The news that the emperor personally went to Baiyulou to attend Gao Pragmatic's birthday banquet and invited him to dine with him spread throughout the capital on May 26th.
As soon as this news came out, there were secret rumors in the capital a few days ago that the emperor was extremely dissatisfied with Gao Pingshi's "failure to capture or kill them in such a good situation. Therefore, in the battle of Monan, everyone who participated in the Monan battle was rewarded, and he was the sole servant with full power." As soon as the imperial envoy said it and put it in a high cabinet, he immediately failed to attack.
After all, if the emperor was really dissatisfied, how could he attend his minister's birthday banquet with a smile on his face, and even invite him to the banquet? As for the jewelry and cultural objects that the emperor gave to him when he went to celebrate his birthday, such as "a pair of white jade stones" and "two pairs of inkstones", they are of no importance and should not be mentioned.
It is certainly difficult for Qi Jiguang, Li Chengliang and other military ministers to be given these things by the emperor, but after so many years, Gao Pragmatic has long since lost count of how many such rewards he has received. He usually carries Hetian jade waist pendants and other items, and even the emperor directly received them. There is no second share of this honor in the world that was bestowed upon him.
It seems that the relationship between the emperor and Gao Pragmatic has no problems at all as rumored, and is still very good.
But in this way, the issue of the highly pragmatic reward that had been difficult to achieve in the past few days seemed very abrupt. The rumors in the capital took a new change in due course, and evolved into how the emperor wanted to reward him?
After what happened today, no official in Beijing still thinks that the emperor does not want to reward him. Everyone can see that the problem now is probably that the emperor wants to reward him heavily, but he has some scruples.
What kind of reward would actually make the emperor scruple?
This issue even overshadowed the main topic of discussion in Beijing in recent times: Princess Yongning’s wedding.
Gao Jingshi had already learned about Princess Yongning's wedding before he returned to Beijing. He was still in Changping at that time.
For Princess Yongning, Gao Pragmatic's feelings are somewhat complicated and subtle.
First of all, what is certain is that he has never considered Princess Shang. This is caused by the Ming Dynasty's system. He is not a person who would consider changing the country's system for personal emotional issues, so Princess Yongning's birth has already determined their relationship. It's unfavorable.
But having said that, when it comes to Princess Yongning specifically, Gao Pragmatic still has a good impression of her. This kind of good feeling is not about love, but is generally the kind of positive attitude towards a girl, so he is more or less regretful about the inevitable outcome of Princess Yongning's unfree marriage.
Especially when the other party has made it clear that he has a crush on him.
After Zhu Yijun left, the excitement in Baiyu Tower did not dissipate immediately. It was not until late in the evening that everyone said goodbye and left Jianxinzhai before the city gate closed.
Originally, they didn't have to worry about the city gate closing. After all, with such a large group of high-ranking officials, how could the city gate guards dare to stop them? But what a coincidence that the emperor came today. Everyone felt that they had to give the emperor some face. Otherwise, if so many high-ranking officials and nobles came to the city at night, wouldn't they be making fun of the country's dynasty system in front of the emperor? By then everyone would be embarrassed.
Gao pragmatic does not go back to the city to spend the night because he has more free time now.
At present, he has a high status in Zhan Shifu but is not the one in charge of the affairs. He is a bit like a "free man". His status in the Hanlin Academy is not bad, but his main responsibility in the Hanlin Academy is to serve as a part-time official - giving lectures during banquets, so he does not have to go to the Hanlin Academy early in the morning to order Mao (his master His position was the concubine of the left concubine of Zhan Shifu, and he was a concurrent official at the Hanlin Academy). In this way, as long as he did not need to give lectures the next day, he had plenty of time.
Of course, to say the least, given his current situation, it would be difficult for someone to blame him for arriving late and leaving early - how stupid would he have to be to sue a favored minister like Gao Pragmatic over such a trivial matter?
So Gao Pragmatic did not return to the city tonight, but was in Jian Xinzhai to deal with various personal matters that had been backlogged for two months.
Jinghua Group is really getting bigger now. Although Gao Pragmatic is a qualified hands-off shopkeeper who is very good at grasping the big ones and letting go of the small ones, there are so many branches under Jinghua, even though each department has only submitted three items that need to be handled by him personally in the past two months. It would take a lot of time for him to do it.
