Chapter 1443 Hai Rui Gives Gifts

Hai Rui still looked the same, wearing a half-worn robe with gray cuffs and elbows. He walked in with his back straight, holding a small red cloth bundle in his hand.

There was a yellow "囍" character embroidered on the bundle, which was obviously a gift for him.

"My mother asked my wife and Han to embroider some insoles for you. Hai'an made you some Yuliang incense and candles that are only available in Qiongzhou. Light them on your wedding night and the fragrance will fill the room and help cheer you up." He didn't prepare a gift list, but directly handed the bundle to Zhao Hao. After a pause, he said, "There is also an ox horn comb... I made it myself."

"Oh, thank you so much, Madam, Auntie, and Uncle Hai. Zhong Cheng is so polite." Zhao Hao quickly took it with both hands and said happily, "This is really a great honor for me. I will write it into the family tree in the future."

"Nothing. I'm no longer the governor of Yingtian, so the last thing I lack is time." Hai Rui said calmly, "So I can do some meaningless things."

"It's still quite meaningful." Zhao Hao said with a wry smile.

He found out last month that just after Hai Rui had been in office as the governor of Yingtian for three years, the court immediately issued an edict to promote him to the position of Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing and Governor-General of Grain Storage.

Yes, that was exactly Zhao Liben’s original official position.

The promotion from governor to vice minister was a high promotion. Although he was the vice minister of Nanjing, the governor of grain storage was at least one of the few powerful people in the six southern ministries, and no one could say that he was demoted.

But if you taste it carefully, this doesn't taste like a promotion at all...

In fact, it was not just Hai Rui. Any official who had close ties with Zhao Hao had bad luck this year.

There is no need to mention the Prime Minister of Hedao, Pan Jixun.

Uncle Wu Shilai was also impeached by the censor in July for recommending the wrong person. He lost his post as the censor of Caojiang and returned to his hometown to live a leisurely life.

When an official of the Ming Dynasty committed a crime, the person who recommended him would indeed bear joint responsibility, but generally he would only be fined, and demotion was rare. Everyone in the officialdom had to recommend juniors, so who could guarantee that the person they recommended would not get into trouble? The result of beating someone to death with one blow was that no one dared to recommend him again.

Therefore, the punishment for Wu Shilai was obviously too severe.

The elder brother, Zhao Jin, was transferred from the Dali Temple to the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works. Although he was also a third-rank official, he was dropped from the list of the Nine Ministers. Other things were secondary. The most fatal thing was that he lost the power to attend court meetings, cast a sacred vote, decide on the appointment of senior officials above the fourth rank, and make decisions on military and national affairs.

Not only did senior officials suffer bad luck, but even rising core members such as Wang Xijue were targeted.

Originally, Chef Wang had already opened his own workshop and entered the fast lane of the transfer of Hanlin officials. In addition, Emperor Longqing finally gave in to the matter of the crown prince leaving the palace to study, and the court and the public had the highest support for him to be appointed as the lecturer of the Eastern Palace. He could be said to be the hottest star in the court.

Unexpectedly, the situation took a turn for the worse. Just last month, an imperial decree came down from the court, shocking Chef Wang. He was demoted to Nanjing Hanlin Academy as the Right Imperial Edict! He actually became the leader of a guy like Hua Shuyang who had been eating empty salaries and being sick for a long time. It was like he had fallen from the clouds into the pit.

The frequent occurrence of these bad things was obviously not accidental. If it weren't for the fact that his idol's father-in-law was already the second assistant, and Lin Run had just taken office and was also Gao Ge Lao's man, the high-ranking officials in Zhao Hao's core circle of friends would have been completely cleared out.

Zhao Hao knew very well that this was a blow against him. And there was only one person who had the ability and motivation to do this.

That was the Prime Minister and Heavenly Official of the current dynasty, the most powerful civil official since the founding of the country - Gao Gong Gao Suqing!

