The news was naturally sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Gao Pragmatic "burned it after reading it", so he threw the secret letter into the stove and burned it, and then began to ponder the value of this information.
In fact, Li Wen's actions after entering Guangjinfang last time were already known, and Gao Jingshi knew that he had investigated the garrison situation of Kunning Palace. But what's the reason this time? Gao Wuchen can't be sure now.
Regarding Li Wenjin's investigation into the garrison of Kunning Palace, Gao Pragmatic paid attention to it but was not worried about it. In addition to the two sets of guard systems on the table, the overt and covert guards, Gao Pragmatic did not have other arrangements for Kunning Palace.
Many movies and TV dramas of later generations like to portray Dongchang Dajue as various martial arts masters. This is of course family talk or artistic processing. However, although there are no martial arts masters at the martial arts level, there are indeed martial arts masters. After confirming that Wang An can be trusted, Dongchang has mobilized some martial arts masters from the inner court to quietly enter the Kunning Palace on duty.
Speaking of martial arts masters, a few words may be needed to avoid misunderstandings. Gao pragmatically has seen many martial arts masters in his life, among which famous figures include Qi Jiguang, Ma Fang, Liu Xian, Liu Wei, Totto Chataiji and others.
If we want to be more relaxed, then the wives and concubines in his family, such as Huang Zhiting, Liu Xin, and Narita Kai, are all from the Lian family. Let's put it this way, any one of the three of them could defeat the invincible Marquis of Nanning in close combat in just two or three breaths.
However, from a high and pragmatic perspective, martial arts is more about a combination of good physical fitness and proficient fighting skills, rather than the mysterious and mysterious so-called internal strength described by writers.
Regarding the nature of martial arts, he also seriously asked Huang Zhiting and Liu Xin - both of them had taught Gao Yuan martial arts. Huang Zhiting's answer was very similar to his. She replied: "Martial arts is nothing more than a combination of strength and skills. Different people have their own suitable skills for practicing."
Liu Xin's answer was more modern. She said: "You can understand that martial arts is the formation of muscle memory through countless exercises, and then through countless actual combats, this muscle memory reaches the level of conditioned reflex."
She further explained to Gao Pragmatic, using her and her brother Liu Wei as examples, saying that the martial arts she had practiced since she was a child was mainly about dodging and seizing the enemy's weaknesses to make quick breakthroughs. The attack move she practices most is stabbing. She emphasizes that one hit will kill her. She must avoid fighting with others and avoid protracted fighting, which may lead to her own lack of strength;
This is not the case with Liu Wei, it can even be said to be exactly the opposite. Liu Wei is one of those who are born with divine power. The main skill he practices is to attack the opponent's unavoidable vital points and force the opponent to take his moves, so that he can only compete with him in terms of strength - which basically becomes Liu Wei's single skill. Massacre.
In fact, speaking of it, "Yu Long Qi Hu" was the real master of martial arts in the Jialong Wan era. Unfortunately, Gao Pingshi had never met Yu Dayou. Although he had a close friendship with Qi Jiguang, he almost never discussed martial arts.
It cannot be said that Qi Jiguang did not discuss martial arts with him. In fact, martial arts in the military were briefly discussed. For example, Qi Jiguang told him at the beginning that martial arts training in the army should not be fancy or have a large number of moves. Only the most common and practical moves in the battle formation should be taught to the soldiers, with no more than seven moves before and after.
Seven moves are for infantry, and even less for cavalry. All together, there are no more than five moves. As for training, it means to practice these moves well and master them so that when faced with the corresponding situation, you can use the appropriate moves among these moves to deal with them without thinking. According to Qi Jiguang, the so-called martial arts, those who reach this standard in the military are considered elite.
All of the above can confirm a doubt that Gao Pragmatic had when he was a child in his previous life: How many exquisite moves can make a "young hero" who just learned this move from a picture instantly become invincible?
After arguing for a long time, this kind of thing does not exist at all. Instead of believing in this magical move, it is better to believe in the saying "The only martial arts in the world is fast."... So if it weren't for the fact that firearms were not allowed in the palace, Gao Pragmatic would have wanted to let the reliable eunuchs of Kunning Palace have a flintlock in their hands. A short gun is probably more reliable than a martial arts master.
Now that he has arranged a back-up, Gao Pragmatic is naturally confident. In addition to continuing to send people to monitor Li Wenjin's every move, Guangjinfang itself is also the focus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But other than that, Gao Pragmatic really didn't care too much about the subsequent development of this matter.
According to his previous predictions, the follow-up development should probably be that some eunuchs and even Jing soldiers were bribed, and took advantage of the gap between the Kunning Palace guards and the Jing army to sneak into the palace armed with weapons such as daggers and daggers. He attempted to commit an assassination, but was subdued on the spot by a hidden stake in Dongchang, and both the man and the stolen goods were recovered.
