Chapter 1094 - Court Struggle

The various rooms in the inner study courtyard possessed different access levels, so the deeper Leng Ningyun ventured, the fewer people accompanied him. By the time he stepped into the warm pavilion of the inner study, only Wu Kaidi remained at his side.

The table was already laid out with Dichao transcripts and various documents that the advisors had organized and translated. Dedicated personnel collected and compiled these materials daily. With the Sun Yuanhua matter currently consuming so much attention, intelligence gathering in this domain had grown increasingly intensive.

Wu Kaidi was indispensable to Leng Ningyun and often handled sensitive matters on his behalf. Consequently, some basic intelligence collection work had been reassigned to local servants.

During the winter, vast numbers of refugees from North Zhili, Shandong, Henan, and other provinces had poured into the capital. These wretched souls slept in the streets, barely surviving on the thin porridge provided by Shuntian Prefecture; many froze or starved to death each day. Leng Ningyun had taken in dozens of orphans from among them. After screening, he kept seven or eight of the cleverer and more reliable ones specifically to run errands each day—purchasing Dichao and gathering news in teahouses. The children deemed "unsuitable" were transferred back to Lingao.

These children could all recognize at least a few characters. They departed early each morning with a few biscuits and returned around three in the afternoon. Upon arriving back, they related what they had seen and heard to the advisors, who compiled the information into drafts. Every week, the Beijing Intelligence Station dispatched a "Beijing Weekly News Summary" to Lingao via Qipwei Escort Agency. Once this intelligence reached Lingao, it served not only the Intelligence Analysis Division but also as important reference material for the Historical Data Group of the Great Library.

Leng Ningyun changed his clothes with the assistance of his life secretary and took a few sips of tea. He browsed through the day's compilation of materials. Naturally, he was most concerned with anything touching on the Dengzhou situation.

Judging from the Dichao materials, the dispute between "pacification" and "suppression" had gradually begun to fade, and both the court and the public were inclining toward suppression. This shift owed less to the lobbying of Shandong officials than to changing attitudes among the original pro-pacification faction: Xiong Mingyu, Xu Guangqi, and Zhou Yanru had all begun shifting direction.

Clearly, Sun Yuanhua's letters had reached the capital, prompting these formerly pro-pacification figures to change course. Yet to avoid too abrupt a reversal, they proposed "slow suppression." Sun Yuanhua's memorial had also arrived in the capital several days earlier; Leng Ningyun had already seen the full text. Beyond describing his escape and current military and administrative actions, Sun earnestly critiqued his previous pacification policy and proposed "primarily suppression, supplemented by pacification." This harmonized perfectly with the current stance of Zhou Yanru, Xiong Mingyu, and others—obviously, both sides had coordinated in private.

As a result, the once-fierce debate over suppression versus pacification at court had calmed. The factions now quarreled only over "urgent suppression" versus "slow suppression," and the court's focal point of contention had returned to the question of how to handle Sun Yuanhua and his associates.

Yu Dacheng had fallen completely from power. His downfall stemmed not only from his ineffective response to the Dengzhou rebellion but from legacy problems of the past—particularly his inaction in suppressing the White Lotus Society uprising, his blind advocacy of pacification, his petitions requesting the court grant official titles to uprising leaders, and even rumors that he had sworn brotherhood with their chiefs. Small wonder he had been demolished by concentrated fire this time.

Because Sun Yuanhua enjoyed the protection of Zhou Yanru and others—and because he had escaped in time—he did not suffer the accusations of "defection" that had plagued him in the original timeline. Nevertheless, court opinion remained distinctly unfavorable toward him.

Leng Ningyun had attended lectures during his training at the "Farm" and understood that those attacking Sun Yuanhua possessed ulterior motives. Rather than genuinely pursuing Sun's accountability, they were using this opportunity to strike at Zhou Yanru.

Whenever a major event occurred, the various court factions would exploit it to attack dissidents and purge political opponents, launching grand inquisitions to exclude and suppress rivals. After the Yuan Chonghuan case, former members of the Eunuch Faction—suppressed since the Donglin Party took charge—had used that event to sentence Grand Secretary Qian Longxi, one of the Donglin Party's principal generals, to death. Though his life was ultimately spared through the strenuous rescue efforts of Donglin members like Wen Zhenmeng and Huang Daozhou, he was still exiled to Dinghai Guard until the Great Ming's fall, only pardoned by the Southern Ming regime.

Though Zhou Yanru was not a member of the Eunuch Faction, he too had manipulated that event for private gain, driving out Senior Grand Secretary Cheng Jiming and seizing the Senior Grand Secretary position himself.

The major event of the Dengzhou Rebellion naturally became a prime opportunity for various political forces at court to seize the moment and stir trouble. Striking Sun Yuanhua was, in effect, striking Zhou Yanru.

Zhou Yanru had many enemies, but his greatest was Wen Tiren, a fellow Grand Secretary. Though Wen Tiren had been introduced into the Grand Secretariat with Zhou Yanru's assistance, after they had jointly driven out the Senior Grand Secretary, their relationship shifted from conspiracy to rivalry.

