After saying that, Wang Chengen walked away.
Seeing this, Wang Erbiao felt relieved. But then, he became curious.
Eunuchs who serve in the palace, no matter how powerful they are, will adopt adopted sons to prevent themselves from being liquidated when they fall out of favor.
As the saying goes, accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger, serving the emperor, you cannot make everything go well for the emperor.
Once something makes the emperor unhappy, he is likely to fall from the top of his power. Or if you leave the emperor for a few days, other eunuchs will apply eye drops behind his back.
Another possibility is that the eunuch in power himself is old and unresponsive, and will not be favored by the emperor.
Under such various factors, the eunuch in power would push his godson to an important position. Once he fell out of favor, the new eunuch the emperor trusted should also be his godson, so as to most effectively prevent accidents in life.
However, just now, Wang Erbiao felt strong confidence from Wang Chengen. He was quite surprised that he actually said that the Chongzhen Dynasty would not lose power, and even the next emperor would not lose power.
As the saying goes, there is one emperor and one minister. Every emperor has his own ministers around him, including the servants who serve, all of them belong to someone else.
When a new emperor comes to power, he always uses his most trusted ministers, including slaves.
Where did Wang Chengen get the confidence to think he could handle this situation?
Wang Erbiao was thinking about this for a long time. Suddenly, an idea flashed in his mind, and he immediately thought of a person: Duke Xingguo?
From various indications, Wang Chengen was actually very fond of Duke Xingguo, and Emperor Chongzhen and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince were also very kind to Duke Xingguo, not to mention Princess Kunxing!
Thinking this way, Wang Erbiao felt that he had grasped the key point of the problem. His eyes lit up.
There is a saying that goes well: A soldier who doesn't want to be a general is not a good soldier, and a chamberlain who doesn't want to be a eunuch, the supervisor of etiquette, is not a good chamberlain. Wang Erbiao is now the eunuch Bingbi, the eunuch in charge of etiquette. Of course, he also wants to be the eunuch in charge of the palm, the first person in the palace.
While he was thinking about it, a chamberlain kindly reminded him: "My lord, our ancestors have gone far away!"
When Wang Erbiao heard this, he came to his senses and immediately scolded: "Do you want you to take care of it?"
………………
Two days later, Zhang Mingwei finally arrived in Tongzhou, got off the ship and rode back to Beijing.
What he didn't expect was that when he saw the tall city walls of the capital, he saw groups of royal guards crowding out of the city gates.
Zhang Mingwei is the commander of the Jin Yiwei. He was a little confused immediately. Didn't he ask the Jin Yiwei to be dispatched?
This doubt had just had time to pop up when he saw a very dumbfounding scene.
Emperor Chongzhen appeared on the street cleared by the Jin Yiwei.
Zhang Mingwei was just a minister, but it was very rare for the emperor to go out of the city to greet him. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, few people seemed to have been treated like this.
However, given Zhang Mingwei's relationship with Emperor Chongzhen and his contribution to turning the tide, he was not particularly surprised by Emperor Chongzhen's appearance.
At this time, he was so surprised that he was stunned by the way Emperor Chongzhen came out to greet him!
Or to be precise, it was Emperor Chongzhen who greeted him with new means of transportation.
Can you imagine? Emperor Chongzhen rode a wooden bicycle to greet him.
And behind him, a group of civil and military officials, high-ranking ones, also rode bicycles out of the city gate.
Zhang Mingwei was really shocked by this scene.
This reminded him of a painting he had seen in later generations, a painting of Guan Yunchang riding a bicycle in the Three Kingdoms!
"Hahaha..." Emperor Chongzhen laughed excitedly when he saw Zhang Mingwei stunned.
Obviously, he was very satisfied that the way he went out could shock Zhang Mingwei so much.
When Zhang Mingwei heard this, he came to his senses, laughed immediately, got off his horse, and went to see the gift.
At this time, Emperor Chongzhen's bicycle had already been thrown to the chamberlain beside him.
He also faced Zhang Mingwei, grabbed Zhang Mingwei's hands, looked up and down, and said with emotion: "Sir, you have worked really hard for Daming!"
After hearing this, Zhang Mingwei immediately replied with a smile: "This is my wish, I am happy!"
His answer was different from others, but Emperor Chongzhen was very happy to hear it.
At this moment, I heard someone beside me say unhappily: "Father, where is my daughter?"
When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he turned around and laughed, let go of Zhang Mingwei, walked to Princess Kunxing, and said with a smile: "My daughter is a heroine, unique among the Ming princesses, I think about it every day , I’m all proud of you!”
Upon hearing this, Princess Kunxing immediately burst into laughter, her eyes narrowed into slits when she smiled, and her two dimples were particularly obvious. What she is most proud of is her experience over the past year. Now that her father has praised her and spoken highly of it, of course she is happy!
