Chapter 5

That night, Zhu Zilong and Zhang Jingzheng drank until late, and both returned home quite tipsy.

It's worth mentioning that in ancient times, all the alcohol was fermented, with a maximum alcohol content of no more than twenty degrees. Most of it was rice wine with an alcohol content of less than ten degrees, which was obtained after fermentation and filtration. Hence, there were stories like "Li Bai could drink ten liters of wine and write a hundred poems"!

If you were to give Li Bai and Wu Song several dozen or even a dozen large bowls of modern 21st-century 50-degree Red Star Erguotou, they would surely be drunk to death!

However, it was clear that Zhang Jingzheng and Zhu Zilong's alcohol tolerance was average, so even with the 20-degree rice wine, they still got quite tipsy.

Zhu Zilong, who was half-asleep, was supported by a servant back to his room. But as a wave of fluctuation came from deep within his soul, he suddenly became more sober.

Goodness, it was a sign that his main soul had stabilized and attached to another body. He needed to take a good look at whose body it was!

Quickly closing the doors and windows, Zhu Zilong took out a rope from his travel bag and securely locked it, then lay down on the bed.

Closing his eyes, a colorful illusionary passage appeared in his mind (similar to the dual use of souls in the movie "Avatar" to control both humans and aliens)!

Opening his eyes again, Zhu Zilong felt a wave of weakness. Subconsciously, he glanced at the surroundings. The room was filled with ancient and fragrant furniture, including armchairs and eight-person tables, all made of hard wood with intricate carvings and dragon patterns, which were quite different from the homes of ordinary people!

At the same time, a large amount of information flooded his mind.

Humans have three souls and seven spirits. The seven spirits are the branches of the three souls and also contain a lot of memory. Although some of the memories were incomplete, they were still sufficient. At least, they allowed Zhu Zilong to understand most of the life memories and past of the person whose body he had possessed!

After half an hour, Zhu Zilong had a clear and thorough understanding of the information of the person whose body he had possessed.

Zhu Zilong couldn't help but sigh, thinking he had really hit the jackpot. This person turned out to be the Ming Dynasty's Emperor Tianqi, who was also known as the carpenter emperor.

However, it made sense. With the dragon soul mixed in his main soul, it naturally chose a suitable host.

Of course, there was a prerequisite for possession. It had to be someone who had just died or was on the verge of death. To absorb the dragon aura, it also had to be someone related to the royal family. The carpenter emperor had just drowned, and it was the will of heaven!

In other words, before he retracted his main soul, with the help of his main body and the dragon soul, he could temporarily control the emperor's body.

Of course, this carried the risk of exposure and soul injury!

For example, a voice from an old eunuch outside the room was familiar to the former emperor's soul.

Zhu Zilong quickly controlled the emperor's body to pretend to be asleep!

"Why hasn't the imperial physician reported to me after such a long time? How are you performing your duties? How is His Majesty?" the head eunuch, Li Jinzhong, shouted at the young eunuchs on duty outside.

"Master Li, the situation is the same as yesterday. His Majesty needs rest. I was just about to report to you, Master!" a young eunuch outside the door replied in a trembling voice.

"Understood. If it happens again, there will be severe punishment!" Li Jinzhong muttered a few words, then came in to check. Seeing that the emperor (who was actually Zhu Zilong now) was still unconscious, he turned and quietly left.

Anyone would recognize this person.

(Li Jinzhong, also known as Wei Zhongxian (1568-1627, December 11), with the courtesy name Wanwu, was from Shunping, North Zhili (now Shunping, Hebei Province), Han nationality.)

During the reign of Emperor Tianqi of the Ming Dynasty, he served as the chief eunuch of the Office of Ceremonial and was extremely favored, known as "Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Years." He enjoyed expelling his enemies and monopolizing the government, to the point where the common people "only knew of Wei Zhongxian in the palace and not the emperor."

If the emperor who had just woken up from drowning was still the original one, he would naturally continue to be confused.