Beginning in the spring of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren had engaged in both open and covert combat. Under Wen Tiren's instigation and incitement, speech officials submitted memorials impeaching Zhou without cease. After Zhou Yanru consolidated great power, he acted with increasing arrogance—even his domestic slave had become a Regional Commander. Many at court and among the public harbored resentment against him. By November that year, impeachment of Zhou Yanru had reached a climax. Attacking Sun Yuanhua, the Governor of Dengzhou and Laizhou whom Zhou had promoted, served as an important weapon in the campaign against Zhou himself.

The Dengzhou Mutiny provided abundant ammunition for the anti-Zhou faction, and attacks against Sun Yuanhua grew ever fiercer. The impeachment charges ranged from wasting military funds to corruption, to smuggling Liaodong goods, and beyond. There was a clear trend toward branding Sun Yuanhua a "sinner against the state."

This matter, Leng Ningyun reflected, was less about protecting Sun Yuanhua than about protecting Zhou Yanru. Sun Yuanhua was not truly the key; Zhou Yanru was.

From the Senate's perspective, whether Zhou Yanru or Wen Tiren held power mattered little. Yet for Leng Ningyun, executing his mission on the front lines, preserving Sun's position required starting from the political struggle between Zhou and Wen.

The History Research Group of the Great Library had drawn similar conclusions. Though Leng Ningyun did not know what the External Intelligence Bureau planned next, judging from various signs, they had obviously already begun their work.

The clearest indication: starting from the middle of the fourth year of Chongzhen, a flood of placards exposing Wen Tiren and his associate Xue Guoguan had appeared. Though the texts—largely accusing them of being "remnants of the Eunuch Faction"—seemed to be Donglin Party handiwork, Leng Ningyun knew perfectly well that nine times out of ten, these placards were the product of the "Truth Office."

Ruining Wen Tiren's reputation on a mass scale—of course, that reputation was never good to begin with—was obviously intended to manufacture ammunition for the Donglin Party. The Donglin would not let this opportunity to strike at Wen Tiren slip away.

This involved operations at the macro level. Leng Ningyun wondered: would directly assassinating Wen Tiren not be the simpler choice? With the current operational capabilities of the External Intelligence Bureau and the Special Reconnaissance Team, eliminating Wen Tiren without a trace was no longer a difficult task. The only question was whether doing so was necessary. All of this required careful weighing.

"Forget it—let Jiang Shan, Li Yan, and the others rack their brains over this." Leng Ningyun decided to stop thinking about it. He would follow the External Intelligence Bureau's instructions and focus first on winning over the major eunuchs. A few words from a eunuch at the critical moment could outweigh lengthy arguments from outside ministers. As for the deeper political maneuvering, let others handle it.

Leng Ningyun's report was transmitted via radio to the Lingao Central Telecommunications Station. The naturalized citizen operator receiving the telegram recognized it as coded, and from the call sign at the beginning, identified it as a message from "Department 13." Following regulations, she immediately registered the telegram number and filed it into Department 13's confidential folder.

That evening, the messenger on the middle shift collected the folder from the Central Telecommunications Station. The telegram was then delivered to the Confidential Section for decoding. Based on the header code, the female confidential clerk knew this was important intelligence sent from an overseas station. The text was placed into a locked red folder and immediately delivered to the desk of Li Yan, Chief of the First Division: the Domestic Division, also known as the Great Ming Division.

Li Yan read the report and immediately sought out Jiang Shan. Subsequently, Jiang Shan convened a working meeting in the conference room of the External Intelligence Bureau, attended by Li Yan, Wang Ding, invited General Researcher of the Great Library Historical Research Room Yu E'shui, and Director of the Truth Office Zhang Haogu.

The meeting concluded that Leng Ningyun's analysis was largely accurate. Though the latest "Beijing Weekly News Summary" had not yet arrived, judging from previously obtained intelligence, saving Sun Yuanhua's political life still required addressing the big picture and clearing away the anti-Zhou Yanru forces.

Assassinating Wen Tiren presented no technical difficulty, but after discussion, the group concluded that killing him would accomplish little. Wen Tiren's death would only result in Zhou Yanru's sole dominance—and the Donglin Party would inevitably redirect their attacks toward Zhou. Zhou Yanru was no ally of the Donglin either; in the earlier struggles to bring down Qian Longxi and drive out Qian Qianyi, Wen Tiren and Zhou Yanru had conspired together. The Donglin might well seize this opportunity to drive Zhou away by leveraging the strike against Sun Yuanhua.

Only by keeping Wen Tiren alive could the Donglin Party be induced to cooperate with Zhou Yanru. Though Zhou Yanru had attacked the Donglin, a certain karmic connection remained between them. In the metropolitan examination of the fourth year of Chongzhen, it was precisely under Zhou Yanru's secret machinations as chief examiner that a large number of Fushe scholars—including Fushe leader Zhang Pu—had passed the examination. Whether a secret deal existed between the two was difficult to say.

"Fushe and Donglin are essentially one and the same," Yu E'shui observed. "Zhang Pu's power already seems to exceed that of the old Donglin grandees. When Zhou Yanru disregarded established protocol and elbowed aside Wen Tiren to become chief examiner, beyond ensuring his good friend's son attained the Huiyuan rank, he also intended to recruit famous scholars as disciples to expand his influence at court. From this perspective, though Fushe and Zhou Yanru do not walk the same path, a foundation for cooperation exists between them. After all, Zhou Yanru's second reinstatement to the Grand Secretariat later owed much to the Fushe's covert operational support. They are not like him and Wen Tiren—incompatible as fire and water."

(End of Chapter)