On March 13 of the sixth year of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng, the first assistant of the cabinet, set off from Beijing, returned to Huguang Jiangling, and returned home to bury his father.

Before leaving, the little emperor of Wanli said to Zhang Juzheng:

"Sir's trip, although it is not a long absence, but the state affairs are still attentive."

And he was specially given a silver medal, which was engraved with "The Emperor Gave Loyalty", allowing him to seal the performance, and the Queen Mother of the two palaces was also rewarded.

The little emperor of Wanli also sent the eunuch Zhang Hong to set up a banquet in the suburbs to see off, and hundreds of officials in Beijing lined up to see him off.

Zhang Juzheng's party members Li Youzi, Zhang Siwei, Shen Shixing and others are already in the cabinet, and the imminent departure is just a reminder or two, instructing everything to be attentive.

According to the rules, the first assistant temporarily left the cabinet and the second assistant was replaced, but the Wanli Emperor told the cabinet ministers many times when Zhang Juzheng was leaving, if there was a major event, Xu Kuaima reported it to Zhang Juzheng, and the decision of the first assistant was not allowed to be arbitrary.

Everything was normal when the second assistant Lu Tiaoyang was sent off, but after returning to the mansion, he looked miserable, looked at his white hair in the bronze mirror, and was speechless for a while.

He also knew that Zhang Juzheng was going to return home to bury his father in March, and he thought that this was his opportunity, so he had been behaving decently, focusing on Zhang Juzheng in everything, and he didn't dare to do anything out of the ordinary.

But that Zhang Siwei said at the court meeting that those things that were routine for food and salary, for a while I couldn't help but say a few words of righteousness and awe-inspiring, the scenery was incomparable, and now the Jingshi is still praising it, but it caused Zhang Juzheng's suspicion, originally the cabinet voted, three or four out of ten things can ask him one, since that time, there are only one or two, and they are all inconsequential trivial matters.

This time Zhang Juzheng left, Zhang Juzheng arranged before leaving, the internal affairs of the small matter, by Zhang Siwei decided, and the major matter, the Wanli Emperor asked to report to Zhang Juzheng, and the cabinet members were not allowed to interfere.

This is completely elevating one's own family, what an official wants is power, what is an official without power, Lu Tiaoyang can feel the indifference and alienation of the government and the opposition to him.

"Zhang Siwei, you have a good means......

It is said that the little servant of the Lu Mansion heard Lord Lu say this in the room, but no one admitted it, and no one paid attention to it, because after March 15, the second assistant Lu Tiaoyang asked for Zhishi one after another, and the Wanli Emperor granted his request after he had done enough to retain the etiquette surname.

On March 22, the fast horse caught up with Zhang Juzheng's fleet, and after knowing that the first assistant Zhang Juzheng had no objection to this matter, Lu Tiaoyang Zhishi returned to his hometown.

Next, the focus of the attention of everyone in Beijing is who will be the second assistant, Li Youzi is the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, and he has the highest status among the cabinet scholars, but he is not Zhang Juzheng's descendant, and the candidate for this position is nothing more than Zhang Siwei, the secretary of the Ministry of War, and Shen Shixing, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites.

In fact, the situation is already obvious, the government affairs in the cabinet, the important Zhang Juzheng Zhang Ge Lao ruling, the unimportant Zhang Siwei Zhang Daxue ruling, who will be the auxiliary position this time.

When Yan Song was in power, Yan Song's son Yan Shifan was the squire of the Ministry of Works, and he was in power and the opposition, and his momentum was great.

Now Zhang Juzheng is also surnamed Zhang, Zhang Siwei is also surnamed Zhang, Zhang Siwei obeys Zhang Juzheng's orders in everything, and naturally gets this name, but the poor two people are less than five years old, but they are called father and son.

Although Emperor Wanli did not give a clear attitude, Feng Youning, the nephew of the eunuch Feng Bao, who was in charge of the seal, revealed the tone of Feng Gonggong, saying that Zhang Siwei was reliable.

In this way, Zhang Siwei's position as the second assistant seems to have been set in stone, and Shen Shixing, as a competitor, has shown extreme humility, and has repeatedly said in the cabinet court that the position of the second assistant is immoral and incompetent, and he is categorically unable to hold it, and Zhang Shangshu is the best choice.

Since the establishment of the cabinet, the ministers of the DPRK and the central government have fought over the matter of entering the cabinet, and whoever enters and who does not enter will often form a grudge for several generations, and it is rare to have a harmonious atmosphere at this time.

Zhang Juzheng boarded the ship from Tongzhou and went south downstream, until Tianjin, he still walked very low-key, because this side is still in the territory of Shuntianfu, too close to Beijing.

After arriving at Hejian Mansion, the officials of the Yamen of the prefect of Hejian Prefecture and the state and county officials on both sides of the canal greeted them in person.

When Zhang Juzheng was transiting, the various yamen in Tianjin were also very busy, because Tianjin happened to be the intersection of Shuntian Mansion and Hejian Mansion, so Zhang Ge Lao did not get off the boat.

