The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 234

Zhang Heling was stunned when he learned of Empress Dowager Zhang's death, and then he was overcome with grief.

He was sad not because his sister had died, but because he had lost his biggest support.

Although Zhang Heling was both stupid and wicked, he was still somewhat self-aware and understood that everything he had now, and that so many of his previous misdeeds had not been investigated, was all because he had such a sister.

Upon suddenly learning of Empress Dowager Zhang's passing, he felt as if his spine had been ripped out, leaving him completely bewildered and helpless.

It's like a child who has always been protected by adults suddenly losing all protection and appearing in the sunlight, with nothing left to hide from.

"Your Excellency, the news from the capital is that the Empress Dowager accidentally fell into the water while admiring flowers in the Imperial Garden. Who can believe such nonsense? What flowers are there to admire in the capital at this time of year?"

Chen Jing, the old man who had been rendered speechless by Zhou Chu's rebuttal at the Huating County government office, now seemed to be putting himself in Zhang Heling's shoes and analyzing the truth for him.

In fact, these flaws were deliberately left by Jiajing. What he wanted was for everyone to appear outwardly acceptable, yet still to make people aware that something was amiss. In this way, the Zhang brothers would have enough reason to rebel, and they would have no choice but to rebel, just as the saying goes, "the rabbit dies and the fox grieves."

Empress Dowager Zhang is dead. Will the court let these two brothers go?

This is a calculated scheme; everything is laid out for you to see, and you only have one path to take: rebellion.

Whether it was the gentry of Jiangnan, or Zhou Chu and Jiajing, they all hoped that the Zhang brothers would rebel. The two brothers had become pawns of both sides, and their fate of rebellion was already sealed, even their failure was inevitable.

The difference is that the gentry of Jiangnan wanted to make this rebellion as big as possible, so that when Zhou Chu and the court had difficulty handling the situation, they could step in to resolve it, thus allowing the entire Jiangnan gentry group to have a greater say in the court.

Zhou Chu and the emperor hoped to significantly weaken the gentry of Jiangnan through this rebellion. They didn't expect to wipe them out completely, but if they weakened them by half, these people would need time to recover and wouldn't dare to act too aggressively in the short term.

Zhou Chu knew very well that even if he wiped out all these people now, a new gentry group would emerge after a period of time, and this class could not be completely eradicated.

All you need to do is keep suppressing it.

"Huh? A rebellion?"

Zhang Heling was clearly startled by those two words and almost fell over, but was fortunately caught by his concubine.

"Your Excellency, there is no need to panic. The court is in turmoil. The Emperor is clearly going to take action against you two, the Duke of Changguo and the Marquis of Jianchang. Otherwise, he would not have targeted the Empress Dowager. If Your Excellency does not wish to lose your head, there is only one path left for you: rebellion."

Chen Jing continued to persuade him.

"Old Chen, you are mistaken. How could it be a rebellion? It was clearly the Empress Dowager who was persecuted to death, and the current emperor has been misled by treacherous officials. Your Excellency is merely purging the court of corrupt officials."

Another old man next to him shook his head and said.

Upon hearing this, Chen Jing slapped his forehead.

"Yes, yes, I'm getting senile. I need to purge the court of corrupt officials."

Even now, Zhang Heling's head was buzzing. His brain couldn't process such a dense amount of information. However, Chen Jing and the others were not in a hurry. They simply stayed in the guest room of Zhang Heling's villa in Suzhou Prefecture. After all, no one could make a quick decision about rebellion.

As long as they persuaded and helped the Zhang brothers analyze the pros and cons day after day, Zhang Jing and others believed that the only way for the two brothers to go was to rebel.

Meanwhile, Zhou Chu appeared in the shipyard. In the previous few months, the shipyard had undergone a large-scale expansion, and many more shipbuilding craftsmen had been recruited.

The entire dock can build four treasure ships at the same time, which greatly increases production capacity compared to before.