The eunuch in Longzhou City was named Li Qimao.
Compared with most people in the world, eunuchs are more afraid of death and have to work harder to survive.
Because posthumous fame is a false proposition for them. Eunuchs have no descendants, and they are truly dead when they die. No one in this world will remember that there was ever an eunuch alive in the world.
In this way, he will naturally be more sincere than others. If he has any grudges, he will usually avenge them on the spot. If he can kill his enemy, he will kill him on the same day, and he will not be burdened by reputation.
But some grudges are limited by ability and cannot be avenged, so there is nothing we can do.
Liu Chengzong is the enemy that Li Qimao cannot avenge.
In fact, he has never met Liu Chengzong at all. He has never met him in his life, and there should be no hatred. In fact, in the past 40 years of his life, Li Qimao has never heard of the name Liu Chengzong, and he has not even had anything to do with Shaanxi. relation.
Li Qimao was considered an older eunuch. He was one year younger than Cao Huachun. They both entered the palace with braids on their heads, which was the same year.
At that time, he was eleven years old and Cao Huachun was twelve years old. They were both ignorant and suitable for studying. They entered the inner study hall, worshiped the statue of Confucius, handed the teacher a handkerchief, white wax, and a bundle of dragon hanging incense, and learned to write. He started his career as a eunuch by composing poems, appraising cultural relics, training and reviewing memorials.
It is said that these young eunuchs who have entered the inner library to study are all the supervisory trainees of the Supervisor of Ceremonies, and they are young guys with a bright future.
However, their family conditions were different. Cao Huachun was brought into the palace with the custom of being close to the emperor and raising relatives. A Shu Xiu from his family was an investment capital. Not to mention arrogant, at least he had a cheerful personality and was liked by others.
Li Qimao came from a poor family. He was too poor to support a young man before he was sent to the palace. His education was borrowed from his teacher, and he was stabbed in the crotch. He was very timid, so he was withdrawn when he was young. Not endearing.
The inner study hall was not having a good time, especially as their group of junior eunuchs were all selected by Wang An, the great eunuch at that time.
Wang An had the same experience as them when he was a child, and he was very naughty and restless. He didn't study well, so the eunuch Du Mao in charge of him tied him to a stool with a rope and forced him to study; he didn't write well, Du Mao He stood behind him holding a big stick and stared at him writing.
Later, this process was repeated when Cao Huachun and Li Qimao were teenagers. The two were often tied to study and beaten.
After the fulfilling life in the inner study hall, Li Qimao started his career as a palace supervisor. This department sounds very nice, and it seems that the word palace means he is closer to power. In fact, it is a humanoid sweeping robot in the Forbidden City, responsible for When it comes to cleaning, I have a lot to do with less money, and I get scolded at every turn.
This situation of being inferior to pigs and dogs did not change until Wei Zhongxian came to power.
Wei Zhongxian is an old gangster who can use both ways. He is lenient with himself but strict with others. He has a very bad temper. Not only does the sweeping robot get scolded, but he also gets beaten when he messes up. He is really like a pig or a dog.
His old classmate Cao Huachun's career also ushered in a major turning point. He finally entered the Xinwang Palace to serve the emperor Zhu Youjian. This was not a particularly good job at the time. After all, no one could have imagined that his brother and brother would come together so quickly. , but it took a lot of effort to help Li Qimao change his job in another department.
However, after helping, Cao Huachun's luck was gone. After Wei Zhongxian killed Wang An, Cao Huachun, who was Wang An's confidant, was sent to the capital of Nanjing to await his punishment. He did not return from Nanjing until Chongzhen succeeded to the throne.
And throughout the Tianqi years, Li Qimao worked in the 24 yamen of the inner court, namely the Fourth Division, the Eighth Bureau, and the Twelve Supervisors. He did not make any mistakes in doing anything in each yamen, but he just had a little luck.
In fact, it was not luck. Every time he was about to make a small breakthrough in his career, others would help Jiu Qiansui remember: Eunuch Wei slapped him twice because he drank too much, so he could not be promoted.
