Siheyuan: I'm not happy, don't even think about having a good life

Keshi was carried away, and Hong Guan soon realized how powerful the emperor was. Since Keshi was killed, the eunuchs and maids in the palace dared not even breathe loudly, for fear of angering him and being killed.

What does it mean to serve the emperor like serving a tiger? This is exactly what it means. Feudal society is harmful to people!

Zhang Yan visited Hong Guan several times, but Hong Guan didn't talk to her much, for fear that he would reveal some flaws. She didn't know if it was an illusion, but Zhang Yan seemed to have discovered something.

A week later, after the morning court session, Hong Guan yawned and came to the imperial study to do carpentry work according to Zhu Youxiao's custom.

Instead of studying those boring things, I was studying the Zhuge Crossbow, from hand crossbows to various sizes. Only the bed crossbow was more difficult and would take some time.

A young eunuch ran over and said, "Your Majesty, Eunuch Wei and Eunuch Zhao are here and want to see you!"

Hong Guan put down the work in his hands, picked up a piece of silk, and wiped the non-existent sweat on his forehead. "Eunuch Zhao, is it Zhao Jingzhong?"

"Yes!"

"Go let them in!"

Soon, footsteps were heard, and two people came in and were about to kneel down. Hong Guan spoke up in advance, asking them to excuse themselves. "Have you dealt with the Donglin Party?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. We have already dealt with it. We have confiscated five families. Here is the list. The total is 32 million taels of silver, 270,000 taels of gold, and some jewelry and jade. They have all been registered and sent to the inner treasury!"

While speaking, he handed a booklet to Hong Guan, which contained everything he had just said.

Hong Guan's eyes were cold. "Great, it's really great. How much is the annual salary of my ministers in the Ming Dynasty? Only five families have seized so much, while the treasury of the Ming Dynasty has always been empty. They are really good ministers!"

The two of them bowed quickly, feeling Hong Guan's momentum, cold sweat dripped down their foreheads. "Your Majesty, calm down, don't get angry and hurt yourself!"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine until I see them die! Kebaba is dead, you know that!"

Wei Zhongxian lowered his body even lower, and there was a slight tremor. "I know that I deserve death. Please forgive me, Your Majesty. I was negligent!"

Hong Guan walked over and helped Wei Zhongxian up. "You really deserve to die. You know how many things you have done without telling me, but you are still alive. Do you know why?"

"I don't know!"

"Because you are loyal to me, and because of this, you are still alive now, understand?!"

"I understand, I understand, this old servant understands. I am loyal to the emperor and will not give up even if I die."

"Come with me. I've recently developed something new. Let me show you!"

Wei Zhongxian followed Hong Guan and walked to the side. He watched Hong Guan pick up something that was made up of ten pipes connected together, and he couldn't figure out what it was used for.

"What do you think of this thing?"

"I am an old servant with poor eyesight. Your Majesty, please tell me clearly what this is."

In the entire Ming Dynasty, only Hong Guan knew this thing, because it was a wooden Gatling gun. "You can think of this thing as a crossbow, which can fire ten arrows at a time, with a power of 250 steps."

As he said this, he pointed the muzzle of the Gatling gun towards Zhao Jingzhong. Zhao Jinzhong, who had been bending over, felt his hair stand on end and his clothes on his back get soaked, but he still didn't dare to move!

Wei Zhongxian smiled and said, "It turns out to be a repeating crossbow. Although it looks strange, its range is much longer and it is more powerful than the Tatars' bows and arrows."

"Banban is right, but the use time of wood is very short. If we replace it with metal, will it be more powerful? Then we can kill the Tartars as easily as butchering dogs!"

"Your Majesty is wise, he will surely kill the Tartars like slaughtering dogs!"

Hong Guan laughed and pulled the trigger. The barrel of the gun started to turn and ten crossbow arrows were fired in succession. Zhao Jinzhong lowered his head and his eyes were rolling around when he sensed a dangerous aura and quickly looked up.

His martial arts skills were good, and he dodged five crossbow arrows in a row before being knocked down. He was spewing blood foam from his mouth and was already dying.

"Banban, my crossbow is quite powerful, but your ability to judge people is really not that good. You don't even know that someone around you has defected to the Tartars, right? Compare that to Zhao Jinzhong!"

Walking up to Zhao Jinzhong with a smile, the traitor wanted to speak again, but blood foam kept spitting out of his mouth. Soon his pupils dilated and he died unwillingly!

Wei Zhongxian fell to his knees on the ground with a thud, his body shaking continuously. This was too fucking scary. The emperor must have his own power to be able to bypass him and find out such a secret matter!

Did the emperor know about what I had done?

"This old slave deserves death, this old slave deserves death!"

"Okay, get up. If I wanted to kill you, I would have asked you to stand with Zhao Jingzhong. Go back and tell your adopted son that everything they have was given by me. If I don't give it to them, they can't take it away.

You must not oppress the people in the future. I don’t care how much they have taken, but you must take care of yourself in the future. If you dare to take advantage of me again, don’t blame me for being ruthless!”

"Yes, I know. I will definitely control them!"

"Well, find a few ruthless adopted sons, take the elite of the East Factory and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and go to Jiangnan. Make those people pay me back all the money they have embezzled from me, and squeeze them dry!

Don’t let me down this time!”

"Yes, if you can't do it well this time, I will bring my head to you!"

"Remember, you must have a legitimate reason to do this. Don't let the people misunderstand and think that it is the East Factory and the Imperial Guards who are doing evil. Got it?"

"Old slave understands!"

"Well, let's go!"

