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

Chapter 555

Lu Wanshan hesitated before speaking.

Zhou Chu shook his head upon hearing this.

"No need. That Wang Mingyue is cold-hearted and a madwoman. Even if the entire Wang family were to die, she wouldn't care. It's better to use the Wang family as bait; she'll come back sooner or later."

Although Zhou Chu hadn't met Wang Mingyue many times, he had already figured out her personality.

According to the previous investigation by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, in the Wang family, Wang Mingyue's father, Wang Long, listened to her every word, and Wang Mingyue seemed to have never cared about this nominal father.

Most importantly, Zhou Chu has no way of knowing whether Wang Mingyue is dead or alive right now, so there's no point in taking action against the Wang family. It's better to keep the Wang family as bait; if Wang Mingyue is alive, she'll come back sooner or later.

This woman is insane. She's not afraid of death at all; she's just afraid of dying without ever accomplishing anything.

Zhou Chu understood that as long as Wang Mingyue was alive, she would eventually return to the capital and continue to oppose him.

As for the person behind this woman, Zhou Chu is still unsure, because there are too many people who have a grudge against him and wish him dead, so many that Zhou Chu can't even remember them all.

Moreover, political struggles in the imperial court are always a matter of life and death. Don't be fooled by the fact that some people are nice to you on the surface, but they may be secretly sabotaging you.

This clumsy tactic left Zhou Chu unsure whether it was Xia Yan who did it, or someone else trying to frame Xia Yan and the people behind him.

Zhou Chu had always been well aware that there were still many officials in the capital who originally belonged to the Jiangnan faction, but who were now keeping a very low profile.

If Xia Yan did it, he probably wanted to use this incident to sow discord between himself and other officials, especially Yang Yiqing.

After all, Yang Yiqing, as the Grand Secretary, may seem to have given up, but having risen to such a position and been away from the capital for the past two years, it's inevitable that other thoughts would arise in his mind.

If Yang Yiqing did it, then he wanted to take the opportunity to escalate the conflict between himself and Xia Yan and the others.

Zhou Chu thought for a long time but couldn't come up with any ideas, mainly because none of the evidence could prove who did it.

Sometimes, the clumsier the method, the less clear it is to people.

However, Zhou Chu no longer wanted to bother thinking about these things; there was no point in dwelling on things that were destined to remain unclear.

Looking at the memorials before him, Zhou Chu realized that they were all sent by Jiajing when he visited the Fang residence. These memorials were mostly from Qi Liang, Lin Zhi, and the Frankish government.

Zhou Chu casually picked up a memorial and began to read it.

There were many memorials accumulated over the past two years, and it took Zhou Chu nearly an hour to finish reading them.

The situation in Japan has been completely stabilized. The Japanese daimyo had tried to attack Wang Zhi several times, but they were all driven back by him. After Wang Zhi captured two more islands, the other Japanese daimyo became completely subdued. They realized that there was a huge gap in strength between themselves and the Ming army, and that it was impossible to defeat them by force.

Therefore, these powerful lords, being very pragmatic, began to submit to Wang Zhi and the Ming Dynasty, and started trading with Wang Zhi. As for the price of the goods, it was up to Wang Zhi alone.

Of course, Zhou Chu had already set these prices. If they were to exploit the resources to the point of exhaustion, it wouldn't be long before the lower-class Japanese people would be unable to survive, and there would be no one to provide productive value for the Ming Dynasty. This was not what Zhou Chu wanted to see.

For the past two years, Lin Zhi and Qi Liang have taken turns guarding Japan. Wang Zhi has always been very disciplined, doing what he should do and never doing what he shouldn't. In Wang Zhi's heart, he has always been working for the Ming Dynasty. He has always been waiting for the court to grant him a title and make him a general, so that he can bring glory to his ancestors.