Chapter 247: Big Shot

At noon, after lunch, Chen Guanlou sat under the eaves basking in the sun, his whole person lazy.

Lu Datou was picking his teeth, sitting in a row with him.

The two chatted casually, one sentence after another.

"Every time the officials make a big fuss, the Jia-grade prison has to make a fortune," he said with envy.

Chen Guanlou glanced at him sideways, "Want to work in the Jia-grade prison?"

Lu Datou was tempted for a moment, then shook his head, "Forget it, I don't know a single word, so I won't go to the Jia-grade prison to lose face. I also don't have the patience to serve those official masters. You say, they are already in the Heavenly Prison, and they still put on official airs one by one. It's a pity you can endure it. It's still the Bing-grade prison that's refreshing; if you want to hit, you hit, if you want to scold, you scold, and it doesn't matter if one or two people die."

The sun shone on his body warmly, and Chen Guanlou half-closed his eyes to enjoy, "You, you are destined not to make a big fortune."

"As long as there is money to spend, it doesn't matter if I make a fortune," Lu Datou chuckled. He was useless, but he had self-knowledge, knowing that his ability was at that level, and he didn't force wealth that didn't belong to him.

"Xu Fugui is here," Chen Guanlou reminded.

Lu Datou glanced at Xu Fugui who had just entered the main gate, his expression disdainful, "Ignore him."

Xu Fugui also saw Lu Datou and immediately frowned, "Lu Datou, why are you doing here instead of working?"

"Basking in the sun!" Lu Datou pointed to the sky.

Seeing him so lazy and not giving himself face, Xu Fugui was furious. He was really annoyed by the group of old oilers in the Bing-grade prison, and he couldn't drive them away. Without this group of old oilers to suppress the scene, the Bing-grade prison wouldn't work. A group of Jianghu fierce bandits couldn't be handled by new recruits. Heavenly Prison prison guards were not all like Chen Guanlou, who showed the qualities of a chosen prison guard from the beginning.

He said with a straight face, "Basking is enough, hurry back to work. The above might come to check in the next few days; you'd better not gamble in the duty room."

After saying that, he left angrily.

Lu Datou snorted coldly and complained, "Taking chicken feathers as an arrow."

Chen Guanlou watched the whole process and only then said: "It's good to give him some face."

"Can't be bothered to do surface work. Didn't you also ignore him just now."

"I pretended I could be invisible," Chen Guanlou said, laughing first. Then, Lu Datou followed, and the two laughed loudly, and the other prison guards didn't know why.

After basking in the sun, the moldy air on his body dissipated a bit.

Chen Guanlou went down to the Heavenly Prison and sat in the duty room flipping through the account books.

Recently, the imperial court had been very lively.

Yu Zhaoan jumped up and down, pulling, promising, and suppressing, and he finally got his wish. The old Emperor issued a decree, allowing him to take charge of northwest civil affairs as the Left Assistant Zhang Yushi-in-Chief and prepare grain, grass, and military equipment for the army to suppress the thieves.

As for the commander-in-chief, the old Emperor had been dragging his feet and couldn't make up his mind. This gave the two rebels, Guo Dachun and the Great Ming Prince, a chance to develop and grow.

Everyone knew why the old Emperor was dragging his feet, and the eldest son knew it too.

However, the eldest son sat still, neither mobilizing the power of the nobility to fight for himself, nor submitting a memorial to the old Emperor to express his loyalty. He just recited poems and painted in the mansion every day, indulging himself, with an attitude of completely ignoring the wind and rain outside, seemingly not wanting to command the army or fight at all.

The more he was like this, the more the old Emperor pondered: Could it be that he is dissatisfied with me? Still holding a grudge for not being promoted or ennobled last time? Hmph! As an official, not sharing the worries for the monarch and father, this is unreasonable.

The old Emperor thought again: Does Chen Qingzhi really have no intention of meddling in military power? Did I misunderstand him? But even if it was a misunderstanding, letting him command the army meant that the power of the nobility had increased by one point.

