It was already watch time when we returned to the Censor's Terrace. As soon as we entered the gate of the Censor's Terrace, Da Tou ran out of the concierge, "Sir, you are back."
Changsheng got off his horse and asked, "Is the stable ready?"
"It's done, the horses are all settled," Datou said, "The tattoos for the three of us are also ready, but it's too late today to send them away. I will send someone out early tomorrow morning."
Changsheng nodded, "Don't send famous assassinations to first- and second-grade officials. I will go and visit them in person."
Datou nodded in agreement, followed Chang Sheng inside, and whispered when there was no one around, "Sir, dozens of officials came to visit in person this afternoon. You were not at home, so I came to greet you."
Changsheng smiled and said, "My visit in the morning is still somewhat sincere, but my visit after the dynasty is over is not so sincere."
"Yes, seeing that you made such a big fuss yesterday and no one showed up, and the court didn't punish you, so I came to visit you," Datou said, lowering his voice, "But most of them didn't come empty-handed. I collected them all and did not put them in your residence. They were temporarily piled in the back hall of the court."
"You did the right thing," Chang Sheng said with a smile, "You go and get me some food and bring it to the court. I'll take the horse to the backyard first."
Da Tou went east in response, and Chang Sheng led Mr. Hei to the backyard.
Back in the backyard, Changsheng led Mr. Hei to the temporarily converted stables, which were at the north end of the west wing, very close to the main house.
After entering the stable, Chang Sheng suddenly frowned. The temporarily converted stable was exactly the same as the stable of Baoqing Inn. Not only the feed and concentrate were exactly the same as those of Baoqing Inn, but also the size, shape and layout of the trough and water tank. The placement is exactly the same. To facilitate entry and exit, the door was removed and replaced with two thick cold-proof curtains.
Changsheng took off the reins of Young Master Hei, took off the saddle, and then pointed to the stable. Young Master Hei understood the situation and drank water from the sink first, then walked to the haystack and lay down on his stomach.
After settling in Mr. Hei, Changsheng returned to the north hall and took a look. The room had not been cleaned up when he left. After careful decoration by everyone in the Ni family, the originally old and gloomy hall became more elegant and heavy.
He was not used to the sudden wealth and immortality, and felt an indescribable awkwardness in his heart. He didn't know what he liked or wanted, but he was very sure that what he had now was not what he wanted.
Back in the courtroom, Datou had returned with the food and was inserting a silver needle into the rice and several vegetables one by one.
"Haha, what are you doing, are you afraid someone will poison me?" Chang Sheng couldn't laugh or cry.
"Your Excellency, you are on the cusp of the storm now, so you cannot take it lightly." Datou said seriously.
"Don't worry, I'm proficient in Qihuang's art, no one can poison me." Changsheng said.
"Okay, okay." Datou felt relieved.
"Let's go to the back hall." Changsheng walked towards the back hall. There are back halls behind the court hall, which are places for officials to change clothes and take a temporary rest.
Changsheng was shocked when he went to the back hall. He thought that the officials who came to visit would only send some relatively small gifts. He never thought that there were not many small boxes, and most of them were big boxes. The entire back hall was made of bricks and stones. The floor was almost full.
Da Tou brought the food to the back hall and placed it on the tea table. Then he blew on the fire and went to light the candles on both sides.
"What happened to my stable? Did you do it?" Changsheng asked.
"No," Datou shook his head and said, "I just sent someone to the Baoqing Inn to ask what kind of food your mount was fed. Who would have thought that the inn not only sent fodder and concentrate, but also the sink and trough that the black horse used before. Moved here.”
"I asked why those two slots are exactly the same as those in Baoqing Inn. After working on them for a long time, they belong to them." Changsheng couldn't laugh or cry.
"Yes, yes," Datou nodded, "Hurry up and eat, sir, the food is getting cold."
Changsheng sat down to eat, and at the same time said to Datou, "Brother Fu, remember, you and Yang Kai are my friends, not my subordinates, and you should never regard yourself as my subordinates."
Datou nodded and answered, "Thank you, sir. I understand what you mean."
Chang Sheng pointed at the large and small boxes on the ground with chopsticks, "These people are here for the imperial censor, not for me. If one day I resign, they will not know me, but you and Yang Kai It’s different, you were by my side when I was in my best days, and if one day I was down and out, you wouldn’t leave me.”
Hearing Changsheng's words, Datou was very moved, "I am only three and a half feet tall. No one looks at me seriously. They all treat me as a joke. Only adults treat me as a human being. I really want to follow you all my life and repay your kindness." .”
