Chapter 599 [1st update] 599

Liu Tan deeply felt that this group of candidates had really suffered a lot. They were stuck in the palace examination and could not continue. Now that he had finally returned, the palace examination was about to be held, but it had to be postponed again.

Although Liu Tan did not intend to give the top three places to these Huns even if the palace examination was held, he still had to show his attitude.

Fortunately, the date of the palace examination has not yet been determined, so all the candidates need to be prepared.

After discussing this, Huo Guang changed the subject: "How did Your Highness come across such a person?"

Liu Tan: ...

What should he say about this? Should he say that it was rare for him to skip work and then he was forced to work overtime?

It really makes me feel wronged just thinking about it.

Seeing that his Highness had completely lost his composure and looked like he had lost all hope in life, Huo Guang couldn't help but say, "The weather is beautiful, Your Highness, why don't you go out and relax one day?"

Huo Guang had some idea of ​​what the documents in Liu Tan's hands were for. Simply put, the ones that really needed to be dealt with had been dealt with, and the rest were things that would be dealt with sooner or later. In that case, it would be better to let their prince go out and play.

Otherwise, what if their prince gets bored in the palace and comes up with something new?

Even though their prince could improve the invisible national strength of the Northern Border every time he came up with something new, it still made them nervous. The Northern Border did not need so many things now. It just needed to stabilize its current basic foundation and then expand its business with other regions.

Liu Tan had lost interest in going out to play at this point. Forget it, his palace was big enough anyway, and he could do other things.

He thought for a moment and said, "Give me the summary documents of each county from last year, and also their planning documents for this year."

Huo Guang felt relieved when he heard this. It was fine to mess with those county governors, as long as the common people were not messed with. He could do whatever he wanted.

In fact, it was not that Liu Tan wanted to make trouble for the county governor, but he found that in the current situation, each county actually had some way out.

Oh, except for Yanmen County which is located on the border and has a not-so-good geographical location, Yanmen County also has its own advantages.

Liu Tan remembered that there was actually iron ore there, and the reserves were not small, but... Liu Tan didn't dare to let anyone go to explore it, because the place could be plundered by the Huns at any time. Until now, Liu Tan didn't dare to say that he could definitely defend Yanmen County.

It was precisely because the economic conditions of these counties had improved that Liu Tan decided to start urging them to develop infrastructure.

It is said that the economic base determines the superstructure. Now, for Liu Tan, it is basically the infrastructure that determines the superstructure.

The first thing is the planning of the county town. The most important part of this planning is road planning. Nowadays, except for Shuofang County, the proportion of cement roads in other county towns is too low. He only required that official roads must be used, and the rest of the roads were left to the county governors to decide.

As a result, I don’t know whether these county governors were afraid of poverty or what, but they were unwilling to build roads. Only the Dunhuang county governor Kou Zhengda was more courageous and was very active in building roads. The road started from the entrance of Dunhuang to the county town and then to Tongda City, all the way to the trade market.

In addition to these major cities, some other places were also built very quickly, such as the one near the soy product workshop.

Liu Tan looked at the various development data of Dunhuang and couldn't help but sigh: "If all my subordinates were people like Kou Zhengda, I would have much less worries."

Lu Xuan smiled and said, "I believe His Majesty also feels that if all officials in the world were like Ah Tan, he would have less worries."

Liu Tan was immediately shocked: "This won't do. I'm afraid that big man is finished."

Lu Xuan couldn't help laughing after hearing this, and felt deeply that his Ah Tan was really self-aware.

After Liu Tan looked through all the data, he began to think. He now regretted not studying current affairs well. Now he didn't know whether to focus on infrastructure construction or poverty alleviation first.

But think about it, many problems nowadays are caused by inconvenient transportation. If transportation is convenient, it will have some impact on the local economy.

If you want to get rich, you must first build roads.

Liu Tan decided to give them a hard target, which required a certain level of road construction each year. In order to support them, the imperial court could provide some financial subsidies.

Of course, if you want a subsidy, you must first apply with your results, and don't just take out a loan without any evidence.

When Liu Tan was writing this plan, he suddenly thought of the fact that in later generations, there would often be very good roads but roads would be repaired from time to time. He wondered... if it was exactly the same as his current situation.

You have to know that the Northern Border Kingdom is big, but there are not many actually populated areas, so I think it can still be supervised. The situation in later generations... even if the people above want to supervise, they can't stop people from cheating and playing tricks.

Liu Tan worked tirelessly for several days to write a plan, which was so detailed that even Huo Guang couldn't help but feel sorry for the county governors after reading it.

However, Liu Tan's timing was very good. Just as he finished the plan and threw it to Huo Guang for evaluation, the results of the provincial and imperial examinations of the Xiongnu people were also announced.

In the end, the only Xiongnu person who was able to successfully enter the palace examination was Ke Minghan.

