374, Return to the Court
374, Return to the Court
Three days later, Lu Mingfei returned to the court and officially took up the post of Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
Without thinking, he knew that Zhao Lang must have faced a lot of opposition and overcame all objections to allow him to jump several levels and sit in the position of Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
Except for Fu Zheng who stayed in Li County to take over the affairs there, the other seniors who returned to Kyoto Prefecture with him were reinstated one after another.
Even if you cannot return to your original position, you can be transferred to another position from your original position.
In this power game with Prime Minister Wan's faction, they won their first victory at the very beginning.
He had been away from Kyoto Prefecture for less than two years, but when he returned to the court, Lu Mingfei found that the officials had changed. However, Prime Minister Wan was still sitting in the position of Prime Minister, standing firm, which showed how powerful this shrewd old Prime Minister was.
Moreover, most of the officials in the court still stand on the side of Prime Minister Wan.
Although Zhao Lang became the regent, the number of civil officials who followed Zhao Lang was far less than that of Prime Minister Wan. However, most of the civil officials followed Prime Minister Wan, while the military generals mostly stood on the side of their regent.
There were also some officials who were staunch royalists and stood on the side of the little emperor.
The situation outside was turbulent, but the political struggle in Kyoto Prefecture never stopped for a single day.
After the morning court session ended that day, the two sides met in the main hall.
Zhao Lang looked down at the old man in front of him.
Prime Minister Wan put his hands behind his back and faced him calmly, as if he knew that he could do nothing to him now.
At this time, Lu Mingfei was following Zhao Lang. He suspected that if looks could eat people, Prime Minister Wan would have eaten them long ago.
Seeing that Prime Minister Wan was only looking at Zhao Lang and not at him, Lu Mingfei knew that Prime Minister Wan never took him seriously at all.
But sometimes, when your enemy doesn't take you seriously, you have to find a sense of your own existence, even if it's just to piss them off.
So, he deliberately bowed to the Prime Minister and said hello: "Prime Minister, it's been a long time since we last met. I wonder if you still remember me?"
"Thanks to you, I had a wonderful journey to Beijun. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to return to Beijing to see you alive." Lu Mingfei mentioned this deliberately. After all, all the people sent by Prime Minister Wan to hunt him down died at his hands.
As for why Prime Minister Wan did not send anyone to hunt him down later, he thought it was probably because the deposed emperor was causing trouble in Kyoto at that time and Prime Minister Wan was too busy to deal with him.
Furthermore, Beijun was Prince Ding's territory. If Prime Minister Wan wanted to stir up trouble in Beijun, he had to consider Prince Ding's reputation and the combat effectiveness of the hundreds of thousands of Northern Guarding Army. Otherwise, he would not have been able to live so smoothly in Beijun in the next two years.
"You are just a nobody, and you think you are worthy enough to show off in front of me?" Prime Minister Wan glanced at Lu Mingfei out of the corner of his eye, flicked his sleeves, turned around and left.
As soon as Prime Minister Wan left, the officials behind him followed him.
Zhao Lang stood still, looking at Prime Minister Wan's departing back with a serious look.
As soon as Lu Mingfei saw Zhao Lang's expression, he reached out to hold Zhao Lang's hand and said with a smile, "I'll let him know if I have the qualifications to show off in front of him."
Afterwards, he actually told Prime Minister Wan the facts whether he was qualified to stand in front of him and show off his power.
***
Half a year after joining the Ministry of Revenue, Lu Mingfei, with his excellent accounting skills, found out the false accounts and evidence of corruption made by the officials of the Ministry of Revenue, and removed all the officials placed in the Ministry by Prime Minister Wan.
Of course, he didn't take down his colleagues on trumped-up charges. Every official who was removed from office had a trail of corruption evidence on his body.
In order to prove that they were not wrongly accusing good officials and arresting people without reason, he specially asked people to copy out several copies of the evidence of corruption of these officials and post them at the city gate and the entrances of major restaurants.
Let the people of the world see how much of the people’s money these parasites in the rice jar have embezzled!
"How dare you, you boy!" On the day he learned about this, Prime Minister Wan smashed one of his beloved vase at home.
At night, the housekeeper of the prime minister's residence sent people to tear down the posters inside and outside the city.
But what they didn't know was that even if they sent people to tear these things off, those who saw the evidence had already seen it, and everyone in Kyoto knew about it.
Especially the scholars who were concerned about political affairs would not sleep in the middle of the night, and would gather in groups of three or four to discuss the major events happening in the court.
If we were to say, the simplest people in this world are none other than these scholars.
When the evidence was presented before them, these scholars naturally believed it without a doubt.
Originally, many scholars sided with Prime Minister Wan, believing that the Regent, a sudden success who had relied on unorthodox methods to ascend to the position of Regent, had achieved his position. However, facts now revealed that those seemingly innocent officials were actually corrupt officials!
If they think about it again, they will suspect Prime Minister Wan who is behind these officials. If the officials below are so greedy, then Prime Minister Wan, who sits on the Prime Minister's throne, must be even more greedy.