Da Tou didn't know that Chang Sheng already knew that he was suffering from chronic illness and his remaining life was limited, so he said this. But these words sounded very sad to Changsheng. As the saying goes, when manpower is limited, the miracle doctor is just a miracle doctor, not the king of hell. In Datou's situation, even the golden elixir cannot save him.
Lest Changsheng notice anything unusual, Datou hurriedly changed the subject, "Sir, you eat while I open the box and see what's inside."
Changsheng nodded.
"When I came back, there were quite a few people waiting outside the house. I don't know which one of them came first. I met them one by one," Datou said, tearing open the paper seal and opening one of the boxes to give gifts. There was a gift note, usually placed in a conspicuous place. Datou took out the gift note and took a look at it, "This is from the Ministry of Accounts. They sent the salary owed to Yushitai. The silver coins have been accounted for, and there are one thousand in it." The six hundred taels of silver were the winter charcoal fuel collected by the 140 officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs for the Yushitai."
"I hadn't left when Minister Hube came, but I didn't see him," Changsheng said casually, "What was his attitude when you saw him?"
"To put it aside," Datou said, "They blame themselves quite a lot. They only blame themselves for not being able to speak up for you in the morning yesterday."
"It doesn't matter if you didn't say good things, did you say bad things?" Changsheng asked.
"No," Datou shook his head and said, "I was present at the court yesterday morning, and I didn't see the household department stand up to object."
"Have you met the Minister of Household Affairs? Do you think they are pretending to be poor or are they really poor?" Changsheng asked.
"We are really poor," Da Tou lowered his voice. "If there were peace and prosperity, taxes would be sufficient, and the national treasury would be full, the life of the Ministry of Household Affairs would be easy. But now there are continuous famines, and the national treasury cannot make ends meet. We need money but no money, and we need grain but no food. Who will take advantage of the Ministry of Household Affairs?" Are you serious?"
"Return the money to them," Chang Sheng chewed the corn, "and give them a little less, two hundred taels, to let them know our attitude."
"Okay." Da Tou closed the box and opened another one. There was still money inside, which was sent by the Ministry of Rites. The money was not much, only one thousand taels.
The Ministry of Rites was also a Qingshui yamen, so it was not easy to squeeze out one thousand taels, so it was still returned as usual, and an additional two hundred taels were added.
People who come to visit like this are actually expressing a goodwill attitude, showing that there is someone in their eyes. When entering official circles, you must be polite and considerate. Any disrespect may lead to retaliation.
What Ling Changsheng didn't expect was that the Ministry of Punishment also sent people to deliver charcoal fuel. Once delivered, there were two large boxes, totaling five thousand taels.
Changsheng did not rush to express his position this time, but put down his job and looked at Datou, "What do you think is the appropriate way to deal with it?"
"This is just public vs. public," Datou said. "They are testing our attitude. If they accept it, there will be private vs. private in the future. If they return it, they will know that we will continue to deal with them."
"Keep it." Changsheng smiled.
Datou is right, those who can come to visit openly and honestly are from business to business, and it is impossible to give too much. For those Qingshui Yamen who are living in a tight life, Changsheng will return a little more, and he has accepted most of the other money. .
Changsheng had his own plan. During the period when he was in charge of the Yushitai, he wanted to make as much money as possible, not for himself, but for the court. He knew very well what role he played as a Yushi doctor. This was a role that offended people. He is also a character who takes the blame. He sings the scapegoat himself and leaves the scapegoat to the emperor.
However, he did not accept all of these gifts, and also returned a few of them. These were returned to the yamen of the officials who opposed his taking over as censor doctor in the court yesterday.
After handling these gifts, it was already the second watch. Changsheng sent Da Tou back to rest while he went to the library at Yushitai.
The Yushitai is responsible for supervising all officials. The library contains a directory of all officials in the imperial court, including those local officials in Daozhou, counties and counties.
Military generals are also among the officials, so they are also included in the military generals directory.
After all, Yushitai is not a civil service department. There is no record of officials’ promotion trajectories. However, Yushitai has records of supervision over the years. At present, he does not have enough understanding of the situation of court officials. He does not even know who belongs to whom, and who is related to whom. We can't figure out what the relationship is. The top priority is to grasp and straighten out the situation of all the officials in the court as soon as possible.