After seeing this result, Liu Tan couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, thinking that no wonder Ke Minghan was so persistent in asking for an explanation, he must have confidence in himself.

Liu Tan became very interested in this person and couldn't help but look through all his papers.

After reading it, he had deep doubts. Is this person really a Hun?

How did you learn so well?

This level is not much worse than Lu Xuan. You know, although people now think that Lu Xuan has a hard time, that is also relative. At least at that time, he was much better off than most people in terms of material life.

Therefore, Lu Xuan received a better education than many people. Later, when he arrived in the Han Dynasty, he had access to more books. Therefore, his current knowledge is the result of his own efforts, and also the result of his having the conditions to study.

As for this Ke Minghan, it's very strange. No matter how talented he is, it is not easy for him to accumulate allusions. At most, he can remember them faster. But what's the use of remembering them quickly if he can't access them?

Liu Tan was suspicious and couldn't help but ask someone to check Ke Minghan's resume.

It turned out that this person's background was not very good either. He was originally a slave in their tribe. However, he was lucky. When he was eight or nine years old, his tribe happened to surrender to the Han Dynasty and enter the Northern Border Kingdom. Then, with the hard work of his whole family, he later became a good citizen of the Northern Border Kingdom.

After becoming good citizens, this group of Huns were released by Liu Tan to plant salt trees. These salt trees grew a lot of Cistanche deserticola. The court collected part of the tax, and the rest was their income, so their family conditions gradually improved.

His father was more far-sighted. After discovering that the King of the North particularly valued scholars, he sent all his children to school.

Liu Tan looked at the place where they went to school again. In fact, the so-called school was nothing more than some down-and-out scholars with no source of income being invited by the Huns to teach the Huns' children.

Originally, the Huns just wanted to better integrate into the Han Dynasty. After all, they knew it was impossible for them to return to the Huns, and no one wanted to be a second-class citizen.

Even though the court's attitude is very good under the influence of the King of the North, it does not mean that they will not encounter various discriminations in their lives.

But it’s different if you have read books. Even the Huns will be looked up to by those who have never read books.

Liu Tan read Ke Minghan's resume from beginning to end and knew that he was the most outstanding among all the children because of his intelligence. Not only the whole family, but even the whole tribe placed their hopes on him - slave or not, now that they had arrived in the Northern Border Kingdom, they were all Huns of the same plight.

Under such circumstances, Ke Minghan had always aimed to take the imperial examination, but he was suddenly not allowed to participate, so he naturally felt dissatisfied.

On the surface, there seemed to be nothing wrong, but after reading it, Liu Tan said, "There's something wrong with this person."

As he spoke, he handed the document to Lu Xuan. Lu Xuan glanced over it and raised an eyebrow. "If that down-and-out scholar could really teach a disciple like this, his own skill must be high enough. How could he be so down-and-out?"

If it were somewhere else, he might feel that his talent was not appreciated because of his personality.

However, such a thing would never happen in the Northern Border Kingdom. Liu Tan has a high tolerance for talented people. As long as they don't bully men or women or break the law, even if they are not polite to Liu Tan, Liu Tan can tolerate it.

And why didn't this down-and-out scholar take the imperial examination? This was the second time the Northern Kingdom was taking the exam. If he had really wanted to, he could have taken it on the first try.

Lu Xuan put it down and said, "This person is also suspicious. Let's check it out."

This investigation actually revealed the problem. This so-called down-and-out scholar was indeed a Han Chinese, but unfortunately he was a traitor.

Oh, calling him a traitor may be unfair to him. After all, his mother is a legitimate Hun and a princess of a certain tribe.

I have to say that when Liu Tan saw the so-called princess of a certain tribe, he rolled his eyes to the sky - the Huns' princess was really worthless.

This down-and-out scholar was basically a guide. Liu Tan didn't know whether all the students taught by this person had ideological problems, but when he knew that Ke Minghan respected this teacher very much, he knew that this person could be taken away.

Lu Xuan was even more pointed: "With Ke Minghan's level of learning, it's impossible to say that he doesn't have support behind him."

Books are more precious than paper. Liu Tan has always wanted to build a library in the academy, but he has not succeeded until now because collecting books is a very slow process.

If it was so difficult for him, how did that poor scholar learn it? And where did he get so many books?

Liu Tan directly ordered people to take the down-and-out scholar away, but in order not to alert the enemy, he asked people to cover it up, so that people would mistakenly think that the man left on his own or disappeared suddenly.

However, the sudden disappearance easily aroused Ke Minghan's vigilance, and finally Liu Tan went directly to the Embroidered Uniform Messenger - these people were more professional in this regard.

The embroidered robe envoys were also used to doing things for the King of the Northern Territory. They always felt that they were not the emperor's eyes and ears sent by the emperor, but were sent by the emperor to help his son.