Unfortunately, the soul in the emperor's body had changed, becoming the combination of Zhu Zilong's main soul and the dragon soul from the 21st century.

As a modern person well-versed in history, Zhu Zilong's brows furrowed.

Was Wei Zhongxian really that bad?

When people mentioned Wei Zhongxian, they often carried a deep-seated prejudice against the entire eunuch class, automatically labeling him as a perverted villain.

If Zhu Zilong hadn't come through time, and the dead emperor hadn't become his avatar, and he hadn't received the memories of Emperor Tianqi, Zhu Zilong would probably have thought Wei Zhongxian was utterly evil, just like most people in the 21st century.

However, he was now lost in thought.

According to the memories of Emperor Tianqi, the so-called "Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Years" Wei Zhongxian was actually just a loyal dog of the royal family.

The reason why the "Wei Party" was so powerful in the court and the palace was more due to the fact that the former Emperor Tianqi himself lacked the ability and was too lazy, making him an unqualified emperor.

On the contrary, Wei Zhongxian was a man with ambition.

Under the emperor's lazy and negligent rule, he used his genius organizational skills and iron will to carry out many reforms, stabilizing the crisis-ridden Ming Empire through strong and effective organizational control.

He united a large number of people from various social strata around him, established a powerful central command mechanism, and created an impressive administrative efficiency. Of course, this included some corruption, the appointment of cronies, and the elimination of disobedient people, which any official in power would do!

However, Wei Zhongxian went a bit too far.

It could be said that he was just a loyal dog of the emperor, a shield with some ambition.

Due to his strong conflict with the literati group that controlled public opinion, his negative image was greatly exaggerated in later generations, especially under the smear campaign of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, Wei Zhongxian was quite principled in matters concerning the survival of the nation and the people.

The most important point was that he was loyal to the emperor.

Moreover, when he heard the emperor often lamenting the lack of funds in the treasury, Wei Zhongxian and his subordinates even gritted their teeth and levied commercial taxes, circulation taxes, and customs duties, essentially taxing the rich to maintain the operation of the state. This naturally increased his conflict with the literati group, which represented the rich!

In contrast, the Donglin Party in the court.

At the beginning, a few leaders and a small number of scholars were indeed dedicated to the public good. However, most of the later successors of the Donglin Party were just... well, just... well, just...

At this moment, Zhu Zilong's mind was filled with countless thoughts.

He gave a light sneer, and with the memories left by the former Emperor Tianqi, he had a deeper disdain for the Donglin Party.

In his view, many of the later Donglin Party members, besides spouting a few pretty words that made them darlings in history books, were actually a bunch of old, rigid, and ignorant people who knew nothing about economics or military affairs.

When they were content with their positions, their abilities were roughly equivalent to those of people in the 21st century who spent their days in offices drinking tea and reading newspapers. When they were not content, they stirred up trouble and focused on internal strife, which ultimately led to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty, including figures like Yuan Chonghuan and the entire Ming Empire.

In summary, Wei Zhongxian was certainly not a good person, but the later Donglin Party members were even worse.

Emperor Chongzhen's last words before his death said it all: "All the literati should be killed."

In the later Ming Dynasty, so-called scholars, especially most of the Donglin Party members, actually saw opposing the imperial power as their capital and glory.

They were essentially the spokespersons for the literati, large merchants, and large landowners, so Wei Zhongxian, as the representative of the imperial power, was the first to be attacked by the Donglin Party.

Moreover, the later Ming emperors were all... well, you know!

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty fell.

Thinking about this, Zhu Zilong clenched his fists, as if making a vow to himself, and muttered, "The last Han Chinese dynasty cannot be brought down by them. Hmm? My head is a bit dizzy again. It must be because the soul fusion is not yet completely stable. Forget it, I'll go back to my main body for now. I'll come back when I have time!"

With that, Zhu Zilong's carpenter emperor avatar fell into a sweet sleep again.

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