Li Qimao became the child king among the eunuchs... The eunuchs of the same age as him were basically supervisors, administrators, bookkeepers, and writers. Only he and a group of teenage children sprinkled water and swept the floor, and they belonged to the Forbidden City. Big Brother in.
But even though Wei Zhongxian beat him, he didn't hate Wei Zhongxian at all.
The reason for the beating was because someone from the royal palace had left a horse, and the horse cake leaked from the dung bag to the ground. The work was not done well. There is nothing to quibble about.
Li Qimao knew that Wei Zhongxian had never given him any trouble, because Jiu Qian was not aware of who he was. If Wei Zhongxian really set him up, then he was not of the right age.
He was twenty-seven years old in the forty-fifth year of Wanli, and should have been four years old in the sixth year of Tianqi.
Because he was reincarnated in the second year of Tianqi.
Not only is it not too late for a gentleman to take revenge, but he can still take revenge for nine lifetimes; but a eunuch is not a gentleman, and if he has no descendants to avenge him, he is truly dead when he dies, so the eunuch's revenge will not take too long.
Just because Li Qimao is still alive, there is no hatred between him and Wei Zhongxian. It is just because the other person has a good memory that he suffered unreasonable disasters.
It wasn't until Chongzhen ascended the throne and Cao Huachun returned from Nanjing that Li Qimao finally ended his days of going back and forth and got his wish to enter the Royal Horse Prison... In fact, it didn't matter which yamen he entered. What mattered was that with the fall of Wei Zhongxian, he was promoted!
Not only did he not hate Wei Zhongxian, he even burned some paper in his mind during Qingming and Zhongyuan.
Li Qimao worked conscientiously in the past, working as a low-level handyman for twenty years, and was not promoted because he was "disliked by Wei Zhongxian"; but he only spent two years in the Chongzhen period, and was promoted ten levels in a row because he was "disliked by Wei Zhongxian". He was promoted to the fifth rank of the Royal Horse Supervisor.
The highest level of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty was only the fourth rank, a level that only the commander-in-chief of the Twelve Eunuchs, as well as the palm seals and admirals of each eunuch, had. The four divisions and eight bureaus in the inner court were slightly smaller than the twelve eunuchs, and the admirals with the palm seals were only the fifth rank.
In other words, it only took Li Qimao two years to transform from a humble handyman into a great eunuch who was known as an eunuch.
Eunuchs are different from eunuchs. Eunuchs are not official positions, but a very large official title. Only official titles such as palm seal and admiral can have the title of eunuch.
After all, Taima, Taixue, Taishanghuang, and Eunuch all mean the same thing: a little more than Da.
In the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign, Li Qimao experienced the experience of being in charge of the horses and elephant houses of Tengxiang's fourth guard camp through the Royal Horse Supervisor, and finally made up for the most important part of his career, becoming the Chief Ceremony Supervisor.
This should have been an experience he had twenty years ago, but it didn’t happen then, and it won’t happen now. He was transferred to the Supervisor of Ceremonies only half a year ago. As a very reliable talent in the inner court in the eyes of Emperor Chongzhen, Li Qimao got lucky. The emperor sent Shaanxi to guard and monitor the tea horses.
There is no doubt that this is the greatest honor for a eunuch.
Although the inner court has four divisions, eight bureaus, and twelve eunuchs, collectively known as the Twenty-Four Yamen, the eunuchs who are in charge of each yamen and supervise are naturally the most powerful officials in the inner court. However, who has the most power in the inner court, it has to be the Secretary of Ceremony. The eunuch’s palm prints and pen eunuchs.
Even the palm print of the Royal Horse Supervisor, who is fighting against others, can't compare.
Because the Chief of Ceremonies is the only one of the twenty-four yamen in the inner court that can communicate with the outer court, the admiral has the opportunity to dominate the government and the opposition. He relies on his pen to write memorials for the emperor, and his palms to turn this memorial into a Waste paper or the ability to become an edict.
But this does not mean that every period and every Supervisor of Ceremonies can dominate the government and the opposition. On the contrary, most of the time, the Supervisor of Ceremonies only carries the seal and the pen to the emperor.
