Chapter 71 Bringing Potatoes
On this day, Yan Xuanyu received a secret letter from Hyde City.
You should know that Hyde City is a place for exile and reform of criminals. The official road built by the Great Zhou Dynasty did not lead to Hyde City, so it took a long time to transport letters from Hyde City to the capital.
Yan Xuanyu looked at the signature on the secret letter and found that it had taken a month and a half to send. Before it was delivered to Yan Xuanyu, the secret letter had been checked to make sure it had not been tampered with. It was then sent to him after the lacquer seal requested by Yan Xuanyu was used on it.
Yan Xuanyu opened the secret letter and glanced through it.
The person who was sent to Hyde City to supervise probably knew that it was very difficult to convey information, so he wrote in detail in the letter what had happened in Hyde City in the past year, and it was basically being built in the direction that Yan Xuanyu had expected.
His eyes shifted to the left, the last paragraph catching his attention.
This is the most important thing the messenger wants to say——
Wen Yongwang fled from Hyde City.
Of course Yan Xuanyu remembered who Wen Yongwang was. He was the favorite minister whom he "promoted" in order to confuse Prime Minister Jiang and others. He originally thought that Wen Yongwang was Prime Minister Jiang's man, but in the end he found out that Wen Yongwang was just a pawn in Prime Minister Jiang's hand, so he spared his life. After Prime Minister Jiang fell, he admitted his mistakes very well and expressed that he would definitely do things according to the orders of His Majesty in Hyde City. So Yan Xuanyu escorted him to Hyde City for labor reform.
Unexpectedly, Wen Yongwang actually ran away from Hyde City. Yan Xuanyu sighed and put the secret letter aside.
Yan Xuanyu said that it would be the stupidest thing for Wen Yongwang to run away now. He has no identity and no money. If he runs away, he can only live a hard life of hiding and wandering. It would be better for him to stay in the labor area where he can get three meals a day on time and have time to exercise. To be honest, this treatment is really good.
Do you want to send someone to investigate?
Yan Xuanyu hesitated for a moment, but decided to ignore him. After all, staffing was tight, and he couldn't imagine what Wen Yongwang could do to threaten him. There was absolutely no chance of a comeback, unless someone like Yan Xuanyu's past life could summon a meteorite to kill him...
Yan Xuanyu shook his head and drove this wild idea out of his mind.
However, within three months, Yan Xuanyu was slapped in the face——
To be precise, he slapped himself in the face.
...
One day after March.
A skinny man with disheveled hair and ragged clothes knelt down and begged the palace guards to pass on the message, saying in a hoarse voice that he wanted to see His Majesty.
If they were former palace guards, such outsiders would have been killed with a single blow, but now the entire palace was replaced by Yan Xuanyu's people, and the guard on duty saw this and stepped forward to ask him why he wanted to see His Majesty.
But before the man could say anything, he fainted from exhaustion.
The guard on duty immediately told the chief guard, who then went to the palace to report to Chengtian Palace, and finally the news reached Yan Xuanyu.
As for why such a big fuss was made about a beggar-like person, it was simply because of the words that person kept muttering:
"I am Wen Yongwang, and I want to see His Majesty."
...
Yan Xuanyu was more than just shocked, shocked couldn't even describe how he felt at the moment!
Wen Yongwang, who was exiled to Hyde City, actually escaped from there, and then returned to the capital alone after hiding from place to place!
What is he doing this for?
"If he wakes up, tell me immediately." Yan Xuanyu ordered.
"Yes." The guard accepted the order.
"Your Majesty, he is just a criminal. Even if he has great ability to return to the capital from Hyde City, what big deal can he bring to you? He just wants to ask for pardon." Li Zhongxian said from the side.
Who can be sure that this man has no ulterior motives? Even if the person who exiled him was the emperor, how could he not have some resentment?
Yan Xuanyu believed in his intuition, and this person was too strange, so Wen Yongwang successfully aroused his curiosity.
The guards changed Wen Yongwang's clothes and gave him some water. Yan Xuanyu was still waiting in the hall at first, but after noon, Yan Xuanyu lost his patience and left after leaving the people from the Imperial Hospital.
Yan Xuanyu knew that Wen Yongwang would probably be in a coma for a while, but he didn't expect that he would be in a coma for two days.
The imperial physician from the Imperial Hospital said that he was overly tired. He was exhausted after traveling such a long distance from Hyde City to the capital. Perhaps he fainted after arriving in the capital because his spirit suddenly relaxed.
Two days later, Wen Yongwang woke up and again reiterated his wish to see His Majesty.
Yan Xuanyu came very quickly this time. He really wanted to see what Wen Yongwang wanted to say to him.
Although Yan Xuanyu came last time, he did not go to see Wen Yongwang. When he saw him today, he felt that he was a completely different person. He was now dark and thin, with hair like dead grass. There was no trace of his former self.
In Hyde City, Yan Xuanyu did not allow anyone to mistreat these exiled prisoners, so the only thing they blamed was Wen Yongwang's escape.
"Your Majesty," Wen Yongwang said in a hoarse, unclear voice, "I will exchange something with Your Majesty."
Yan Xuanyu looked up and down at Wen Yongwang, who was being held firmly by two guards on either side, and found it amusing. "What do you have to negotiate with me now?"
"What if it's something... brought from a foreign country?" Wen Yongwang had difficulty speaking because of his hoarse voice.
When Yan Xuanyu heard the word "foreign country", he gradually stopped laughing.
Wen Yongwang continued to speak very slowly, "Your Majesty, when I was in Hyde City, I accidentally saved a dying foreigner."
"He didn't speak the Great Zhou language, so... he gestured to me and told me that they had encountered a pirate caravan, lost their way, and somehow ended up in this land."
