King Zhou and King Qin came to Beijing!
Two vassal kings came to Beijing at one time, which was rare in the entire history of the Ming Dynasty.
What's even rarer is that these two people entered Beijing in a prison car. . .
This is even more of a wonder.
This incident soon became a topic of conversation among the people on the streets of Beijing, and they were making various speculations.
At this time, the strange story that Xu Guangzuo, the Duke of Ding, captured two vassal kings with one sentence also spread from the circle of nobles.
"Old Xu, you are really good, Old Xu!"
"A memorial, shouldn't it be said that the king's prelude was right and he won two princes, and they were also heavyweights, the King of Zhou and the King of Qin."
"You don't even know what the outside world is saying about you now."
"They say you are selfless, upright, benevolent and good." In the back house of Duke Ding, Zhu Xizhong, Duke of Cheng, ran in in a hurry. As soon as he came in, he grabbed Xu Guangzuo and shook him with excitement.
But Xu Guangzuo, who was shaken by him, had a look of despair on his face.
He was so frightened by Zhu Yuanzhang that he stayed in bed for two months, but his condition had already improved.
As a result, as soon as the prison car carrying the two princes entered Beijing, it happened to be seen by Xu Guangzuo who was out for a walk. On the spot, he spurted out a mouthful of blood.
Lying on the bed at this moment, he even felt that his time was running out and his life was not long.
"Mr. Cheng Guo, stop shaking. Don't you think I'm miserable enough?"
"I am now considering whether I should die to apologize." Xu Guangzuo was shaken so dizzy that he spoke weakly.
"die?"
"Old Xu, a great future is waiting for you! Why are you seeking death?" Zhu Xizhong looked surprised.
"future?"
"What future do I have now?"
"I forced your majesty to arrest the king of Zhou and the king of Qin into the capital. And according to your majesty's wishes, I also wanted to depose them as common people and take back all their local fiefdoms and family properties."
"Can you tell me what kind of impression your Majesty has on me?"
"I am not moving now because of public opinion. Once this storm passes, I may not know what I will do.
"Now our Majesty is not like before. He will not show mercy when killing people."
"If I die now, Your Majesty, for the sake of my Xu family's ancestors' merits, the Duke of Dingguo may not be angry. If I don't die, I'm afraid I will bring trouble to my descendants!" Xu Guangzuosheng said helplessly.
"Old Xu, Old Xu, I think you are really confused!"
"You are just scaring yourself."
"In my opinion, not only will you not be in any danger, but if you seize this opportunity, you may be able to achieve great success and regain the glory of the King of Zhongshan." Zhu Xizhong said excitedly.
"Um?"
"What do you mean?" Xu Guangzuo's eyes became slightly livelier.
"Don't you see?"
"Your Majesty is trying to improve the status of warriors like us."
"What the hell are Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang, and Wang Chonggu? They were just a bunch of mud-legged people, but now they have become uncles, and they are the most popular in Beijing for a while."
"Why do you think His Majesty wants to use them?" Zhu Xizhong asked.
"There is no one to succeed you..."
"If we had the ability to organize and manage an army, would Your Majesty leave us old nobles alone and use those mud-legged people instead?"
Xu Guangzuo couldn't help but sigh when he said this: "But this has nothing to do with you and me. Our military positions have already been terminated!"
"It's just temporary. What we do specifically is not a matter of His Majesty's word in the end!"
"As long as we can make a little contribution." Zhu Xizhong said with a flash of light in his eyes.
"What achievements can we make?" Xu Guangzuo looked puzzled.
Seeing the confusion on Xu Guangzuo's face, Zhu Xizhong smiled mysteriously: "What do you think, my lord?"
"Do you know where your reputation as an upright, benevolent and kind-hearted Duke first came from?"
After all, Xu Guangzuo was an old man who had been in the officialdom for half his life. After Zhu Xizhong nudged him like this, his head was no longer dizzy and his eyesight was no longer dazzled.
He sat up from the bed suddenly, his eyes widened: "You mean... Gongli."
At this moment, Xu Guangzuo finally understood that His Majesty was going to use him as a sword to continue to eliminate the feudal clan and continue to attack the entire Ming Dynasty's noble group. "
He has now become Hai Rui in the Xungui Group.
"This...this is so scary!"
"I want to slow down." Cold sweat broke out on Xu Guangzuo's forehead.
"Old Xu, don't forget that I didn't remind you that there are many people in the world who want to make swords. If you continue to hesitate and make His Majesty unhappy, then your Dingguo Palace will really be in disaster."
"How many clean people do you think a noble family like ours has under their butts?"
An hour later, Zhu Xizhong came out of the Dingguo Palace and breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Finally, we have completed the mission assigned by His Majesty!"
Duke Ding nodded, and he would go to Nanjing next to convince Duke Xu.
When the time comes when the Xu family of the two princes makes swords, the corrupt situation between the Ming Dynasty nobles and the vassal kings will be able to break through and make drastic reforms.
A trace of expectation flashed in Zhu Xizhong's eyes.
As the Duke of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Xizhong was considered a very ambitious person and the most powerful one in the Jiajing Dynasty.
