Gao Pragmatic took a deep breath and said to himself: Yes, Liu Ping saw this issue very clearly. Since Li Wenjin entered the palace by castration, there was no restriction on the protection of men and women in the palace, and he was a compassionate saint. The Empress Dowager's brother and His Majesty the Emperor's uncle would be regarded as following the orders of the Empress Dowager when entering or leaving any palace, so no one dared to stop him.
This principle is basically similar to a rule of thumb for officials in later generations: Treat those around you as leaders. The reason why Li Wenjin's identity is unique is that he is both an eunuch and the biological brother of the Empress Dowager Cisheng. He is an unshakable "leader around him".
Having said that, wasn't it also because of his specialness that Gao Pragmatic gave him so many benefits back then? Lian Gao pragmatically didn't want to conflict with him, and even needed his cooperation in many things, let alone other people in the palace.
Gao Pragmatic has always had a point of view. If it were not for the worry that "foreign relatives interfering in politics" was an absolute taboo in the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that Li Wenjin would never have stopped at being the eunuch in charge of the imperial horse eunuch.
Could it be that the Chief Bingbi and the Admiral of Dongchang couldn't do it? Couldn't he do the hand seal of the Supervisor of Ceremonies? Now for him personally, he has accomplished both positions.
However, the Li family, after all, is not the only one with Empress Dowager Li and his brother and sister. Empress Dowager Li also has two younger brothers, and the eldest brother inherited the title of Marquis Wu Qing. Although the second brother did not have a title to inherit, he still succeeded. The Commander-in-Chief Zuo of the Military Governor's Mansion, both of them are nominally "in charge of the army".
You two brothers are already "in charge of the army", and your third brother is still going to be the admiral of the East Factory or the "chief assistant of the inner court". Are you, the Li family, trying to overthrow the world? Therefore, the foreign court would never tolerate this situation. Empress Dowager Li and the emperor knew this very well, so they did not even mention it for many years.
Gao Pragmatic always expected leniency from his enemies. In any case, now that Li Wenjin has become a key figure, no matter whether some people have thought of "negotiating a big deal" with him, he cannot ignore this major threat.
With the birth of the emperor's legitimate son, Gao pragmatically knew that his most important task at the moment had been transferred from foreign affairs to internal affairs.
Arrangements for the follow-up matters attached to North Korea are indeed very important, because a Korean Peninsula firmly in the hands of China means that China will now have a maritime barrier on the outer edge of Gyeonggi and a strategic stabilizer in Northeast Asia that can attack from two directions even if there is police in Liaodong. .
It is also very important to truly surrender Japan. As long as it captures this island country, China will not have to worry about the threat of the offshore balance strategy that the European continent always faces like the British. It can always maintain a stable internal environment at the strategic level and better To deal with the wave of European colonialists.
Southern Xinjiang, Nanyang, Taiwan, Ryukyu, the Japanese Islands, and the Korean Peninsula, as long as these places are controlled by our own people, it will be extremely difficult for sea robbers to invade China.
Island chain? At that time, the island chain was in our own hands!
Gao Jingshi pondered: "As for the safety of the queen and the emperor's son, I would like to add one more thing: you must ensure that there are people around the mother and son for twelve hours, and they can never take care of less than eight people.
It is particularly important to note that when I say "someone" here, I do not mean that the queen and the emperor's legitimate son are in the room while the palace officials and maids are outside the door. I mean the 'someone' who must keep the queen and the emperor's son within sight at all times, do you understand? "
Even the specific details were given so clearly. In Liu Ping's mind, this seemed to be the first time that he was highly pragmatic. This shows how serious the situation is. Liu Ping quickly bowed solemnly and said: "Here, I know how powerful this is. Please rest assured, Lord Marquis."
Rest assured is not to say reassuring, unless the Ministry of Internal Affairs can provide security for the queen and her son. Unfortunately, this is completely impossible. Therefore, we can only hope that the eunuchs in the palace can stand up and not worry about this critical situation. The key tasks of the moment are dropped.
The two of them walked around and talked, and the topic became more and more in-depth and detailed. After a while, I finally passed through the side passage of Jiaotai Hall and entered the Kunning Palace area.
On weekdays, Kunning Palace indeed has almost no security arrangements as Liu Ping said before, but it is different at this time. The palace's army has already selected a group of guys who at least look good to stand guard. Not to mention three steps, one post, five steps and one sentry, at least there are still guards standing inside and outside.
Having said that, Gao Pragmatic could only shake his head inwardly after sizing them up. Anyone who actually leads the troops can see that these pure soldiers are just show-offs. Although their armor is bright and their weapons are shiny, neither the armor nor the soldiers are worn out at all, and there is no sharpness in the eyes of the soldiers, let alone any evil spirit.
Gao pragmatic walked up to a person and ordered him to stretch out his palm and take a look, and he was even more certain about this judgment - the palm of this Jingjun soldier was white and clean, no different from him, the elder of the pavilion.
