When Tian Zhao and his men returned to the Black Iron Guards, they were greeted with cheers from those Black Iron Guards who came from poor families, as well as humiliation from the commander-in-chief who came from a noble family.

"Don't think you can be arrogant just because you have the thigh of a eunuch! We are all lowly people!"

The commander pointed at Tian Zhao's nose and cursed him arrogantly.

In the past, in order to protect his men, Tian Zhao naturally could not afford to offend the people behind the commander, so he always tolerated the commander.

Now that Tian Zhao's status has risen and he holds half of the military power, he will naturally not be as tolerant as before.

"Commander Zhang, I think you are the one who doesn't understand the situation. How did you get the position of commander? Do you need me to remind you?"

Tian Zhao may seem like a rough warrior, but he is actually very thoughtful. Even though he is recuperating in the mansion, he can sense the change in the court's direction.

Not to mention that Zhao Ji removed the big pest, the Minister of Personnel, in one fell swoop, and the people were cheering, let alone someone like Tian Zhao who had been suppressed for a long time!

Behind Commander Zhang is the Rongguo Mansion. Actually, Commander Zhang is just a bastard born in the Rongguo Mansion. He is also an unappreciated talent in the family and was thrown into the military camp.

However, because he had the support of his family and the Duke of Rong was very powerful in the court, he was able to rely on his connections to gradually swallow up the credit of people like Tian Zhao and rise to the position of chief general.

It is said that Tian Zhao is a general of the third rank, and General Zhang, as the chief general in charge of the entire Black Iron Guard, is only a general of the second rank.

Our dynasty has always valued civil officials over military officials, and civil officials and military generals do not get along with each other. Although Duke Rong has such a second-rank general, General Zhang is actually not taken seriously in the family.

Firstly, the court is peaceful now, and the military power is not used very often. Secondly, he himself has no talent and is just a person who controls people.

Tian Zhao knew very well that if he waved his arm one day, at least half of General Zhang's men would defect to him.

After a face-to-face encounter with General Zhang in the military camp, Tian Zhao discovered that General Zhang did not seem to dare to do anything to him. This suddenly ignited the ambition that had been suppressed in his heart.

That evening, Zhao Ji received a letter from Tian Zhao, a letter reporting that Commander Zhang of the Black Iron Guards had embezzled rewards from his subordinates and falsely claimed the merits of being a deputy general.

After reading the letter, Zhao Ji smiled slightly. It seemed that Tian Zhao was more capable and scheming than he had imagined.

He is not like the average general, reckless and brainless.

"Since he is willing to seize the opportunity, why not give him a hand?" Zhao Ji smiled and looked at the moon in the distance.

After all, Zhao Ji now needs his own camp with more and more people standing on it, so that it will be easier to confront the prime minister.

Zhao Ji's series of big moves had already made the Prime Minister unable to hold back any longer.

Recently, the Prime Minister's cronies have found many faults with the Imperial Household Department.

Although Zhao Ji was on high alert, not all of his men were loyal to him.

There are always some people whose weak points can be exploited by the prime minister.

Especially at a recent banquet for the emperor organized by the Imperial Household Department, a folk circus troupe actually sneaked in.

Fortunately, Zhao Ji noticed something was wrong with these people just before the performance was about to begin, and urgently changed to singing and dancing.

You have to know that there are many people in a folk circus troupe, and who knows if there will be an assassin sneaking in?

If an assassin really sneaked in and assassinated the emperor, Zhao Ji, who was mainly responsible for organizing this incident, would definitely not be able to escape.

If the emperor wants to protect him at that time, the prime minister and others can take this opportunity to suppress Zhao Ji for a period of time.

Even though Zhao Ji realized it in time and replaced the acrobatics with singing and dancing, he was still criticized by the prime minister and his followers.

It was said that Zhao Ji did not follow the originally planned performance sequence, so now there was no acrobatics, only singing and dancing.

Fortunately, the emperor was partial to Zhao Ji, so he let the matter go lightly and in the end, he only fined Zhao Ji one month's salary.

However, this incident also made Zhao Ji realize that as long as the prime minister was willing, he could even keep silent, as there would be people who wanted to curry favor with him and would come forward one after another to trip him up.

Zhao Ji looked at the message from General Zhang of the Black Iron Guard and thought with a smile: "Duke Rong is nothing more than a good dog of the Prime Minister. It's a pity that the title earned by the military merits accumulated by the predecessors has been wasted by the descendants!"

Duke Rong was initially the emperor's right-hand man. Whenever foreign tribes invaded, it was Duke Rong who led the cavalry and blasted those barbarians who did whatever they wanted on the grassland into pieces.

Those were all the hard work he put in, and that's why he was awarded the first-class title of Duke Rong.

Although it seems to be the same rank as that of the prime minister, to put it bluntly it is just a sinecure given after the military power was handed over.

Now that the old Duke Rong has passed away, the new Duke Rong clings to the Prime Minister's thigh every day and can be said to be the Prime Minister's biggest lackey.

This time, Zhao Ji helped Tian Zhao deliver the letter to the emperor. In addition to wanting to help Tian Zhao, he naturally had his own selfish motives.

If he could cause trouble for Duke Rong, he would also naturally cause trouble for the Prime Minister, and it could be regarded as a counterattack against the incident at this banquet.

Your Majesty, you haven't read the memorials for a long time. Most of the time, the memorials selected by the Imperial Household Department were not of great importance, so Your Majesty sometimes put them aside and did not read them.

At the beginning, middle and end of every month, the emperor would take a few days to carefully review the memorials.

Zhao Ji took advantage of the opportunity at the beginning of this month to put this letter in the most convenient place for the emperor.

Compared with those neatly written memorials, a thin piece of yellow paper suddenly appeared, which aroused the emperor's interest for a moment.

"This envelope doesn't look like the kind of greeting letter that some ministers who do nothing every day write. Let me see what's written on it!"

The emperor picked up the letter lazily and scanned it quickly. The more he scanned, the more he frowned.

"When did such a pest appear in the army?" The emperor frowned.

The letter was signed by Tian Zhao, whom he had some impression of a few days ago. The emperor was also familiar with General Tian, ​​who came from a poor family.

In fact, the emperor himself is aware that some of the members of the Black Iron Guard are nothing more than children of nobles who have gone there to gain experience.

When the water is too clear, there will be no fish. The emperor knew all these things, but he turned a blind eye to them.

However, the emperor was also very clear that if there was no clear reward system in an army, it would be the most disheartening thing if military merits were snatched away by others.

This is even more terrifying than having no military pay, because if people's hearts are cold, how can they motivate these soldiers to risk their lives to defend the country?

Moreover, the imperial mentality passed down by this dynasty has always emphasized fairness in the military.