On the tower of the left gate of Chang'an, Zhu Youzhen stood at the edge of the battlement and looked down, and on a small square paved with stone slabs in front of the left gate of Chang'an, hundreds of scholars were kneeling with black crows. In front of this group of scholars, there were dozens of palace guards who were facing the enemy.

After looking at it expressionlessly for a long time, he stretched out his hand and pointed to the dozen or so people in front of this group of scholars and asked, "What are those people holding in their hands?" ”

Standing next to Chongzhen, the gatekeeper of the left gate of Chang'an, who had been cautious, stepped forward and glanced in the direction of the emperor's finger, then stepped back and hurriedly replied: "Back to Your Majesty, it is a love letter that this group of scholars wants to complain to Your Majesty." ”

Zhu Youzhen withdrew his hand, put his hands behind his back and held each other tightly, he was silent for a while, and then continued to speak: "You go down, put away the love letter, and show it to me." ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." After the gatekeeper saluted Chongzhen, he hurriedly walked towards the path of the city tower.

Zhu Youzhen suddenly said without a beginning or an end: "Your work is really good, yesterday Yuan Shangshu led people to impeach Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu in the court, and you didn't receive any news; Today, these scholars ran to the left gate of Chang'an to write a book, and you don't know anything. What do you know? ”

Lian Shanxiang and Wang Chengen, who were standing on Chongzhen's left and right, had their faces a little dark, although the emperor did not name them, but both of them knew that the emperor was talking about them.

Lian Shanxiang actually feels that he is quite innocent, although he is now in control of the security of the palace ban, but because of the emperor's order, the guards in the palace have gradually separated from the Jinyi guard system. Naturally, the original responsibility of the Jinyi Guard to monitor the intelligence of the capital was also stripped away, and only the pure task of guarding the palace and protecting the emperor's safety remained.

As for Jinyiwei's supervision power, most of them are now in the hands of Wang Chengen, and in addition, the Social Investigation Institute has also undertaken part of the social intelligence collection work, so most of the responsibility should fall on Wang Chengen's head.

Wang Chengen is also difficult to say about this, whether it is the Social Investigation Institute or Jinyiwei, nominally they are now within his management. However, when Chongzhen ascended the throne, in order to wash the image of Dongchang and Jinyiwei, he was also worried that Dongchang and Jinyiwei were controlled by the inner court, and finally blinded him.

Therefore, not only the East Factory was reorganized, but also the relationship between Jinyiwei and the Inner Court was adjusted. At present, the social investigation institute only has the task of collecting intelligence and studying public opinion, and no longer has the power of judicial trial.

Although Jin Yiwei still has the power of judicial trial, he must be under the supervision of the inner court. Jin Yiwei is no longer under the supervision of the Social Investigation Institute, although the celebrant still maintains the nominal management of Jin Yiwei, but except for specific affairs, he cannot interfere with the internal personnel rights of Jin Yiwei.

The Governor of Jinyi also obtained the right to meet the emperor on a regular basis, and he could even urgently ask to see the emperor under special circumstances, so the degree of independence of Jinyi Wei is much higher now than in the past.

Of course, this is still not the reason why intelligence was not gathered in time for the two incidents of yesterday and today. Since Sun Chengzong was about to lead the army that defeated Lin Dan Khan back to Beijing, according to Chongzhen's order, the capital was preparing to organize the people to hold a grand welcome ceremony.

This kind of organized people's welcome ceremony was also the first time for the officials of the Ming Dynasty, and no one had ever organized such a large-scale people's event.

The capital has a permanent population of hundreds of thousands, and it is not without a large number of people spontaneously taking to the streets to celebrate festivals such as the Shangyuan Festival every year. However, that kind of spontaneous activity has no organizational purpose, and the court only sends people to maintain law and order.

But this time is different, according to Chongzhen's requirements, this time the people were organized to welcome on the streets, not only to ensure safety, but also to ensure that the hearts of the people and the court can be correctly conveyed to those soldiers who returned from the front line. In other words, you can't just let the people go to the street to watch the excitement, just like they go to the vegetable market to watch the killing.

In addition, this welcome ceremony for the people of the capital was also used by Chongzhen to test. In the past year, after the shops in the capital's squares were changed to street offices, patrol police stations, and fire stations, have they built up the ability to organize the residents of the streets in the capital? In other words, he just wanted to see if the imperial court's ability to control the people of the capital had been enhanced.

For these purposes, and to complete such a welcoming ceremony, Suncheonfu is expected to organize nearly 200,000 people to take to the streets. Almost all the forces of the Social Investigation Institute and Jinyiwei were contained in it.

This is also why, they could not collect the news that Yuan Liqing was going to impeach Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu in time. And yesterday, when Wang Chengen transferred the personnel out and stared at Yuan Liqing and other officials, he missed that these scholars spontaneously came to Fuque to write after hearing the news of yesterday's court meeting.

Wang Chengen felt a little bitter in his mouth, and he felt that he had really encountered an unwarranted disaster. But now I have to admit my mistake to Chongzhen with Lian Shanxiang and review.

Zhu Youzhen waved his hand impatiently and said, "Okay, let go of those who admit their mistakes in advance." Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on with these people? How did they get together? ”

Lian Shanxiang replied with a feeling: "There are more than 20 scholars from Henan, 5 or 60 people who are stranded in the capital, and the remaining 200 people are all students from Yenching University.

