The Cui family's affairs were a hot topic and no one was hiding it. On the surface, the Cui clan expelled Cui Yuandao's sons from the ancestral hall on charges of having concubines, but this kind of thing has happened in every family, and no one has ever seen such a serious case of expelling people from the clan under these pretexts. Yet the Cui family did it.
Everyone was talking about it for a while.
After the court session, Emperor Yuanfeng met Yang Canzhi, the new cabinet member, in the Winter Warmth Pavilion. He asked him to sit down, then threw the memorial in his hand on the table, and said with a half-smile, "It's really interesting. Look at the Cui family, they are a famous family, but when family members fight against each other, don't they still disregard dignity? Those who know this is a big family, but those who don't know, what's the difference between them and those peasants fighting for property in the countryside?"
This is pointed and sharp enough.
Yang Canzhi lowered his head and smiled: "People die for money and birds die for food. Life is like this. How can there be a real living saint? A century-old family is also made up of people. People have their own positions. If the position is wrong, disputes will naturally arise."
"You got the upper hand." Emperor Yuanfeng scolded with a smile. Seeing Yang Canzhi following him in a different direction, he said unhappily, "Look, raising horses in the northwest is still useful. The horses have been raised for so many years, and their tempers are not as bad as before."
Yang Canzhi touched his nose and said awkwardly: "I am guilty, I deserve to die."
Before Emperor Yuanfeng came to the throne, he was often scolded in edicts by famous officials of the time such as Yang Canzhi.
It doesn’t matter if others scold him. Since Emperor Yuanfeng dared to rebel, he is not an ordinary person.
But Yang Canzhi was a ruthless man with a bad temper. He would spit in your face if you disagreed with him. I wrote more than 40 letters in a row to curse him. The content of the curses was never repeated, and he would come up with new ones every day. As a result, the only thought of Emperor Yuanfeng at that time was to kill this man as the first thing after he ascended the throne.
Later, it was Queen Hu who pleaded for Yang Canzhi, so he did not kill this tough guy, but still sent him to the northwest.
Now that the old matter was brought up again, Emperor Yuanfeng pointed at him and asked angrily, "Why do you seem like a completely different person now?"
"Your Majesty is wise!" Yang Canzhi sighed, "To be honest, Your Majesty, I have long been convinced. I have been raising horses in the Northwest for so many years. Apart from other things, the control of war horses, the changes in the Northwest horse farms over the years, and the Northwest military defense, all make me have to admit defeat. If the abandoned commoner was still in power, the Northwest would not be so peaceful. Your Majesty is a wise ruler!"
Emperor Yuanfeng snorted, but did not change his attitude because of the compliment: "Don't give me that crap, am I a wise ruler? If I were a wise ruler, how could I have let you in when there was such a mess in the cabinet? You know how you got in, right?"
"Your Majesty, please be wise and don't look down on me, an old minister." Yang Canzhi was exposed by Emperor Yuanfeng and knelt in front of him: "You know, except for Cui Yuandao, the rest of those who are queuing to enter the cabinet are either Yang Bo's students and old friends. If they are allowed to enter, then Yang Bo will dominate the cabinet. He is good, but once a person has the final say, no matter how good he is, it will not last long. Those other people are not pro-Yang, but they are all connected with the previous chaos. How can the Princess of Fenyang and the southeast area be hidden from your eyes? Therefore, when you gave an order, I, an old minister, hurriedly pretended to be afraid of raising horses in the northwest, and took the initiative to spread the news, so that people would remember me..." Gu
Yang Canzhi let out a long breath, looked at Emperor Yuanfeng sincerely and said: "Your Majesty, it's been difficult. You have been on the throne until now, overcoming all difficulties along the way. You have to eliminate the remnants of the previous dynasty, resist the Japanese invasion, guard against the barbarians outside the Great Wall, and especially the powerful families in the southeast..."
When Fei Shuren was in power, he listened to the slander of the Evil Queen, because the Evil Queen accepted bribes from the southeastern nobles, so he simply lifted the southeastern maritime ban, fed those nobles one by one, and made them rich and powerful, so that some families even had many territories and mountains overseas.
When Emperor Yuanfeng came to the throne and began to clean up the mess, it became even more difficult.
The powerful families in the southeast are united and their influence is already huge, and the clan power over there is extremely strong. As the old saying goes, imperial power does not extend to the countryside, so the officials over there are all just muddling through - those who cannot muddle through will not live to see the day before returning to the capital to report on their work.
If you really want to force it, how do you do it
The seeds planted during the abolition of the common people allowed these wealthy families to grow in size. How could they engage in smuggling without the support of the common people? The local people either joined the wealthy families as slaves, workers, sailors, or thugs, or worked in the workshops of the wealthy families to make a living.
All these intertwined relationships have long been entangled in a dense web that is difficult to cut and unravel.
The reason why Emperor Yuanfeng watched coldly the fight between Fenyang Palace and the Su and He families, and watched Yang Bo and others suppress Cui Yuandao and prevent him from entering the cabinet, was simply because he wanted to draw out the forces behind Fenyang Palace. How could the whereabouts of Princess Fenyang after Qi Yunxi's accident, and her eager attitude to help Cui Yuandao take the throne, really escape the eyes of Emperor Yuanfeng
The reason I didn't care was just because I wanted to watch them make a fuss until they could continue.
"You have some conscience." Emperor Yuanfeng snorted coldly: "Don't I know that Xu Shun is greedy? But before, he really made many political achievements. Apart from other things, he handled the affairs in Shu very well. Of course, now it seems that he colluded with Qi Yunxi and other remnants of the previous dynasty, so they gave him help and let him continue to fool me. It's the same now. Why did I bring you in after Xu Shun fell? Yang Bo is good, but Yang Bo has one bad point - he is too soft in the southeast! He only cares about his own petty gains and blindly indulges and shelters those termites in the southeast. These termites are about to eat away the southeast!"
These big tycoons continue to engage in smuggling and try every possible means to evade taxes. Even local officials are often manipulated and controlled by them.
The power of the powerful families was enormous. After he ascended the throne, his battle with the abolished commoners and even the group of hungry wolves that were fed during the period of abolishing commoners continued all the time.
"Among my children and grandchildren, the crown prince is loyal and upright, but he lacks wisdom and is indecisive. The second and third sons are eager for quick success. I thought the fourth son was finally decent, but he is also short-sighted and harbors evil intentions. Now, the fifth son is gradually growing up and seems okay, but none of them are as good as Ah Heng."
Emperor Yuanfeng raised his eyebrows and looked at Yang Canzhi: "I am not unaware of the competition among various forces and their efforts to keep him at bay, but I am still watching from the sidelines. You may think this is the emperor's mindset, but in fact, I am considering him. Only if he can truly win in these struggles can he suppress these evil spirits!"