There are the most industrial matters, but there are not many troubles. They mainly report on various progress. Gao Pragmatic usually just looks at it. If he can give a reply of one or two sentences, he takes it seriously. The vast majority of the replies are just "yes" and " Got it”, “Proceed as usual” and so on.
However, there were still two or three things that Gao Pragmatic thought about carefully for a while before he approved them.
The first thing is the progress of the "Taiwan Strategy" that Gao Qi is responsible for. According to Gao Qi, there are still some pirates on the island of Taiwan, but most of them are insignificant and have complicated origins. Some are remnants of the Fujian Sea Pirate Alliance that was previously broken up and crippled, and some cannot survive in Japan or the Ming Dynasty. The Japanese pirates who went too far, and some of the more bizarre ones turned out to be pirates from Southeast Asia.
The first two have been introduced a long time ago, and there are probably not many changes, so I won’t go into details. However, those Nanyang pirates are more interesting.
According to Gao Qi's investigation, the number of this group of people is not large, but their origins are very complicated. There are pirates from several indigenous countries in Southeast Asia, and the reason why they came to the vicinity of the Ming Dynasty was actually because they were raped by the Portuguese. He was beaten until there was nowhere to go.
Gao pragmatic didn't pay much attention to these Nanyang pirates until he read the news sent by Annan, and then he changed his mind and asked Gao Qi to find a way to conquer these Nanyang pirates - at least temporarily. How to deal with the future Say it again.
As for the reason for doing this, it stemmed from a minor trouble.
Annan sent a report saying that while Gao Jing was exploring the sea outside Champa in southern Annan, he encountered the Folangji fleet flying the flag of the Toungoo Dynasty of Myanmar. The other party did not know what the reason was, and they put up a threatening posture and wanted to Gao Jing's fleet was forcibly driven away from the sea area where the incident occurred.
Gao Jingshi imitated the British men who lived more than a hundred years ago and taught his fleet to dare to "fight the enemy when they see it." Therefore, Gao Jing refused to retreat and directly raised the battle flag, and a naval battle broke out between the two sides.
In this naval battle, Gao Jing did not gain much advantage. One armed transport ship was sunk, one was severely damaged and abandoned, and many others were damaged. However, the other side did not gain much either. Four warships suffered heavy losses, and one surrendered after being surrounded.
Judging from the results of the battle, Gao Pragmatic tended to think that his fleet performed slightly worse than the Portuguese. However, the fleet led by Gao Jing had a clear numerical advantage - he had more than 20 ships of different sizes at the time, while the opponent only had seven. Big ships but no small boats - so in the end it was the Portuguese who took the lead in evacuating the sea area where the incident occurred.
Theoretically speaking, Gao Jing's fleet achieved victory in this naval battle. Gao Jing himself also said in his report that he won the "Naval Battle off Bundulang".
Off the coast of Bondulang? Gao Pragmatic checked the map and suddenly discovered that this place was actually near Cam Ranh Bay in later generations - the area including Cam Ranh Bay is currently called Bundulang.
He vaguely guessed what Gao Jing was going there for, and the Portuguese's purpose might be similar.
However, the fact that the Portuguese were flying the banner of the Toungoo Dynasty of Myanmar made Gao pragmatic a little wary. He remembered that the Toungoo Dynasty seemed to have hired a small number of Portuguese mercenaries in history. Could it be that it has started now?
This... won't it have a negative impact on the Indo-China Peninsula strategy that is being prepared? Although Liu Wei is a very good fighter, he has never fought against Western mercenaries. I wonder if there will be any problems?
No, I have to mention to Zhu Yijun next time I see him that he needs to re-equip some of the Wanli-style weapons on the Yunnan side, or at least re-equip Liu Wei's troops. If this is not possible, then at least he must re-equip his " "Jiang Wa Yi Ding" had to change his costume, otherwise I would feel a little unsure.
Both of these matters are related to the fleet. Although Gao Pragmatic takes it seriously, he is not nervous. After all, his shipbuilding plan is proceeding steadily. It is nothing more than spending money and time. Portugal will be annexed by Spain soon. When the time comes, they will The forces in Asia will definitely be in chaos for a while, and I still have time.
The third thing really surprised him.
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Thanks to book friends "ASoIaF", "Huanai Impact", and "wswhk" for their monthly support, thank you! I found that my book friends may be practicing Buddhism like Gao Pragmatic, reading books but forgetting to vote...