It has to be said that things like Minister Wang gave Gao Pragmatic a kind of mentality. He believed that many major events in the Wanli period were as ridiculous as children playing house and were really not worth bothering with. Arrangements are made by people. To a certain extent, this can be regarded as a kind of mentality expansion.
However, the news just now reminded Gao Pangshi - if they had discussed everything before, and there is no good news about "successful assassination" now, why would Li Wenjin go to Guangjinfang again?
Gao Pragmatic was a little unsure, so he could only order further exploration and reporting, and requested that all the information discovered should be reported in detail.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Gao pragmatically had a hasty lunch, signed a few more department replies (official document replies) from the Ministry of Household Affairs, and finally received detailed information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs again.
In this news, the Ministry of Internal Affairs lived up to its high expectations and brought several details: The first detail was that Li Wenjin did not go to Guangjinfang on his own initiative, but someone went to his house to invite him to go. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has already monitored the people who invited Li Wenjin and is waiting for orders to see if they need to be further controlled.
The second detail is that Qian Menggao from the Criminal Division went to Guangjinfang last night, and with him was an old man who smelled vaguely of medicine. He looked like a doctor.
Another characteristic of this new old man is that he speaks Mandarin with a distinct Jiangnan accent. The reason why this was discovered was that after he entered Guangjinfang, a gambler who had lost his money happened to be so angry that he smashed a teapot. The boiling tea in the teapot splashed on the old man, causing him to yell loudly in pain. He said a few words to the gambler.
It's not surprising that the Ministry of Internal Affairs got this news. After all, it is too easy for Jinghua to arrange for a few gamblers and the like to go to a casino like Guangjinfang. Businesses under the name of Gao Jingshi are everywhere, and no one can figure out why a few "business people" from all over the world go to the casino for entertainment.
The third detail is that Qian Menggao returned to his home less than an hour after entering Guangjinfang last night, but the old man did not appear with him. The Ministry of Internal Affairs can now conclude that the old man stayed in Guangjinfang and has never gone out again.
The fourth detail is that the Ministry of Internal Affairs, jointly with the Federal Reserve Bank of China and the Beijing Branch of Beijing Bank of China, found that in the past month alone, Beijing Branch of Beijing Bank of China has handled more than 1.4 million taels of silver from some customers of the bank's account in the Jiangnan area. Bank bill settlement business.
To put it simply, within a month or so, some Jiangnan customers conducted intensive financial activities at the Beijing Branch of Jinghua Bank. The so-called financial activities can be divided into many types, including deposits, withdrawals, transfers, account merging, etc. of.
According to high pragmatic understanding, this is a less common phenomenon. The Beijing Branch of Jinghua Bank is indeed the largest branch in the Jinghua system. The financial activities that occur in the bank every year are as high as tens of millions of taels of silver (note, this does not refer to profit), but it is obvious that this kind of funds The activities are centered on the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance system, plus the financial activities of most officials and wealthy businessmen in the entire capital. However, there are relatively few financial activities from the Jiangnan region.
Funding activities in the Jiangnan region are generally distributed among the five major branches in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, namely Nanjing Branch, Suzhou Branch, Yangzhou Branch, Hangzhou Branch and Ningbo Branch.
These five places themselves are also places where business activities in the Ming Dynasty are particularly prosperous. Even though there have been a lot of open and secret fights between Jinghua and the local chaebols in Jiangnan, the local banking business is still doing very well, attracting a large number of depositors, and also releasing many Loans not only have considerable profitability, but also promote the further prosperity of local businesses.
So now the question arises. There have been no special business events in recent times. How come the capital activities in the Jiangnan area are so intensive in the capital? Who or which Jiangnan chaebols mobilized funds so generously in the capital? What is his or their purpose in doing this?
The root of any military problem is a political problem, and the root of any political problem is an economic problem. Since Jinghua Bank has discovered such an abnormal situation, it is impossible for Gao Pragmatic to feel at ease without investigating.
Jinghua Bank does have internal regulations not to disclose customer information to the outside world, but this practice has no legal effect in the Ming Dynasty of this era, but is just a kind of business self-discipline. What's more, "not disclosed to the public" only means "not disclosed to the public", which does not mean that Jinghua Bank itself cannot check it. At this point, Gao Pragmatic naturally ordered an investigation into the holders behind these funds without any psychological burden. At the same time, he also asked the bank to try to figure out what the money might be used for.
Four details, four doubts. Gao Pragmatic is almost certain that things are not as simple as he thought before. However, although there are many doubts now, the response that he can do is always very passive. He can only wait for the other party to make the first move. It seems that he can't find a place where he can take the initiative. This makes Gao Pragmatic very unhappy.