It is absolutely impossible to say that he has no idea of regaining control of the Ming Dynasty's military.
As a distinguished noble, who doesn’t have any thoughts of fighting on the battlefield and recreating the glory of their ancestors?
It's just that the conditions didn't allow it before. The power of the civil servants was too huge, and the civil servants also had Confucianism and Taoism to help. The princes and noble families were so restricted that they could do nothing but make a pile of mud in a dream.
His main job as the most powerful Duke of the Ming Dynasty was to perform sacrifices on behalf of the emperor.
How could he be willing to do so?
Zhu Xizhong has always been a person with a desire for power.
In the past, he could not see the hope of regaining control of the army, but now with Zhu Yuanzhang's actions, he suddenly began to feel restless.
"It is indeed time for this Ming Dynasty to change its rules."
"Let's recreate the invincible Ming Dynasty army from now on!" Such thoughts flashed through Zhu Xizhong's mind, he tightened his cloak and walked quickly into the wind and snow.
He is also the sword in the hands of the current Holy Lord, and it will be the sharpest one.
Ming Dynasty Jiajing forty-five years.
In the original history, Emperor Jiajing died in this year.
But now, Emperor Jiajing is still alive and kicking.
Jiajing, who was given a real life-extending pill by Zhu Yuanzhang, now feels that he is in better health and eats delicious food.
In the same year, Zhu Yuanzhang began to expand his influence with the help of the cases of King Zhou and King Qin.
The noble family is like a network, in which each noble person plays a light or heavy role.
As long as you catch one of the threads, you can implicate a series of nobles and royal families on the entire Internet.
And this is what Zhu Yuanzhang will do next.
During the interrogation, the kings of Zhou and Qin took the initiative to confess a case of reselling imperial ordnance.
And this case also involved King Zhao, who was also in Henan.
Then, just like dominoes falling, more and more royal families and nobles were involved. Among them, those who committed serious crimes were stripped of their titles by Zhu Yuanzhang and became common people.
If it is not serious, the title will be downgraded and we will wait for arrangements.
When the time came to the forty-seventh year of Jiajing, the civil servants in the capital were shocked to realize that the entire Ming Dynasty's nobility and royal family had been cut off by 60%.
The land of these people was basically taken back to the court and then leased to landless people for farming.
This alone has greatly alleviated the increasingly serious conflicts between man and land throughout the Ming Dynasty, and the peasant uprisings in many places have also been eliminated invisible.
Of course, not all nobles were unlucky. Many capable nobles and even children of the royal family stood out from this great turmoil and began to join the army and truly take control of the military.
And this is also the reason why this vassal reduction can be carried out quietly.
Because Zhu Yuanzhang did not stand on the opposite side of all the noble vassals, he turned this into a civil war among the noble lords.
What stood out in the end was the brand new Honorable Group that had gone through the test of blood and fire.
And it is the Xungui Group that is completely used by him.
"It's really hard to imagine that His Majesty really did it!"
"He really cleaned up the Xungui Group and relieved the burden of the royal family from the court."
"I have served His Majesty for more than 20 years. It is really hard to imagine that His Majesty has such courage and ability."
"Let the royal family take charge of the army. Except for Emperor Hongwu, even Emperor Yongle in the entire Ming Dynasty did not dare to do this?"
In Xu Jie's mansion, the master and disciple Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng were sitting opposite each other and talking.
"yes!"
"Today's emperors indeed have the legacy of Hongwu, and the Ming Dynasty's resurgence is just around the corner." Zhang Juzheng also nodded, agreeing with this view.
Even now there are rumors in the capital that Emperor Jiajing's dramatic change in temperament was due to the appearance of Taizu.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why Emperor Jiajing, who had been cultivating immortals for more than 20 years, suddenly changed his temperament, and why his approach to doing things was so similar to that of Emperor Hongwu.
"Do you think His Majesty will stop here?" Xu Jie asked.
"What do you mean by your teacher's words?" Zhang Juzheng asked with a smile.
"His Majesty has completely smoothed over the nobles and has taken control of the country's military."
"You said if there is a next target, who will he target?" Xu Jie asked.
Zhang Juzheng sighed: "Teacher, I think sometimes we still have to follow the general trend!"
Hearing Zhang Juzheng's words, Xu Jie fell silent.
Why doesn't he know what the general trend is?
While His Majesty was killing nobles here, Chen Hong and Dongchang on the southeast coast were also setting off major cases, and the Japanese Tongtang case is still going on today.
Chen Hong has killed at least 30,000 people.
Now the entire southeastern coast has reached the point where Chen Hong's expression has changed.
It is said that Chen Hong's name can stop children from crying at night.
In the past two years, there have been countless memorials to impeach Chen Hong every day, but all of them were ignored by the emperor. How could Xu Jie not know what this meant.
His Majesty had apparently already been planning for the next stage two years ago.
Its purpose is obvious, and it is definitely aimed at the gentry in the southeast.
This is what Zhang Juzheng calls the general trend.
And such a trend is what Xu Jie least wants to see.
