Hai Rui's change of mind made Zhao Hao so happy that he jumped for joy and ate his breakfast especially deliciously.

Zhao Liben's dentures were stuck to the corn by corn. He couldn't move his chopsticks in front of the table full of delicious food prepared by Qiaoqiao. He could only drink some thin porridge to fill his stomach.

The old man reminded his grandson unhappily, "Don't be too happy. Is Hai cold? He is still shrinking..."

It turned out that not only could he not eat, but he also had a lisp.

"Puchi..." Zhao Shouye spat out a mouthful of porridge, and Zhao Hao also laughed while holding his stomach.

The maids serving on the side have all been specially trained and normally would not laugh unless they couldn't help themselves.

"What are you laughing at? You have no sympathy at all. You are worse than a child!" Zhao Liben was so angry that his beard stood up straight. He pointed at his little granddaughter who was busy eating and said, "Kang Kang, Xiao Yun'er is not ashamed of me!"

Xiao Yuner was rarely praised by her grandfather and grinned. It turned out that she was in the process of changing her teeth and also had no front teeth.

"Uh..." The old man rolled his eyes, slammed the table and shouted at the housekeeper: "Why hasn't the dentist come yet? I'm going to be mad even if I'm not hungry!"

After saying that, he went back to his room angrily and ignored anyone.

~~

An hour later, the dentist re-inserted Zhao Liben's dentures. The old man then opened his mouth again and asked Zhao Hao with a dark face:

"The list of candidates has been finalized. How are you going to add Hai Rui to the list?"

"As long as someone quits, that's all." Zhao Hao brought a bowl of sweet tofu pudding made by Qiaoqiao to his grandfather and said with a flattering smile, "The dentist told me not to eat hard food within three days."

"Humph, that's better." Zhao Liben glanced at him and calmed down a little. He ate tofu pudding from a thin porcelain bowl and asked, "Who are you going to ask to quit?"

"Among the four candidates chosen by Lord Xu, I can try to persuade three of them." Zhao Hao thought, "I have an appointment with Uncle Wu to meet at Longjiang Shipyard this afternoon. I will try to persuade him first then."

"You have persuaded three people to back off, so why not try harder and make them all back down?" Zhao Liben suggested in a cold voice.

"Ah, so sad?" Zhao Hao opened his mouth wide. "I'm afraid my grandson can't do it."

"It's nothing, just going with the flow. Everyone knows that it's not easy to be the next governor of Yingtian. If you don't do it well, you will be ruined. They will only thank you."

Zhao Liben finally regained some of his dignity as a grandfather and proudly broke it down for his grandson.

He told Zhao Hao that you are the one who is in charge, so you think that everyone would covet the position of Yingtian Governor. But in fact, for the four people on the list, it is not necessarily rare.

Wu Shilai was in charge of the Yangtze River, and Zou Yinglong was in charge of the salt industry. They were both clean and well-paid, and they were both top-notch lucrative positions. They would not be replaced even if they were given a governor-general. Who would care about a governor-general?

Even if Jiang Bao, a fourth-rank official at the Nanjing Imperial College, could become a third-rank governor, it would be considered a three-level promotion. This should be something he would have loved to have, right?

But he is pursuing the path of a Hanlin scholar, and his goal is to become an official in the Ministry of Rites. Being an official in a local government will not help his career much and will only expose his weaknesses, so he will not be very interested in it.

Only Cao Sanyang, who was the governor in the mountain valley at the junction of four provinces, would really cherish this governor of Yingtian. But at the end of last year, he was driven out of the capital by the emperor from the position of Shuntian prefect because he helped the nine families to settle a dispute, so he ended up in that hellish place.

If you scare him a little, he will probably not dare to get involved in this mess again.

After hearing what the old man said, Zhao Hao suddenly understood, it seemed to be true.

"But Grandpa, if we really remove the four people from Lord Xu's list, wouldn't it be a bit too high-profile?" Young Master Zhao always remembers the nine-word principle of his dynasty's Taizu and never wants to attract too much attention.

"How come you are more timid than an old man like me?" Zhao Liben said unconcernedly, "I just said that we are just following the trend. If it weren't for the general trend, it would cost a lot to change the position of a third-rank official."

"Yeah." Zhao Hao nodded, he agreed with this.

Just as the Xu family's soft and hard tactics were unable to change Lin Run's position, the senior officials who can stand on their own feet all have their own creeds, their own factions, and their own pursuits - some pursue historical evaluation, some pursue continued promotion, and some pursue building a career.

As for money, it is not that important.

It's like he's immune to the power of money.

"Even if you tell others that you made the four senior officials back down, people will have to believe you." Zhao Liben said with a teasing smile: "Can they tell others about it? Everyone will take it for granted and regard it as the general trend."

After a pause, the old man lowered his voice and said, "This is the feeling we want."

"Oh." Zhao Hao understood and whispered, "Is it to create an impression that the Xu family is doomed?"

"Smart, worthy of my son Zhao." Zhao Liben nodded with satisfaction, finally forgetting his hatred. "The officials, gentry, and common people under our Ming Dynasty all like to make up stories and speculate wildly about the direction of the court."

"No wonder, the court doesn't make many things clear." Young Master Zhao's face turned red. As a big chess player in his previous life, he felt that he had been hurt unintentionally.

"Isn't that nonsense? Can something that can be said openly still be called confidential?" Zhao Liben rolled his eyes at him and said, "Don't interrupt! Jiangnan is far away from Beijing, and this is even more so."

After a pause, the old man said in a vicissitudes of life tone: "What do you mean by the end of the world? If everyone thinks that you are doomed, then you are really doomed... Then you can just wait and see the good show of everyone pushing you down when the wall falls."

Zhao Hao clearly saw tears in Zhao Liben's eyes. It was obvious that the old man had accidentally hurt himself.

Yes, wasn't this the reason why Zhao Liben fell from power? Everyone thought Gao Gong was going to deal with him, so they distanced themselves from him and even took advantage of his misfortune to please Gao Gong.

In fact, before Gao Gong made his move, Zhao Liben was already dealt with by his quick-witted colleagues...

Ah, what a painful realization this is.

The old man looked up at the roof at a 45-degree angle and said stubbornly, "I was blinded by the dust."

~~

Zhao Hao was persuaded by the old man and decided to create the impression in front of the officials and people of Jiangnan that the Xu family was doomed.

But the problem was that he had never dealt with Zou Yinglong before, and he didn't know who was suitable to be a lobbyist.

Seeing that he had no other options, the old man smiled complacently and said, "Grandpa should go over. When I was in charge of Lianghuai Salt Permits in the Southern Ministry of Revenue, I had a lot of dealings with him, so I still have some friendship with him."

Without this bond of friendship, no matter how capable Zhao Liben was, those arrogant salt merchants would not recognize him, a former minister, as a mediator.

"That's great. As expected, I still have to rely on grandpa at the critical moment." Young Master Zhao flattered him at the right time and gave psychological massage to the old man who had been injured too much today.

"Hehe, having an old person in the family is like having a treasure, do you understand?" Zhao Liben knocked him on the head and warned him, "Don't laugh at me anymore!"

ps. The first of three consecutive updates. Please vote for me!