If the same number of people were fighting, whether it was one thousand against one thousand or ten thousand against ten thousand, the Guards would only need a charge to defeat them, without any tactics.
Of course, although the Imperial Guard is nominally a Gyeonggi garrison, it is actually built according to the standards of the Ming Dynasty's most elite field army. This is different in nature from the Pure Army, and its usual training bias is also different. It's just...how to put it, this Jingjun doesn't seem to have been trained at all.
Forget it.
Faced with this situation, Gao Pragmatic could only comfort himself: The Jing Army could only assume the posture of guarding Kunning Palace here. After all, even if the careerists wanted to take action, it would definitely not be to mobilize troops to attack. Kunning Palace is just trying to find ways to exploit loopholes and act through some shady means.
The Jing Army's role here is probably just to increase the psychological pressure on the executors of the conspiracy. In addition, they dare not expect anything from them.
Gao Jingshi was ordered to meet with his Majesty, and Liu Ping was a popular figure in front of the emperor recently. The two of them entered Kunning Palace effortlessly.
Kunning Palace during the Ari Ming Dynasty was as unlucky as the other palaces and had been burned down twice so far.
The first time was in the ninth year of Zhengde and was rebuilt later; the second time was very close, in the twenty-fourth year of Wanli. That time something serious almost happened, causing the queen who was pregnant at that time to be frightened and ended up pregnant. The princess was born prematurely for about ten days...it was a loss of ten days, so the impact was not particularly big, and the princess did not die.
However, since it was burned down, it always had to be rebuilt. However, there was a war in Korea at that time. Although the court had money, it was the money of the Ministry of Revenue and had to be used for war and other state affairs.
Fortunately, the emperor is not poor now, so he plans to pay for it himself. However, according to the past construction methods, rebuilding the Kunning Palace is not cheap - as mentioned before, the size of the Kunning Palace is basically the same as the Qianqing Palace, and is much larger than the other twelve courtyards in the harem.
Gao pragmatically undertook the reconstruction of the three main halls before, which were built according to his "new method" of repairing the Rixin Building. So far, both the Rixin Building and the New Third Hall look like they were newly renovated because the fabrics are either made of stone or covered with glazed tiles.
Of course, the most critical thing is that a lot of wooden structures are used instead of "metal stone" - to put it bluntly, it is reinforced concrete, so it is extremely strong and relatively fireproof. As a result, Zhu Yijun approached Gao Pragmatic again, and finally decided that the emperor would pay for it, and Gao Pragmatic asked Jinghua Infrastructure to take over the project, charging only the cost price.
This time, the entire Kunning Palace project only cost 347,000 taels of silver, which even included most of the "hardware". The level of fairness amazed everyone inside and outside the palace. [Note: As an aside, after the fire in the original history, Kunning Palace was not rebuilt until the 33rd year of Wanli, probably because of lack of money. ]
However, the mention of this matter here is not to talk about the cost, but for another reason: since the project was undertaken by Jinghua Infrastructure, it is clear that the internal engineering structure of Kunning Palace is highly pragmatic at this time.
But this doesn’t seem to be of much use to high pragmatists? otherwise. Because the Queen was frightened when the Kunning Palace was burned down by fire in the 24th year of Wanli, two safety passages, that is, escape passages, were specially added to the Queen's dormitory during the reconstruction.
Apart from the construction personnel, only the emperor and the empress knew how to open the escape tunnel. In fact, this is not fantasy, it is just a combination lock. Not to mention the Ming Dynasty, even professional locksmiths who have been in "ancient times" can actually do it. Now with Jinghua's fine steel and fine workmanship, it is even easier to do it.
There are two locks, which are controlled by the emperor and empress at the same time. The construction personnel are divided into two groups, so in fact only the emperor and empress can open it. The reason why this was done was because Gao Pragmatic did not agree to allow construction workers to be buried. It was not a joke. In the Ming Dynasty, when such projects were built, burials were real and common. In addition to the retrogression of this system, the blame falls on On Zhu Yuanzhang's head.
In short, with a safe passage as a base, if the conspirators relied on assassination instead of poisoning to execute the conspiracy, as long as there was still some reaction time, the empress and empress should be able to escape with the emperor's legitimate son, which would more or less increase security. .
As soon as he entered the front hall of Kunning Palace, Gao Jingshi saw Chen Ju coming in a hurry. Although they haven't seen each other for a long time, there should be a lot of greetings, but Chen Ju seemed to be very anxious. He raised his hand and saluted from afar, and then said: "The Marquis came just in time. The Emperor is losing his temper in the side hall. Please hurry up, the Marquis." Go over and give me some advice."
What? You should be overjoyed when your legitimate son is born. Why are you so angry?
Gao Jingshi was greatly surprised. As he followed Chen Ju to the side hall, he asked, "It's such a great joy today. How could the emperor lose his temper? Who caused it?"
