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The writing competition between Zhu Youzhen and Huang Daozhou naturally ended with Zhu Youzhen's victory. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 Needless to say, there is no comparison between the writing speed of a brush and a hard pen. This is still a quill pen, and you have to dip it in ink to write a few strokes; If it's a pencil or a pen, the speed is even worse.

From the point of view of calligraphy, the ministers were also surprised to find that in fact, the emperor's handwriting was not bad, it could be regarded as a smooth calligraphy, which was much stronger than the dog's crawling words on the holy decree. In fact, there is nothing strange about this, Zhu Youzhen was a person who went to college in his previous life, and his writing cannot be too bad, but the brush is really not good.

Huang Daozhou was still unconvinced: "Your Majesty, calligraphy can't just seek speed, you can see a person's cultivation from the words..."

Zhu Youzhen interrupted him earnestly, blinked his red eyes and said with a wry smile: "Lord Huang, I write to deal with the government, not to write calligraphy works one stroke at a time. I'll tell you the truth, I haven't had a good night's rest, and a lot of that time has been spent battling with brushes. Hundreds of pieces of music every day, if you want to write like you, I can't finish it without sleeping! So I hope you understand. Also, since you lost the game just now, you have to be willing to gamble and accept the loss, and use a hard pen to write the recital in the future. ”

Huang Daozhou stopped arguing this time, his nose was sore, he knelt down and kowtowed heavily: "The minister is stupid and can't understand His Majesty's good intentions for diligent government!" Please rest assured, Your Majesty, from today onwards, the minister will switch to writing with a hard pen! ”

Seeing that the most stubborn conservatives had changed their positions, Zhu Youzhen also took the opportunity to announce that in the future, hard pens would be used to review and approve the chapters. The officials' recitals also encouraged the use of hard pens, and those who could not adapt to it could still use the brush, but for a maximum of one year. After a year, it will be written with a hard pen.

After this incident, Sun Chengzong and others immediately implored Zhu Youzhen to reconsider the matter of peace. Zhu Youzhen looked at him left and right, yawned and said: "Now is the day to talk, not a place to talk about government affairs." I'm tired today, go back to the palace and sleep well, and I'll talk about it tomorrow. ”

Sun Chengzong saw that Zhu Youzhen's eyes were bloodshot, his face was pale, and he was yawning, and he was indeed extremely tired, and he thought that the dragon body was more important, so he had to lead the crowd to say goodbye and prepare to give advice the next morning.

But the next day, Zhu Youzhen still said that he was ill, and the ministers who opposed the peace could only sigh in vain.

Many days have passed since this back and forth, and the secret decree of the imperial court agreeing to negotiate peace has already been handed to the front line in Liaodong. Yuan Chonghuan did not dare to slack off when he received the order, and immediately passed the news to Huang Taiji through secret channels, and emphasized that Houjin must send envoys to Beijing to face the saint, otherwise everything should not be discussed.

The Houjin side reacted quickly, and soon sent an embassy headed by Hanchen Ning Wan and me from Guangning to Jinzhou, and was escorted from Jinzhou to Ningyuan by Zu Dashou. After Yuan Chonghuan received the meeting, for the sake of prudence, he first flew 600 miles to the Beijing division in an expedited manner, and only let the mission leave three days later, in order to give the imperial court a time to prepare. If you regret it at this time, you can also stop the mission halfway.

It was about 1,000 miles from Ningyuan to Jingshi, and even if it was 600 miles to expedit, it would take two days to arrive in Jingshi. The military department did not dare to slack off when it received the letter, and immediately handed it to the palace. Zhu Youjian saw whether the envoy was a Han or a traitor who had a relationship with him in North Korea, and couldn't help but sigh slightly and said, "Alas, the level is too low!" ”

In fact, this is also normal, since Nurhachi rebelled, the two sides have cut off contact, and this is the first time that an envoy has been sent. The Jurchens always boasted about how brave they were, but in fact they were afraid that if the peace could not be reached, the envoys would be detained in Beijing or simply killed, so they sent a loyal minion. Anyway, I'm Han Chinese, and it's not a pity to die.

