Chapter 116

“It’s been a long time. Your Excellency is very busy. I am only able to see you thanks to my son.”

“Brother Zhang, you’re too kind. If it weren’t for the recent headache caused by the Embroidered Thief case, I should have been the one to visit you at your residence.” After exchanging pleasantries with Zhang Erhe, Zhu Wushi looked Zhang Weihai up and down with admiration, saying with satisfaction and envy, “This must be your son. As expected of the famous Lingyu Young Master, the number one young master of the martial arts world, he is indeed a handsome and dignified man.”

“Your Excellency, you flatter me. It is my great honor to be able to meet Your Excellency’s esteemed presence,” Zhang Weihao said politely, clasping his hands in a respectful gesture.

The sedan chair was carried by many people. Although the Zhang family had some grudges with the Monkey King, the matter between the Giant Whale Gang and the leader of the Japanese martial arts alliance, Yagyu Tajima-no-kami, had not yet been exposed. Even Zhang Erhe and the Zhang family did not know the details. They only vaguely suspected that it was related to a certain powerful family or force in China, but they did not suspect Zhu Wushi.

There’s no other reason than that Zhu Wushi had no wife or children, only three adopted sons. Although he wasn’t a eunuch, in the eyes of many powerful families and even the young emperor, he was unlikely to rebel, and even if he wanted to, no one would follow him.

Just like how eunuchs can never successfully rebel, having no offspring is the greatest original sin.

Of course, if it were discovered that Zhu Wushi had a son, an illegitimate child, then he would be in danger. Neither the current young emperor nor the new emperor who succeeds him would allow him to possess such great power.

This power does not refer to actual power, but rather to the power of the imperial edict and the power to supervise officials and the martial arts world.

This power is mostly useless, but if you really want to rebel and purge the court of corrupt officials, it is the most useful excuse and reason. Prince Ning, who was determined to rebel, contacted this brother who he originally did not value or respect.

Zhu Wushi’s prototype is Zhu Chenhao:

Zhu Chenhao (1479-1520) was the fourth successor of Zhu Quan, the first Prince of Ning, a fifth-generation descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the illegitimate son of Zhu Jinjun, the Prince of Ningkang. He was born in Nanchang, with ancestral roots in Fengyang, Anhui.

He was initially enfeoffed as the King of Shanggao.

Because Prince Ningkang had no legitimate son, he inherited the title of Prince Ning in the tenth year of the Hongzhi reign (1497).

In the second year of the Zhengde reign, Chenhao bribed eunuch Liu Jin and sycophantic officials Qian Ning and actor Zang Xian, among others, to reinstate the guards that had been abolished by the Prince of Ning’s faction. He kept fugitives, arbitrarily killed, exiled, and imprisoned local civil and military officials and innocent civilians, seized tens of thousands of acres of official and civilian land, robbed merchants, harbored thieves, and plotted to start a rebellion.

He also attempted to have his own son succeed Emperor Wuzong and seize the throne.

Eunuch Zhang Zhong, censor Xiao Huai, and others successively reported Chen Hao’s crimes. Emperor Wuzong then issued an edict to arrest his guards and order them to return the land that had been seized.

Upon learning the news, Chenhao, on June 14th of the fourteenth year of Zhengde’s reign, used the pretext that Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty was licentious and tyrannical, gathered an army of 100,000 to rebel, killed Governor Sun Sui and Vice Commissioner of the Jiangxi Provincial Surveillance Commission Xu Kui, abolished the Zhengde reign title, appointed Li Shishi and Liu Yangzheng as Left and Right Chancellors, and Wang Lun as Minister of War. He gathered a crowd of 100,000 and issued proclamations to various places, criticizing the court.

He captured Jiujiang and Nankang, then marched out of Jiangxi and led his naval forces down the river to attack Anqing.

Forty-three days later, Zhu Chenhao suffered a major defeat and was captured by Wang Shouren along with his sons and brothers. He was then escorted to Nanjing and handed over to Zhang Yong.

Emperor Wuzong of Ming first released him, then arrested him, and finally stripped him of his title and executed him, stripping him of his fiefdom.

However, there is already a Prince Ning here, and Zhu Wushi’s character is only similar to Prince Ning in the first half, and was later modified. Therefore, Zhu Wushi here has a worse background and was not adopted by Prince Ning Kang.

He was one of the children born to Emperor Chenghua and palace maids. Emperor Chenghua himself was licentious, lustful, and fond of alchemists (doing drugs and having group sex afterward). His private life was a complete mess, so he mostly disowned his illegitimate children. Who knows whose child he was?

Because of his humble origins, even the Chenghua Emperor looked down on him, so he was never included in the family genealogy and was not recognized by the royal family. His status was not much higher than that of the servants and illegitimate children of wealthy families, so he went to the martial arts world at a very young age, met Gu Santong, and then obtained the Absorption Technique, which completely changed his fate.

At the same time, Zhu Wushi had no wife or children, so before the Hongzhi Emperor died, he was afraid that Zhengde was too young and easily manipulated by treacherous people, or that he was incapable of governing the country and could not distinguish between loyalty and treachery. Therefore, he specially ordered his younger brother Zhu Wushi to establish the “Dragon Guard Villa”, which had power above all court institutions. He also bestowed upon him the two treasures of “Iron Certificate” and “Imperial Sword”, which could “execute tyrannical emperors above and treacherous officials below”, and check and balance the highest secret service agency, the Eastern Depot.

Zhu Wushi was only able to be included in the family genealogy and recognized by the royal family because of this, but he was only granted the title of Marquis, not King.

What does this mean?

This means that although Zhu Wushi was a member of the royal family, he was at most a royal servant and not a true master of the royal family. He was far inferior to the princes who were granted fiefdoms.

He can’t even compare to Prince Ning, let alone Prince Pingnan.

Although the late emperor granted such supervisory power, he did not provide any official positions or clear financial subsidies. So it was like issuing a seemingly impressive but empty promise, but you had to do everything yourself.

Nowadays, the imperial spies of the Dragon Guard Manor are not only the strongest elites carefully selected from hundreds or even thousands of people, but also have clean family backgrounds with almost no problems. In addition, they have grown up in the Dragon Guard Manor since childhood, so they have a natural and special affection for the Dragon Guard Manor, making it very difficult for them to betray the manor.

No one knows the total number of people, but there are at least a thousand. They follow an elite route. In addition, the number one manor in the world is also fortunate to have 13,000 people supporting it financially, otherwise this department would not be able to operate at all.

This also shows how important those 800,000 taels of gold were.

However, this also illustrates a point: does the Dragon Guard Manor now need to use a sum as large as 800,000 taels of gold?

It should be understood that this is enough to arm an army of 100,000 and support them in combat for more than a year, which is clearly not normal.

Although it was later clarified that part of it was funding, part would be used for disaster relief, and a large portion was working capital of 13,000 for business, it still couldn’t silence the gossip and aroused suspicion.

This is also why Zhang Weihao’s father, who was once the richest man, is now beginning to suspect the reason why Shang Zhu ignored him.

The main problem is that the threat of Japanese pirates has become increasingly serious in recent years. Moreover, these pirates clearly have inside help and have received support from some local families and mysterious forces. They have burned, killed, and looted a lot of money. Even the Zhang family and the Sun Moon Cult have suffered heavy losses. It is hard to say that they were not among the 800,000 taels of gold.

Wan Sanqian is a mysterious man who rose to prominence very quickly, becoming extremely wealthy in just about twenty years. His sudden ability to come up with so much money naturally aroused suspicion from Zhang Erhe, who was already extremely wealthy.