Jing Chen directly admitted to Ma Zhuo's identity; the latter indeed had been his reading companion during his childhood. When the Zhuo family was convicted, he was also exiled. Originally, due to Jing Chen's pleas, he could have been allowed to remain, but thinking of how his family was full of old and weak women and children who needed him to take care of them, he declined the prince's kindness and went to the remote place which they had been exiled to.
Mu Hanzhang confirmed Ma Zhuo's status, and his good impression of him immediately rose.
Jing Chen's reading companion had been Zhuo Yunji, the eldest son of Minister Zhuo. It was rumored that he was highly intelligent and could recite text he had only seen once. Before the Zhuo family incident, the teacher of the Mu family had often mentioned him.
"How can he be as awesome as the rumors?" Jing Chen shook his head helplessly. Ma Zhuo was just a good talker and had been able to win over their teacher, which was why the latter praised him a bit in public. The teacher of the Mu family was taught by a teacher at Taixue, so when it came to his beloved teacher, he naturally exaggerated his teacher's words.
"That's right, he can't recite something he's only seen once!" Jing Shao echoed. When he was a child, he had once caught Zhuo Yunji copying the book he needed to memorize onto his hand. The rascal gave him a handful of candy and asked him not to tell anyone.
Mu Hanzhang heard this and laughed, then switched to talking about what had happened in court recently. "The eldest prince wishes to return to court, but the letter requesting this is still on the way." During this period of time, it was only when he was helping Jing Chen manage part of his affairs that he found out how powerful he was and how wide his reach extended.
Jing Chen took a sip of tea and looked at Jing Shao. "What do you think?"
Jing Shao frowned. Before the southern barbarian rebellion was even quelled, Jing Rong, that soft and weak idiot, wanted to come back with his tail between his legs. If this wasn't taken care of, the responsibility would fall on Jing Shao. "He's not afraid of losing face and we can't stop him, but Imperial Father will never give up on the Yunnan-Tibet region... No matter what, I'm not going."
"I didn't say you have to go." Jing Chen stared at him, then turned to look at Mu Hanzhang, and asked him what he thought.
"We can send someone else." Mu Hanzhang slowly rubbed the rim of his cup. The eldest prince wanted to come back. They couldn't stop the letter from arriving. Everything depended on the emperor's intentions.
"Who?" Jing Chen had some people in mind, but he still wanted to hear their opinions.
"It is most suitable for the Count of Yongchang to go; maybe he can even be granted a marquis title." Jing Shao sneered. Didn't the Countess of Yongchang hate that his Wang Fei had been conferred as a marquis? Then let her husband go to the battlefield in search of a marquis title.
A few days later, a letter from the eldest prince Jing Rong requesting to return was passed on to Emperor Hong Zheng.
"Useless!" Emperor Hong Zheng threw the letter to the ground in front of the whole court.
"Your Majesty, the southern barbarians have become arrogant recently. If we suddenly withdraw our troops, it might be interpreted as fear and boost their arrogance. It will become even harder to deal with them in the future," the Minister of War said worriedly.
Since the death of the old prime minister, Emperor Hong Zheng hadn't appointed a prime minister all these years. He assigned the prime minister's duties to six ministers, with the princes, dukes and marquis in charge and official positions given to the rest of the nobility. Any miscellaneous duties unaccounted for were directly assigned to the ministers. Hence, the six ministers had a lot of weight when they spoke in court.