Although he was a little depressed, Zhu Youzhen still sent an edict to let the envoys enter Beijing. According to the meaning of the Ministry of Rites, since there are foreign ministers who come to Beijing to meet them, they should be honored with dignity, so that they are in awe and dare not covet the Ming Dynasty again. However, Zhu Youzhen specially emphasized that he was not allowed to make any superfluous preparations, just like the usual court, the envoy came and let him enter the palace for an audience.

It stands to reason that Jin Yihe is the overriding major event at present, but Zhu Youzhen's performance makes the ministers unable to understand it. He didn't seem to be concerned about it at all, and instead devoted his energy to other things.

This other aspect mainly refers to the eunuchs who "went out of the palace to raise honor" some time ago. There were thousands of eunuchs in the Forbidden City, most of them were small eunuchs who did chores at the bottom, and Zhu Youzhen was indeed "honored" for these people, and paid them a one-time salary for 20 years. Then if they are willing to go back to their hometown, they will return to their hometown, and if they are unwilling to leave, these silver will be enough for them to buy a small courtyard house in Beijing, and then spend the rest of their lives in peace.

However, those eunuch leaders, large and small, especially the departments that hold real power such as the celebrant eunuch and the imperial horse eunuch, as well as the town guards and eunuchs who are placed all over the country, are not so lucky. Zhu Youzhen arranged for them all to live in the original Wei Zhongxian's mansion, and sent heavy troops to guard them, which was called protection, but in fact, he put these eunuchs under house arrest.

Then, under the auspices of Yan Zhengang, the new Jinyi Wei Qianhu, a campaign to "settle accounts after the autumn" against the eunuchs began vigorously. Yan Zhengang is nicknamed "Living Hades", and the interrogation methods are so "superb", not to mention eunuchs, even iron-beaten men can't stand it.

Those great eunuchs who used to be arrogant and unpretentious, and even paid no attention to the princes and generals, are now the phoenixes who are in distress are not as good as chickens, and under Yan Zhengang's interrogation, they completely confessed all the crimes they have committed since they became eunuchs within a few days. Even when he was a little eunuch, he stole eggs from Shangshan Prison and confessed to it.

In accordance with Zhu Youzhen's instructions, Yan Zhengang focused his interrogation on embezzlement and bribery, as well as theft, misappropriation, and transfer of internal money. It didn't take long to find out that the eunuchs in the palace were guarding and stealing, and the internal silver transferred from the inner treasury to the outside of the palace was no less than 30 million taels! Zhu Youzhen was also shocked, and immediately asked Yan Zhengang to recover the money back to the Forbidden City and hand it over to the Finance Department for proper safekeeping.

In addition, there are countless criminal acts such as accepting bribes in court procurement, accepting benefits when serving as a town guard eunuch, and even directly enriching one's own pockets with mining taxes and salt taxes. Zhu Youzhen immediately ordered Jinyi Wei to raid the houses one by one, and confiscate all the family properties of these eunuchs in Beijing and other places. According to rough statistics alone, there are no less than 10 million taels of silver, which is equivalent to another Wei Zhongxian.

Zhu Youzhen ordered Yan Zhengang to continue the strict trial, and at the same time revealed the crimes of these eunuchs to the world. For a while, the people of the whole country rushed to tell each other, and they all felt that Emperor Chongzhen used thunderous means to suppress corruption and pull out these giant beetles of the country, and the people would be able to live a good life in the future.

However, most of the courtiers' attention was still on the negotiation of peace, and they felt that corruption was nothing more than a disease of ringworm, and the emperor only cared about tracking down the eunuchs, which was inevitably suspected of being greedy for money.

In this atmosphere, the Houjin delegation finally arrived in Beijing.