Zheng Guotai's surprise was completely expected by Gao Jingshi, because Gao Jingshi was very clear about the performance of the Zheng siblings in the original history. Regarding the political level of their siblings, Gao Jingshi could only give a two-word evaluation: Haha.
The greatest skill of Concubine Zheng is to maintain her honor and favor in front of the emperor for decades. This is certainly a very powerful ability, but it is a pity that her full ability only ends here. She has not even scratched the surface of another equally important ability, which is: how to use this honor with maximum efficiency. Favor.
For thousands of years in China, there have been countless favored concubines in the harem, but not many people can really take advantage of them. Being arrogant based on favor is the stupidest form among them, but many favored harem concubines only know this.
Throughout the history of Chinese dynasties, the harem has always been a life-and-death arena for power and gain. In this arena, apart from the theoretically transcendent emperor, there are generally only three types of people:
The first type is a capable person with ambition and brains, such as Wu Zetian; the second type is an ordinary person who has no ambitions and no brains, and keeps to himself. This type of person generally does not have a name in the history books, and even if it does, it is only due to his status. records; the third type is an ambitious but brainless fool. In Gao Pragmatic's eyes, Concubine Zheng basically falls into this category.
There were many major events in the Wanli Dynasty in original history that attracted much attention in later generations. One of the most famous political events was the dispute over the country. Most of the ministers in the civil service group supported Zhu Changluo, the eldest son of the emperor, who was from a humble background, as the crown prince. However, Wanli doted on the third son of Emperor Zheng, the son of Concubine Zheng, Zhu Changxun. It was obvious that he wanted to abolish the eldest son and establish the younger one. The two sides spent at least fifteen years on this matter, which finally ended with Zhu Changluo being established as the prince and the victory of the civil service group.
What is the concept of fifteen years? In this era, fifteen years is equivalent to a generation reaching adulthood!
For such a long time, Concubine Zheng and her son have been deeply favored by Zhu Yijun. Her determination to abolish the elder and establish the younger has been so firm. Concubine Zheng actually failed to seize the opportunity to help her son become the crown prince. What do you think? All cast serious doubts on her ability.
Groups of ministers at that time rushed to fight for Zhu Changluo, risking being punished, dismissed from office, and even imprisoned for questioning, but miraculously no one spoke for Concubine Zheng and her son.
Of course, compared to other dynasties, the integrity of officials in the Ming Dynasty was indeed more admirable at certain times. Many officials dared to confront the emperor over principled issues such as morality, etiquette, and justice.
However, politics is politics, and what it is fundamentally about is not morality and etiquette, but interests, and only interests.
There are indeed noble gentlemen in the Ming Dynasty officialdom, but most of them are always profit-seeking, unscrupulous, and opportunistic villains. In fact, the ministers of the imperial court were far from being a piece of iron. Although it was different from the current debate between practical learning and spiritual learning, the three parties of Qi, Chu, and Zhejiang were fighting against each other at that time, and the intensity was not necessarily less intense than it is now.
From a highly pragmatic perspective, one of the simplest ways to deal with this is that Concubine Zheng only needs to take advantage of the favor of her mother and son and use the contradictions between the three parties to win over one of them and divide and eliminate the other two parties. , and gradually cultivate and strengthen their power in the court, why worry about failure to achieve great things?
To take a step back, even if the force chosen by Concubine Zheng to cultivate is not strong in itself, under the unique system of the Ming Dynasty, as long as it still exists in the court, it can still achieve great things.
For example, when Sejong Zhu Houcong was elected emperor from Prince Xingxian, he was completely alone. However, he used two middle- and lower-level officials, Zhang Cong and Gui E, to charge into the court and completely defeated Yang Tinghe and others. The huge civil servant group led by Yang Shen and his son won the final victory in the "Great Ceremony" incident.
What does this mean? It shows that for the imperial power, as long as there are people in the court who support, it is not difficult to get things done. Even if the people who support are small and weak, it doesn't matter, because the emperor has the final say about the official hat. If he wants to give you a big one, you can I can get a big one.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if Concubine Zheng doesn’t understand this, or she understands it but can’t do it. Anyway, those various parties who usually fight to the death for personal interests or small group interests are not interested in establishing a crown prince. They actually made a concerted effort to confront Concubine Zheng, and they did not hesitate to risk the top job and even their precious lives that they had only obtained after studying hard for ten or twenty years.
If we say that the ministers at that time sincerely believed in the principle of "establishing the elders rather than the young" and sacrificed everything in order to safeguard this principle, it is absolutely a lie. The purpose of political struggle is either to safeguard personal interests or to safeguard group interests—unless everyone is a time traveler and naturalizes his actions from a historical perspective like a highly pragmatic person. Even Gao Pragmatic still considers his own interests at the same time.
Therefore, there is only one reason for this situation: the ministers simply cannot see the benefits to themselves of Zhu Changxun succeeding to the throne. In other words, Concubine Zheng and her son were not worthy of the efforts of the ministers.
Concubine Zheng has been favored in the palace for so many years, but under the scrutiny of the outer court, she is so bad that she is considered a talent.