At present, in addition to keeping surveillance on some figures, the only thing Gao Pragmatic can do is to keep an eye on the key figure Li Wenjin. Not only must surveillance be maintained at his residence outside the palace, but especially after he enters the palace.
For example, Chen Ju, Wang An, and Liu Ping all received overly pragmatic instructions. Once Li Wenjin enters the palace, he must be followed by someone to keep an eye on him. And once he goes to Kunning Palace, all the "three lines of defense" in Kunning Palace must be put into "war preparation" state urgently, must be alert and make every effort to limit Li Wenjin's activities, and absolutely Don't let him do anything evil.
Regarding the flow of huge amounts of funds in Jinghua Bank, it was only when Gao Pragmatic returned home from get off work that he finally had some idea. Gao Guoyan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of the Ming Dynasty and president of Jinghua Bank, personally came to Nanning Houfu to report the situation to his cousin Gao pragmatically.
"Rixin, the source of these funds has been roughly locked. They mainly come from the wealthy chaebols in Yangzhou, Suzhou, and Hangzhou. Most of the money owners have very strong political backgrounds." Gao Guoyan said with an expression. Reported very seriously.
"How powerful?" Gao pragmatically asked.
"Far away are the Xu family in Huating, and nearby are the Shen family in Changzhou, the Wang family in Taicang, the Zhu family in Shaoxing, the Pan family in Xinchang, etc."
"The Zhu family in Shaoxing refers to Zhu Jinting? The Pan family in Xinchang...could it be Pan Shuilian?" Gao pragmatically asked with a frown.
"Yes, both companies are involved. The former accounts for about 80,000 taels in this capital flow, and the latter accounts for about 60,000 taels."
Zhu Jinting is Zhu Geng, Pan Shuilian is Pan Cheng, Jinting and Shui Lian are both their nicknames. Among them, Zhu Geng is the current minister and is currently the Zuo Shilang of the Ministry of Rites; Pan Cheng has retired long ago and currently has no heirs serving as officials in the court. However, he has a grandson named Pan Zhisheng, whose courtesy name is Lu and is famous for his good painting. This person is good at ink flowers and flowers, and he also works with orchids and bamboos. He is especially famous in the Jiangnan area and can be regarded as a romantic and talented person.
As for the Huating Xu family, that is the Xu Jie family. Of course, Xu Jie has been dead for fifteen or sixteen years now. His three sons all have Yin officials, but none of them holds real power.
A relatively accomplished grandson is Xu Yuanchun, who became a Jinshi in the second year of Wanli. This person became the Minister of Taichang Temple in the eleventh year of Wanli - but he is still in this position and has become a deadlock.
Of course, this is also because Taichang Temple is relatively a yamen with little real power. It is in charge of various sacrifices, rituals and music. Because Emperor Zhu Yijun was very lazy, he did not go to many sacrifices in person, but only asked a group of nobles to perform sacrifices on their behalf, so the sacrifice work was not taken seriously by the court.
In addition, as his name suggests, Gao Pragmatic is very "pragmatic", and the allocation for sacrifices is quite strict. As a result, the amount of money passed by Taichang Temple every year is very limited, and there is no way to make money, so no one covets his Taichang. The position of temple minister.
But even so, the Minister of Taichang Temple is still a third-rank official in the imperial court. In addition, Xu Jie was also an old chief minister with disciples and former officials all over the world. Therefore, the political status of the Xu family can still be preserved, especially in the Jiangnan Shilin. General reputation.
As for Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue, there is no need to introduce them. It has only been a few years since they stepped down, and the tea cannot get cold that fast.
However, Gao Pragmatic still felt that something was not quite right. Even if each of these families had 70,000 to 80,000 taels of silver, it was still far from the scale of capital activities of more than 1.4 million taels.
Upon questioning, Gao Guoyan's expression became more serious and he said, "That's the problem. On the surface, these families are the main ones, but the trouble is that there are too many families that follow them."
"How many?" Gao Pragmatic asked with a frown.
Gao Guoyan said: "Forty-two in Yangzhou, seventy-five in Suzhou, and fifty-three in Hangzhou. The amount of funds remitted by these followers is variable, ranging from tens of thousands of taels to hundreds or thousands of taels. It doesn’t look conspicuous from the outside. But after analysis, we found that almost all of these families are Shilin families, and there are very few pure businessman families.”
As soon as he said this, Gao Pragmatic realized the seriousness of the problem: This was indeed a political incident, and it was not even particularly closely related to economic interests.
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Lao Xi of Altay" and "Cao Mianzi" for their monthly support, thank you!
ps: This chapter is a make-up for yesterday. It is said that these chapters are a bit difficult to write, and they will affect a lot of the plot, so I took a look at the outline... There were only two sentences in the outline, and I burst into tears.