According to the minister sent someone to inquire before, the reason for the incident is: These people from Henan are all implicated in the investigation of Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu because their families are being investigated. They believe that the investigation method of the two is completely reversing black and white, distorting the facts, and deliberately cracking down on the local gentry, so they want to tell the wrong.

They first went to find Guo Zengguang, the governor of Henan, because Governor Guo was unwilling to take their case, so they ran to the capital. After arriving in the capital, they first went to some officials from Henan, wanting them to come forward to impeach Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu and stop them from being wrongfully imprisoned in Henan.

Later, for some reason, they all gathered at the mansion of Guo Shangshu of the Criminal Department, wanting to ask Guo Shangshu to uphold justice. But Guo Shangshu didn't come forward to meet them at that time, and the spies who were in charge of paying attention to these people didn't think much about it, and they didn't report Guo Shangshu's affairs.

But no one expected that Guo Shangshu would directly impeach Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu in the court yesterday, and the other officials who seconded the proposal yesterday did not communicate with Guo Shangshu, they were just acting at the opportunity.

After the news of the incident at the court meeting yesterday, the Yantai Ten Sons Alliance, which was more active among the scholars in the capital, invited these Henan scholars and some student leaders of Yenching University to gather. Then early this morning, these scholars gathered in front of the left gate of Chang'an and asked Fu Que to write a letter, asking to see His Majesty to express their grievances.

Before His Majesty's arrival, the minister had been observing for a long time, and the minister thought that the people who led these scholars to make trouble should be Zhang Pu, Xia Yunyi, Yang Tingshu, Wang Chongjian of the Yantai Ten Sons Alliance, Li Xin and Zheng Lian of Henan, Ouyang Binyuan, Yang Tinglin, and Xue Fengzuo of Yenching University..."

When Huang Liji, who was dealing with political affairs in the Wenhua Palace, received the news that the scholar had written a letter outside the left gate of Chang'an, he rushed over with the cabinet members panting.

After they climbed the tower at the left gate of Chang'an, they saw that Chongzhen had already stood on the edge of the city wall with dozens of attendants to watch the situation. Chongzhen, who was wearing a sable fur cloak, saw Huang Liji and them coming, so he put down the piece of rice paper he was looking at, nodded at them and said, "All the gentlemen are here, then come over and have a look, how do you think we should deal with this matter." ”

Huang Liji and several other ministers looked down from the city wall a few times, and looked at each other, Shi Fenglai stood up first and said: "Your Majesty, it is freezing outside now, and most of these scholars are thin. The minister felt that it was better to persuade them to leave first, lest after someone fell ill, Shilin's public opinion would be unfavorable to the court. ”

The ministers were obviously very supportive, and they deceived the scholars out of the palace first, so as not to have any accidents and make the cabinet the target of public opinion.

Zhu Youzhen looked at everyone and smiled and said, "I also think this is a good idea, so which gentleman is willing to go down and persuade these scholars to leave?" ”

The ministers who were still echoing Shi Fenglai just now immediately stopped squeaking. Even Shi Fenglai himself retracted half a step, for fear that the emperor would order him to go down to perform this task on a whim.

Huang Liji looked at the appearance of his colleagues and had to stand up. He knew that he could not be allowed to retreat at this time, after all, he was the head of the cabinet, and if he didn't even have this responsibility, he would probably be looked down upon by his colleagues and the emperor.

"The minister thought that if he wanted to let these scholars go, he always had to coax them. It is better to let the old minister go down and talk to them first, and see what they really want to do. As long as it's not very difficult, the minister thinks that it doesn't hurt to compromise a little, as long as they let them go first. ”

Zhu Youzhen heard Huang Liji say this, so he handed him the love letter in his hand with a smile, and said: "Mr. Huang doesn't have to run up and down, everything they want to do is written on it, and a few gentlemen will understand it when they look at it." ”

Huang Li carefully observed Xia Chongzhen's face before taking the letter of love handed over. This is rice paper made from the bark of the fine sandalwood tree, which is about five feet long.

Nearly 1,000 words of articles were written on the paper, and the words were in the style of Taige, graceful and elegant, fair and mellow, but they were quite sharp in the beauty.

Huang Liji shook his head, this person's personality is not suitable for writing the pavilion style, but he is forced to think of it, so this calligraphy can't express his heart directly, so he has a little more ingenuity.

However, he quickly focused on the content of the article, and after reading it for a while, his face turned ugly. In the end, I put away this love letter before I finished reading it.

"It's just a bunch of nonsense, and the minister thinks that these scholars are not here to complain about grievances, but someone instigated them to set off a party struggle in the DPRK and China again. Please also ask Your Majesty to be clear. ”

Huang Liji didn't give the love letter in his hand to his colleagues to see, so he directly refuted this love letter to Chongzhen, and his attitude of wanting to calm things down just now was like two people.

Zhu Youzhen looked at Huang Liji, whose face was pale, and then at the suspicious cabinet ministers on the side, smiled and said: "Since these scholars have written this love letter, after today, it will definitely be spread." Mr. Huang, let everyone take a look at it first, so as not to be caught off guard. ”

At Chongzhen's request, Huang Li was extremely reluctant and handed over the letter in his hand to his cabinet colleagues.