Why did Gao Gong do this? Zhao Hao naturally knew it. Why did he flee the capital in a hurry? Wasn't it because Gao Gong wanted to set up a shipping office and asked the Royal Shipping to give up half of its share?

Zhao Hao would never agree to such a thing. How much did he spend to straighten out the mess on the sea? How many battles had he fought for it? How much money had he spent and how many people had died? How could he give up half of his share just because of Gao Huzi's words?

In fact, losing half of the share is not the most troublesome thing. The most troublesome thing is that everyone will be finished. The most frightening thing in this world is the inconsistency of power and responsibility. If you only enjoy power but do not bear the corresponding responsibility, or only bear the responsibility but do not enjoy enough benefits, it will eventually lead to big trouble!

In the Age of Discovery, monopoly is life. If you can’t monopolize, you will die…

In short, he will never give in, no matter who dares to do so!

But Zhao Hao was no match for Gao Huzi, who was unrivaled in his abilities, and had no way of fighting him.

Not to mention that the hope of victory is very slim.

Even if we win, we will kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of our own, or even kill one thousand enemies and lose twelve hundred of our own!

Because it would leave a bad impression in the court and the public. The reason is simple. When the other party is the teacher whom the emperor regards as his father, the prime minister and the minister of the Ministry of Personnel, and has so many top-level official titles, you still dare to challenge him. This in itself shows that you are arrogant and domineering to the point of disrespecting the emperor and the court. In this way, no matter who is the emperor or who is the prime minister, they will definitely regard you as a thorn in their eyes and a thorn in their flesh!

Think about it, when Xu Ge Lao was Gao Gong's superior, he just secretly started the trend of overthrowing Gao Gong, and he never showed off in public, but was regarded as "disrespectful to the emperor" by Emperor Longqing, who didn't want to see him again for a day. If Zhao Hao dared to fight Gao Gong in his current form, what would happen to his image and that of Jiangnan Group!

So Zhao Hao thought about it and decided that running away was the best strategy! If I can't afford to offend you, no one will think I'm domineering, right? And Zhao Hao didn't say anything final. He asked his father-in-law to tell Gao Gong that they could talk when he came back to get married at the end of the year.

Even a blind man could see that this was a delaying tactic, but considering the status of Mr. Zhao at that time, and the fact that he also gave key support to Gao Gong in Altan's tribute, Zhao Hao felt that Gao Huzi would at most hit him a few times, and would not do anything too extreme...

However, this spring, the Yellow River burst its banks again, and the canal transportation was completely ruined. This was something Zhao Hao had never expected. This time, the bank burst also made Gao Gong determined not to wait until he had a deal with Zhao Hao before making preparations. He wanted to make things a done deal first, and he didn't believe that Zhao Hao and the Jiangnan Group would dare to try to stop a chariot with their bare hands!

Gao Gong then ordered the Qingjiang Shipyard in Huai'an, the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing, and the Suzhou Shipyard in Taicang to produce 400 ships within a year! He also ordered the selection of sailors who knew the wind and waves and were good at water from the Caoding to serve as the future shipping office!

But what Gao Gong didn't expect was that his actions, which were intended to put pressure on Zhao Hao, made the canal workers furious! For a time, rumors spread on both sides of the canal that the court wanted to completely abolish canal transportation and switch to sea transportation! This affected the interests of too many people. The merchants and people along the canal did not agree, because if they switched to sea transportation, the prefectures along the canal would definitely decline.

Millions of boatmen and their families disagreed, because there were only more than 10,000 boatmen transported by sea, and at most 20,000, which meant that 95% of the boatmen would be unemployed!

The Luojiao sect also strongly opposed it. Li Chunfang had warned Gao Gong long ago that the families of the canal workers and the people along the canal generally believed in the Luojiao sect. The Luojiao sect's roots were in the canal and the canal workers, so no matter from which angle they would strongly oppose the change of the canal transport office to the maritime transport office.

