Chen Hong and Feng Bao were punished and sent off for labor reform. The true significance of this was that it broke the collusion between the inner and outer courts and severed the chain through which interests were conveyed.
Chen Hong had previously been allied with Gao Gong, while Feng Bao had been allied with Zhang Juzheng. After Gao Gong stepped down, Chen Hong and Feng Bao still did not get along, but with Wang Yan as an external pressure, they maintained a stable alliance in order to focus their attacks on him.
And it had indeed been effective. The Grand Secretariat and the Directorate of Ceremonial had practically surrounded Longqing. To put it bluntly, more than half the reason Longqing changed his mind and decided to target Wang Yan was because they had been whispering in his ear.
Otherwise, Longqing spent every day either sleeping with women or studying how to spend money. He had no interest in studying Wang Yan. After all, Wang Yan had always shown him respect and was basically obedient to his every word. It was not quite the same as how he had treated Jiajing, but he had retained at least seventy percent of that attitude.
Under such circumstances, without anyone egging him on, how fed up with life would Longqing have to be to go looking for trouble with Wang Yan?
If he had just kept enjoying himself, then while his reputation might not have measured up to Jiajing's, he would certainly still have been regarded as a wise ruler of his generation...
Which was why it was quite necessary for Wang Yan to move against Chen Hong and Feng Bao now.
With Chen Hong and Feng Bao temporarily gone, it was easy enough to arrange replacements. Even if the person temporarily overseeing