Hearing that the celebrant was leading the inspection of the forbidden matters in and out of the palace, Yang Shiqi, Zhang Fu, Jian Yi and others present couldn't help frowning.

Under the protection of Emperor Xuande, the power of the celebrant eunuch is now getting bigger and bigger, and his hands are getting deeper and longer, not only in charge of the big and small affairs in the palace, but also the eunuchs sent to various places, as well as the eunuchs such as salt supervisors and tax supervisors, have begun to intervene in local affairs, and disputes with local yamen have occurred one after another.

In particular, although Zhan Ji repeatedly warned them not to interfere in local military and government affairs under the banner of the Son of Heaven's courtiers, as well as to rampant corruption and drug abuse, and harass the army and the people, they should not act without permission in case of trouble after consulting with the general army and the local three divisions.

It's a pity that many of the eunuchs who guarded the town turned a deaf ear, intervened in local military and political affairs, and repeatedly clashed with the chief military officers of the town.

However, although Emperor Xuande sent eunuchs to various places to supervise local affairs, he did not indulge them, but carried out strict management with both grace and power.

Throughout the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, no emperor has done a better job than Emperor Xuande in controlling eunuchs, and Emperor Xuande's management of eunuchs can be described as lax, giving eunuchs the power to supervise local officials while severely restricting them, so that eunuchs can serve the imperial power wholeheartedly, and become a sharp weapon for the young Xuande Emperor to balance the Chinese officials and nobles of the dynasty.

It can be seen from an incident that occurred in December of the sixth year of Emperor Xuande that Emperor Xuande implemented a policy of radish and sticks on the eunuchs, so that the eunuchs did not dare to make mistakes.

On the fourth day of December in the sixth year of Xuande, in view of the pampering and arrogance of the eunuchs, Emperor Xuande punished the eunuchs Yuan Qi and Ruan Ju, Ruan Huan, Wu Mang, Wu Lu, Ruan Ke, Chen You, Zhao Huai, Wang Gui, Yang Sibao, Chen Hai, etc.

Yuan Qi served Emperor Xuande since he was a child, and he was greedy and greedy, and sent eunuchs Ruan Ju to Guangdong and other places to plunder military and civilian property in the name of procurement, and then was reported to Emperor Xuande by the officials, which made Emperor Xuande furious, and sent him to the edict of Jinyiwei, and confiscated tens of millions of gold and silver treasures from his family, and the gold and jade utensils used were all extravagant and illegal.

In order to set an example, Emperor Xuande ordered Ling Chi to kill Yuan Qi and the Ruan Ju team and other ten people, and ordered the Metropolitan Procuratorate to show Yuan Qi's crimes to the world, and his henchman Pei Kelie was particularly greedy in Su and Songzhu counties, and was arrested in the capital and sent to Jinyi Wei Prison, and later died in the Imperial Prison.

Not only that, on the fifth day of December in the sixth year of Xuande, Emperor Xuande ordered the Imperial Procuratorate to unveil the list, strictly prohibiting internal officials and internal envoys from being pampered:

If the internal officials and internal envoys sent by the first office occupy the land of the officials and civilians and build houses without authorization, the lawsuit where they are located shall be investigated and clarified, and the original officials will be returned to the officials, and the military and civilians will be returned to the army and the civilians. Chinese and foreign officials and civilians who have received property from internal officials and internal envoys are allowed to be exempted from crimes;

If he hides and does not take the lead, after the incident, he will be guilty of the same crime as the offender. From now on, if the internal officials go out, they dare to commit crimes before, so that the lawsuit where they are located will be played and punished as a serious crime;

Knowing but not guilty. If Chinese and foreign military and civilians entrust them to follow internal officials and internal envoys, and thus appoint the victim, all of them shall be sentenced to death.

Emperor Xuande's iron-blooded approach caused great panic among the eunuchs, after all, since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, even Emperor Hongwu has not killed more than a dozen high-ranking eunuchs in one go.

At this time, Emperor Xuande adopted a means of appeasing the eunuchs, and in February of the seventh year of Xuande, he issued an edict to Jin Ying, the eunuch of the chief eunuch of Bingbi, Wang Jin, the chief eunuch of Bingbi, and Fan Hong, the eunuch of the second Bingbi, in which the focus and ability of the three were commended.

Emperor Xuande gave Jin Ying three people the edict of exemption from death is equivalent to the civil official honor of the iron coupon of exemption from death, only those who have made great contributions to the country can enjoy this honor, with infinite glory, the eunuch obtained the edict of exemption from death for the first time in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

The reason why Emperor Xuande gave Jin Ying, Wang Jin and Fan Hong, the three most powerful eunuchs in the chamberlain, the edict of exemption from death, was not only to show his trust and favor to the three, but also to appease the panicked eunuchs, so that they knew that Emperor Xuande still trusted and reused them.

