Chapter 0037 The One Who Holds a Vengance

When Xiao Rong returned to his residence, Gao Xunzhi and Yu Shaoxie were still waiting there.

Xiao Rong couldn't help but ask them, "Don't you two have any official business to attend to?"

Gao Xunzhi and Yu Shaoxie answered him in unison: "We dealt with it this morning."

Xiao Rong: “…………”

Oh yes, he slept through the morning.

Feeling guilty, Xiao Rong sat down and calmly picked at the bayberries on the plate with his fingers.

In May, seasonal fruits have appeared, and the streets are full of vendors selling them. However, the fruit planting industry has not yet formed a large scale. Most of them are grown by wealthy families in their own farms and then provided to their owners. The fruits eaten by the people in the city are picked from the mountains by farmers early in the morning. They are juicy and sweet.

Of course, sweet and refreshing is a euphemism. To Xiao Rong, who was used to eating greenhouse products that were cloyingly sweet, all the fruits of this era tasted bland.

But having something to eat is better than having nothing to eat. Before in Yanmen County, Xiao Rong couldn't get any fruit even if he wanted to. Now the food on the table is already very rich.

They were either very sour or tasteless. There were also some sweet fruits, but they were very rare and hard to come by. Nowadays, food was the big hand that was strangling everyone's neck. Even if Xiao Rong wanted to develop fruit planting, now was not a good time.

Xiao Rong's action was a bit rude. As a scholar, how could he play with food? However, Gao Xunzhi had lived for too long, so he didn't care about these things at all. Although Yu Shaoxie looked at Xiao Senwan's hand that was tidying up Xiao Rong uncontrollably, when he thought of how powerful Xiao Di was, he subconsciously made excuses for Xiao Rong. All talented people are different from ordinary people, so they can't be evaluated by ordinary people's rules. ...

Gao Xunzhi asked Xiao Rong how things were going and whether he had said anything to Huang Yanjiong today. Xiao Rong briefly recounted what happened, and then he saw Gao Xunzhi's eyes start to become dazed. Xiao Rong: "?" What's wrong?

In his imagination, Gao Xunzhi should have a very puzzled reaction, how could it be like this?

In fact, Yu Shaoxie's mind was also very complicated. He hadn't thought clearly about his own thoughts yet. Seeing Gao Xunzhi like this, and Xiao Rong's suspicion, Yu Shaoxie's heart skipped a beat and he immediately asked, "Brother Xiao, are you going to use a chain of tricks?"

As soon as Yu Shaoxie spoke, Gao Xunzhi came back to his senses. He also realized that he had lost his composure, so he lowered his head as if to cover up.

Xiao Rong looked at Gao Xunzhi oddly, then hummed, "Inducing Huang Yanjiong to send out troops is an additional benefit. It can consume his troops and at the same time make him leave Ningzhou for a while. All crows are black, and no place is truly an iron wall. It is only a matter of time for Huang Yanjiong to take Ningzhou. As long as he leaves, there will definitely be some problems behind him. No matter how big or small the problem is, as long as there is chaos over there, it will be good for us."

"As for the real purpose of calling him here, it is to get this great gift from his Huang family. With this great gift, we will have something to say when we meet Sun Renluan and His Majesty later, and it will no longer be aimless. Prime Minister, Xianbei is not only the enemy of all the people in the Central Plains, but also a buffer zone between us and Nanyong. Once Xianbei is gone, the peaceful coexistence between the north and the south will be immediately broken, and the war will be imminent. I know that the king is not afraid of fighting, but Nanyong is the orthodoxy in the eyes of the people anyway. If we fight with Nanyong, we will immediately fall into the position of traitors, which is very disadvantageous to the king. At that time, not only the people, but also the scholars, nobles, and aristocratic families, people all over the world will regard the Zhenbei Army as jackals and tigers. Therefore, if this battle can be avoided, it is better to avoid it as much as possible."

Gao Xunzhi frowned and said nothing, but Yu Shaoxie was attracted by Xiao Rong and became curious: "What is the purpose of this gift from the Huang family?"