After hearing Hong Guan's words, Wei Zhongxian did not dare to stay and left quickly. Hong Guan sighed, the Ming Dynasty was rotten to the core, and he had to eat one bite at a time and not rush into things, otherwise it would cause a backlash and chaos, which would give the Tartars an opportunity to take advantage of it.

Just when Hong Guan was about to continue studying the weapon, a figure walked out from behind and looked at Hong Guan with a complicated expression.

This person is Zhang Yan. Hong Guan had forgotten that the imperial study has a back door!

Zhang Yan's expression was icy. "You are not Xiao Ge'er, who are you?"

Hong Guan did not panic. He stood up and sat on the dragon throne in front of the imperial desk, looking at Zhang Yan calmly, "I am not Zhu Youxiao, who else could it be?" Zhang Yan is just an ordinary woman. It would only take a piece of cake to kill her!

Seeing Hong Guan's appearance, Zhang Yan's eyes were filled with tears. "Is Xiao'er dead?"

Seeing her expression, Hong Guan simply stopped pretending and said, "Otherwise, why would I be sitting here?"

After getting Hong Guan's answer, Zhang Yan's tears kept falling like beads from a broken string. "Why, why did you want to kill Xiao Ge'er? Aren't you afraid of killing all your clans?"

"Haha, if I were afraid, why would I be sitting here? I'm trying to save the Ming Dynasty. You high-ranking people, how could you know how hard life is for ordinary people?

How could we know that the Tartars would invade our borders repeatedly? If we didn't do something, the Ming Dynasty would be completely finished once the Tartars advanced all the way.

I replaced Zhu Youxiao, but the world still belongs to the old Zhu family. When the world is at peace, my children will still have the surname Zhu and inherit this vast country. Isn't that good?"

Zhang Yan was so angry that she was shaking all over. She raised her finger and pointed at Hong Guan, "You are such a traitor! Aren't you afraid that I will expose you?"

Hong Guan smiled casually and said, "Why should I be afraid? As long as I want, no one in this palace can stop me. I can break out at any time.

You now have only two choices. One is to treat me as Zhu Youxiao and watch me clean away the rotten flesh on the Ming Dynasty step by step and restore the glory of the Ming Dynasty.

The second is to expose me. I would break out of the palace, form my own army, destroy the Ming Dynasty and the Tartars together, and establish a new dynasty.

Oh, by the way, your father is not a good person either. If I rebel, your whole family will die. So, my Queen, you don’t want your whole family to die and be buried with the Ming Dynasty, right?

Or would you rather watch the Ming Dynasty regain its glory and become a virtuous queen praised by the world?"

Zhang Yan bit her lip until it bled, then she gritted her teeth and said, "Despicable and shameless!" Then she seemed to accept her fate and she lost all energy.

Hong Guan saw that this great queen had already decided to die, but he didn't want Zhang Yan to die like this.

"What? Don't you want to live anymore? I think you have to live well. Otherwise, if you die, next time when Wei Zhongxian confiscates your property, I'm not sure if your Zhang family will appear on the list."

Zhang Yan stared at Hong Guan intently, tears streaming down her face again. "Okay, I will live well. I know what you want, and I will give it to you!"

As he was about to undress, Hong Guan was confused and quickly stopped him, "You think too much. I have no interest in forcing you. I want you to help me review the memorials, filter out the useless ones, and show me the useful ones. I don't have time to play with these idiots every day!"

This is really what Hong Guan is thinking. The emperors of the Zhu family work later than dogs and get up earlier than chickens. Many of them were exhausted to death. How can they be emperors? They are clearly worse off than working people. He doesn't want to be like this.

Zhang Yan blushed, and when she saw Hong Guan gave up his seat for her, she realized that Hong Guan was not lying to her. She sat down shyly and went to review memorials.

Why give this job to her? Those ministers are really not human beings. They write memorials for nothing and show their loyalty. It's bullshit. It's just like a kindergarten teacher asking children to write a diary. It's just perfunctory.

Hong Guan felt a headache after seeing this. It just so happened that Zhang Yan had nothing to do every day, so it would be nice to find something for her to do!

By the afternoon, the revision of memorials was completed. Hong Guan looked through the rest. They were all about impeaching Wei Zhongxian. None of them was serious, so he just threw them aside.

"From now on, you don't need to show me the memorials you submit to criticize Wei Zhongxian!"

"Why did you turn a blind eye to Wei Zhongxian's control of government, his disruption of the imperial court, his exclusion of dissidents, and his framing of loyal officials?"

"Haha, because he is loyal to me. If there was no Wei Zhongxian, the Donglin Party would be the only one in power, and the Ming Dynasty would be really finished!"

"Impossible, they are all loyal subjects!"

Hong Guan laughed playfully, "Loyal ministers, whose loyal ministers? Look at how well-dressed and well-fed they are, how potbellied they are, how well-fed they are, how well-fed they are, how much wealth and property they own, how much better off they are than I am, where does their money come from?

There is a booklet on the corner of the table. Take a look at it yourself and see how much the loyal ministers in your eyes have been greedy. Then talk to me!"

Zhang Yan picked up the booklet handed over by Wei Zhongxian, and her face soon turned dark. "This is impossible. It must be a trick of Wei Zhongxian."

"Haha, go to the inner treasury and take a look yourself. The gold, silver and jewelry are all in there. If Wei Zhongxian's trick can get so much gold, silver and jewelry at once, just come and have it!"

Zhang Yan was silent with just one sentence. Facts speak louder than words. She had nothing to say! Looking at this man, she didn't even know his true face, but she didn't hate him so much anymore. If the Ming Dynasty was in his hands, maybe it would really prosper!