Tian Ergeng and Zhu Youzhen discussed for an afternoon, and when Tian Ergeng walked out of the palace gate, he found that the sun had set in the west.

Tian Ergeng looked up at the orange sunset, and his eyes squinted for a long time. Today's situation is just like discussing with Gonggong Wei to deal with the Donglin Party, but the mood is very different.

If it was said that when he decided to fall into the party dispute, Tian Ergeng knew that Gonggong Wei would definitely win, but his mood was very depressed. Because the Donglin Party people control the public opinion of Shilin and package themselves as a model of a righteous man and a gentleman, all the objects that the Donglin Party wants to defeat will first put the other party on the hat of traitor, villain, and eunuch in public opinion.

So although Tian Ergeng stood on the side of Gonggong Wei, he had already fallen behind in his heart, and subconsciously regarded himself as a villain eunuch or something. This kind of moral inferiority is obviously politically disadvantageous, even if Wei Zhongxian is in power, these eunuch members are also in fear, for fear that the Donglin party will one day turn over and liquidate them.

And after talking with Chongzhen today, although Tian Ergeng didn't know if he could win against those intertwined guards officers, but this kind of doing things under the banner of benefiting the people made him occupy the moral high ground psychologically for the first time.

At this time, Tian Ergeng realized that those Donglin Party members were no less corrupt than their eunuchs, but when they stood up one by one to accuse the eunuchs, why did they feel no guilt, and now he has an inexplicable and righteous momentum.

When Tian Ergen left Miyagi, the little eunuch who sent him away found that when the Maeda Governor left, he seemed to be a little taller than when he first came.

When Zhu Youzhen met Wei Liangqing and Tian Ergeng in the palace, the three carts had just stepped into Chongwenmen at this time.

After circling the imperial city for more than half an hour, three carts stopped in front of a courtyard in the Straw Hat Alley. A middle-aged man with a thin figure, a goatee, and a deep coat of Zhu Zi, supported by two young students dressed as people, stepped out of the cart in the middle.

Zhang Zhengchen stepped down from the last big car, and after bowing to the middle-aged man, he said respectfully: "Uncle, please wait, wait for me to go to the door to post first." ”

The middle-aged man straightened his clothes and said gently, "It's okay, then you can go." Zhang Zhengchen promised and left.

Not long after, a young man in regular clothes hurried out with Zhang Zhengchen, and with a happy face, he bent down to bow down to the middle-aged man from afar. Then he got up and walked over, and said kindly: "Chengyuan is looking forward to it day and night, and he is really looking forward to Mr. Qishan." A month ago, Your Majesty agreed to our request, and all the comrades who had been expelled by the eunuch party in the past few years were reinstated.

Now that Wei Eunuch has left Beijing, Cui Thief has left his post, and the momentum of the eunuch party in the DPRK and China has been greatly reduced. Now we and other party comrades are looking forward to Mr. Qishan coming to Beijing to preside over the overall situation, and advise His Majesty to sweep away the ** and clean up the court. ”

This middle-aged man who was treated ceremoniously by Lu Chengyuan, the director of the Ministry of Industry, was none other than Liu Zongzhou, a great Confucian in China who was regarded as the leader by the Donglin Party after Gao Panlong. He was deeply worried but helpless because of the increasingly fierce party struggle between the DPRK and China after Wei Zhongxian took power, so he simply resigned and returned to his hometown Shaoxing to give lectures.

Although Liu Zongzhou is a member of the Donglin Party, he does not think of Gu Xiancheng, Gao Panlong and other Donglin Party members in suppressing dissidents in the DPRK and setting off party disputes.

At the end of Wanli, he once wrote "Revision of Learning to Cultivate the Vitality of the Country", pointing out that the courtiers are becoming more and more competitive, the party is in the same league and the different are prevalent, and the people's hearts are declining, and the soil is getting worse and more dangerous. This article made a correct analysis of the party struggle at that time, and it was not all based on the Donglin Party's people, nor was it all based on the political enemies of the Donglin Party.

However, at the end of the Wanli period, the party struggle had become fierce, and Liu Zongzhou's flat remarks could no longer be accepted by ministers with different ideas in the center of the court. In the end, Liu Zongzhou had no choice but to resign and go home to lecture, which was his first resignation.

In the three years since he resigned for the first time and returned home, Liu Zongzhou's academic thinking has matured day by day, and his reputation has begun to spread far and wide. At the same time, the state affairs began to deteriorate, at this time, there was a post-Phnom Penh trouble, and there was a rebellion of luxury inside, and the Ming army was repeatedly defeated; The ministers of the DPRK and China only care about fighting for power and profit, and the party is the same and divisive; Local officials blindly loot the people, not knowing what shame is.