As Emperor Xuande's most trusted eunuchs, Jin Ying, Wang Jin and Fan Hong knew that Emperor Xuande's reuse of eunuchs was to deal with those civil officials and nobles with profound qualifications and outstanding merits in the court, so they acted cautiously and would never act recklessly.

Therefore, Emperor Xuande was very relieved to give the three of them an edict to avoid death, and he wanted to use this move to appease the court's inner servants, so that they could understand why Yuan Qi was killed, and then reflect on their mistakes.

Because of Emperor Xuande's move, the noisy chamberlain quickly settled down, and his actions became restrained, and he did not dare to fly in the local area anymore, but there was still constant friction with the local civil and military officials, after all, they represented the authority of Emperor Xuande, how could they do nothing in the local area? It's just that no one dares to make a big deal out of it anymore.

From a couplet in the inner study hall that taught the young inner servants to read and write, it can be seen that Emperor Xuande exhorted and admonished the inner attendants, the upper couplet is "Before learning to the Confucian and Mencian gate wall, you must work hard to take a few steps", and the lower couplet is "you can't do enough family business, and you can throw it aside".

In view of the tragic historical facts of the eunuchs' chaotic government in the past, Emperor Xuande knew the harm of eunuchs holding military power, and once said to the important ministers around him: "With generals, if this generation (referring to eunuchs) is ordered to prepare for military affairs, it will be bothered to its power, and it will succeed?" ”

Therefore, although those eunuchs were very powerful, and some of them were able to suppress the commanders but could not control the army, they were never able to control the government due to the control of the cabinet, and the cabinet and the eunuchs were incompatible most of the time, except for a very few times when they could coexist peacefully.

This made the eunuchs of the Ming generation fail to control the military power, even the powerful Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian failed to do so, and it was a big deal to suppress the cabinet and the governors of the five prefectures and the officials of the six ministries in the name of the emperor.

In the final analysis, in the Ming Dynasty, eunuchs were just attached to the emperor and used by the emperor to check and control the government, because under the constraints of the cabinet and the six ministers, it was impossible to install confidant officials in the court to control the government, and the civil and military officials were afraid of the imperial power behind the eunuchs rather than the eunuchs.

Therefore, no matter how powerful the eunuch is, once he loses power in front of the emperor, he will lose his head in an instant, and his henchmen will be quickly eliminated.

For example, Liu Jin, Emperor Zhengde was angered by his flying and unscrupulous, and Liu Jin, who was in power under the order, fell to the ground, and as for Wei Zongxian, who was undefeated by Emperor Tianqi because of the trust of Emperor Tianqi, Emperor Chongzhen dismissed him from his post with an edict after he ascended the throne, making him die in a foreign land.

Therefore, although the eunuchs in the Xuande period had greater authority than in the Yongle period, because Emperor Xuande was diligent in government and loved the people, coupled with Jin Ying, Wang Jin and Fan Hong, etc., who were old and respectful, and had good temperaments, this made the eunuchs dare not be too presumptuous, and no one dared to dictate power, but the power of the eunuchs has risen under the support of Emperor Xuande, and there is a tendency to compete with the cabinet and the five governments and six ministries.

Li Yuntian keenly noticed the disgust of Yang Shiqi, Zhang Fu, Jian Yi and others for those two eunuchs, and couldn't help but shake his head secretly, both civil officials and nobles in the court looked down on those eunuchs in the inner court, thinking that they were just servants in the palace, and belonged to the ranks of untouchables, and in the long run, the two sides would definitely break out into a fierce conflict after the death of Emperor Xuande.

It is worth mentioning that after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu tried his best to suppress the eunuchs, and he also despised it, saying that "this Cao Zhi can be sprinkled and swept and given orders, unless there is no other appointment, do not order too much", and also said that "this Cao is not one or two out of a thousand, and the evil is often thousands." If you use your eyes and ears, you will be blinded by your ears and eyes. It is used as a henchman, that is, a heart disease. The way to control is to make them fear the law, not to make meritorious. Fear the law and discipline, and if there is merit, you will be arrogant".

Not only that, Emperor Hongwu also stipulated that the inner servants were not allowed to be literate, and in the seventeenth year of Hongwu, he cast an iron plate to suspend the palace gate, and explicitly ordered that "the ministers shall not interfere in political affairs, and the offenders shall be beheaded", and the departments "shall not be transferred to the internal officials and supervisors".

Unfortunately, Emperor Yongle, Emperor Hongxi, and Emperor Xuande all broke Emperor Hongwu's prohibition, which gradually contributed to the rise of the Inner Court.

As Li Yuntian is now worried, in history, after the death of Emperor Xuande, because the orthodox emperor who succeeded to the throne was young, he favored the eunuch Wang Zhen, who had accompanied him since childhood, which made Wang Zhenquan tilt towards the government and the opposition, and the power of the inner court increased sharply, and finally led to the occurrence of the Battle of Tumubao.

