How to make a famous minister

Chapter 43

"Go in!"

The wound on Fan Xuanchao's body was still hurting intermittently. The dungeon was dark and damp, and his head felt a little dizzy, possibly because he had a fever.He vaguely heard the exclamations of the people around him.

what happened?

But he couldn't open his eyes, and his ears caught some vague words.

"How did you come!"

"He...isn't well..."

Fan Xuanchao realized that they were talking about him, but he really didn't have the strength to open his eyes, and fell into the deep darkness in an instant.

I don't know how long it took before Fan Xuanchao woke up from the nightmare and cold sweat. The first thing he saw was Ni Houzhan leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.

Fan Xuanchao blinked, thinking he was still in the Imperial College.Only then did he react—"Why did you come in!"

He slept for a long time, his throat was dry, his voice was thin and low, his vocal cords vibrated, and his entire throat ached.

Ni Houzhan opened his eyes when he heard the sound, and then he noticed that he had woken up. He said pleasantly, "Are you awake? Great, you have a fever. If you don't wake up, I don't know if you can call the doctor here."

As he spoke, he took a bowl from one side, which contained some water.Fan Xuanchao drank a little bit, and his throat felt much better, and he felt a little back from the burning.

He touched his forehead with his right hand, and it was indeed a little hot, as if fire was about to be spewed out of his nose.

"Don't worry about it." Fan Xuanchao struggled to sit up, but was pushed back by Ni Houzhan, "Just lie on your stomach, the wound hasn't healed yet."

Fan Xuanchao just got up and made him dizzy, and he couldn't compete with Ni Houzhan, so he had to lie down again.

"Why are you here? Over at the Imperial College... Could it be..."

Ni Houzhan smiled wryly, "We failed to keep an eye on Ma Sheng, and he ran to inform Wei Zhongxian."

"You were arrested, so who is in charge of the speech team of the Imperial College now?" Fan Xuanchao couldn't help asking.

"Do you remember the scholar who spoke for you at the first conference?"

Fan Xuanchao was deeply impressed by this person, "Remember, he looks like a capable person. Did you hand over the speech team to him?"

Ni Houzhan nodded, "His name is Bai Yang, he is from the capital, and he has a family feud with Wei Zhongxian. I think he is a person who does things, and he will never be instigated by Wei Zhongxian. It is perfect."

If the news that this is Ni Houzhan is true, then Bai Yang is indeed the best candidate. What Fan Xuanchao really cares about is: "How many people have been arrested?" It's really over.

"Just me and the people guarding him were arrested." Ni Houzhan said, "Now Wei Zhongxian is no longer the time to fight fiercely with us little shrimps."

Fan Xuanchao was imprisoned for a few days, not knowing what happened outside, and asked in surprise: "Could it be that the adults of the Donglin Party are already going to..."

Ni Houzhan said with a smile: "It's not far away. When I came in, the "24 Deadly Sins" was spreading outside, in Beijing, in other places, everywhere. Not only that, it is said that many officials saw the wind direction change, and they all signed up for it. To expose Wei Zhongxian's various cases of corruption and violation of the law, thinking of getting himself out."

"It's all scum." Fan Xuanchao shook his head, although he felt contemptuous, but since they were standing on the wall, they had no position to blame anyone.

"We don't know when we will be able to go out." Ni Houzhan said, "If it goes well, we may not be able to stay for long. If it doesn't go well, we may have to stay in this half-dead place forever."

"Cough cough."

Hearing Fan Xuanchao's cough, Ni Houzhan said worriedly: "If you won't be able to go out for a while, I don't know if you can invite a doctor here to treat your illness."

"If I don't go out, I won't go out. If I didn't do it myself, I wouldn't come in." Fan Xuanchao said with a smile, "If the Donglin Party wins, I will go out; if the Donglin Party loses, I won't look for connections. , just wait."

"You are not talking nonsense." Ni Houzhan rolled his eyes, "If we lose, we will all lose our heads. Where do you want to go?"

Fan Xuanchao laughed, "If there are no accidents, His Majesty will know about this in a few days. Then it will be the critical moment for the decisive battle. We small fish and crabs will just wait here and wait for who will lose when the time comes." Who wins."

"It's been a few days." Zhu Youjian was silent for a long time, and suddenly said this.

Cao Jin didn't think the words were endless. He was Zhu Youjian's personal eunuch, and he was well aware of Zhu Youjian's recent actions. He even arranged for people to contact the ministers who were inconvenient to contact.

Cao Jin's loyalty is only to Zhu Youjian, and Zhu Youjian naturally feels relieved to entrust him with some secrets.

