"Given that much money? Where did the imperial court get the money? Aren't the national treasury and internal treasury empty?"
Li Guozhen's eyes were wide and round again, with a surprised expression on his face, which was darkened by the sun and turned red.
Zhu Chunchen pointed upward and gasped: "Go up, you will know when you get to the tower..."
"The prince is on the tower?" Li Guozhen then remembered that he came to Fuchengmen to see the prince of Fujun.
"Yes!" Zhu Chunchen nodded, "If he were not here, would I be able to run up and down wearing these dozens of kilograms of iron? Am I full enough?"
"That's just right, I have to go see Prince Chitose."
"You can't see him..." Zhu Chunchen shook his head, "Now you have to line up to see the prince. You'd better ask your entourage to line up first, and you can patrol the city for me."
"Queue? Do many people want to see the prince?"
"More! Hundreds!" Zhu Chunchen looked up at the sky and said with a wry smile, "I guess not many people went to the morning court. They all came to line up to see the prince."
"Morning court?" Li Guozhen was startled, "Is Your Majesty still in the capital?"
"Of course I am."
"Then why does the prince care about the army?"
Zhu Chunchen sighed, "Isn't it because the prince has something to do?"
any solution? Li Guozhen wondered in his heart, could it be that the prince had neglected the emperor and wanted to seize power?
Thinking of this, he didn't have time to talk nonsense with Zhu Chunchen. He turned around and walked towards the horse road to the city. Only halfway up the horse road, he saw officials and nobles wearing various colored python robes lining up. There were also several "bearded pure soldiers" present. "Maintaining order. Seeing Li Guozhen coming up, a gray-bearded "Pure Army" immediately stepped forward to stop him.
"Master Chitose has an order that all officials who come to donate military salary must line up in order, and no one is allowed to jump in line!"
Li Guozhen suspected that he had heard wrongly, and asked the "Uncle Jingjun" in front of him: "What did you say? The officials lining up here are all here to... donate money?"
"yes!"
How can this be! ? When Li Guozhen was in a daze, he suddenly heard someone calling his name. When he looked up, he saw Wu Qinghou Li Guorui jogging down from the tower with great joy, followed by a eunuch and a guard of the East Palace.
Seeing Li Guozhen, Li Guorui smiled and saluted, "Uncle Xiangcheng, why did you come here! You're late..."
"Why are you late?" Li Guozhen was confused.
"If you're late, you won't have the chance to donate military pay and serve the country!" Li Guorui took out a decree with a smile, "I have already received the decree from Lord Qiantose... I will go to Dagukou to inspect the defense, see you later! "
As he spoke, he cupped his hands at Li Guozhen and ran down the city as fast as he could.
What's going on? Li Guozhen was confused. Does this donation of military pay have anything to do with going to Dagukou to inspect defense?
And isn’t it too late to hide things like donating military pay? Why are we queuing up? How many days have you been away from Beijing? Why do these officials in the city not love money but love Ming Dynasty?
Besides... why are we going to Dagukou to inspect the defense? The bandits are not pirates. They come from the northwest and southwest. There are no bandits outside Tianjin Wei.
Unable to understand the key, Li Guozhen gave up and said to the bearded old man of the Jing Army who was blocking him: "I am Li Guozhen, the commander-in-chief of the Beijing camp. I just came back from outside the city. I have urgent military affairs to report to His Highness the Crown Prince." report."
Upon hearing that there was an urgent military matter, Master Jingjun did not dare to stop Li Guozhen, but the officials queuing up were not happy.
"We can't let him pass!"
"Stop him..."
"We can't let him delay Master Qiantose's time..."
"Yes, we still have to donate to serve the country!"
Li Guozhen just felt that his brain was not used enough. What was going on? How could everyone be so brave to donate military pay? Could it be that those queuing up here are all loyal ministers of the Ming Dynasty? No, when the emperor asked everyone to donate money a while ago, didn’t everyone have money?
Thinking of this, Li Guozhen found a civil servant in his thirties named Zhou Zerui who was familiar to him among the officials waiting for donations.
"Jingfu, why are you here? Are you also here to donate military pay?"
Doctor Zhou was fair and fat, and his complexion told that he had not been an official in Beijing for a long time. I don’t know whether it’s because the fat man is afraid of the heat, or he’s just too anxious to wait and see for his turn to donate money, so he’s wiping his sweat right now.
