North of Dong'anmen, Dongchang Hutong.

At least from the outside, there was no trace of the fire that broke out last year in the Dongchang Yamen.

Under the memorial archway that will be remembered for generations, the Dongjishi Factory is now deserted.

The guards at the gate did not dare to slack off, they stood with their chests puffed out and their stomachs bulged out, not moving an inch. The factory owner was in a very bad mood recently, and no one wanted to be his punching bag...

"I just don't understand!" In the signing room, Zhang Jing lay on the couch, drying the sores on his buttocks, and vented to his subordinates in a sharp voice: "What grudges and hatreds? Why are they targeting us? Since when did the eunuchs of the East Factory become soft persimmons?!"

"Master, let's take revenge!" A big eunuch shouted, "Even if it's hard to find evidence against the censors, we can still frame them up and make false accusations!"

"Take a break." Zhang Jing rolled his eyes at him and said, "The emperor has shut himself in. He doesn't read memorials or see us. Doesn't it show that he doesn't want to make any more trouble? We are the emperor's people. How can we cause trouble for him at this time?"

"Alas, the factory manager has really thought it through." The big eunuch shrank his neck and finished his speech.

"Haha, the factory master doesn't know the true face of Mount Lu because he is in the mountain." A middle-aged scholar wearing a Confucian robe and a net scarf on his head gently waved a folding fan and said:

"Think carefully, when did you start encountering ghosts?"

"Needless to say..." Zhang Jing touched the scar on his forehead and said angrily, "Ever since the emperor hit me on the head with a spittoon, I have been unlucky."

"Why did the emperor throw the spittoon at you?" the scholar asked.

There was total silence in the signing room and Zhang Jing's face turned pale. This was a taboo that the factory manager could not mention.

But firstly, the other party was his new think tank, and secondly, Zhang Jing was eager to know the answer, so he replied with a sullen face: "It's because we are unlucky. The petition on Wang Xijue's idiot was presented to the emperor by us."

"Then why did Wang Xijue write this petition?" the scholar asked, biting his folding fan.

"What are the three things you can't do and the eight things you can't do..." Zhang Jing said in a muffled voice: "Oh my Mr. Shen, our family is already in such a mess, why are you still keeping us in suspense?!"

"Okay, okay, I'll speak frankly." Mr. Shen smiled and comforted Zhang Jing, saying, "The real reason why Wang Xijue submitted that petition is that he is from Jiangnan Group."

"Oh?" Zhang Jing was surprised and asked, "Really?"

"If the factory owner just sends someone to Jiangnan to inquire," Mr. Shen said, "then he will know that Wang Xijue's father, Wang Mengxiang, is the founding shareholder of Jiangnan Group. After he retired, Wang Xijue's younger brother, Wang Dingjue, who was also the runner-up in the imperial examination, gave up his official position of the fourth rank at the time and joined Jiangnan Group to take over. This caused a great shock in Jiangnan at the time."

"..." Zhang Jing raised his hand, and his godson quickly handed over the pipe and lit it for his godfather.

They are novices as spies, but they have had the skill of serving others since childhood.

"Moreover, Wang Xijue himself is also very close to Zhao Hao. He has been a visiting professor at Xiangshan Academy for many years. His two children are also Zhao's disciples." Mr. Shen continued: "Now the factory owner believes that they are in cahoots, right?"

Zhang Jing propped himself up and said in shock, "Sir, you mean that Zhao Hao instructed Wang Xijue to come to the court?"

"It's not just this one incident." Mr. Shen sneered, "There's also the fake book case that was solved so quickly, and his shadow is behind it!"

"Hmm." Zhang Jing puffed on his pipe, thought for a while, and nodded, "That makes sense. As soon as we submitted the "Last Words on the Sickbed", Gao Gong's son ran from Henan to Nanjing to sue Qi Bojian. The Southern Criminal Department immediately accepted the case and sent people to Suzhou to arrest him! There was not even time to go back to Nanjing for trial. They made a solid case in Suzhou and then sent the criminal and the case file to the Beijing Criminal Department by sea!"

"It's been less than a month, it's too fast!" Zhang Jing tightly grasped his pipe, as if he wanted to break the pipe stem, and said, "If there weren't people whipping them from behind, it might take even a year to finish the trial of those flower-growing and bird-walking bastards in Nanjing!"

"Right." Mr. Shen nodded with a smile and said, "And Hailu is also under the control of Jiangnan Group."

"So, the beating we received should also be blamed on the young minister's account?!" Zhang Jing said gritting his teeth.

"He can't escape." Mr. Shen laughed again and said, "And the fact that the factory manager was besieged by the censors this time was probably his doing."

"Are you trying to kill us?" Zhang Jing's face turned pale. Being targeted by the young minister made the factory owner tremble. "What hatred or grudge do you have?"

"There is no hatred or resentment, but the people from the East Factory must die." Mr. Shen said calmly: "Does the factory owner still remember the fire last year?"

"Of course I remember..." Zhang Jing shuddered as he thought of his predecessor's fate, "At that time, the emperor had already issued an order to arrest Xu Jue. But on the eve of the arrest, Xu Jue got the news in advance and summoned his trusted leaders to have a farewell banquet in the back hall of the East Factory."