I have to say that the embroidered robe envoys were quite capable. They killed that man directly.

Of course the person was still alive, but they faked a death scene. The cause of death was that he was walking at night on a rainy day, and accidentally slipped into the ditch next to him and drowned.

After learning about this series of operations, Liu Tan couldn't help but ask, "Where did you find the body?"

The embroidered robes messenger said, "We went to the Imperial Court to look for one. They brought someone from the death row who was of similar height and appearance."

Liu Tan was surprised: "This one is easy to find, but what about the face? It looks different."

The embroidered robes envoy laughed and said, "Your Highness, after being soaked in water for a night, that face has long been deformed. I guess no one is looking at it seriously, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to tell."

Liu Tan: ...

I feel like I have learned some useless knowledge.

The embroidered robe envoy did a neat and efficient job. Liu Tan sent people to observe Ke Minghan for a long time. Ke Minghan behaved normally. After hearing about his teacher's death, he was in disbelief at first, and then asked for leave to go back to attend the funeral. He and that person were master and apprentice in name, so there was nothing wrong with this attitude.

Ke Minghan was careful and checked it carefully. However, as the embroidered messenger said, the body had been soaked in water for a night, and several days had passed by the time Ke Minghan returned.

In this weather, they had no ice to preserve the body, so when Ke Minghan went to see it, the body was basically highly decomposed and nothing could be seen.

Ke Minghan did not suspect anything and came back honestly to prepare for the palace examination.

On the day before the palace examination, Jiang Chong brought the results of the interrogation.

Seeing his hard expression, Liu Tan couldn't help but ask, "Did you find out?"

Jiang Chong sneered: "He's just a spineless guy. If you use some tricks, he'll tell the truth."

Liu Tan rubbed his temples and said, "I don't want to watch it anymore. Tell me now."

Jiang Chong said very simply, "This man is a spy sent by Wuli Lake."

When Liu Tan heard this, he didn't know what expression to make in response.

He thought for a long time before asking, "How long has he been in the Northern Kingdom?"

Jiang Chong said, "Thirteen years."

Thirteen years... Well, at that time, no one knew where the Northern Border Country was, and Liu Tan hadn't crossed over yet. He was even worried about how to check for plagiarism in his paper, and he couldn't help but curse a certain celebrity as soon as he opened the paper.

Even the Xiongnu Khan at that time was not Wushilu.

Liu Tan's brows relaxed as he said, "He took quite a while to weave this thread, but it serves as a reminder to us. I'll write a memorial to the Emperor later."

Jiang Chong was stunned for a moment: "What?"

Liu Tan said as if it was a matter of course: "Of course, ask the emperor to send more embroidered robe envoys over. Professional matters should be handled by professionals."

Jiang Chong couldn't help but cough lightly and said, "Your Highness, should we also..."

Liu Tan said firmly, "Don't even think about it."

Jiang Chong didn't say anything. Liu Tan was very worried that this guy was pretending to obey but actually disobeying. Although he looked very honest now, it didn't mean that he was really honest. Liu Tan had not forgotten that Jiang Chong was still a reserve rebel.

He wrote a letter to Liu Che in a flurry of movement, saying as he wrote, "Intelligence agencies must be subordinate to the central government. Of course, it's OK for local governments to have separate responsibilities, but who will be in charge is still up to my father to decide. If we do it ourselves, it would be like seizing the power of the Embroidered Envoy in our own hands. Wouldn't that be courting death?"

Jiang Chong immediately responded, "Yes."

He knew that what Liu Tan said made sense, but even so he didn't think there was anything wrong with what he was thinking. After all, according to the emperor's care for the King of the Northern Territory, the King of the Northern Territory might have to take over.

Liu Tan also had an idea in mind, but this matter... he couldn't do it himself. At least he had to get authorization from Liu Che.

Otherwise, if he does it himself, according to Liu Tan's personality, he might make this intelligence agency even stronger than the Embroidered Envoy's. By then, the most powerful intelligence agency of the Han Dynasty will be in the hands of the King of the Northern Territory. Is it reasonable to tell others about this?

After Liu Tan finished writing the letter, he had it sent out directly. Of course, the letter also included the good news, telling Liu Che that the wheat and rice had sprouted. From the preliminary point of view, there would be no problem with germination when the temperature and humidity were suitable.

As for whether it can bear fruit, we have to continue observing. By the way, I have also attached a copy of the various records of previous seedling cultivation, so that they can try it in Chang'an. According to the climate, Chang'an is more suitable.

Liu Tan even carefully attached a malt plant and rice seedlings in the letter.

Anyway, the messenger ran fast enough, and the two seedlings should still be alive when they reach Liu Che's hands.

Liu Tan gave his father a surprise, but unexpectedly his father also gave him a "surprise".