Chapter 10 Advice

Although Zhou Zhicheng's method is extremely bad, his ideas are still quite promising. Xu Shaohu quickly instructed the censors to write a letter, using the emperor's oral instructions as an excuse to ask everyone in the court to follow the emperor's will and work diligently and thriftily. The Qingliu faction followed suit and created a huge commotion within a few days.

The strategy is quite clear, which is to suppress the Yan party's extravagant and wasteful momentum under the name of frugality. As long as he has the protection of the emperor's order, Yan Fenyi is expected to be unable to object.

However, this wave of offensive did not cause any trouble when it reached the emperor. Master Feixuan simply flipped through the letter and asked Li Zaifang:

"Did Yan Fenyi have any reaction?"

Li Zaifang kowtowed respectfully: "Old Lord Yan has been staying at home these days. He has not seen outsiders since he returned home. He just invited the imperial physician to see him. While he was ill, he was still writing down his experience of taking elixirs."

Master Feixuan wanted to smile slightly, but he pulled the white cloth stuck to the middle of his nose unconsciously, and his expression twisted.

Although he ordered Yan Fenyi to be skinned, he was only angry at Goryeo because of the nonsense in the evil book, and he did not have any opinion towards Yan Fenyi. Now that this old minister is serving the country with his dedication and diligence, he has of course immediately regained the favor of Master Feixuan.

However, he was not averse to the advice of the upright people. The persona that Master Feixuan had established for himself was that he only wore eight sets of clothes for the four seasons, and he did not dare to be the first in the world to be kind, frugal and loving his people. Now someone took the initiative to create momentum, asking all officials to admire the emperor's virtues and add luster to the emperor's persona. He was naturally happy to see it happen, and could even give some rewards to the upright to encourage their enthusiasm.

In order to express this attitude, the True Lord spoke:

"I think the cabinet is full of good people, all loyal officials, and there are no treacherous officials! In the future, such memorials can be sent directly to the Ministry of Public Security."

After deposing the prime minister, the emperor of the current dynasty took charge of the general affairs and handled numerous state affairs personally; but with the exception of Emperor Gaozu, the king of scrolls, who had a living person growing on his liver, emperors of all dynasties did not have the energy to review each and every one of them. Most of the memorials from the outer court were sent to the Ministry of Public Security, and were reviewed by the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department, who would at most write "I understand" and leave it at that. Now that His Majesty is willing to take a look at it in person, it is indeed a great honor.

Li Zaifang kowtowed and accepted the order. The emperor said again:

"Have the people I ordered you to deploy found any clues?"

Li Zaifang reported the news carefully, but the circle in Beijing was so small that there was really no secret to tell. The emperor just listened to a few words casually, then waved his hand without saying anything, straightened his Taoist robe, and sat cross-legged in meditation again. Li Zaifang, who was reporting, was completely confused and puzzled: compared with the emperor's manic and violent behavior when he issued orders in the secret room of Qingliang Palace more than ten days ago, his current calm and composed state was as if he were in another world.

Where has the crazy behavior that urged him to arrange people to monitor important officials gone? How can we do this job if the leader pulls out the ladder as soon as he gives the order?

Master Feixuan might not be unaware of Li Zaifang's thoughts, but he was too lazy to pay attention. Over the past ten days, Zhenjun suppressed his nausea and read the evil book over and over again. After withstanding the mental attack of the crazy complaints, he gradually figured out some details. In his opinion, although the insults in the evil book were extremely vicious, they were not directed against him, Zhenjun Feixuan. In fact, this diary was an almost indiscriminate attack on all living things involved in the text, venting its anger unscrupulously. Especially in the chapters marked "working at midnight" and "forced to work overtime", the anger is so wild and hot that even the dog raised in Xiyuan would be slapped twice...

I don’t know what the banished immortal who wrote this diary went through. Why is his resentment even deeper than that of the old monster who had been suppressed for tens of millions of years?