After every sentence, Wen Yongwang would stop and take a breath.
Yan Xuanyu waited quietly for him to finish speaking. He didn't expect that Wen Yongwang would encounter such a strange thing. He couldn't help but look at this person seriously. He could escape from Hyde City to the capital without an ID card... Yan Xuanyu really admired his ability.
"There were several round, earth-colored fruits in his box. I've never seen them in the Great Zhou..."
Yan Xuanyu looked at him, "Oh? Even if I kill you now, I can send someone to find you."
Wen Yongwang chuckled twice, "So the criminals hid them. Your Majesty, all they wanted was to escape their criminal status and return to the capital."
Judging from Wen Yongwang's reaction, he had already learned from foreigners how to grow potatoes and the potato yield, so he used this as a bargaining chip. This must have been the only thought that supported him through the past few months.
Yan Xuanyu chuckled twice. Even a man like Wen Yongwang, his scheming and methods cannot be underestimated.
However, Wen Yongwang's adventure really made him admire him. Even though he was exiled to Hyde City, he could meet a foreigner who was lost after being attacked by pirates, and got the potatoes that Yan Xuanyu had been thinking about day and night from him. It was simply too magical.
As expected, everything that happens in the world cannot escape the word "coincidence". He exiled the prisoners to the southernmost part of Da Zhou, and Wen Yongwang, who was exiled there, rescued a lost foreigner carrying potatoes.
Originally, Yan Xuanyu was still thinking that when he had enough manpower, he would go out to sea to look for those high-yield crops. However, since he was in the fictional Great Zhou, he didn't know what the situation was like outside and what was happening.
"I agree to your terms," Yan Xuanyu said. "If you can really grow potatoes, you can be considered to have made meritorious service while serving your sentence."
Wen Yongwang murmured, "So this thing is called 'potato'."
After receiving Yan Xuanyu's promise, he opened up to Yan Xuanyu's questions. It turned out that Wen Yongwang's process was not so easy at all. The labor area had strict control over the exiled prisoners. Although they had free time, the scope and duration were regulated. Putting aside how Wen Yongwang could evade these inspections and hide himself, how could he have thought of using something he had obtained from foreigners to show his favor to Yan Xuanyu, and put forward a condition that Yan Xuanyu could easily fulfill? How did he know that Yan Xuanyu would definitely be interested in this thing?
"Actually, if you tell the general manager of Hyde City about this matter, I can also agree to your condition." Yan Xuanyu sighed.
Why make yourself like this?
Wen Yongwang said, "The sinners do not believe them."
Yan Xuanyu didn't say much, only saying: "Everything will be different from before."
Wen Yongwang speculated about the personnel in Hyde City based on the officials he knew, but he never imagined that those people were personally selected and dispatched by Yan Xuanyu.
However, after all this trouble, Yan Xuanyu was not at all opposed to pardoning Wen Yongwang. After all, he had a difficult journey, and if the potatoes were really brought back to the north of the Great Zhou and successfully planted, he would have truly made a contribution...
Yan Xuanyu was startled and looked at Wen Yongwang.
The latter smiled weakly.
How could Yan Xuanyu know that Wen Yongwang didn't think so? He had indeed done his best to make him feel comfortable, hadn't he?
...
Fortunately, Yan Xuanyu believed Wen Yongwang's words and agreed to his conditions.
Because Wen Yongwang actually put the potatoes in the box given to him by the foreigner and took them away. In other words, the potatoes are not in Hyde City now, but were taken to Taiyi City by him. He calculated the longest time the potatoes could be preserved, and after they sprouted, he cut the potatoes into pieces and buried them in the ground.
Wen Yongwang was the only one who knew where he buried the potatoes, and only he could point out the specific location if he went there.
After hearing Wen Yongwang talk about the sowing method, Yan Xuanyu was truly certain that it was potatoes.
...
During this period, Wen Yongwang recovered a little and asked to see Yan Xuanyu again.
"Your Majesty, I heard from the foreigners that their country has many crops that have never appeared in the Great Zhou. I wonder if Your Majesty can give me a chance to bring those crops back to the Great Zhou." Wen Yongwang said.
Wen Yongwang saw how much Yan Xuanyu valued this thing called "potato", so he thought for a few days before asking to see Yan Xuanyu. He was betting that Yan Xuanyu would not refuse those exotic crops.
Yan Xuanyu was silent at first, but then he smiled: "Wen Yongwang, you are so smart, how could you fall for Jiang Yuanhua's trick?"
Ever since learning that Yan Xuanyu wasn't a tyrant, Wen Yongwang had become a completely different person. His previous fawning demeanor had suddenly vanished. Yan Xuanyu had come to understand the example in history books of a treacherous minister who became a loyal minister.
Wen Yongwang told Yan Xuanyu the reason frankly. He did know that Jiang Yuanhua was using him, but it was also because of this use that he was able to use Jiang Yuanhua's power to become the emperor's favorite. What he could not see or imagine was that Yan Xuanyu's appearance as a tyrant was actually fake.
It seems that he is actually the one with the highest level of Taoism, Yan Xuanyu thought with amusement.
Yan Xuanyu also realized it belatedly and broke out in a cold sweat. If he didn't have Yuan Kang's help, if he didn't have an overwhelming force, how could he have defeated Jiang Yuanhua and the others with just his disguise? He might really have been defeated.
The past is over, Yan Xuanyu has already gained absolute victory, and there is no point in thinking about the past.
Yan Xuanyu felt that it was really possible to let Wen Yongwang lead his men westward from the southern part of the Great Zhou, but the danger of this road was unknown, and he did not trust Wen Yongwang.
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