Why did Xia Yan help Chen Hong deal with Liu Shuxiang? Didn’t he receive the order of Jiajing to clean up the imperial village? Moreover, he was resolute at that time and returned almost all the civil land occupied by the eunuchs in the palace to the common people. Now he helped the eunuchs in the palace to invade the civil land. Isn’t this a contradiction?

In fact, it is not at all contradictory.

Jiajing asked him to clean up the imperial village in order to deal with the eunuchs left by Zhengde Dynasty. These people were Zhengde's confidants, not Jiajing's confidants. Jiajing naturally had to clean up, otherwise the entire palace would be supervised by the eunuchs promoted by Zhengde Dynasty. How could Jiajing feel at ease?

Jiajing asked Xia Yan to abolish the palace guards and the Beijing camp guards for this purpose, because these people were all arrogant soldiers and generals left by Emperor Zhengde, and he was not relieved and did not lay off the people. He felt that the palace was not safe.

To put it bluntly, at the beginning, Xia Yan was a knife in Jiajing's hand, specifically used to deal with the old forces of the Zhengde Dynasty.

Xia Yan also understood what Jiajing wanted him to do, so he was not ruthless when he got rid of the eunuchs and the arrogant soldiers. No matter who it was, even Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, he would chop it off without hesitation.

These people have a lot of power. If Jiajing had not supported him from behind, his tiny seventh-grade staff member would have been so fucked, and there would be no bones left that would have been cleaned up.

It was precisely because it was Jiajing's intention that both the Duke and the Queen and the Eunuch in the Palace were trapped in the hands of his small servant.

However, Jiajing did not think about letting him join the cabinet or even replacing Zhang Cong as the chief minister of the cabinet. At the beginning, Jiajing simply regarded Xia Yan as a knife, so he had to deal with so many powerful people and was promoted to a small level and became the chief minister.

As for later he climbed to the high position of Minister of Rites and even became a Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, it was because he showed enough ability and was recognized by Jiajing.

This is how Jiajing is. If you want to give him a heart, help him deal with others, and show enough abilities, he will promote you hard. No matter whether you are a ninth-rank sesame official or a seventh-rank sesame minister, or even a Jinshi like Zhang Cong, he can be promoted to the chief minister of the cabinet within a few years.

It was precisely because Xia Yan understood this that he was brilliant and prosperous.

This is why he helped Chen Hong.

So, what is his relationship with Chen Hong?

It's very simple, Chen Hong is his partner.

After all, Jiajing was the emperor. It was impossible for him to do everything himself, nor could he know everything that happened in the court. He was in the palace for many years and could not see what was happening outside. If no one told him, he would not know how powerful Xia Yan was.

Eunuchs are the emperor's eyes and ears these days. The emperor learned about many things through his confidants, and even the memorials were controlled in the hands of eunuchs, because the Tongzhengsi sent memorials to the Silijian first. Only after the Silijian was registered and sorted out would be sent to the cabinet or to the emperor. Sometimes when the emperor was busy or tired, even the eunuchs wrote the praises.

To put it bluntly, sometimes the eunuch of the Silijian is the emperor, and sometimes the eunuch is better than the emperor!

To give a very obvious example, during the Tianqi Dynasty, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian embezzled the silver treasury of the palace to repair his tomb. At that time, the tomb of the Ming Guangzong of Tianqi's father was also being repaired. Wei Zhongxian was doing everything he had to pay for his tomb, and the silver was also used first. As a result, his tomb cost more than three million taels, and it was repaired in the fifth year of Tianqi. The tomb of the Ming Guangzong was delayed and only one million taels were given until the ground project of the sixth year of Tianqi was not completed.

When it comes to building a tomb, Tianqi is naturally the first thing he can do. No matter how good Wei Zhongxian has to do with him, it is impossible for his father Ming Guangzong to be more important, but Wei Zhongxian just did this, but Tianqi did not react at all. Why?

It's very simple, because Apocalypse doesn't know at all.

Wan Yi, the doctor of the Ministry of Works, who was responsible for the construction of the tomb of Ming Guangzong, submitted a memorial for this matter, calling Wei Zhongxian lawless and deceiving the emperor. As a result, Tianqi did not see the memorial, and Wan Yi was killed by Wei Zhongxian in the name of Tianqi!

This incident is enough to prove how terrifying the power of the eunuchs of Silijian Bianbi is. To put it bluntly, as long as they are more powerful, the emperor will be the puppet in their hands.

This is also a disadvantage in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. Because eunuchs had too much power, many times the power of eunuchs even exceeded that of the cabinet, so the Ming Dynasty was also the dynasty with the most powerful and treacherous officials, such as Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, Feng Bao, Wei Zhongxian, etc.

At this time, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet generally did not dare to offend the eunuch of Silijian Bingbi. The Grand Secretary of the Cabinet and the eunuch of Silijian Bingbi cooperated to control the power of the court was also a common phenomenon in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. For example, Zhang Juzheng, a famous historical figure, was in cooperation with Feng Bao, the eunuch of Silijian Bingbi, to control the power of the court.

Of course, Feng Bao and Lu Fang are just small eunuchs in the palace at this moment, and the eunuchs with the greatest power in the palace are Huang Jin and Chen Hong. Xia Yan wanted to cooperate with Chen Hong to control the power of the court.

Now that the Shuntian Prefecture Order Liu Shuxiang has offended Chen Hong, Xia Yan naturally wants to help Chen Hong deal with him.

This has nothing to do with integrity and integrity. Xia Yan helped Chen Hong because Chen Hong stuffed money for him. To put it bluntly, Xia Yan just wanted to control the power of the court. As for whether Liu Shuxiang is a corrupt official or a good official, this is not the point.

The power struggles in the court often do not distinguish between right and wrong, but only whether you are an enemy or your own person. Zhang Cong and Xia Yan are clear about this, and Yang Cong is also clear about it.

Is Yang Tinghe a good official? If we talk about it in a general direction, he is a veteran of all dynasties. Zhengde passed away and no one inherited the throne. Even if he was supporting the entire court, he was the one who welcomed Jiajing into the palace to succeed the throne. However, Zhang Cong wanted to deal with him, for nothing but for power.

Is Zhang Cong a good official? If we talk about it in a general direction, he is also the same. The Zhengde Dynasty has many bad policies. It was his drastic moves to eliminate bad policies. The signs of a revival appeared in the early days of Jiajing. However, Xia Yan had to deal with him, not for anything else, but for power.

Is Xia Yan a good official? If we talk about it in a general direction, he is also. He also made a lot of efforts in the early days of Jiajing Zhongxing, but Yang Cong also wanted to deal with him.

Why?

It's very simple, just learn it!

Xia Yan believed that if he could control the power of the court, the Ming Dynasty would definitely be better, and Yang Cong also believed that if he could control the power of the court, the Ming Dynasty would definitely be better. Both of them thought so, and it would be a matter of time before conflicts arose. Therefore, when Yang Cong heard that Xia Yan was going to deal with Liu Shuxiang, he became interested.

However, like Xia Yan, he did not dare to use anyone in order to control the power of the court.

After taking the exam, he found that Liu Shuxiang was indeed a good official and decided to help others. If Liu Shuxiang was a corrupt official, he would not care about his life or death. Anyway, the future is long, so why should I be anxious about this moment?
Chapter completed!