In recent days, the Donglin Party, which was originally indifferent to His Highness Xin Wang, has been in close contact with His Highness Xin Wang in order to kill Wei Zhongxian with one blow.

Cao Jin has stayed by Zhu Youjian's side for a long time, and he already knows that Zhu Youjian's ambition is not just to be a rich and idle king.

Judging from Cao Jin's experience of serving Zhu Youjian over the years, although I dare not say that Zhu Youjian will definitely become a wise king through the ages and a hero for the first time in the future, he will definitely do better than the person above him now.

"I wish Your Highness an early success." Cao Jin bowed and said respectfully, not just for Wei Zhongxian's battle.

"The matter is not over yet, Wei Zhongxian has not yet fulfilled the law, and it is far from the time to celebrate." With a sullen face and burning eyes, Zhu Youjian scanned the secret reports on the table one after another.

He memorized all the secret reports in his heart and beckoned, Cao Jin quickly brought the candle and charcoal basin.Zhu Youjian personally burned all the secret reports one by one, and Cao Jin fiddled with the charcoal basin with an iron rod to make the fire burn hotter.

After checking it one last time, seeing that it was completely burnt and there was no scraps of paper left, Zhu Youjian raised his chin and let Cao Jinduan go out to deal with it.

It was hot in June, and Zhu Youjian locked himself in the room and burned a fire, sweating all over.

He picked up the fan to fan the wind and opened the window.

The clear moonlight hit him with the cool wind, and the heat on his face, body, and even his heart dissipated a lot.

The bright moon shines brightly on my rivers and mountains.

Once Wei Zhongxian died, the Donglin Party would surely become famous and mighty.

When Wei Zhongxian was not yet strong, the emperor's brother was under the shackles of the Donglin Party in his work. After he killed Wei Zhongxian himself, there was no one in the court to check and balance the civil servants.

These situations are vivid.

Although the top leaders of the Donglin Party are loyal to the country, those below are mostly incompetent and shameless.The country was broken that year, and it was also the first gold after they surrendered.

Although the Donglin Party occupies many important positions in the central government, and also shouted the slogan of "establishing a heart for the world, establishing a life for the people, inheriting the sages for the sages, and bringing peace to all generations", in fact they are far from doing it. arrive.

The Donglin Party is very arrogant, and always thinks that the Ming Dynasty cannot function without them, as if it is a group of literati guarding the territory for him on the border of Liaodong.

If at that time, another civil servant faction that had nothing to do with the Donglin Party could not be pulled out, I'm afraid they would be led by the nose again by the Donglin Party.

He wants to arrange manpower earlier to pull up those poor children as soon as possible.

As soon as I thought about it, I thought of Fan Xuanchao and Ni Houzhan who initiated this speech campaign.

Zhu Youjian sighed in his heart, such good seedlings are actually the children of Donglin Party.

However, fortunately, he still has Bai Yang.

Because the wound on Fan Xuanchao's back was not cleaned and bandaged in time, it gradually began to swell and fester.Ni Houzhan and others asked the guards for clean water to help him scrub, but lack of medicine and treatment, coupled with the extremely bad environment in the cell, they could only watch the wound fester.

Fan Xuanchao endured severe pain every day, but the ground was damp, and he coughed a little after lying down for a day, so he had to sit up and could not rest against the wall.

On this day, the prison guard brought two people in.

Ni Houzhan took a closer look. Isn't the one walking in the middle exactly Fan Jiao, the steward of the Fan Mansion?He excitedly pushed Fan Xuanchao, and said loudly: "Fan Steward! Fan Steward! We are here!"

The prison guard frowned, knocked on the iron fence of the cell with an iron rod, and said impatiently: "What are you shouting for! Is this a place where you can shout? If you shout again, I will drive you out now."

Ni Houzhan didn't take it seriously, and said to Fan Jiao: "Go and ask your uncle to rescue Han Yuan, otherwise he will die of illness here."

As soon as Fan Jiao entered the prison, he smelled a damp and rotten smell. He widened his eyes to see who was his young master, but he heard Ni Houzhan's voice, and looked along, and it turned out to be Fan Xuanchao and Ni Houzhan.

Fan Jiao almost jumped on him. He grabbed the iron railing and saw the thin clothes of the young master in the prison, with a little blood on his back, and his eyes were red.

"Master, you have suffered." Fan Jiao choked up, "Madam prepared the clothes and quilts, but it took a few days, why did you become like this... Fortunately, I heard that the prison is wet, Madam is afraid of you The root cause of the disease has fallen, and the doctor is invited, so you can take a look."