Unlike the civil and noble groups in the court, Li Yuntian has maintained a good relationship with the eunuchs in the palace since the time of Emperor Yongle, because he knows very well that the rise of eunuchs is unstoppable, a historical necessity, and a means for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty to consolidate imperial power, so instead of confronting the eunuchs, it is better to choose to cooperate, so that there will undoubtedly be a lot less trouble in the future.

Moreover, due to Li Yuntian's perennial conquest abroad, and the fact that the territory of Jiangwutang was mainly in the southwest, Guanwai and Hetao Monan, there was no conflict of interest with the eunuchs and the five prefectures and six departments, which also allowed him to get out of the struggle between the two sides.

Not only that, but since the five mansions and six ministries are still in the dominant position in the court, Li Yuntian has actually begun to lay out when he is in Jiaozhi, secretly using the power of eunuchs to fight against the five mansions and six ministries.

Li Yuntian believed that with the rapid expansion of the power of the Wutang, one day it would touch the interests of the five governments and six departments, because Li Yuntian advocated the new imperial examination and military system, which made the contradictions between the two sides irreconcilable, and a fierce conflict would inevitably break out, and he needed eunuchs to contain the five governments and six departments, otherwise it would be difficult to compete with the huge civil official group and the Xungui group of the imperial court with the power of the Jiangwutang.

It was precisely because of this that Li Yuntian handed over half of the customs duties of Jiaozhi's overseas trade to Emperor Xuande's inner treasury instead of the treasury of the household department, and the person in charge of the inner treasury was the eunuch in the palace.

As a result, Li Yuntian invisibly narrowed the relationship with the eunuchs, and at the same time had a strong alliance in the capital on the matter of Jiaozhi overseas trade, and with those eunuchs by Emperor Xuande's side, he did not have to worry about the huge profits generated by the people of the Six Ministries coveting overseas trade.

In the face of the extremely profitable Jiaozhi overseas trade, the Beijing civil official yamen headed by the six ministries had already been unable to hold back and wanted to get a piece of the pie, but due to the initial decision of Jiaozhi, coupled with the two Huai salt cases and the southern invasion of the remnants of the Northern Yuan, it had no time to take care of this matter, but after all, it would attack the overseas trade of Jiaozhi Li Yuntian had to take precautions as soon as possible.

"Check it out and see if Zhen Guogong stays in the palace on the night of the fifth day of the eighth month!" Chen Tai's voice broke the dull atmosphere of the Gyeonggi Governor's Mansion, and he said to the emaciated eunuch with a blank face.

"Miscellaneous family will check!" Hearing this, the emaciated eunuch bowed to Chen Tai, and with the help of the eunuch beside him, he took out the two account books in the box, handed one of them to the pro-army hundred households to check, and flipped through the other book himself.

Since Wenyuan Pavilion is in the eastern part of the Forbidden City, the cabinet personnel enter and exit the Forbidden City from Donghua Gate, and the emaciated eunuch and the pro-army hundred households consult the records of Donghua Gate entering and leaving the palace in August, which records in detail the information of people entering and leaving from Donghua Gate every day.

Since everyone in the lobby had long known about Li Yuntian's overnight stay in Wenyuan Pavilion on the fifth day of the first month, no one cared about the emaciated eunuch and the pro-army hundred households, and they were talking in a low voice there, secretly speculating how Li Yuntian would fight back from those "anti-believers".

However, there was a person who reacted strangely, that person was Yang Pu, he didn't talk to the people around him, but slowly sipped tea there, with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth, and a calm and calm posture.

Li Yuntian keenly noticed Yang Pu's unusual reaction, and after a deep groan, an imperceptible smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, it seemed that Yang Pu had already guessed his plan from the beginning of the court trial, so he was so indifferent.

"Lord Yudu, there is no record of the Zhenguo Gong entering and leaving the palace on the fifth day of the first month!"

Just when Yang Shiqi, Zhang Fu, Jian Yi and others were discussing Li Yuntian's counterattack strategy with great interest, the emaciated eunuch communicated with the pro-army Baihu in a low voice, and then looked up at Chen Tai, who was talking with Wei Xin and Hu Dahai, and said in a sharp voice.

"What?" Chen Tai was stunned when he heard this, and looked at the emaciated eunuch with a stunned face, looking very surprised, Wei Xin and Hu Dahai also showed surprised looks, and did not react for a while.

The scene gradually quieted down, and people looked at the scene in front of them with puzzled expressions, no one thought that the emaciated eunuch would say such a thing, could it be that Li Yuntian, who had just sworn that he was staying in Wenyuan Pavilion on the fifth day of the eighth month, remembered the wrong time?