That evening, a group of officials discussed the matter at Ouyang Yijing's house until midnight, and finally decided to go to the cabinet today to collectively seek an explanation.

Because Ouyang Yijing was hit on the head with a stick, a big bump appeared on his forehead. He had to take a leave of absence tomorrow and leave the leadership responsibility to several other section chiefs.

It was already four o'clock in the morning when we came out of the house where we cursed God.

The officials did not go home to disturb the emperor, but went directly to the duty room outside the Meridian Gate to sleep for the night, ready to go in as soon as the palace gate opened.

The next morning, the wind was very noisy.

The officials filed out of the duty room and, led by the section chiefs, came to the Meridian Gate. After checking their badges, they entered the palace from the Zuoye Gate.

Huiji Gate, which leads to the Cabinet, is not far to the northeast of Zuoye Gate.

The thirty-six officials were silent, with solemn expressions, and soon they arrived in front of the Huiji Gate.

Then they saw Lu Yong, Gao Xiang, Tao Jin and Xu Yi suddenly flash out from Huiji Gate and block their way.

"What are you going to do?!" When enemies meet, they become extremely jealous of each other, Section Chief Zhu asked in a stern voice.

"What are you going to do?!" The four men seemed to have completely forgotten who had beaten them up and made them cry for their parents yesterday. They just stood there in front of the Huiji Gate, not allowing the officials to pass.

"You want to complain to the cabinet? No way!"

"Get out of the way!" The officials were naturally not afraid of being defeated. They walked straight forward and stretched out their hands to push the four people away.

"Do you want to be the first to complain?" Lü Yong and his four men were ready to block their passage with their arms outstretched, and they shouted:

"Don't go in, don't go in!"

"Fuck you!" Shi Xing, a tall and strong official from the Ministry of Personnel, finally lost his patience and slapped Xu Yi hard on the chest.

"Ah..." Xu Yi screamed in pain, his body flew backwards, and lay on the ground motionless, actually fainted.

The other censors were also stunned. They looked at Xu Yi lying on the ground, then at Shi Xing with his hand suspended in the air, and thought, what a master.

"Huh?" Shi Xing also looked at his own palm, thinking to himself, could it be that I have mastered the Iron Sand Palm by accident?

Unexpectedly, before they could come to their senses, they heard Lu Yong and the other two shouting at the top of their lungs: "The censor is beating someone, come and help!"

Before he finished his words, he saw hundreds of young and strong eunuchs rushing out from behind the Huiji Gate, each holding a thick and long stick in their hands!

The censors’ eyes almost popped out.

Oh my god, even this dead eunuch can use tricks!

The eunuchs rushed up in a flash, wielding sticks and beating anyone they saw, and knocked down more than ten censors in the first encounter.

Screams echoed through the Huiji Gate, and the censors hurriedly raised their arms and legs to block and resist. But how could they be a match for the thick and hard wooden stick?

Seeing his colleagues being knocked down one after another like wheat being cut, Section Chief Zhu shouted:

"Run, scatter! Oh..."

Before he could finish his words, he fell to the ground, covering his face and rolling around.

The censors were running around like headless flies. When they heard the voice, they ran towards the Wenhua Hall and the Meridian Gate.

The eunuchs were chasing after him, waving sticks, and no one paid attention to Chief Zhu who was rolling on the ground.

Hearing the shouting and footsteps fading away, Section Chief Zhu opened his fingers and peeked around, wanting to confirm whether the surroundings were really safe.

Unexpectedly, he ran into Xu Yi, who was lying on the ground pretending to be dead, and he secretly opened his eyes and looked around.

As luck would have it, their eyes met.

After checking their eyes, they are all pretending to be dead...

Both of them couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed and turned their heads away involuntarily.

Suddenly, Section Chief Zhu got up and ran, and Xu Yi also got up and chased after him.

"Stop, you shameless bastard!"

"You still have the nerve to say that about others..."

~~

Wenyuan Pavilion.

The three university scholars were in Zhang Juzheng's duty room, discussing the events of yesterday.