As Chen Ju hurriedly led Gao Pragmatic forward, he couldn't help but smile bitterly and said: "Of course it won't be inside the palace or outside the palace, or inside or outside the palace. As ministers, we always have this bit of insight..." He coughed lightly. He said, lowering his voice slightly: "Something happened in Gansu."
Gansu? That means the northwest has changed.
Gao Pangshi immediately became serious and asked as he walked: "What's wrong with Gansu? Is it a border invasion or a civil unrest?"
"Border trouble." Chen Ju didn't have time to go into too much detail, so he simply said: "The homeland of Hami Guard has been acquired by Buyan Khan before. This time, the old Chahar troops sent troops from Hami Guard to invade Gansu. The specific situation will be discussed by the Marquis." You will know for yourself, in short... one guerrilla has been killed now."
"Buyan Khan?" Gao Pragmatic frowned slightly: "Buyan Taiji became a Khan? Tumen died?"
"Yes." Chen Ju replied: "We have been focusing on North Korea in the past few years. The news in the northwest is too limited. Only this time did we know that Tumen had been dead for several years, and Buyantai Ji succeeded to the throne. He is called Buyan Chechen Khan."
"So what is Burihatu's status now?" Gao pragmatic asked immediately.
To be honest, Buyantaiji - oh, he should be called Buyan Khan now, this guy is just that in Gao Pragmatic's mind. Among the outstanding Mongolians recognized by Gao pragmatism is Burihatu.
"It's the Mongolian Grand Master, and he is in charge of the Jiu Zhi Bai Bao." Chen Ju shook his head and sighed, and said solemnly: "This time, it is said that the frontline inspector has seen the Jiu Zhi Bai Bao - I am afraid that Burihatu came in person. Yes, and this may be an important reason why the emperor is angry."
That's really troublesome. Gao Pragmatic's heart sank when he heard this.
Although there have been many battles between him and Burihatu before, and each time he won the final victory from the results, he believes that Burihatu often loses not in "skills". ”, it may not even necessarily be the case that one loses in the “Dharma”, but in the “Tao”.
The so-called losing in the "Tao" actually means losing in the general trend. As the world gradually enters the era of hot weapons, it is a general trend that the nomads who cannot climb the technological tree will be beaten in turn.
When thermal weapons were immature, the characteristic of nomads was that they were good at conquering and fighting. When thermal weapons matured, the only characteristic of nomads was that they were good at singing and dancing.
However, what a coincidence that this era coincides with the replacement of hot and cold weapons. Of course, it has a process to go through, but the general trend is still visible, not to mention that this trend has been kicked in the back by Gao Pinggong.
But this does not mean that Burihatu is not scary, especially for the Gansu region. The main forces of the Ming Dynasty were deployed in Jiubian, and among the towns in Jiubian, the northern defense line of Gyeonggi Province always received the most attention. The core elite troops were all located on the Xuandajiliao line, which served as the three barriers to the northwest, due north, and northeast of the capital.
When it comes to the three sides of Shaanxi, the number of troops is much less, and when it comes to Gansu, it is naturally even less. In addition to military strength, technical weapons are also provided according to this light-heavy layout, which means that Gansu not only has few troops, but also has a relatively low degree of firearms.
The number of troops under the jurisdiction of the governor of Gansu often does not exceed 50,000, and less than half of them are good at using muskets. Although Gao Pragmatic understands that the Ministry of Revenue has allocated a considerable amount of money for the firearmsization of the Gansu army in recent years, Gao Pragmatic is not very clear on how much has been implemented.
One thing he knew was that most people over there, from generals to soldiers, believed that the firearm ratio was not necessary to be too high. Even though today's firearms are much easier to use than twenty years ago, the land of Gansu and Shaanxi is still more suitable for cavalry.
Their point of view is that the situation in Gansu is different from that in the mainland. There are no continuous rural areas, nor are there counties, prefectures and prefectures that are dozens of miles apart. The whole situation is just a "chain" of cities along the Silk Road. Apart from the cities, there is nothing but the sky. The earth, the vast Gobi desert.
If a war really breaks out in this kind of terrain, and your army goes to rescue another place, if you rely on musketeers and infantry to move slowly, by the time your army arrives, most of the cities that are being beaten will have been surrounded and broken—— It may not be broken, but it may be broken due to lack of water or food.
Therefore, this has led to the slowest progress in the highly pragmatic firearm-based military reform in the three sides of Shaanxi Province - especially in the governorate areas of Gansu Province.
During the conversation and thinking, Gao Pragmatic walked to the door of the side hall. Chen Ju stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, I'm waiting to see you in Nanning."
"Rixin is here? Come in quickly! On such a great day, I almost got mad!"
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "Yun Fuyue Yu", "gjc0516", "Ling Qi Zhao Bi Xin", "seamche", "dreamvenator", and "tutte" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
