The main hall of the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the Forbidden City is magnificent.

The floor is paved with golden bricks, the joints of which are polished and coated with tung oil, making them as smooth and delicate as black jade.

The intricate caisson on the ceiling depicts a majestic coiled dragon pattern, and below the caisson hangs a high plaque with four powerful characters "Chongxian Shangde" inscribed on it.

Under the plaque, in front of a gilded dragon-carved screen, Emperor Longqing, wearing a black gauze scarf with the corners folded upward, a red round-necked, narrow-sleeved robe, and a jade belt around his waist, sat on the dragon throne with a listless look, staring blankly outside the palace door.

Under the seven-tiered gilded throne, the ministers were arguing again. He felt deeply annoyed every time this happened. Why did they always quarrel no matter what they were discussing?

These high-ranking officials wearing python and jade clothes usually boast of their first-class Qi cultivation skills. Aren't they very graceful in the government office and in front of their subordinates? Why do they like to quarrel in front of me? Do they regard the Qianqing Palace as a decompression room? Do they still want me to smile for them?

Well, if you pay me, it's not impossible to negotiate.

Buzz, I feel so annoyed. I want to go back and read...

Fortunately, the emperor's distraction did not affect the ministers' enthusiasm for quarreling, or speaking. Anyway, they were used to the Emperor Longqing's distracted and dozing off during court meetings, with a dull look on his face. There was even a rumor that his majesty had an IQ problem...

But it doesn't matter. Anyway, the officials of the Ming Dynasty have long been accustomed to not relying on the emperor for decision-making. If we replace him with an emperor who likes to interrupt, everyone will be uncomfortable. So it's good this way. The Holy Son of Heaven sits on the throne and serves as his mascot. The affairs of state are left to us, the capable and loyal officials.

The brackets refer only to civil servants who come from legitimate backgrounds; military generals and eunuchs are not considered human beings.

~~

The important issue discussed at today's imperial meeting is how to control the Yellow River and restore water transport?

To this end, three cabinet ministers, Minister of Revenue Liu Tijian, Minister of Works Zhu Heng, two river officials Pan Jixun and Weng Dali who returned to Beijing overnight, Governor of the Grand Canal Zhao Kongzhao, as well as the Imperial Censor of Engineering and the doctor in charge of the South River in the Ministry of Works, and more than 20 court officials gathered before the emperor to discuss countermeasures.

The food and grass for the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty capital were all supplied by the Grand Canal, but the Grand Canal runs north-south and the Yellow River runs east-west, so the two must have intersected. The Yellow River, which runs for thousands of miles, carries a huge amount of silt, which naturally always causes a huge impact on the weak artificial canal.

This led to an inevitable bad consequence - the court's standard for evaluating the effectiveness of river management was not whether the river was unobstructed and flowing smoothly, but whether the canal transportation was unobstructed. If the canal transportation was blocked, no matter how good the river management was, it would be a crime. As long as the canal transportation could be preserved, no matter how badly the Yellow River flooded, it would be a great achievement.

Therefore, the responsibilities of the two yamen, river engineering and water transport, were intertwined, with unclear division of labor and mutual buck-passing. The contradictions were very sharp, and when problems arose, they would shift the blame to the other yamen.

Especially the overbearing Canal Transport Office, whenever the canal transport was delayed or a ship was damaged or sunk, they would use the inconvenience of the river as an excuse to push all the responsibility onto the Canal Transport Office. This time was no exception.

Then he heard the Governor of the Grand Canal, Zhao Kongzhao, complaining to the court in a righteous manner about how the river administration offices were usually perfunctory in their work, cutting corners, treating the symptoms without planning, and resulting in the entire 600-mile river being silted up as soon as the Yellow River burst its banks!

Therefore, the interruption of our water transport is the fault of the River Transport Office. The court should punish the river department, which has nothing to do with our Water Transport Office.

The current river director Weng Dali certainly could not allow his opponent to put the blame on him, so he refuted each point with a red face. He said that he and his colleagues in river engineering worked diligently and strictly followed the plan, and never cut corners. The reason for the breach was, first, the rare peach blossom flood, and second, the Huaihe River, which was under the jurisdiction of the Canal Transport Office, was not dredged and the estuary was seriously silted up, which led to the poor water discharge in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and finally the breach in Pei County!

So it’s not the fault of our River Office, it’s caused by the negligence of your Water Transport Office!

This is not far-fetched. In order to solve the problem of overlapping jurisdictions of the two yamen, some genius stipulated that the area north of Tianfei Sluice Gate in Huai'an would be under the jurisdiction of the River Channel Yamen, and the area south of Tianfei Sluice Gate would be under the jurisdiction of the Canal Transport Yamen. As a result, the Huaihe River was under the jurisdiction of the Canal Transport Yamen.

Because the Huai River was diverted to flow into the sea, the mouth of the Yellow River was also under the jurisdiction of the Grain Transport Office, not the River Channel Office.

For the River Administration, this was the perfect excuse to shirk responsibility.

So the two sides argued back and forth, and the situation became a mess in front of the emperor.

~~

Zhang Juzheng stood under the golden platform, watching Zhao Kongzhao and Weng Dali fighting like cocks, and felt a splitting headache from the noise.

If this was a meeting on military affairs or criminal law that he was in charge of, he would have called for a halt long ago. But the Ministry of Works was not under his charge, and if he interrupted rashly, it would only upset the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister.

However, the Prime Minister Li Chunfang, who was standing next to him, looked as serene as a kind old mother, without any sign of annoyance on his face. Perhaps this was the Prime Minister's demeanor in the mind of the top scholar...