There is a prerequisite for them to take power: the emperor is too lazy to do this.
Only if the emperor doesn't care about this matter, will he have the opportunity to wield the power of his seal and pen to dominate the government and the public.
Emperor Chongzhen had many shortcomings, but laziness was definitely not one of them. At the same time, he was ruthless and had a strong intimidating power in the court. Therefore, the power of the chief eunuch of the Chongzhen Dynasty... was very limited.
As a result, under the circumstances of one thing and another, the posted guard eunuch became a more comfortable position than the ceremonial supervisor, and his status rose with the tide.
People's fate is so strange. When Li Qimao should be promoted the most, he wasted his years because of Wei Zhongxian, and those who wanted to please Wei Zhongxian were promoted to nobles because of it; and when he calmly accepted that he might have to be a handyman all his life, he With the downfall of Wei Zhongxian, Xianyu turned around.
On the day Li Qimao received the emperor's favor and left the Forbidden City, he was very ambitious, thinking about doing something great for the emperor.
Recalling that time, the memory is still so clear. The three-thousand-mile road from Beijing to Guyuan was difficult to travel. The officials from Beizhili escorted and served special delicacies along the way. Of course, there were also the cruel scenes of the local disasters after entering Shanxi, but these were nothing compared to hearing The words 'Liu Chengzong' were like a bolt from the blue.
The official office of the Shaanxi garrison eunuch was in Guyuan. Li Qimao was full of ambitions to rectify the horse administration for the emperor, but halfway there, he was told that Guyuan was gone.
At that time, Liu Chengzong had just passed through Guyuan. In Guyuan Town, let alone those stupid accounts about the death of war horses. There was not a single big four-legged animal left in the entire horse garden. Even the horse breeder had been abducted. There was no need for horses. Surveillance?
Later, he rebuilt the Shaanxi Horse Garden and wrote to the Superintendent of Ceremonies, asking for Zhang Yuanheng, a junior middle official, who was sent to the Xining Tea and Horse Company. He was thinking of getting some horses back from Liu Chengzong, and he left a message for him at that time. : "Yuan Heng, as long as you are not good at provocation, Xiningwei's Tea Horse Division, let's go and do it!"
In fact, what he originally wanted was another eunuch named Zhang in the Forbidden City. That man was very smart. He used to follow Wei Zhongxian. Later, Wei Zhongxian fell. He hid for a while but did not die. Instead, he was saved. So Li Qimao thought about this guy. Maybe you can really pull out the teeth from the jaws of the giant bandit in the northwest with your shrewdness.
Unexpectedly, the grandson was so shrewd that when he heard that he was going to Xining, he refused to go. The unlucky guy Zhang Yuanheng came out from Songpan Wei, and Li Qimao couldn't do anything about it. No one dared to come to Shaanxi these days. Can make do with it.
In the end, after only using it for a while, Zhang Yuanheng gave up.
For several years after that, Li Qimao was busy engaging in horse politics in the northwest, trying every means to breed horses. This job was actually not easy to do, because the supervisory eunuchs and the civil servants in charge originally belonged to two systems. Even if they work together, they have different goals when doing things. It’s different. Even if you have good intentions, you will still have conflicts.
For example, the local minister of Yuanmasi was named Zhu Yong. He was a capable official. He was elected as a civil servant at the age of fifteen and passed the imperial examination at the age of thirty-one.
He has successively served as Xingren of the Xingren Division, Yuan Wailang of the Farming Division of the Ministry of Industry, the prefect of Gongchang in Shaanxi and Luzhou in Shanxi, and the deputy envoy of the Inspectorate of Shandong and Shanxi. In the Xingren Division, this person left a reputation for not being afraid of power; in the Ministry of Industry, he served as Li The Queen Mother was also very powerful in building mausoleums; she was also deeply loved as a magistrate to fight against mine thieves and manage the local area.
This is a talented, capable, and good-tempered man. When he reaches the position of Yuan Masiqing, do you expect him to join hands with a eunuch like Li Qimao? But pull it down, Chen Qiyu, the governor of the five provinces, would first hand over Li Qimao when he saw him, and Zhu Yong handed over official duties to him, which has always been an equal courtesy.