Master Feixuan was very good at compromise; if someone pointed at his nose and cursed his entire family, he would be furious and would want to have the lunatic executed in court; but if he was cursed by everyone in the court and the country, then he would reconcile himself and think that it was no big deal - since it was not directed at Master Feixuan personally, it would not threaten his imperial power; as long as it did not threaten the imperial power, everything else would be easy to deal with!

Besides, this rare book holds a 30% hope of achieving immortality through military operation, so I cannot help but be optimistic.

A lot of the content in the log has been covered with ink, and according to the notes below, it is said that sensitive information is not displayed based on some "privacy rules". The emperor didn't understand the meaning of the privacy rules, but he guessed that Qishu was deliberately concealing the identity of its owner. Out of fear of the unknown magical powers of the immortals, the True Lord thought about it and decided not to force the search too much, for fear of causing trouble.

Besides, if I could really take advantage of the opportunity of liberation from the battlefield and ascend to heaven on the spot, I would be a colleague in heaven in the future. It’s not good to make the relationship between colleagues too stiff!

Moreover, some of the explosive information provided in the diary was more detailed than what the Jinyiwei had found out, and was more able to touch the emperor's heart, which indeed had its unique uses. The day before yesterday, the emperor once again studied the passage in the book in which he angrily denounced Di Maoyan, and he discovered that Di Maoyan had actually used the stolen money to buy a rare mutton-fat jade statue overseas, and buried it in the courtyard for the purpose of buying an official position in the future. The emperor pondered for several days and felt that the Qingliang Palace was indeed a bit empty and just needed a jade statue to decorate it, so he decided to arrange for the confiscation of property as soon as possible.

·

After sending Li Zaifang away, the emperor leisurely took out the book and planned to study the list of names of Di Yan and his accomplices whose property was confiscated. Unexpectedly, the book became slightly warm, and a few more pages appeared out of nowhere:

[I received a report from the court today. It turns out that Xu Shaohu had indeed instructed someone to submit a memorial to discuss the issue of frugality in government. Alas, no matter how hard I try, I still can’t escape this. 】

The emperor raised his eyebrows and turned a page. After calming down, he was still very interested in this kind of melon-eating update:

[There is nothing wrong with being thrifty.] But in the political atmosphere under the rule of the old Taoist priest, how could it be possible to govern the country with diligence and frugality? Later, as their power grew, the Yan Party retreated to advance and simply let the Qingliu take over the finances and try to save costs.

It would certainly be great to take over the finances, but things are really difficult. The old Taoist priest above has to use cinnabar and gold powder to write the green poems; the Si Li below supervises the weaving bureau, and in the middle there are hundreds of thousands of acres of paddy fields that Lord Xu has to maintain. How can they save money on these expenses? The clear stream bumps around and you can only pick the soft persimmons to squeeze. The emperor's two sons might inherit the throne, so they didn't dare to act rashly. They simply reduced the treatment of Princess Sishan, the emperor's daughter, and even withheld the reward money for her marriage...

The emperor can't move, the eunuch can't move, so what's the point of bullying a helpless weak woman? The most tragic thing is that the eunuch in charge of arranging the princess' marriage was dissatisfied with the reduction in the reward, and actually made trouble by accepting bribes from Fu'an Hou Zhang Zhu, and arranged for his son Zhang Chengzu, who had a bad temper, to become the princess's consort. The tragedy of the princess’ life began from here… I heard that a lot of later literature about the princess’s divorce was based on this - it’s a complete joke from hell. 】

Master Fei Xuan's face darkened - of course, he didn't care about his daughter, who was born to a palace maid and had a very weak sense of existence; but it was still somewhat embarrassing for him to see a noble girl being betrayed by a eunuch.

[There are more than one serious consequences.] At that time, considering that the emperor had moved to the Western Garden and the Forbidden City was filled with unfavored concubines, the Qingliu people made up their minds and simply cut the expenses of the palace, greatly reducing the number of people guarding it. As a result, layoffs hit the main artery - just one year after the cost cuts, the three main halls caught fire due to lightning strikes, and the fire spread out of control; the old Taoist priest who happened to return to the palace to fast and offer sacrifices to the heaven was almost burnt into a suckling pig. Well, come to think of it, the old Taoist priest has had a connection with fire all his life. Over the past decade, I have been chased by fire and burned three times, but I managed to escape each time. I'm afraid that if the Fire Star Lord knew about this, he would also feel that it was too difficult to kill Old Deng...