Thinking of this, Mr. Zhang was so depressed that he wanted to vomit blood. He risked being criticized and finally sent away the amiable Mr. Xu, but who knew that the unmovable old lady Li would come up again.

Li Chunfang's problem was not his ability, but he was too clear-headed and too careful about his reputation. Such a person is not fit to be the Prime Minister, but he joined hands with Chen Yiqin to prevent Gao Suqing from coming out of retirement, which was a good move. Zhang Juzheng thought to himself, if he had known this, he might as well let Xu Ge Lao continue to work...

Chen Yiqin, the deputy assistant in charge of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works, looked impatient at this time. However, he knew nothing about river engineering and tried to make a judgment but failed, which only intensified the argument.

Bu Gu's body floated without wind, and he finally couldn't help but cough lightly, and glanced coldly at Weng Dali who was breathing sweet words.

"What kind of place is this? How dare you speak such foul language?" Zhang Juzheng's majestic voice rang out.

"I was disrespectful in front of you." Prime Minister Weng lost his temper and apologized quickly, but he couldn't help muttering, "Minister Zhao also used bad words..."

"Fuck!" Zhao Kongzhao cursed in his heart, and had no choice but to apologize as well.

"Stop arguing. There's nothing new to say." Zhang Juzheng said coldly, "The responsibility for the dam breach will be investigated by the Ministry of Justice. You should stop shirking responsibility and talk about how to deal with it first."

"That's right." Chen Yiqin nodded, and quickly took over the conversation, saying to Pan Jixun, who had been silent the whole time, "Pan Zhongcheng has already gone to the river bank and conducted an on-site inspection. You can say a few words.

After hearing the end of the quarrel, Emperor Longqing calmed down and finally set his eyes on Pan Jixun.

Pan Jixun reported the results of the field investigation in detail, and concluded: "After the Yellow River burst its dike in Pei County, more than ten counties downstream were affected. Because the river water flowed out of the way, the Grand Canal north of Xuzhou was blocked for 600 miles. The Qingou and Zhuohe mouths were silted up, floods flowed, and the water depth on the flat ground was more than ten feet."

After a pause, he ignored the shocked looks of Zhao Kongzhao and Weng Dali, and reported in a deep voice: "Since Huai'an, the entire Huanghuai River system has completely collapsed and has almost no water output capacity. It must be thoroughly dredged, otherwise any flood in the future will cause serious flooding, and water transport will be almost impossible."

Pan Zhongcheng's calm tone made the emperor and his ministers shudder.

Zhao Kongzhao and Weng Dali were even more furious, cursing Pan Jixun in their hearts for breaking the rules and ruining their own show!

Oh, you have been in mourning for three years, and you took on the task at a critical moment, but you have no responsibility at all. We have been in office for a long time! Are you trying to remove our official hats on the spot by lifting the lid at this time?

As expected, upon hearing that the canal transportation might be completely cut off, Longqing no longer cared about practicing his silent meditation, and hurriedly sat up and asked, "Is the canal transportation going to be cut off for several years?"

"Your Majesty, don't panic. Minister Pan is worrying too much," Weng Dali said hurriedly, "The reason why the canal is blocked is mainly because the Yellow River burst its banks, causing the canal to lose water supply and the water level to drop, forcing the canal ships to move north. We only need to plug the breach, dredge the silt, and restore the canal water supply to solve the current problem. Then the canal ships can move in, and the embankments and dams along the river can be slowly repaired. There is no need to worry about the overall situation."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" Zhao Kongzhao also quickly echoed, "I have already worked with Anyuan Hou to come up with an emergency plan. On the one hand, we will do our best to dredge the canal, and on the other hand, we will temporarily switch to smaller grain ships to transport grain north in half a year. We will be able to resume grain transport soon!"

The two men who had just fought each other to the point of their brains being mixed together have now united as one.

"It's already this late, and you're still hoping for a lucky break?!" Pan Jixun stamped his feet anxiously. He pointed at the two of them and said angrily, "The problem is at the root. What's the point of just treating the surface? This year, a little peach blossom water has poisoned the Huanghuai River to this extent. It shows that the river engineering situation has deteriorated to the extreme. It has to be treated from the root!"

He couldn't help but say loudly, "Even if you can barely restore the canal transportation, can you withstand the wheat flood in April, the melon flood in May, and the even more severe summer flood?"

Weng Dali was silent. His wishful thinking was to get through this first, and then throw the burden to Pan Jixun, and in the future, he would not care about wheat yellow water or melon vine water.

I didn't expect Lao Pan to be so arrogant. He would not take the blame even if it broke the rules.

"How do you know if you don't try?" After all, Zhao Kongzhao had less responsibility, so he still insisted.

"Do you dare to issue a military order?!" Pan Jixun's hair and beard stood on end, his eyes widened, and he glared at the second-rank governor of the grain transport system.

Zhao Kongzhao was actually suppressed by him and dared not say a word.

The officials in the hall couldn't help but look at him sideways, secretly gasping in amazement. How come Old Pan, after three years of mourning, has become so tough again? Who gave him the courage and confidence?

Now the Minister of Works Zhu Heng could no longer sit back and relax. Although he and Weng Dali did not get along, he did not agree with Pan Jixun's ideas. If the emperor really followed Pan's ideas, Zhu would be so angry that he would die.

So he left the class and said in a deep voice: "Pan Zhongcheng loves to exaggerate. He still can't change this habit after so many years."

Zhang Juzheng sighed inwardly when he heard this. Well, it's about to start again...

ps. Today it's the little monk's turn to catch a cold from the air conditioner, so the update is a little late, sorry.