Chapter 536 Interlude
Later, Yang Zhen found out that it was Jin Shijun's mother Zhang who asked Liu Yongzuo, the governor of Xuanzhen, to write to the court to give Jin Guofeng the title of palace protector, that is, the title of prince's Taibao.
Zhang did not dare to complain about the ministers in the capital court, let alone the emperor, but she blamed Liu Yongzuo for her dissatisfaction.
In addition, the imperial court's granting of burials and the ordering of the Xuanfu to build ancestral halls for sacrifices and other matters were still lip service but not implemented, and were never effectively implemented, so Zhang's resentment towards the officials of the Xuanfu became even greater.
And these things will all fall on Liu Yongzuo's head in the end, but where does Liu Yongzuo have the money?
Therefore, this matter has been progressing slowly. So far, Emperor Chongzhen has asked the Xuanfu Secretary to build a shrine to pay homage to Jin Guofeng and his son, but there has been no action.
Therefore, when Yang Zhen came to Xuanfu City, it was certainly not that Jin Shijun himself did not want to greet him. After Yang Zhen moved into the General Military Mansion, it was not that he did not want to pay a visit, but his mother, Zhang, had grievances and would not let him go.
Nowadays, Jin Shijun's father and younger brother have just died in the war. His old mother is the person he cherishes the most. How dare he disobey his mother as he is a filial piety to his mother.
As for Jin Shijun himself, he didn't have much resentment towards Liu Yongzuo or other officials in the Xuanfu.
He also knew the current situation. Although the imperial court had given a decree, he didn't know how many difficulties he had to go through before it could be implemented in the end.
The imperial court paid lip service but failed to deliver, and Xuanfu Governor Liu Yongzuo had no choice but to deal with the situation.
If you misappropriate other money to build a cemetery and an ancestral hall for your father, once someone impeaches you, it will be a crime that will make you lose your head.
Therefore, Liu Yongzuo is not entirely responsible for the delay in this matter and the unfavorable progress.
But no matter what, his father and younger brother died in the battle in Liaodong, and his mother suffered an unprecedented blow. Her grief, anger and resentment had nowhere to resolve, so Jin Shijun had no choice but to follow his mother's wishes.
At the same time, Jin Shijun knew that Yang Zhen had just arrived in Xuanfu City yesterday and would not leave the next day anyway, so he was not in a hurry to visit him.
What he didn't expect was that before he had time to visit Yang Zhen, Yang Zhen and Yang Guozhu came to his home to visit him.
Jin Guofeng was born in the vanguard of Xuanfu. As a general, he was as honest as water and often shared the joys and sorrows with his soldiers. Therefore, he had been a general for many years but had no savings.
Although the Jin family held the position of avant-garde of the Xuanfu, but now, the world's guard has long been destroyed, and so has the avant-garde of the Xuanfu.
Jin Guofeng and his son were away at war on weekdays, while their family members lived in Xuanfu City, making a living by renting out tenants, pawning their ancestral property, and selling their land.
The Jin family has many acres in the countryside outside the city, but the Xuanfu land is close to the border wall. In recent years, the war has been turbulent. The original tenants have fled, the land is barren, and the female relatives, old and young, cannot take care of these things.
, so life was tight.
Otherwise, Jin Guofeng's widow Zhang would not have complained to the governor of Xuanfu because of issues such as the imperial court's burial and the construction of a temple.
But it was said that that afternoon, Yang Zhen, accompanied by his uncle Yang Guozhu, brought a cart full of heavy gifts and arrived in front of Jin's house.
When Jin Shijun heard the news, he quickly helped his mother Zhang to come out.
It had only been over a month since we last saw Jin Shijun, and it seemed like he had become a different person.
At this time, he was wearing heavy mourning, looking depressed, with an unkempt beard, and a face full of vicissitudes of life. It had only been more than a month, but he had aged more than ten years.
When he saw Yang Zhen, Jin Shijun immediately knelt down, covered his face and cried bitterly.
This scene made Yang Zhen sigh with sadness.
Yang Zhen and Yang Guozhu comforted each other for a while before Jin Shijun stopped crying.
Yang Zhen took Jin Shijun and explained his purpose of coming to him. He first told him that he had performed military exploits for him and would be rewarded by the court.
At the same time, he also told him that he had come with more than ten thousand taels of silver given to him by his brothers in the advance camp, and asked him to build a tomb and a shrine for his father and brother.
Of course, Yang Zhen also told him that after this worship ceremony, he would leave Xuanfu City and go to Zhangjiakou. He asked Jin Shijun to deal with the funeral matters of his father and brother before returning to Liaodong to find him.
However, Jin Shijun's face was dull and silent. He just listened to Yang Zhen's instructions and led them to the mourning hall at home to worship.
Yang Zhen saw that he was distracted and his mind was no longer on military affairs, so he could only sigh, leave a heavy gift, and hug him goodbye.
Of the more than 10,000 taels of silver that Yang Zhen brought from Songshan to the capital for work, not a penny was left, all of which were left to Jin Shijun.
Now that he has decided to attack the traitors and profiteers in Zhangjiakou, the money in his hands is nothing to him.
After Yang Zhen came out of the slightly decayed courtyard of the Jin family, which was shrouded in a sad atmosphere, he collected himself and went to the Xuanfu Governor's Office in person, accompanied by Yang Guozhu.
