The emperor was alone with Xie Qian in Ciqing Palace, and no one knew what the two said in private.

But afterwards, Li Dongyang returned to Ciqing Palace from Liu Jian's mansion, and the emperor still strongly appointed Li Dongyang as the chief funeral minister, fully responsible for the funeral of Empress Dowager Zhou.

As for the matters of the cabinet, it is basically the case with Xie Qian, Wang Hua and Liang Chu. Even if Liu Jian instructed Wang Hua to coordinate the matters of the cabinet, Wang Hua has never officially entered the cabinet. His status is far less than that of the genuine cabinet Grand Secretary Xie Qian. Xie Qian also knew that this was the best time to regain power.

You can't always be bullied by two former friends like before, and you have to swallow your anger, and you can't even keep your grandson-in-law.

After the emperor finished executing the funeral, Xie Qian left the palace with ease, while Li Dongyang continued to stay in the inner curtain, which made Li Dongyang very uncomfortable.

Before, when Li Dongyang handled Mrs. Jin's funeral, he never stayed in the inner courtyard of the palace because Mrs. Jin was not a palace servant. After his death, the funeral was held in the Marquis' Mansion of Shouning. He had been prepared to be held with the etiquette of the Duke of the State. Later, the emperor directly set a high standard for the funeral of a country, which was equivalent to treating Mrs. Jin as the empress dowager.

Now that the Empress Dowager has passed away, if the emperor reduces the rules of the funeral, it will be impossible to explain to the people of the world. When the emperor cannot favor one or the other, his mother-in-law dies and his grandmother's turn is to be a big deal, but he is too unkind to pay money here and save money here.

In order to express his concern for his grandmother's funeral, the first thing the emperor wanted to consider letting the Empress Dowager Zhou and Yingzong bury together, which made Li Dongyang speechless. This meant that the Yingzong Mausoleum, which had been closed for many years, would be reopened. This would not only consume a lot of people's wealth and abundance, but also disturb the many Ming emperors buried in the imperial mausoleum.

Li Dong** originally didn't want to be responsible for such a thing, because it would hurt his reputation, but he had no choice. As the emperor said, Xie Qian had never participated in the funeral of Mrs. Jin, and had lacked experience. No one except him could take on the heavy responsibility, so he could only give in a bitter face and reluctantly make it difficult.

...

...

Zhu Houzhao returned to the East Palace. That night, he was a little groggy and his mind was covered with the pale face of his dead grandmother.

Before, Zhu Houzhaotian was not afraid, but now his great-grandmother passed away, he was so scared that he was dying. He was not even so terrifying to go to the battlefield to kill the enemy, because he felt that resisting foreign humiliation was extremely glorious, while the funeral in front of him made him feel that the wind was gusts and extremely strange.

"The Empress Dowager usually loves me so much and often gives me delicious and fun things. She passed away and wouldn't come to me often, right? Oh, there was a gust of wind outside for some reason, and it seemed that something was going on?"

Zhu Houzhao became suspicious and looked around with her head and mind.

Suddenly the door opened with a creak, which scared Zhu Houzhao and immediately jumped up and scolded: "Eunuch Zhang, I didn't let you in, what are you doing when you come in?"

But the person who came was an ordinary eunuch and was very good at serving Zhang Yuan.

This eunuch is not young, but looks very young. It is Xiao Guozi who was disgusted by Zhu Houzhao for many times before and beaten for no reason. Zhu Houzhao knew that Xiao Guozi was informed and reported to Queen Zhang that he had carefully prepared to leave the palace. In anger, he almost killed Xiao Guozi.

Zhu Houzhao said angrily: "Where is Zhang Yuan?"

Xiao Zhuozi replied respectfully: "Go back to the Crown Prince, Eunuch Zhang was given twenty boards by His Majesty, and he is currently resting..."

Zhu Houzhao frowned immediately: "What board? Oh, it turns out that he was beaten. Then he is really unlucky. Who made him so careless about doing things?"

"Little Treasurezi, do you know why the father beat Eunuch Zhang?" The naughty child asked knowingly, trying to take the initiative to clear his relationship with this matter.

As Xiao Tiaozi grew older, he became much smarter and replied cautiously: "I don't know much, but it seems that Eunuch Zhang's beating was related to your trip to Kunning Palace alone, Your Majesty, and Your Majesty doesn't want something to happen to you."

