More than two years have passed in the blink of an eye! A lot has happened in these two years! The first is that the old emperor dies and the new emperor ascends the throne. The new emperor is Zhu Yijun, with the reign title Wanli!
As the old emperor passed away and the new emperor ascended the throne, a fight between dragons and tigers was inevitable in the court! Gao Gong is wild and arrogant by nature, and he thinks he is a minister who cares about life. He has senior qualifications, so he can't help but be a little domineering!
It would be okay if he was just domineering, but he has offended too many people by holding almost all the power of the entire court in his hands! In particular, he tried to control the inner court and insisted on recommending Chen Hong or Meng Chong as the eunuch in charge of the ceremony. This completely offended the two empresses Chen and Li, the empress dowager and Feng Bao!
Rights are a good thing, everyone wants them! So there is no room for one person to win them all! At this time, Zhang Juzheng, one of the famous prime ministers in Chinese history, appeared! With the convenience of being Zhu Yijun's teacher, he was able to enter and leave the palace, and he successfully reached an agreement with Queen Mother Li and Feng Bao, forming a solid iron triangle alliance!
Zhang Juzheng first quietly helped Feng Bao ascend to the position of eunuch with the help of the imperial edict, and then ostensibly helped Gao Gong when Feng Bao and Gao Gong were attacking each other. But in fact, Zhang Juzheng and Feng Bao have a very close relationship. The two parties have formed an alliance and have colluded internally and externally to kill Gao Gong!
When Mu Zong passed away, Gao Gong said: "How can a ten-year-old prince rule the world." After Zhu Yijun came to the throne, Feng Bao chose a time to tell him this sentence! When Zhu Yijun heard this, "the suspicion of authoritarian power was deeply rooted in the emperor's heart." Afterwards, without asking Gao Gong the background of what he said, whether it was true or not, he dismissed him from office on June 16, the sixth year of Longqing (1572), and replaced him with Zhang Juzheng.
After Gao Gong stepped down, it was natural for the personnel to be cleaned! After some twists and turns, a situation was formed in the court where Zhang Juzheng controlled the outer court, Feng Bao controlled the inner court, and Empress Dowager Li used the emperor's name to mediate. The government has finally become stable!
The stability of the government means that Zhang Juzheng can free up his hands to do some practical things! Zhang Juzheng began to try to push his ideas away one by one in the court, and Feng Bao also had a tighter and tighter control over the inner court!
In comparison, Zhang Juzheng's wrists are more beautiful! He used a relatively calm approach to eliminate some people who opposed the reform, allowing the entire court to turn around smoothly.
But Feng Bao was much more ruthless! Those who opposed him were either killed or driven out of the inner court, or sent to remote places to wait for death. This is also a major feature of the inner court struggle! They are all rootless people anyway, so no one should show mercy to anyone!
As for Queen Mother Li, taking advantage of her being Zhu Yijun's biological mother, she completely suppressed the other Queen Mother and became the real master of the harem! And because the emperor was young and unable to manage government affairs, she appropriately delegated power to Zhang Juzheng. As a result, with the combined efforts of the three of them, Ming Dynasty actually appeared to be somewhat rejuvenated!
But none of these three people took into account the little emperor's feelings! Zhang Juzheng has always been strict in teaching Zhu Yijun! Once you fail to memorize the book or make a mistake, you will be slapped. The lightest is a severe reprimand! So the little emperor was so frightened that the last thing he wanted to see every day was Zhang Juzheng!
As for Feng Bao's control of the inner court, he has great power! To put it bluntly, the emperor's life and death depended on his thoughts, and his respect for the little emperor was only superficial! Although Zhu Yijun was young, he could still sense Feng Bao's contempt for him, so he naturally didn't like Feng Bao.
His mother, Empress Dowager Li, tried to teach the young emperor to become an emperor for eternity, but she did not want the young emperor to interfere in the government affairs too early, so as to weaken the power in her hands. Naturally, she cooperated with Zhang Juzheng's strict requirements on the young emperor, and she did not make any mistakes every day. He just controlled the little emperor tightly!
The poor little emperor was living a miserable life under the influence of these three people. However, he did not dare to speak out and could only whisper a few words to the personal eunuch beside him every day. His life was extremely depressing. !
The little emperor's life here is not happy, but life in Gu Ningbo's house is indeed prosperous! Let’s talk about snow sugar first. In the past few years, Zhang Shunping has signed sugar beet purchase and sales contracts with many farmers. Pay for quality and quantity! You can even pay farmers a deposit in advance! This allows farmers to take even more care when growing beets, so the yield is good!
Liu Guangyuan secretly communicated with several merchants in the south and was able to purchase a batch of syrup, not to mention ensuring the supply of lemon fruits! With sufficient raw materials and Liu Haojia's continuous improvement of technology, the cost of snow sugar has been further reduced, so it is easy to swallow up the Jingshi market!
While Zhang Shunping was opening up the snow sugar market in the south, he did not drive out all the sugar manufacturers! Because that would offend too many people! So he used gentle means to gradually turn these people into raw material suppliers. At the same time, he also assigned them the distribution rights of snow sugar, allowing them to act as agents to sell snow sugar in their respective cities. Through this method, Xuetang provided the Liu family with an endless stream of wealth!
Then came Shiweizhai. After several years of stable development, Shiweizhai has become a specialty in the capital, and its reputation has even spread to Jiangnan! Anyone who comes to the capital is proud to have a meal at Shiweizhai!
Of course, this huge reputation has also attracted a lot of coveted eyes! Many people have set their sights on the Liu family’s secret recipe! They used various means to buy the seasonings used by the chefs of Shiweizhai, and even poached two chefs! But they have never been able to decipher the exact ingredients of this seasoning!
However, spices such as chili pepper were learned by these people and began to be used in their own restaurants. However, Gu Ningbo's Mansion did not lose much profit! Because these spices have been cultivated on a large scale by Liu Haojia for a long time, they can only buy them from Gu Ningbo's house if they want to use them! So no matter what these competitors do, Shiweizhai will benefit in the end!
After getting money, Liu's father's first thought was to hurry up and buy land! But this idea was stopped by Liu Haojia! Because the land prices around the capital are extremely expensive, and most of these lands are owned by nobles and wealthy families. If you want them to sell their land, it is like cutting off their lifeblood. How can they buy it?
So Liu Haojia commanded his mother according to the plan, and together with the matrons of a group of distinguished families, they opened a garden called Qingya Xiaozhu! The so-called Qingya Xiaozhu is, to put it bluntly, a girls’ club!