The old Emperor sometimes hated the eldest son for not giving face and not actively operating to fight for it. Sometimes he reflected on whether he was too harsh and chilled the hearts of his officials.

It was like a scumbag, sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes tangled and contradictory, sometimes reflecting and repenting. After repenting, he continued to be a scumbag.

The eldest son was not in a hurry.

The more the rebels harmed, the more prominent his importance would be. This time, no matter what, he couldn't let the old Emperor easily kill the donkey after the mill. In a word, don't scatter the eagle without seeing the rabbit. He even hoped that the old Emperor would send a military general to be the commander-in-chief and fight first. Win? Basically impossible! Based on his understanding of that group of border troops, without extraordinary means, they wouldn't listen to orders at all, each acting on their own. Counting the imperial court, he was the only one who could suppress that group of unruly border army generals.

Like a plate of loose sand, no matter who is the commander-in-chief, it is impossible to win. The key to winning lies in integrating the officers and soldiers and twisting the loose sand into a rope. Ask, besides him, who else can do it?

If the old Emperor doesn't use him, then wait for the rebels to go south to harm. If one day the rebels fight near the capital, he wants to see where the old Emperor's face goes, and whether he has the face to continue sitting on the throne. It is said that there will be a palace coup.

It is estimated that both inside and outside the imperial court, seventy or eighty percent of people are hoping for the Crown Prince to ascend the throne and reorganize the court's discipline.

Due to the old Emperor's procrastination, most of Pingzhou had fallen into the hands of the rebels, and even the soldiers were pointing at the neighboring prefecture and county towns. The Great Ming Prince of Jinzhou had occupied five counties, expanded his army to 100,000, he claimed. In fact, there certainly weren't that many, but two or three thousand must have.

Northwest officials cried out one after another that the rebels were harming the place, the common people were bewitched and coerced, and the local garrison forces and local stationed troops were fighting the rebels, collapsing at the first touch, and being chased and beaten by the rebels. They begged the imperial court to send the imperial army as soon as possible and send a commander-in-chief to take charge of military affairs to suppress the two groups of rebels.

Local officials still knew how to save face for the old Emperor and didn't dare to scold the old Emperor for being dim-witted.

The officials in the imperial court, especially the censors, would not give the old Emperor face.

Even with Yu Zhaoan's restraint, they couldn't stop a young man from jumping out and counting the responsibility on the old Emperor's head.

Rebellion in three places in one year, this was clearly a warning from heaven, warning the old Emperor that if he didn't pull back from the cliff, there would sooner or later be a great disaster.

A dim-witted monarch in the world, a warning from heaven. Even God couldn't stand it.

Please kill Jiang Tu, this scoundrel!

Jiang Tu: None of my business. I didn't harm Jinzhou and Pingzhou. It was clearly Marquis Pingjiang's failure to suppress the thieves, sitting and watching the Great Ming Prince escape, that led to today's Jinzhou war. As for Pingzhou, that was the Ministry of War's pot, what did it have to do with him? The Dongzhou cult bandit civil unrest was his responsibility, but that was acting on the imperial decree, acting for the old Emperor.

He was the number one good person in the world, a great loyal official! Unlike you rebels, who dare to point at the monarch and father as a dim-witted monarch, you deserve to die!

The old Emperor was narrow-minded and vengeful; whoever scolded him, he would mess with. At the beginning of the year, the Dongzhou cult bandit civil unrest had already messed with a group of officials and sent them to prison. But the officials who scolded him followed one after another, one by one not knowing life or death.

So, this time, another group of officials was sent to prison.

What was even more terrifying was that the old Emperor suddenly pointed his sword at the Crown Prince's teacher, the Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion, the Crown Prince's own uncle, Zhuang Wenlin. On the charge of forming a party for private interests, he was sent to prison. ===== CHAPTER 248 =====