"This is the situation," Zhang Juzheng first made a simple summary of the news, and linked together a series of incidents such as 'the censors impeached Zhao Hao in their books', 'the secretaries colluding everywhere', 'the top scholar beat up the young cabinet minister', and 'the eunuch ambushed and counterattacked' to the two grand secretaries.

"Uh..." Li Chunfang and Chen Yiqin both felt their heads buzzing. Officials of their generation had never experienced the baptism of the Great Ceremony Debate era, so how could they have seen such a complicated and chaotic court situation?

Even the Four Yuezhong Remonstrants who overthrew Yan, the Three Sons of Wuwu, and even Hai Rui who wrote "Speaking Straight on the Most Important Thing in the World", were just individual acts, and did not cause the current chaos that affects the entire body.

What's worse is that they have to clean up this situation...

Because all of this was essentially Lord Xu's admonition to the three of them.

After a long silence, Chen Yiqin asked with some difficulty: "Is the young minister okay?"

"It shouldn't be a big deal." Zhang Juzheng saw through the illusion created by Xu Fan at a glance and said:

"Zhao Shouzheng is a scholar who has never practiced martial arts. How can he be beaten by just three or five blows with bare hands? I don't think the damage done to him by the spit is greater than that caused by him."

"Alas, the young minister is lying there, dying or alive, all depends on the situation." Li Chunfang rubbed his temple and said, "I don't think he will let Zhao Shouzheng off easily."

"I think the beating was too light!" Chen Yiqin said with a look of relief, "It was this idiot who stirred up trouble everywhere, and even implicated the cabinet. The memorials piled up like a mountain, and the court was on the verge of losing control."

"Alas, Yan Shifan wipes the butt of Lord Yan, but our young Lord only wipes the shit on Lord Xu." The gentle and elegant Li Chunfang was also very annoyed and actually said such words.

"By the way, what does Yuanfu mean?" After sighing for a while, Chen Yiqin asked Zhang Juzheng again.

Zhang Juzheng shook his head and said in a low voice: "The Prime Minister has not given any instructions. We should just do it ourselves."

"According to the Criminal Law, it should be punished according to the rule of 'officials of the ninth rank and above assaulting superiors.'" Chen Yiqin was familiar with the law and said casually: "Any official of the ninth rank and above in the exile system who assaults an official of the third rank and above who is not under his jurisdiction shall be punished with 60 strokes of the cane and one year of imprisonment."

"He was chosen as the top scholar just one month ago, but he was given 60 strokes of the cane and a year of imprisonment?" Li Chunfang could not help but frown and said, "It's a disgrace to the court."

The top scholar is the pearl that I found among the failed papers. He is going to become a legend for all ages. How can he be thrown into the trash so easily?

"We have to find him first." Zhang Juzheng said calmly, "I heard that the Five Cities Army searched the entire city yesterday but couldn't find him."

Bu Gu laughed and said, "And yesterday, Master Yin handed him a note to the Ministry of Personnel, saying that before he left, he had already applied for a six-month leave from the Hanlin Academy."

Officials in the Ming Dynasty had very few menstrual leaves, but they were extremely relaxed regarding sick leave and personal leave.

Especially for newly-appointed scholars, they could often be given half a year to return home to worship their ancestors, visit relatives, marry and have children, and make up for what they had missed out on studying.

"Hey, that's good too. Let's stay out of the spotlight first." Chen Yiqin said with a smile when he heard that.

"Yeah." Li Chunfang also nodded without objection.

Yin Shidan was Zhao Shouzheng's deputy examiner. It is still a question whether this leave note was written in advance or added afterwards.

However, the three grand secretaries had no intention of delving into it further and thought that it was all written by Zhao Shouzheng in advance.

It can be seen that the top scholar's boxing skills are very satisfying!

Just as the three were talking about the eunuch ambushing Ouyang Yijing, they saw a secretary running in in a panic.

"My husband, something bad has happened. A fight has broken out..."

ps. Fourth update, 12400 votes plus more, please give me monthly votes, recommendation votes...

ps2. The story of a hundred eunuchs ambushing the censor is true, but it has been artistically processed.