Fan Xuanchao still had the strength to smile at him, "It's okay, I asked for this." He asked some questions about how the family is and how his mother is doing, and Fan Jiao answered them all, so he didn't have to worry.

The guard opened the cell door, and Fan Jiao hurried in with the doctor.The 50-year-old doctor also had a good concentration. Although cold sweat broke out on his forehead, the hand to feel the pulse did not shake. He also looked at the wound on Fan Xuanchao's back.

After cleaning the wound carefully, applying medicine and bandaging it up, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Although Mr. Fan's wound is only a flesh wound, it has not been healed these days and has already festered. If it takes a few days later, I am afraid that the whole back will fester. Although I have used medicine now, if I can't move it out as soon as possible , it will be very troublesome to treat in the future.”

Fan Xuanchao said: "It's nothing, you leave the medicine, Ni Houzhan will help me with the medicine every day. It's just that there is one more thing to trouble you."

The doctor had heard earlier that Fan Xuanchao was arrested because he hosted a speech against Wei Zhongxian, and he admired his determination at this age. Now that Fan Xuanchao spoke, the doctor naturally agreed.

"Mr. Fan, tell me."

"We are all scholars captured by Wei Zhongxian. We have all been tortured more or less. Could you please take their pulse and see their injuries? My family will pay for the extra consultation fee."

Fan Xuanchao was beaten terribly, but he was not the only one dragged to execution. Except for Ni Houzhan who came later, all the prison students and scholars in the prison were more or less injured.

It's just that Fan Xuanchao was the leader and was beaten harder.Some of the prison students also had bruises all over their bodies, and if some of them were hard-boned and yelled at them, their skin would inevitably be bruised.

These people have also suffered, but these prison students may have been beaten this time in their lifetime, but the doctor can't see more wounds every day.

The doctor dealt with the wounds one by one, and sighed in his heart, Jin Yiwei also acted lightly this time, otherwise, based on the wounds he had seen before, these thin-skinned and tender-skinned scholars could survive until now?

The doctor was treating people, and Fan Xuanchao pulled Fan Jiao to ask for news from outside.

It's just that Fan Jiao didn't know much, and was asked by Zhang to tell some plain good news. Fan Xuanchao didn't get any information worth mentioning.

He was worried, and always felt that Wei Zhongxian was planning some big move. He said to Ni Houzhan, "It sounds like good news now, but why do I always feel uneasy in my heart? Wei Zhongxian doesn't seem like a person who accepts his fate so easily."

Ni Houzhan said: "Oh, don't even think about it. What's the point of thinking about it? You can't do anything in this prison. You should relax and take care of your wounds."

Fan Jiao said: "Exactly, young master, you should rest well, Madam will take care of herself and let you go out as soon as possible."

Fan Xuanchao said: "I did such a rebellious thing without authorization, and kept my mother in the dark. It is really unfilial."

"That's right." Fan Jiao said with a bitter face, "When Madam first found out, she almost fainted from crying. The past few days have also washed her face with tears."

"..." Fan Xuanchao has also sincerely treated Mrs. Zhang as a mother these years, and he couldn't help feeling guilty when he heard the news about Mrs. Zhang.

"Uncle Jiao, tell mother not to move around." Although he felt guilty, Fan Xuanchao still didn't intend to follow Zhang's wishes.Zhang Weixian is a British prince, and it is only a matter of minutes to let him out, but it is not good for him to let him out as soon as he comes in, and ask him to hang out here for a few days.

But Fan Xuanchao didn't plan to hang out for a few days.

"Uncle Jiao, you have worked hard, but I don't plan to go out by myself." Fan Xuanchao said softly.

When Fan Jiao heard this, she became anxious, "Master, don't say stupid things! Madam is at home looking forward to your return. Besides, you are still injured. This prison is not a place to recuperate."

"I originally thought that with the propaganda of our Guozijian students and the activities of the adults of the Donglin Party, the booklet of Lord Yang Lian will be sent to His Majesty's desk, and Wei Zhongxian will not be able to hide it by then."

The prison was small and quiet. Although Fan Xuan's volume was not loud, everyone could hear him clearly.

"It's just that I didn't expect so many people to be caught by Jin Yiwei. The students of the Imperial College who are in prison now, and those who are not students, but who are with us with their blood, have all been arrested here.

If Master Yang Lian fails to bring down Wei Zhongxian, not only us, but many more people will be implicated.I am the instigator, how can I leave everyone and escape alone?If Wei Zhongxian's downfall is just around the corner, how can I not celebrate with everyone?

Mother is worried about me, I know, but if there is one companion left here, I will never go out, I will never run away by myself! "