arts has become more and more low, such a thing as the emperor going out of the city to welcome the soldiers has not happened for more than 100 years, and now Zhu Youxiao suddenly made such a scene, which made it difficult for them to do it.

"Nine thousand years old, what kind of trouble do you say Your Majesty is making trouble? If you let those people in the Donglin Party know, you have to make trouble? Isn't that embarrassing for us? ”

Looking at Wang Tiqian's embarrassed expression, Wei Zhongxian sneered: "Princess, we are all slaves and maids serving Your Majesty, and we will do what Your Majesty tells us to do, what is there to be embarrassed about." As for those people in the Donglin Party who want to make trouble, that's good! There are unjust debtors and owners, if they want to find trouble, they can go to Yang Feng, what does it have to do with us! ”

"Are you saying that it was not Your Majesty's intention and our intention to let those Donglin Party know that this matter was not the intention of Your Majesty and us, but was forced to do it under Yang Feng's pressure?" When Wang Tiqian heard this, he couldn't help but gasp, and his face changed.

Who is the Donglin Party? This is a group of mad dogs with explosive combat effectiveness, anyone who does not follow them on the same road will use all means to defeat them, where is the Chu Party and Zhejiang Party that were active in the court in the past?

Almost all of these people were defeated by the Donglin Party with various means, so that the only remaining Zhejiang Party, Chu Party and others had to be attached to our Wei father-in-law, and Wei Zhongxian, as Zhu Youxiao's favorite, can be said to cover the sky with one hand in the court, but he also has to be careful in dealing with the Donglin Party, which shows the energy of the Donglin Party. Now Wei Zhongxian is going to throw this pot to Yang Feng, this is simply roasting Yang Feng on the fire!

Wei Zhongxian snorted, and said with some seriousness: "Old Wang, haven't you noticed that Your Majesty has changed a little during this time? Your Majesty no longer trusts us people as much as before, especially after having that Ming Royal Commercial House, Your Majesty has money in his hands, and he no longer discusses some things with us, which is not a good thing. ”

Wang Tiqian is also an old man who has been rolling in the palace for decades, and he immediately understood what he meant as soon as he heard Wei Zhongxian's words. The feeling is that Wei Zhongxian feels threatened and wants to kill people with the help of the hands of the Donglin Party!

"Well, since the nine thousand years old have said so, what else is there to say in our family!"