Zhu Houzhao curled her lips and said, "Oh, I know... just hit me, just hit me, as long as I don't beat you, today you stay in the bedroom to accompany me, I can't sleep, tell me a few sentences of the story, and I will take it back from me from Jiangnan... Oh no, just follow the books on my desk, and talk about "Talking about Yue Quan Biography" first..."

The naughty child refused to admit that he was timid, so he asked Xiao Tiaozi to tell the story. Xiao Tiaozi naturally did not dare to go against the naughty child's intentions, so he picked up and said that he would follow the script, but he did not coax Zhu Houzhao to sleep until midnight.

...

...

On August 21, Shen Xi led his troops to Huaiyuan County. The two military supervisors sent by the court, Zhang Yong and Liu Jin, finally caught up with Shen Xi's team.

At this time, Shenxi had just passed the junction of Huguang and Guangxi, and was still 200 miles away from Huaiyuan County.

In this era, if you were a plain marching, it would be normal to arrive in Huaiyuan County within four days if you were marching on the plains for about fifty miles a day. But unfortunately, it was a mountainous area in northern Guizhou, with steep mountains and rugged roads. Even the post road was difficult to walk. In addition, Shen Xi had to send artillery to the front line, which made the marching more difficult.

Previously, there were several large-caliber Hongwu guns and cannons in Shenxi's team, but because the road behind was really difficult to walk, they simply left the Hongwu guns and cannons obtained from the local area in the tunnel county town. Shenxi only asked someone to bring the relatively lightweight Folang machine cannons, muskets and cannonballs with them.

In addition, the weapons used by soldiers are basically mainly waist knives and spears, and there are relatively few crossbows. The main reason is that there are too few qualified archers in the army. In addition, the number of feather arrows is seriously insufficient, so it is better to bring less. Shen Xi is planning to rely on the improved Folangji musket to conduct long-distance strikes.

Zhang Yong and Liu Jin came over for a long journey. In order to show respect for the emperor's will, Shen Xi personally went out to welcome him.

At this time, the army was stationed in an unknown valley north of Guni Pass. The surrounding terrain was extremely dangerous. Shen Xi did not dare to entrust the camp and built the camp on a high place. Zhang Yong and Liu Jin were so panting that they started to complain as soon as they saw Shen Xi, and they treated Shen Xi as if Shen Xi took the initiative to ask them to come to the southwest to serve as military inspectors.

Especially Zhang Yong, his attitude towards speaking is very bad, just like the face he said when he was causing trouble for Shen Xi at Tumu Fort:

"...Mr. Shen, it's fine if you go to this remote and poor place, why do you have to bring our family to suffer? Our family is just going to Jiangxi for business, what's wrong with you? Why don't you even care about your past friendship and let our family come with you to suffer in this mountainous area?"

Liu Jin looked at Zhang Yong, and a look of contempt flashed in his eyes.

Although Liu Jin was neatly dressed at this time, his red python suit had faded, and the boots on his feet had obvious patches, which made him look extremely depressed.

Chen Xi shook his head. It seemed that Liu Jin was not living well in Dinghaiwei. He finally spent money to leave Beijing, but failed to get the money back. In addition, he was summoned to the southwest to combat the bandits halfway, so his behavior looked a little decadent.

At this time, Zhang Yong happened to turn his head, and Liu Jin immediately changed into a flattering look, then looked at Chen Xi, and his eyes seemed to be saying, "The Eunuch Zhang I want to say has finished speaking for me, I have nothing to add."

The two eunuchs were chaotic in front of Shen Xi, and there were many generals and schoolmen watching around, and they were all very surprised.

Especially the commander-in-chief of Jiangxi, Wang He and the commander-in-chief of Huguang, Su Jingyang, looked at the two domineering internal envoys in surprise.

After receiving the imperial edict, the two were always curious about the appearance of the military eunuchs sent to Chen Xi by the imperial court. They originally thought that since the emperor personally appointed him, they would definitely be like Zheng He, the three treasure eunuchs in history, know people and use them well, brave and good at fighting. Moreover, since these two had fought with Chen Xi before, they must admire Chen Xi very much, and would not take the initiative to cause trouble, nor would they make things difficult for those who were in the army!
Chapter completed!