On the one hand, it was regarded as a visit or return visit to Liu Yongzuo, the governor of Xuanfu. On the other hand, he said goodbye to him in person on the pretext of going to Zhangjiakou to visit his younger brother Yang Jie.
As the governor of Xuanfu, Liu Yongzuo logically should be mainly in charge of the military. However, after he arrived at Xuanfu, he did not interfere much in military affairs. Instead, he spent most of his energy on civil matters such as relieving victims and recruiting people for reclamation. He believed that
There is no better way to suppress bandits than to bring peace to the people. If the people are safe, then the bandits will be eliminated.
His idea and approach naturally hit it off with Yang Guozhu, and of course he won Yang Guozhu's respect.
Historically, the two of them had worked together for many years in Xuanfu Town and had a tacit understanding of cooperation.
Yang Guozhu was the commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu from the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign until his death in the battle of Liaodong in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, a full five years.
Liu Yongzuo also served as governor of Xuanfu from the ninth year of Chongzhen's reign until the winter of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, which lasted more than four years.
A situation like this was very unusual during the Chongzhen period, which was characterized by political turmoil and frequent personnel changes in the late Ming Dynasty.
The reason why they are able to do this is of course multifaceted, but it is directly related to the tacit understanding between them.
Of course, in this life, due to the flapping of the butterfly wings of Yang Zhen, the tacit understanding between the commander-in-chief of Xuanzhen, Yang Guozhu, and the governor Liu Yongzuo became deeper.
The most typical example is that they recently joined forces to expel Cao Benzheng, the eunuch who was monitoring the situation in Xuanzang.
Before Yang Zhen came to Xuanfu, one of his biggest taboos was the surveillance eunuchs in Xuanzhen, also commonly known as the supervisory eunuchs.
These people had a very low status in the palace. They were often the adopted sons and grandsons of a popular eunuch. After being recommended, they went to work in border towns, but they had great power.
Because their status in the palace was very low, they had to be recommended by their benefactors before they could serve outside. Therefore, after they took office, they needed to get a lot of money to repay their benefactors.
Therefore, after such people come to serve as supervisors in border towns, they are most likely to become the protective umbrella of those who collaborate with traitors.
The smuggling trade at the border of Xuanfu has been banned many times, and in Yang Zhen's opinion, it has a profound relationship with it.
However, after returning to Xuanfu, Yang Zhen quickly felt relieved.
Cao Benzheng, the supervisory eunuch of Xuanfu Town, could not get along well with the commander-in-chief Yang Guozhu and the governor Liu Yongzuo. He had just been dismissed by Emperor Chongzhen a while ago and ordered to return to the court. At this time, the new supervisory eunuch had not yet arrived.
In this way, Yang Zhen was saved a lot of trouble.
Yang Zhen was not completely unable to understand Emperor Chongzhen's appointment of eunuchs to supervise the army in various places.
From the perspective of Emperor Chongzhen, since the civil servants in the court were disobedient, untrustworthy, and always working against him, and there were no available people, he had no choice but to appoint eunuchs.
In his opinion, at least eunuchs are more obedient, more loyal and more reliable.
But Emperor Chongzhen naturally knew very well that these people were obedient and loyal, but few of them were truly capable.
Once he found out that the ministers he sent to supervise the army or the middle-ranking eunuchs monitoring border towns were openly in conflict with the local governors, governors, and general towns, he would immediately take measures to withdraw these eunuchs.
Of course, in the history of the Chongzhen period, when the governor and the supervisory officer were incompatible, there were many examples of direct dismissal of the governor.
However, in the history of the Chongzhen period, there were very few cases where the commander-in-chief of the border town army was dismissed because of incompatibility with the monitoring eunuchs.
Under such circumstances, Emperor Chongzhen would most likely replace the monitoring eunuch, and then send another one after a period of time.
The current situation in Xuanzhen is exactly like this.
Yang Guozhu frequently solicited donations from the Xuan Mansion, especially those wealthy merchants in Zhangjiakou, and had a conflict with Cao Benzheng, the surveillance eunuch of Xuan Town who had long been fed by those wealthy merchants.
Then you play one for me, and I play one for you, and we start complaining to each other.
Liu Yongzuo, the governor of Xuanfu, had long been at odds with Cao Benzheng, so he joined Yang Guozhu's side and impeached Cao Benzheng for accepting bribes from profiteers and secretly allowing profiteers to export.
After this matter was brought to the court, the cabinet ministers instinctively sided with the ministers and ministers, and Cao Benzheng was dismissed and left sadly.
Yang Zhen learned about this from Yang Guozhu, and soon thought that Cao Benzheng's downfall and departure might be one of the reasons why the profiteers of Zhangjiakou Shanyou Chamber of Commerce were preparing to run away.
But Yang Guozhu, Yang Zhen and his followers had just said goodbye to Liu Yongzuo at the gate of the governor's office and were walking back. On the street leading to the governor's office, they met an express delivery from Zhangjiakou.
Yang Guozhu asked someone to stop him and ask, but it was the inspection department near Zhangjiakou Fort City that sent a report to the governor's office, saying that the Zhangjiakou area was attacked by horse thieves last night, and today the Fort City was also under siege. The inspection department came out
Tang reported it to the governor of Xuanfu.
Yang Guozhu sent the team delivering the urgent newspaper away, smiled at each other with Yang Zhen, and then rode away quickly.
When we returned to the General Military Mansion in Xuan Town, it was already close to the end of the day, and everyone else was ready.
Chapter completed!