While their father and daughter were talking, Zhang Mingwei turned to look at other acquaintances.
I saw that among the important officials in the court, the younger ones, such as Du Yinxi and others, were doing fine. But the older ones, such as Zuo Maodi and others, were so tired that they were panting.
Obviously, they came here on wooden bicycles. Even if the person who built this wooden bicycle was the best craftsman in the Ming Dynasty, compared with the bicycles of later generations, it would definitely take a lot of effort. It was really difficult for them!
Zhang Mingwei was very happy to see this!
I just don’t know if they usually ride this bike when they go to court, or if they are here to greet me this time, they can ride the bike?
If it is the former, it means that the capital has a high degree of acceptance of science and technology and has not overturned everything because of the steam engine accident.
Of course, even if it is the latter, if even the emperor and important officials in the court ride wooden bicycles, it will inevitably cause a sensation in the entire capital. This is also very helpful for him to promote science and technology knowledge.
"Your Majesty has met Duke Xingguo!" While Zhang Mingwei was thinking about it, Du Yinxi came over and greeted him with a smile, "My Lord, it's been hard work fighting for the country!"
Others also came to greet him one after another, all of whom he recommended.
Wang Chengen also came over, greeted him with a smile, and then leaned close to his ear and whispered: "Sir, what do you think of this welcome method proposed by our family?"
Of course he knew that the steam engine incident made Duke Xingguo make the decision to put aside the task of suppressing thieves and return to Beijing. This shows that Duke Xingguo really attaches great importance to science, technology and knowledge.
During the last meeting at the Wenhua Palace, the consensus was not to deal with the commotion caused by the students in the Imperial College. Although Wang Chengen does not arrest people, he naturally has his own methods, and he came up with this trick.
Not only was the emperor happy, Duke Xingguo was also happy!
To achieve this goal, Wang Chengen won't care about anything else.
Now it seems that this effect is really good! While Duke Xingguo was shocked, the emperor also laughed out loud!
After a while of greetings outside the capital city, it was time to return to the Forbidden City.
At this time, a problem suddenly arose.
Emperor Chongzhen didn't know what to choose for a while.
Even if he came out on a wooden bicycle, then this time, both his husband and daughter are riding horses. So should he choose to ride a horse, or still ride a wooden bicycle?
While he was hesitating, Zuo Maodi immediately seized the opportunity and immediately stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, this wooden bicycle was thought up by the Duke. In this case, I am willing to give my wooden bicycle to the Duke." , so that the Duke can ride back to the Forbidden City with His Majesty!"
When other officials heard this, especially the older civil servants, they couldn't help but regret it. Why didn't they think of it? They should have mentioned it earlier. Judging from the emperor's attitude, he would probably agree and he would not have to suffer.
Sure enough, when Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately turned to Zhang Mingwei and said with a smile: "How about it, sir, let's ride back together?"
As he spoke, his smile was a little weird!
After hearing this, Zhu Ainao on the side took Emperor Chongzhen's hand and said coquettishly: "Father, my daughter also wants to ride!"
This new means of transportation was made by her. Seeing her father leading a group of courtiers riding over, it looked very novel. She was only fourteen years old. She really liked novelty at her age, so she naturally liked it.
When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he leaned close to her ear and whispered a few words.
After hearing this, Zhu Yuyao stopped asking, and just looked at Zhang Mingwei with the same weird smile.
Seeing this situation, Zhang Mingwei glanced at these important officials and those who owned wooden bicycles given by the emperor. When he saw their eyes, he immediately understood what they and Emperor Chongzhen meant.
So, he immediately laughed and said: "Okay, then I will ride back with Your Majesty!"
After finishing speaking, he went to take over Zuo Maodi's wooden bicycle.
Seeing this, Zuo Maodi was obviously relieved, and then said to Zhang Mingwei: "This thing is actually very simple. The Duke only needs to step on this place to balance his body..."
"No, I can!" Zhang Mingwei said, looking at the back seat of the bicycle, he looked up at Zhu Yuyao and saw that she was still smiling, obviously wanting to see if he could ride the bicycle.
So, he rolled his eyes, smiled and said to Zhu Aona: "Come, I will take you back to the palace, how about it? Sit here!"
"Ah?" When Zhu Ainao saw it, she was a little dumbfounded.
It wasn't that she was afraid of falling, but it was too ostentatious to sit there and share a bicycle with her husband in front of everyone, right?
She was still thinking about it, but Emperor Chongzhen rolled his eyes and immediately said with a smile: "Okay, okay, I agree!"
When the civil and military officials heard this, they were immediately dumbfounded.
Does the emperor mean to make public the relationship between Princess Kunxing and Duke Xingguo?