He didn't know who was reliable, and he didn't dare to ask anyone casually, and the information he got was other people's opinions of these people. If he wanted to thoroughly understand the situation and be fair and equitable, he could only do it himself.
The books in the library are piled up like a mountain. Very few people come to this place. The books on the wooden shelves are all covered with thick dust. Changsheng first looks at the officials currently in office. This is the first year of Dashun, and he is in Chang'an. There are about 3,000 officials above the seventh rank, and about 25,000 local officials in the 15th rank. The total number is about 30,000.
These 30,000 people include civil servants and generals, which is the total number of officials at this time.
There were more than 30,000 people, and it was impossible for him to read them all one by one. First, he looked at the courtiers of the imperial capital. Those who were idle were at the fourth rank and above, and those who held important positions were at the sixth rank and above. The so-called important positions were those who held military power despite having small official positions.
Since I took a nap in the afternoon, I was not sleepy at this time, and I didn't light a lamp. I just watched in the darkness all night, and memorized all the officials who held real power by heart.
After dawn, we went out to have breakfast, and then summoned the 300 police officers of our yamen to compete with 50 of them from the martial arts field on the west side of Yushitai. The police officers worked in groups of five and took turns going into battle.
Naturally, everyone was no match for him, and Changsheng didn't hit hard, but he didn't stop there either. Everyone who fought against him was beaten with bruises and swollen faces, and they complained endlessly.
After the victory, Changsheng just said that he had enjoyed the fight, and then he left the sad-looking policeman behind and left with the words "we will continue tomorrow."
The police officer at Yushitai has been in the war for many years, and his martial arts skills have often been neglected. Once he arrests people in the future, it will easily delay the official business, and he cannot explicitly urge everyone to step up their martial arts training, so he can only use this method to motivate them.
He went back to wash his face and lie down to rest. When Yang Kai came back and informed him about the situation in the morning, he dived into the library again. This time he was looking at the situation of local officials. The seventh-grade magistrate stopped reading. The little county official couldn't read it. No matter how troublesome they are, they only look at the fifth-rank civil servants above the governor and the fifth-rank military attachés above Captain Guo Yi.
When I came out of the library again, it was already sunset.
Datou was waiting for him again and reported to him the situation of dispatching famous assassins and the list of officials from various ministries who came to visit today.
After dealing with the matter at hand, Changsheng returned to the library. He already had a rough idea of the officials' situation, but he didn't know what their relationship was with each other.
And after reading a lot, he found that he had simplified the problem before. The reason why Yang Fugong was able to control the government was not because he won over the courtiers, but because he controlled the military power. Not only was this person responsible for the defense of the capital, but all the Shence Army Under his control, all the generals in the major military camps outside Chang'an also obeyed this man's orders. Moreover, although this man was an eunuch, he liked to take in adopted sons. Many of his adopted sons had heavy troops, and some of them were even granted the title of Jiedu. make.
Once he takes action in the future, it will not be just a matter of arresting a few civilian officials. A large number of military generals will have to be killed to stabilize the situation. And these military generals live in the military camp, so they cannot rush to the military camp to kill people.
According to his previous idea, he would try to minimize contact with the emperor before taking action to avoid being discovered. But now it seems that this matter is not something he can accomplish by himself. He must discuss it with the emperor and make secret arrangements. .
Moreover, his three hundred agents are not enough to control the situation. Even with the emperor's Yulin army, they can only barely control the situation in Chang'an. How to deal with the large number of troops stationed outside Chang'an? Who will kill those generals who are loyal to the eunuchs? Who will take over after he is killed?
It's difficult, it's difficult.
Just as Changsheng was flipping through the book in a daze, the door of the library was suddenly pushed open.
The library is very remote, and no one saw him when he came in yesterday. When he saw the door opened outside, Changsheng was quite unhappy, frowned and turned around, "Who is it?"
"Sir, why are you here?" Big head poked his head in.
Seeing that the person coming was Datou, Changsheng's anger disappeared, "What's wrong?"
"Did you forget that the martial arts competition starts today?" Datou asked.
Hearing Datou's words, Changsheng raised his hand and slapped his forehead, "I forgot, I forgot, what time is it now?"
"It's almost time." Big Head said.
"Ah?!" Changsheng closed his notebook and hurried out, "The competition starts at Chenshi, why didn't you remind me earlier?"
"I've been looking for you for a long time." Datou said.
"What's going on on the field?" Changsheng asked eagerly.
"I don't know, I've been looking for you." Datou said.
"Go quickly, go quickly, ride a horse..."