Many scholars began to doubt their old prime minister, who had outlived several emperors and was still in office. Could it be that this old prime minister was truly devoted to the people?
The Prime Minister's Mansion is the most luxurious house in the entire Kyoto Prefecture, except for the Imperial Palace!
In Kyoto Prefecture, countless shops are owned by Prime Minister Wan's family, or they are shops and brothels and casinos owned by Prime Minister Wan's relatives.
Outside of Kyoto Prefecture, the one who occupies the largest area is their Prime Minister Wan!
In Prime Minister Wan’s hometown, the entire county’s land belongs to their Wan family!
After everyone started to calculate the assets of Prime Minister Wan's family, they suddenly discovered that Prime Minister Wan was rich enough to rival a country!
For a moment, many readers were shocked!
***
At the same time, in Prince Ding's Mansion, Lu Mingfei and their Lord Regent were sitting in the pavilion drinking and celebrating their complete control of the Ministry of Revenue.
The guard who had been out returned to report to him: "Sir, I have already arranged for someone to do what you asked me to do."
"Okay, got it. Let them continue to publicize this fact!" Lu Mingfei ordered in a good mood.
The true rumors about Prime Minister Wan were actually spread by him.
"Yes, sir." Seeing their sir waving his hand, the visitor went down.
After the guards left, there were only two of them in the pavilion.
Lu Mingfei touched Zhao Lang's glass with his own, raised his head and took a sip of wine, then laughed and said, "I wonder if Prime Minister Wan will send more assassins to kill me now that he knows what I'm doing behind the scenes."
Over the past six months, Prime Minister Wan had sent countless assassins to hunt him down, forcing him to be unable to live in his own home. He simply moved to Prince Ding's Mansion to live with Zhao Lang.
Even on the way to and from work, he always followed Zhao Lang's carriage. There was no other way, the enemy sent too many cockroaches, and he was afraid that he would be bitten by these poisonous cockroaches if he was not careful.
After all, you only have one life, and if you lose it, it’s really gone.
So for the sake of his own safety, Lu Mingfei had to hold tightly onto the thigh of their Lord Regent.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here. I won't let them hurt you at all." Zhao Lang raised his hand and rubbed Lord Lu's head.
"Thank you, my Lord Regent." Lu Mingfei leaned his head on Zhao Lang's shoulder. He knew that Zhao Lang had sent many people to cause trouble for Prime Minister Wan.
For them, this can be considered as an attack on each other at most.
But for now, none of them has defeated the opponent.
Of course, it wasn't that they didn't have the ability to kill Prime Minister Wan in one blow. It was that they couldn't kill him all at once. After all, Prime Minister Wan had many officials on his side, and many scholars who trusted him. Killing such a person would cause unrest in Kyoto Prefecture.
Therefore, in order to bring down such a person, the most important thing they have to do is to strip off his outer clothes one by one, so that everyone can see what kind of person is inside this old fox in human skin!
"It's not without benefits for us to raid the homes of these corrupt officials at once. At least there will be money in the national treasury. If we can raid Prime Minister Wan's house, we should be able to find more things." During this period of time, a lot of things were really seized by raiding homes, and the originally empty national treasury finally had some money back.
As for the corrupt officials and their families who were captured, Lu Mingfei wrote a letter directly to the Regent at home, asking the Regent to spare the lives of these corrupt officials and send them all to Li County to repair the city.
Although he was no longer the magistrate of Li County, he still cared about the people of Beijun. If the city there could be built sooner, the people of Beijun would have a place to hide when the Hu cavalry marched south.
However, what made him happiest was that after arresting a group of officials, a lot of unowned land appeared outside the city of Kyoto.
"After the spring of next year, I plan to rent these lands to landless people for cultivation. This way, the people in the Gyeonggi region will have land to farm and food to eat. It will also solve the problem of food shortage in the Gyeonggi region."
"What we need to do now is to take the land away from these officials who hold large amounts of land."
"Oh, yes, I also asked the managers in charge of agricultural affairs to compile some basic agricultural information into books, found storytellers in teahouses to promote these booklets, and sent people to the countryside to promote them..." Lu Mingfei counted on his fingers and listed the things he had worked hard to do in the past six months.
The purpose of his doing all these things was to hope that the people in trouble could find a way to save themselves. After all, with the current situation of the court, it was almost impossible to come up with money to help the poor people.
However, he believed that if the people of their nation were given a little hope, they would be able to grasp that hope and survive.
"When the time comes, as long as..."
Before he could finish his words, his mouth was blocked by someone.
"Mmm!" What are you doing? I haven't even finished my sentence! Lu Mingfei stared at the man who suddenly kissed him.
Zhao Lang reached out and covered Lord Lu's eyes. Even when Lord Lu's little mouth was chattering non-stop, he wanted to kiss their Lord Lu.
And what he is doing to their family's Lord Lu now is just following his heart.
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