After the military preparation and yamen came forward, gave a heavy gift to various leading figures, and made various supplements to the fleet, it was over.

Wang Tong also gave a gift of two hundred taels, which is a common number, no more, no less.

Everything is as usual inside and outside Tianjin, and Wang Tong's own work is also carried out normally, whether it is the soldier Panda or the eunuch Wan Dao, the small servants in the family always have a rotation.

Whoever commits a crime and is kicked out of the house, and whoever has something to leave at home, there is no need to do anything out of the house, and they themselves need to replenish the manpower.

The people brought by Zhang Shiqiang in Tongzhou were also the slaves of the Zhang family at the beginning, and they had done the work of serving people, so they were naturally the best candidates.

Before they entered the houses, they did not receive any tasks to inquire about the news and spy on **, and those who did not go through this training could easily show their flaws.

It's just that there are a few more fellow villagers from Tongzhou in Tianjin, who come to visit from time to time and talk about the short ones in the parents, and inadvertently, the person who is asked will not notice, talk about the anecdotes and situations in the house, everyone will be happy and disperse, and no one will feel that there is anything wrong.

For the real core organization of Jinyiwei, Wang Tong is an outsider, and some things in the East Factory cannot be handed over to him, and it is also separated by a layer, and the intelligence and surveillance done by Wang Tong are often the experience learned from market research, customer analysis and other work in that life.

There are many useless little things and trivial matters, but for Wang Tong, the analysis and deconstruction of these seemingly useless information is important, and accurate judgments can be made.

But this ability is not something that can be possessed by oral transmission for a few months, and there is only Wang Tong who can do it in Tianjin, but fortunately, there is not much information, and there are only a few people who need to be monitored.

When he was in Beijing, Lu Wancai and the eunuchs in the palace almost had similar skills, but this was also an instinct that had been tempered by processing a large amount of information for many years.

Within ten days of being inserted, Wang Tong came to a conclusion that the relationship between the two people, Panda and Wan Dao, the eunuch who supervised the grain, was definitely closer than he imagined.

Although these two people don't interact much, there is a Chai Dong family in the sea warehouse who has very close contacts with the two of them, and there must be something going on in such an intersection.

But I can't find out what is specifically to talk about, it is said that every time we meet, even the personal long-term entourage has to be sent out, it is said that the hands of the Chai Dong family are very broad, and every time they come to the door, many people can get a reward or something.

The time is still short, and there is little information that can be obtained, Wang Tong also reminded himself not to be in a hurry, calm down and do things slowly.

After almost two months of training at the boot camp, Yu Dayou finally got involved, and what he did was different from other instructors, Yu Dayou used a spear without a pointed tip as a crutch, and walked casually in the training ground, he often did not disturb the three training battalions, but chose among the laborers who were working outside.

The shacks had been turned into houses, the whole school yard had been leveled, and deep trenches had been dug inside and out of sharpened wooden fences, and now the laborers were doing the work of building a wider road between the training camp and the nearest official road, so that supplies could be easily accessed.

It is rare to have such a saline-alkali beach, and the so-called commercial plots around this canal are almost developed if they can be developed, and the boot camp is already a very remote place.

The people selected by Yu Dayou may not be very awake, nor are they the people who were brushed down by the bombing of the camp that night, but the young people who are the most hard-working and hard-working of these laborers, and the most reluctant to speak.

For Yu Dayou's actions, Wang Tong has always obeyed, asking for money for money, asking people to give people, Yu Dayou himself selected 400 people from the labor force, and organized them into the fourth and fifth battalions, but although the treatment is the same as Wang Tong's three battalions, and the training intensity is also the same, the work to be done still has to be done, and it is very hard.

Nearly 1,000 soldiers in the training camp are training hard, and it has also become a scene around here, there are often idlers and tourists who come to watch nearby, Wang Tong's attitude is very simple, each battalion takes turns to send out people, and goes out with wooden sticks and leather whips to drive people out, which is also regarded as a training in peace, and according to the speed and effect of the actions of each battalion, it is used as an assessment.

Everything Wang Tong did was recorded in detail, and then sealed in an iron box and sent to the capital for the little emperor Wanli to see, except for the time when he scolded the errand on the river, Wang Tong felt that the rest of the things were not interesting, and he was worried that Wanli would not feel tired of such boring government affairs.

However, Jingshi's reply dispelled his concerns, whether it was as detailed as possible what the emperor said, the interval between letters was as short as possible, or what Zhang Cheng said, Wanli often urged him to see if the secret music in Tianjin had come, which showed that Emperor Wanli was very interested and loved to watch.

On the second day of the fourth lunar month, as soon as Wang Tong's house opened, someone asked to see him outside, and handed over a greeting post saying that it was Gu Zibin, the owner of Wang's Warehouse outside the city.

"Please come in, the owner of the Wang family's warehouse is surnamed Gu, it's really interesting, but this Gu owner is late!"

(To be continued)