"Who knew that he put drugs in the wine, knocked out his men, and then set himself on fire. The entire East Factory was burned to the ground, and all the foremen and heads of various departments were buried in the sea of ​​fire, no one was spared..." Zhang Jing said, looking at the useless guys in front of him and said:

"If it weren't for the serious damage to its vitality, the East Factory wouldn't be in such a bad state."

"Where did Xu Jue set himself on fire?" Mr. Shen asked in a deep voice.

"Jia Ge Ku..." Zhang Jing sat up from his knees, suddenly realizing, "Are you saying that the young cabinet minister has a secret that cannot be revealed? It was originally in the hands of the East Factory!"

The archive library is the archive room for storing documents and files!

"Definitely." Mr. Shen said with a confident look, "I have traveled all over Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, and what I have seen is that the power of the Jiangnan Group is beyond imagination. The gentry and the people follow them like a demon. The government must also cooperate with them and even obey their orders, so that the prefectural and county magistrates can keep their official hats."

"Isn't that too exaggerated?" A fat eunuch couldn't help but say, "According to what you said, everyone in the southeast will change their surname to Zhao now."

Several eunuchs sneered, but Mr. Shen said quietly, "That's right. It's just that Zhao's ambitions are not limited to the southeast corner, so he followed Taizu's example, building high walls, storing up food, and delaying the declaration of kingship."

"You are getting more and more ridiculous." Zhang Jing's godson Zhang Hua said, "The young cabinet minister has always relied on the cabinet minister. Without the protection of Zhang Juzheng and now Prime Minister Zhao, he is nothing."

Mr. Shen looked at him coldly, as if he was too lazy to deal with such an idiot.

"All of you shut up and stop pretending to know things you don't." Zhang Jing shouted in a sinister voice.

"Yes." The eunuchs immediately turned into gourds with pierced mouths.

Zhang Jing looked at Mr. Shen in a deep voice and said, "Sir, you are not the kind of person who speaks out because of personal grudges!"

"Don't worry, Mr. Factory." Mr. Shen nodded and said calmly, "My student Xianyue Chuxiu was also a close friend of Zhao. He was deceived by him and spoke for Zhang Juzheng in front of Gao Xinzheng. As a result, when Gao Xinzheng fell, Xianyue was killed by the people of Jing. Although Zhao Hao did not help, he did not participate in it personally. So I have no hatred towards him. I am just worried about the country!"

It turned out that he was Shao Daxia's son-in-law Shen Yingkui. Although he also practiced martial arts, he was a very talented scholar. He had once served as a secretary to Gao Gong in the cabinet.

After Shao Daxia was killed, Shen Yingkui was not implicated at first. However, Zhang Juzheng also instructed Yingtian Governor Zhang Jiayin to place Shao Daxia's surviving relatives under house arrest, including Shao Fang's three-year-old son Shao Yi.

Shen Yingkui thought that if Shao Yi was also executed, his father-in-law would have no descendants, so he took the risk, climbed over the wall into Shao's house, rescued Shao Fang's son, and fled far away.

When Zhang Juzheng died last year, he took Shao Yi to recognize his ancestors, and then went to Beijing alone to seek refuge with Zhang Jing, giving him advice and suggestions, overthrowing Feng Bao, and instigating him to overthrow Zhang. As a result, Zhang Jing lost half his life...

He knew very well that Zhang Jing was fooled and didn't come to his senses for a while, so he didn't settle the score with him. So he had to come up with a sensational news to successfully overcome his crisis of trust.

Zhang Jing thought for a while, then slowly nodded and said, "I believe you."

"But it's useless for me to believe you." He changed the subject and said, "The key is that His Majesty won't believe you. If I tell your words to the emperor, I will beat you to death."

"Yes, the emperor will think that the factory master is deliberately exaggerating in order to protect himself." Shen Yingkui said in a deep voice: "But, factory master, we must do something! Although the emperor did not punish the factory master this time, it is probably just out of rebellious psychology towards the censors. But as long as you think carefully about what the factory master has experienced recently, you will know that the emperor's favor is in danger!"

"Yeah, isn't that what we're worried about?" Zhang Jing took two puffs of his cigarette and said, "Do you want us to get to the bottom of the Jiangnan Group incident?"

The secrets recorded by the Dongchang spies through surveillance are called "incidents". In the Dongchang's jargon, this process is called "fighting incidents".

"Yes." Shen Yingkui nodded and said, "Recently, students have asked the factory and the Northern Division to see if there are any insiders or files left behind. As a result, all those who participated in the monitoring of Jiangnan Group at that time died. Even those who were not burned to death had accidents within a year and died of acute illnesses."

"They're all dead..." Zhang Jing and his eunuchs felt their scalps tingling. A dignified East Factory spy was actually frightened to death by another group of spies.

"This just shows that Jiangnan Group must have some unspeakable secret!" Shen Yingkui said excitedly, "And it's the kind that can wipe out all of their clans!"

"Are they going to rebel?" Zhang Jing asked with difficulty.

"We have to investigate to find out." Shen Yingkui said dimly, "For the factory owner, isn't it just what he wants if the Prime Minister's family wants to rebel?"

"That's right." Zhang Jing nodded. The first experience of eunuchs in the workplace is that if you have the emperor, you will be invincible. If you become the one who is indispensable to the emperor, you can defeat anyone!

"But I'm afraid it's not that easy to drive piles to Jiangnan, right?" But he was still very scared.