As for Zheng Guotai, this man's performance in the original history was... honest and honest.
What is Honest Bajiao? Even if the emperor asked him to cooperate in the play, he would cooperate with the emperor in the play honestly; the ministers invited him to go to the court together to ask the emperor to establish a prince early, and he would go to the court with the ministers.
Ah...where do you stand?
Of course, his attitude is not necessarily "honest", it may just be that he is simply stupid and easy to fool.
At this moment, Zheng Guotai was perfectly demonstrating his tendency to fool. Being cheated by Gao Pragmatic, he was immediately shocked and became restless.
He asked Gao pragmatically, "How do you say this?" Gao pragmatically, instead of answering, shook his head slightly, smiled, picked up the last bit of coffee and drank it in one gulp, pursing his lips as if tasting it.
Zheng Guotai seemed to have some manners when he came in before, but that was actually just a superiority mentality born out of thinking that Gao Pragmatic was currently in trouble, but now his true form was immediately revealed. Seeing that Gao Pragmatic didn't answer, he quickly begged and asked: "Da Situ, for...for the sake of the emperor..."
Gao pragmatic suddenly interrupted him and said: "Uncle Guo, what did you originally plan to say to the main department here?"
"Uh...originally, I originally planned to talk to Da Situ about...that alliance, to join forces."
"Hahahaha, join forces?" Gao Pingshi asked knowingly: "What kind of deal does Uncle Guo have his sights on? It's easy to talk about, and you don't necessarily need to talk to the headquarters to talk about it. Jinghua already has a secretariat..."
"No, no, Da Situ, you have misunderstood." Zheng Guotai said hurriedly: "It's not about joining forces to do business... Hey, can we call it joining forces to do business? If you are willing to give the Zheng family a hand, I, the Zheng family, can do any business. I'm willing to buy shares! However, Cathay Pacific came here today to bother me, and the original intention was to refer to the recent days of the imperial court... As you know, my sister can still say a few words in front of the emperor..."
Gao Pragmatic then said with a "sudden look on his face": "Oh, are you talking about the crowning of the imperial envoys to the north and south of Jinyiwei, the resignations, and the vacancy of the Minister of Staff? To be honest, these things are related to The main department doesn’t have much to do with it. The main department is now focused on the central finance, so how can we have time to ask about those things?”
Zheng Guotai obviously didn't believe it, but he couldn't question it directly, so he had to say: "But, didn't you also recommend Li Wenquan as the commander of the Jinyi Guard?"
"Uncle Guo, where did you hear the gossip? It was Wang Zhizhen who recommended Li Wenquan. Although he and the Benbu Tang are relatives, he is the envoy of Jinyiwei North Town, and what he said is also Jinyiwei's business, and the Benbutang As one of the six officials, how could he overstep his authority and interfere with the security affairs?" Gao Pingshi looked surprised when he said this. If it weren't for the fact that his words were so unbelievable, Zheng Guotai would have almost believed him just by looking at him.
Believe it or not, now that Gao Pragmatic is pushing 256 and refuses to admit it at all, it will be difficult for Zheng Guotai to continue. He thought for a while and then said: "Well, although Da Situ has no intention of interfering, there is already a lot of discussion in the outer court about this. You are staying behind closed doors this time. According to Cathay's understanding, it is also because of this matter. It can be seen that you are still affected. of."
"Yes." Gao Pingshi admitted frankly this time, but he immediately continued: "But with the emperor's wisdom, he will be able to easily understand the inside story and not be instigated by traitors to cause injustice to his ministers. Of course, the emperor's concubine and the country I appreciate my uncle's kindness."
When Gao pragmatically answered, Zheng Guotai was completely embarrassed.
Before he came to meet Gao Pragmatic, Concubine Zheng sent a close associate to contact him and analyze the current situation for him. To put it simply, Concubine Zheng believes that the current period is an extremely rare political low point for Gao pragmatism. If Gao pragmatism clings to various powers and influence and does not let go, no one knows what moves the emperor will make in the future. But even if the highly pragmatic Holy Family is not completely destroyed, it will at least be greatly affected. At that time, Concubine Zheng stood still, precisely because in that situation, only Gao Pragmatic's own actions were the key. Whether others wanted to help or add insult to injury, it actually didn't make much sense.
After Gao Jingshi responded by delegating power and pushed Li Wenquan out, Concubine Zheng judged that nothing would happen to Gao Jingshi this time. However, she thought that Gao Jingshi himself might not be so sure yet - after all, Wang Zhizhen's remarks had not been approved by the emperor, and Gao Jingshi's impeachment did not lessen behind closed doors. Instead, it continued, and even the emperor refused this time. He just issued an imperial edict to comfort him and persuade him to come out and take matters into his own hands.
If the emperor's reaction was to ordinary ministers, there wouldn't be anything wrong with it. Because in most cases the emperor would wait until the disputes in the outer court were over, and he would learn the truth by looking at these disputes, and then make a decision: either issue a decree to instruct the impeacher to slander important ministers, or adopt impeachment and allow the impeached minister to petition. Ci.