By the way, it is said that this fire almost affected the "Grand Ceremony". I...

"According to the privacy regulations, the following content will not be displayed"]

The emperor's face quickly turned grim. If betraying the princess only hurt the Zhenjun's face, then the fire would really touch the Zhenjun's most terrifying reverse scale - I have been practicing for a lifetime, is it just to improve the quality of the roast suckling pig? !

Once personal safety is involved, Dao Ye's reaction is extremely sensitive. He turned his head suddenly and glared at her with extremely fierce eyes.

When Qingliu saw the pile of memorials he sent over, sparks almost came out of his eyes.

He has already decided that today he must find out the mistakes in the memorial and send a few clean-class bastards to Yunnan to see the elephant baring its fangs!

He took a long breath, stretched out his hand and poked at the book, trying to read a little more - this book seemed to be "touch-controlled", and there would always be some changes when he poked it.

But this time the book rejected him and just repeated the same words:

[Involving privacy content, the request is invalid; please do not click repeatedly]

[Involving privacy content, the request is invalid; please do not click repeatedly]

[Too many clicks, the server is blocked, please try again later]

The emperor finally lost his patience: "I order you to answer!"

[Server congestion, please try again later]

"I, True Lord Feixuan, Emperor Qingmiao, Emperor Wanshou, and the Great True Lord Wulei, who controls the merits and demerits of the six directions, order you to answer!"

The book was silent for a moment:

[The system cannot remember so many names]

The emperor was furious and clicked, poked and pinched hard. After a while, the words on the book finally changed.

[Too many clicks, the server is 404 not found, it will be launched again soon——]

In the end, the angry True Lord still couldn't figure out what was going on.

·

After repeated clicks, the weak server finally crashed as expected. After several futile attempts to restart, the system automatically captured the name that appeared most frequently in this section of the log and released the data again.

That evening, after dinner, Lord Xu dismissed his servants and sat alone in a quiet room, meditating silently. This is the skill of "being cautious when alone" that he learned from Yangming's philosophy of mind. He would reflect on himself three times before going to bed every day to find out what he missed and fill in the gaps.

But today, for some reason, I just felt upset and depressed, and couldn't calm down for a long time. He opened his eyes and saw a flash of white light in front of him. An old booklet fell from the sky and landed right in front of him.

After all, he is a great scholar of the School of Mind with decades of experience. Even when faced with this undoubtedly supernatural thing, Lord Xu still did not lose his composure. He took a long breath, forced himself to calm his confused mind, bowed to the sky, and carefully opened the cover of the booklet.

No matter what kind of auspicious or strange omen it is, we should always look at the situation first.

...Half a minute later, the Xu family's housekeeper brought a bowl of ginseng soup as usual and asked the elder to wash up. But after knocking on the door, there was a loud bang, followed by a loud shout:

"Master, Master! Someone come, the Master is dead!"

·

The Xu family was in chaos overnight, and the news spread all over the city that day, causing a sensation; even the Western Garden was almost alarmed by the illness. Compared with the famous Xiangfu that attracted everyone's attention, the other name mentioned repeatedly in the diary seemed really obscure.

At 2:02 am, the head maid of Shuhua Palace prepared hot water and sent someone to invite Princess Zhishan to take a bath. The emperor had not seen his daughter for seven or eight years, and his servants had become lax and did not pay much attention to the princess's daily life. Even the maid in charge was unwilling to visit her in person.

But even so, when the princess showed up, the maid in charge was still surprised: "Why are your eyes swollen?"

"…Nothing." The princess said quietly, "I just rubbed my face because it itched. It's nothing serious."

She took the hot towel silently and stopped talking.