Xiao Rong smiled and said, "Let the Huang family appear in the vision of the uncle and His Majesty, and replace the Xianbei as the next buffer zone between the north and the south. Although the Huang family has done favors to the king, Huang Yanjiong and the king are incompatible. This is exactly what Sun Renluan knows. Nanyong's current situation is not much better than ours, and the enemies behind them are numerous. You must know that Huang Yanjiong's territory is Nanyong's land. Compared with the king who is far away on the other side of the Huai River, Huang Yanjiong is obviously more threatening to the Nanyong court."

Yu Shaoxie nodded in enlightenment: "Because Huang Yanjiong has a special status, the king will not help him, and the Nanyong court can rest assured about the king for a while."

Xiao Rong stretched out his hand and snapped his fingers. He smiled and said, "That's right! I know that if the king wants to accomplish great things, he must confront the Nanyong court. However, there is a difference in how to do it. The court can be the enemy, but Your Majesty cannot be. At this time, we can use other forces to prevent Nanyong from treating us as a thorn in their side. When the Nanyong court fights with other forces, the atmosphere will be very tense both internally and externally. If people become frightened birds, they will make many mistakes. When they make mistakes, that's our chance."

Yu Shaoxie blinked and asked Xiao Rong, "Brother Xiao, what you mean is that while the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits. We should use calm to move forward and wait for the right time to be the one who defends the king?"

Xiao Rong nodded affirmatively.

Yu Shaoxie couldn't help laughing. Although he had abandoned the court from the moment he left Nanyong and chose to come to Zhenbei Army, abandoning the court did not mean abandoning the royal family. Deep down in his heart, Yu Shaoxie still hoped that the He family could stand up and stabilize this precarious situation completely. If such a situation really happened, he would definitely return to Nanyong in ecstasy, or to Chang'an, which he missed more.

Most scholars had the same idea as Yu Shaoxie. They believed that the world was full of treacherous officials and traitors. The court was in chaos because of these people. There was no hope at all. Their anger was always directed at the officials, but not at the person sitting on the throne.

Of course, the little emperor today is indeed very innocent. He is too young and has done nothing. But the ideas of this group of people have not only been formed in the past few years. They thought so even when the stupid Emperor Guangjia was still alive.

As long as people want to find excuses, they can find any excuse. No matter how terrible a person is, they can easily be whitewashed. For example, they can say that Emperor Guangjia was not born to the empress, but to a concubine, and that the concubine died early, and the people who raised him later did not teach him well; they can also say that the country was too turbulent, and if the people below had not deceived the superiors and became parasites in the court, how could Emperor Guangjia be unaware of the suffering of the people.

In short, all the mistakes were someone else's fault, and the emperor was not at fault at all.

This is the brainwashing of people by imperial power.

Xiao Rong knew this, but he couldn't blame them. That was the era, and that was the education they received. As they grew up, a person's concepts were formed. Xiao Rong didn't have the time or energy to correct them one by one. What's more, correction was not necessarily a good thing. Concepts that were too advanced would only bring a devastating blow to an era.

Therefore, in order to take these people's ideas into consideration and to make things easier, it is imperative to protect the little emperor and treat the former royal family well. Xiao Rong raised the banner of supporting orthodoxy, which the Zhenbei Army had never raised before, in preparation for the next step.

But he seemed to have discovered that Gao Xunzhi was not so accepting of this.

Yu Shaoxie excitedly asked Xiao Rong a few more questions. He also had some inspiration and even wanted to go back and write an article to manipulate public opinion. Xiao Rong naturally smiled at him encouragingly. Yu Shaoxie left excitedly, but Gao Xunzhi still sat there.

After all, Yu Shaoxie was still a young scholar, and he was from Nanyong, so his position was not so firm. But Gao Xunzhi was different. When he came to Zhenbei Army, there was no such thing as Nanyong. Qu Yunmie hated Xianbei and the court because of what he had experienced in the past. No matter what Qu Yunmie had experienced, Gao Xunzhi had experienced it all with him, and more deeply. After all, Qu Yunmie was just a child at that time and didn't understand many things, but Gao Xunzhi was already an adult. He had tasted all the joys, sorrows, anger and happiness completely and heartbreakingly.

Xiao Rong sat there silently. He didn't say anything, and Gao Xunzhi didn't say anything either.

But Gao Xunzhi was not blaming him. He was just thinking about how to word it so as not to make Xiao Rong feel discouraged.