Hearing Li Guozhen's words, he opened his mouth and said: "General Rong, Xiaguan is the successor of Donglin. He has always taken the rise and fall of the world as his own responsibility. Now that thieves are coming to the capital, Xiaguan will naturally donate money to repay the favor."
Li Guozhen said blankly: "My venerable husband, aren't you an upright official? When the Holy One asked hundreds of officials to donate their honors a few days ago, you still wanted to sell me your collection of ancient books? Why are you rich today?"
"Really? Zhou Jingfu, how do you have money?" An eunuch official from the side who probably didn't have any dealings with the Donglin Party interjected in a nonchalant manner.
"Why can't I have money?" Zhou Zerui glared, "I sold the ancient books in my collection for five thousand taels of silver, and today I donated them all to the country to pay for my expenses!"
"Ancient books? With the current war and chaos, who would buy ancient books?"
Zhou Zerui said: "I sold the ancient book to Gong Xiaosheng."
"No way?" At this time, a eunuch in front of the queue suddenly interrupted in a strange way, "Our family was lined up with Gong Xiaosheng just now. He said that he was also an upright official and had no money to donate. However, in order to be loyal to the emperor and patriotic, he had no choice but to put Mrs. Hengbo Changed hands for money..."
What? Gong Dingzi sold Gu Hengbo! ?
Li Guozhen was so surprised that he could put his fist in his mouth!
Gu Hengbo! One of the eight beauties of Qinhuai! Her relationship with Gong Dingzi and Gong Xiaosheng, one of the three talented men in Jiangzuo, is a legend in the world. How could he be sold in such a blink of an eye? Moreover, Gong Dingzi sold Gu Hengbo for money out of loyalty and patriotism... This, this thing doesn't sound true!
What happened in the capital city? What happened to these officials? Why are you so patriotic and loyal to your emperor?
We haven’t seen each other for a few days, but they don’t want money, they don’t want beautiful women, they just want to be loyal ministers...
Of course Gong Dingzi would not sell Gu Hengbo, how could he let him go? There was true love between him and Gu Hengbo. And he was not so poor that he couldn't afford two thousand taels of gold. Don't talk about him with this little money, Gu Hengbo doesn't even have enough money for his own private house.
But if he didn't say that, how could he explain that he, a gentleman from Donglin with a clean sleeves and noble character, could be so rich that he could donate two thousand taels of gold to Xiaozhong at once. So while queuing up on the horse trail, Gong Dingzi made up a story casually. As a result, Zhu Cihong's head guard Zhu Chunjie heard it and went to report to Zhu Cihong.
When Zhu Cixiang learned about this, he immediately asked his teacher Lin Zengzhi to invite Gong Dingzi into the tower.
"Gong Caizi is really a rare and loyal minister of our Ming Dynasty!" Zhu Cixiang said with a moved face, "I have also heard the good stories about you and Mrs. Hengbo, but we can't let lovers be separated... Let's do this. You give me an edict, take it back to Mrs. Hengbo, and then go to Tianjin Wei to deliver my edict. After delivering the edict, wait for me and your Majesty at Dagukou.
I admire your husband's talent and learning very much, and hope that you can serve as my lecturer... From now on, you will be my teacher! "
This was a real jackpot. 2,000 taels of gold not only bought me the order to leave Beijing, and allowed me to leave from Chaoyang Gate in a grand manner, but I could also take my family and valuables with me. And he also became the teacher of the powerful prince... This is really profitable!
He took the order handed over by Zhu Cixiang, and then wrote on a roster, "Your Majesty Gong Dingzi respectfully accepts the order from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince." Then he left with an internal official and a bodyguard - the internal official and the bodyguard were following him. Those who went to get the money would escort Gong Dingzi out of the city from Chaoyang Gate only after they got the donated gold.
Seeing Gong Dingzi sign on the roster, Zhu Cixiang was so happy, great, he has discovered another loyal minister!
Who said there were no loyal ministers in Beijing at the end of the century? It is clear that Emperor Chongzhen does not know how to find loyal ministers! When you get to your place, look, there are so many loyal ministers queuing up to donate money... Just now there were loyal ministers who jumped in line and started fighting in order to donate money to the country quickly!
If Li Zicheng knew the current situation in Beijing, he would probably return home immediately, right?