In the face of this cruel social reality, the successor of Song and Ming Dynasty science, and the last Confucian master in the late Ming Dynasty, wrote bitterly in a letter to a friend: "Today's things are getting worse, not to mention being in China and outside, they all urgently need to be rescued to slow down the break." The situation is far from extreme, especially when there is nothing to do, and it has been a long time since the disadvantages of the mushrooms have been repeated. Today, one or two righteous people are in trouble, and the troubles of the place will not collapse one day. The enemy is in danger, the parties are reckless and militaristic, no move is satisfactory, I am afraid that there will be changes overnight, and our generation of scholars and doctors do not know where to die. ”

Among the scholars and doctors at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Zongzhou can be regarded as one of the few people who have seen clearly that the Ming Dynasty is in its last years. However, he could not find a panacea for the ills of the Ming Dynasty from the traditional Confucian doctrines, and in the end he could only put forward a vague proposition of prudence and independence, and the division of monarchs and ministers.

The so-called prudence is actually to hope that the scholars and doctors will suppress their own ** through moral introspection, so as to become a gentleman with a conscience. Liu Zongzhou hoped that the scholars and doctors of the world would eliminate the habits of those stupid, incompetent, and corrupt officials in the Ming officialdom through this kind of moral self-discipline.

Liu Zongzhou's fantasy of expecting the wolf to become a grazing sheep actually did not work in the last years of the Ming Dynasty. However, after Gao Panlong and other Donglin leaders were persecuted to death by Wei Zhongxian and others, no one in the Donglin Party could surpass Liu Zongzhou in terms of qualifications, academic prestige or personal character.

Moreover, the Donglin Party itself is a very loose alliance of scholars and doctors, and it is not a well-organized political party organization of modern times. After the death of Gu Xiancheng, Gao Panlong and other Donglin leaders, the Donglin Party has also begun to divide among themselves.

Donglin leaders like Gu Xiancheng and Gao Panlong, before forming the Donglin Party, were first of all academic masters of one party. The so-called Donglin Party is more like a school of thought than a political party.

When Gu and Gao were alive, with their academic skills and fame, and most of the party members were their students, teachers and friends in Donglin Academy, other Donglin party members naturally did not dare to have any ideas. But after the death of these two people, the signboard of the Donglin Party has become an ownerless thing, and anyone in the Donglin Party who has a little fame does not want to take this signboard in his arms.

Although Wei Zhongxian killed most of the Donglin party members in the DPRK, the Ming dynasty did not improve because of this. In the forty-sixth year of Wanli, the increase in Liao salary, an additional nine cents of silver per mu, did not stop until the 7th year of the Apocalypse.

In this case, the people of the Ming Dynasty naturally complained. Although the Donglin Party members were driven out of the court, they themselves were landlords and gentry in various places and controlled local public opinion.

Under the propaganda of the Donglin Party, the reason for the corruption of the Ming Dynasty was because the eunuchs in the DPRK and China were rampant and persecuted the upright Donglin Party, and they completely ignored it.

Therefore, although Wei Zhongxian relied on the imperial power in the court and won the victory in the political struggle, there was not one in the Donglin Party who was slightly famous in the court. But in public opinion, the eunuchs lost and even lost their bottoms, and Wei Zhongxian and the eunuchs became traitors who harmed the Ming Dynasty.

Tianqi passed away, after Chongzhen came to power. As long as anyone with a discerning eye can see that the loss of power of the eunuch party is inevitable, and the return of the Donglin party to the court has become an unstoppable trend. At this time, the party members who were active began to think about the signboard of the leader of the Donglin Party.

At this time, becoming the leader of Donglin means that you can take advantage of the good image erected by the Donglin Party in the previous public opinion, and with the support of public opinion, take a political shortcut to the sky.

Lu Chengyuan, Wang Shoulu and other Donglin party members who stuck to the court were naturally worried about this. But after all, their prestige in Shilin is too small, and their seniority in the Donglin Party is not enough to fight against those Donglin Party ministers who have political ambitions after the resurgence.

Therefore, urging Mr. Qishan to enter Beijing as soon as possible and using his prestige and character to suppress those party members with dissenting intentions is the best way to stop the split within the Donglin Party.

Liu Zongzhou only bowed slightly, and did not take Lu Chengyuan's words, but said gently: "The new emperor has just ascended the throne, and it is the time for great promise. Colleagues in this party should assist the king, clean up the government, and do something practical for the people of the Ming Dynasty, and not blindly dwell on old things. Duanben should help me to persuade the party members in Beijing to let go of their prejudices and not to revive party disputes. ”

Lu Chengyuan was only slightly stunned, and said with a wry smile: "Mr. Qishan is really benevolent, but today, the grudge between this party and the eunuch party is deep. The predecessors of our party, such as Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong, Zhou Chaorui, Yuan Huazhong, Gu Dazhang, Zhou Qiyuan, Huang Zunsu, Miao Changqi, Zhou Shunchang, Zhou Zongjian, Li Yingsheng and other princes, did not die tragically at the hands of the eunuchs.

If we can't sweep away the ** and avenge the public avenging, what will our party members see in the future under the nine springs? What's more, as the old saying goes, 'Cultivating virtue and doing business, eliminating evil'. If we let it go gently, I am afraid that in the coming days, our party will not be able to repeat the story of the princes. When we do it today, won't it become the story of Dongguo?

Mr. Qishan's moral articles are well-known at home, and the comrades of the party and the world have always admired him, and today the hearts of our party are different, and Mr. is in need of raising his arms and shouting, correcting the hearts of the people, and jointly attacking the eunuch party and clarifying the court. ”