The same is true in matters. In the past few years, Shaanxi has been looking for military funds everywhere. The generals of all towns have come to Yuanma Temple to ask for horses and money. They have argued with each other countless times just about the Guyuan Road money casting site and the defense of the racecourse.
Li Qimao thought it was okay. The emperor asked Shaanxi to mint money, and he, the guarding eunuch, also tried to find ways to find money. He could provide military pay and war horses as much as he could, and then increase the price of compensated horses in various places as much as possible. In short, he would get things done. .
As for Zhu Yong, he did the work that Yuan Masi Qing could do to the extreme. He didn't care about you so much about things other than his duties. He only waived the horse price if he could, and paid whatever the military pay could. Don't even want a cent from Yuan Masi. Whoever is responsible for the defense of the racecourse - even if I don't deserve this position, you can't even think of assigning it to our Yuan Masi!
These two people had small conflicts constantly, but they were able to deal with major issues. When the Ministry of War impeached Zhu Yong, Li Qimao helped him speak up. Unfortunately, Zhu Yong was not impeached in the end, but he resigned in frustration. Returned to my hometown in Henan.
All in all, Li Qimao has only raised horses in the past few years, and he has done well, and he has restored the vitality of the farm horses in Guyuan. Unfortunately, as soon as he raised a group of horses, they were taken away by the counter-rebellion army; after raising another group of horses, another group of horses would be taken away. His mother was taken away, and the whole vicious cycle would never end.
Li Qimao thought: What the hell! Are you soldiers like horse-eaters?
Up to now, the situation in Shaanxi is still in a mess, and the war horses on all sides are not enough. He has no ambition to restore the horse power. Li Qimao is tired and even envies Zhu Yong.
Zhu Yong can be disheartened. If he is disheartened, there is still a way for him to return to his hometown in Henan, but he, Li Qimao, has no limbs, so where can he find a way out?
The world is so big that there is no place for him except to obey the emperor's orders.
Li Qimao figured out that people's life and death are actually not important.
The other eunuchs curried favor with Wei Zhongxian and lived a good life for seven or eight years. As soon as Wei Zhongxian was finished, he was buried with him.
He did not flatter Wei Zhongxian. Others lived a good life while he lived a hard life. When Lord Chongzhen came, he had lived a good life for a few years. Although it was hard work and trouble, it was better than a handyman.
Now Li Qimao hopes to manage Ma Zheng well, return to the Forbidden City to enjoy the scenery again, and then leave with him when the emperor dies.
So for him, the most terrifying thing in the world was not death, but the arrival of Liu Chengzong.
To other civil servants and generals, the name Liu Chengzong may mean Generalissimo, Han Han, and leader of the northwest rebels, but to Li Qimao, these three words can be translated, and the translation is: horse thief.
He wished he could run as far away from Liu Chengzong as possible.
In fact, Liu Chengzong had just laid out his horses and horses in Gongchang, and Li Qimao drove more than 4,000 horses in Guyuan to Xi'an Prefecture. He would rather go to the mountains of Yaozhou to raise horses than meet Liu Chengzong.
It's a pity that God is not as good as God. As soon as he arrived in Xi'an, Deng Qi fell to his death on the city wall - would anyone believe this? No.
Chen Qiyu was made to doubt his life and worshiped the land lord. Emperor Chongzhen, who was suspicious by nature, was even less convinced. Before Li Qimao could get excited about retaining the flame of Ma Zheng in the northwest, the emperor sent him a letter from the emperor asking him to go to Longzhou. He was sent from the Forbidden City and asked to see whether Deng Qi was really dead or fake.
The cannons outside the city roared, and the brick walls of the city collapsed.
Li Qimao from the city looked at the coffin with neither sadness nor joy on his face. He even clapped his hands: "It's so fast, so fast... It's better now."
Now, Li Qimao can not only see Deng Qi in the coffin, but Deng Qi who hasn't gone far can also see him soon. (End of chapter)