Although Gao Gong kept these words in mind, he was still careless. He did not expect Luo Jiao's reaction to be so intense.

Under such circumstances, even if the shipping office offered three times the salary for food and work, no conscripts dared to sign up. Working together to ruin shipping was the main theme.

As for the nobles in Nanjing, Gao Gong thought that at least they would support him and go to the sea to get a share. However, he didn't know that every household had hostages on Xishan Island, so who would dare to provoke the Jiangnan Group again? So they also stood on the side of the canal workers and firmly opposed the cancellation of the canal transport.

So in May, the angry boatmen rushed into the Qingjiang Shipyard and burned all the ships under construction. Not satisfied with their anger, they robbed the ships built by the Qingjiang Shipyard, went south along the canal to the Yangtze River, rushed into the Longjiang Treasure Shipyard, and set it on fire again... It was because of that fire that the newly appointed treasure shipyard supervisor Yang Mi was dismissed from his post and investigated by the court, and the Caojiang Censor Wu who recommended him was also implicated and resigned.

In fact, the boatmen wanted to burn the Suzhou Shipyard again, but they were stopped in Zhenjiang by Wu Shilai's river defense fleet and did not get to Taicang.

The turmoil had been going on for two months. Seeing that the counties on both sides of the canal were about to rebel under the leadership of Luo Jiao, Gao Gong reluctantly asked the Ministry of Revenue to issue a document to clarify that the change from canal transportation to sea transportation was a fabrication. The original agreement signed between the Ministry of Revenue and the Jiangnan Group would not change. A maximum of 2 million dan of grain could be transported by sea each year. After the canal transportation was restored, the amount of sea transportation would be reduced to 100,000 dan!

The chaos gradually subsided...

This was the first time Gao Gong had been humiliated since his comeback, and he had to take some action to maintain his image of wisdom and invincibility. But for the time being, he did not dare to provoke the Caoding and Luojiao, who had just been appeased, so he turned his spearhead towards Zhao Hao's faction and began to attack the senior officials who had close ties with him.

This way, the government and the opposition could avoid misjudgment that Gao Huzi had become a soft persimmon. Secondly, he had long been very wary of Zhao Hao and the Jiangnan Gang. By bringing down a wave of protective umbrellas, he could not only weaken the other side, but also create bargaining chips for the year-end negotiations with Zhao Hao. Thirdly, this could strongly hint to the government and the opposition that the rebellion of Cao Ding was the work of the Jiangnan Group behind the scenes, smearing their image and laying the foundation for further crackdowns on Zhao Hao and the Jiangnan Gang.

So of course we have to do it in a big way!

In fact, Zhao Hao insisted on returning to Nanjing and Suzhou this time, also to appease his followers, to let them know that the sky will not fall, and he has it covered!

~~

If these things happened under normal circumstances, Zhao Hao and Hai Rui would definitely have a good chat about them.

But now was obviously not the time to talk about this, so Hai Rui hesitated and said, "You are getting married, so I won't spoil your fun and will go back."

"Goodbye, Mr. Hai." Zhao Hao nodded and sent Hai Rui to the door.

Hai Rui was about to step over the threshold, but he pulled his foot back. He couldn't help himself, and turned back to Zhao Hao and said in a deep voice: "Let me just say one thing. The lives of the people in Jiangnan have been getting better and better over the past three years. This shows that our path is not an evil one, and we must not give up halfway!"

"Don't worry, Zhongcheng. I will never allow anyone to change their ways!" Zhao Hao nodded heavily and made his promise: "This time when I go to Beijing, I will definitely solve the problem of Gao Gelao!"

"Yes." Hai Rui still trusted Zhao Hao very much. After hearing what he said, his expression eased a little and he said, "I wish you a son soon."

After saying this, he disappeared into the twilight...

p.s. I have been sleepy all day today, so I will only update once. I will go to bed early and resume normal updating tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)