But for Gao Pragmatic, this is the first time he has enjoyed such "ordinary treatment". In the past when he was impeached, the emperor immediately issued orders to severely punish those who "slandered ministers", and even directly demoted officials and released them until they were imprisoned. .
This time, Gao Pragmatic did not enjoy such extraordinary preferential treatment. According to Concubine Zheng's understanding, Gao Pragmatic should be very uneasy. Therefore, Concubine Zheng decided to "provide help in times of need" and sent her brother Zheng Guotai to contact Gao Pangshi and "join forces".
Concubine Zheng’s plan is to be responsible for blowing the wind in front of the emperor, so that the emperor can deal with those annoying officials as early as possible, and strive to be high-minded and pragmatic;
Gao Pangshi was responsible for the counterattack and attacked Wang Xijue and others. The reason why in the eyes of Concubine Zheng the first target of attack was Wang Xijue, it was because Wang Xijue was the mastermind who proposed "early rectification of the country's foundation". In comparison, Shen Shi Instead, they just followed the "booing".
In addition, this time Gao Pragmatic was impeached, Princess Zheng also did some homework and found that most of the people who impeached him had some relationship with Wang Xijue, so she believed that Gao Pragmatic would be happy to follow her suggestions.
However, when Zheng Guotai arrived in front of Gao Pragmatic, he discovered that his sister and his judgment were completely wrong. Not only was Gao Pragmatic not worried about his situation at all, he even believed that the Zheng family was in imminent disaster.
After a few words, Zheng Guotai was completely at a loss: it seemed impossible to continue to strive for "joining forces" with Gao Pragmatic according to the original plan, but without this prerequisite, seeking Gao Pragmatic's guidance as to why the Zheng family was in disaster seemed to be at risk. Nothing is given in exchange.
Fortunately, Gao Pragmatic was very "understanding". When he saw Zheng Guotai standing frozen on the spot, he smiled slightly and said: "Uncle, some people in the outer court are launching speeches to attack the main hall. In fact, they are diverting attention. They hope to use this matter as an excuse." A cover to achieve an ulterior conspiracy - Uncle Guo, you might as well guess, what is this conspiracy?"
"Guotai is stupid, please ask Da Situ for advice." Zheng Guotai was very self-aware and replied immediately.
Gao pragmatic smiled and said slowly: "At present, the matter between the DPRK and China regarding the country's foundation..."
As soon as he heard the word "国本", Zheng Guotai immediately sat up straight, his nervousness palpable.
Gao pragmatic pretended not to see it and continued: "...Actually, there are only two factions. One faction insists on establishing a chief, that is, establishing the emperor's eldest son as the crown prince. The uncle must be very clear about who the emperor is, and there is no need to say more in this department.
The other faction, headed by Honbudo, believed that the emperor was in his prime, so there was no need to be too hasty in the selection of the crown prince. On the one hand, the queen was still young, so there was no chance of giving birth to a legitimate son, and the eldest son of the emperor was weak. If something unfortunate happened in the future... …Anyway, it will be very difficult.
The two factions were originally evenly matched, and because of Ding Hai's visit to the capital, this wave of "early rectification of the country's foundation" had previously been covered up. Now that the Honbu Hall is closed, the outside world is constantly attacking them because of some noisy matters that have little to do with the Honbu Hall. With the wisdom of the uncle, can't he still see what their intentions are? "
Although the "wisdom of the country's uncle" is almost negligible, Gao Pragmatic talked about it to such an extent that Zheng Guotai, even a second-rate fool, could tell where the trouble was.
He stood up suddenly in shock, the hairs all over his body stood on end, and even his voice was a little out of shape: "They want to build a plank road to cross Chencang secretly. They will first use these trivial matters to force Da Situ to not come forward, and then they will talk about 'promoting the country's foundation as soon as possible'!"
After Uncle Guo said these words, his legs suddenly became weak again. He slumped back on the chair and murmured: "It's over, it's over, if Da Situ can't come out and take matters into his own hands, who can stop Wang Xi... Mr. Wangge?"
Gao pragmatic thought that when it got to this level, he would say, "I will go back and report to Sister, and ask Sister to immediately persuade the emperor to issue an edict to ask Da Situ to come out and take matters into his own hands." Who knew that he would actually react like this? What a mess. Ba couldn't hold himself up the wall.
Unfortunately, Gao Pragmatic couldn't take the initiative to ask for it, so he had to change his approach and said: "Now that the uncle knows the problem, it is better to report it to the imperial concubine earlier... Maybe the imperial concubine has some clever ideas."
"Ah, yes, yes, I have to tell sister earlier." Zheng Guotai stood up quickly, but this time he finally remembered to bow pragmatically to Gao Gao and said, "Thank you so much for the guidance, Cathay... Sister and Chang Xun thanked Master Situ and said goodbye."
Gao pragmatic stood up and returned the gift this time, nodded and said: "Uncle Guo, go slowly... Gao Mo, give me a way to see Uncle Guo off." After that, he walked Zheng Guotai to the door of the room.
Zheng Guotai was flattered and said repeatedly: "If you dare not work Da Situ, Da Situ will stay, Da Situ will stay."
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