For a period of time thereafter, Yu Zizhen no longer paid attention to how Wei Heng handled his family affairs. Wei Heng thought that Yu Zizhen was deliberately leaving time and space for him, and he became more and more grateful and admired her.
What he didn't know was that Yu Zizhen was actually informed of the developments of the matter every day through the baby voice system.
She has recently become obsessed with learning foreign languages. While studying Confucian classics, the Six Arts of a Gentleman, and Chinese medicine, she has also applied to the emperor for a young official who is proficient in multiple foreign languages to be her teacher.
The young official came from a small, declining aristocratic family. His father, who had died young, had served as the Shaoqing of the Honglu Temple. He was extremely talented, and with his family background in learning, he had become the young official in the Honglu Temple who was proficient in the most foreign languages at the age of twenty.
This title sounds impressive, but in the current Da Qi, places like the Honglu Temple are basically a useless government office with nothing to do.
The young official was unable to establish merits based on his own expertise, so naturally he had no way to raise his rank or salary.
Not only does he have to support his elderly mother, a lovely wife, and young children at home, but the social interactions with colleagues are also a huge expense. His meager salary is simply not enough to cover all the expenses of his family.
Before Yu Zizhen approached the emperor and asked him to teach him foreign languages, his wife and old mother had been working hard spinning, weaving, and embroidering just to earn some money to supplement the family income.
He didn't know that Yu Zizhen had a "cannon fodder self-rescue system" that required him to complete tasks in exchange for points from time to time, and he was one of the targets selected by the system for Yu Zizhen. So when he was ordered to come to the Zhenbei Palace to teach Yu Zizhen foreign languages, but Yu Zizhen immediately gave him a generous annual salary, he was so surprised that he stood there in a daze.
"This, this is not appropriate." Although he really wanted the two hundred and forty taels of silver to solve his urgent problem, he came here on the emperor's orders after all. He was receiving a salary from the national treasury. The emperor asked him to do something, so how could he have the nerve to ask Yu Zizhen for money in private?
"There's nothing inappropriate about it." Yu Zizhen smiled and used his eyes to signal Jiang Yunshan to give him the small wooden box containing the banknotes. "Your Excellency, you are the emperor's employee and it is right to be loyal to him, but the affairs of the Honglu Temple are your responsibility. As for privately teaching me foreign languages, this is obviously not your job."
Jiang Yunshan also said, "Please keep it. If you don't, my prince will be embarrassed to trouble you to go to the Zhenbei Palace again."
What could the young official say? He was sent by the emperor and could not be expelled from the Zhenbei Palace.
He bowed deeply with gratitude, "Thank you for your generous gift, Your Highness. I am deeply grateful."
Yu Zizhen smiled and said, "You have to be on duty during normal times, so it's not convenient for you to run back and forth between the palace and the Honglu Temple. Why don't we set the study time on the days when the court officials have rest days?"
Officials of Da Qi were allowed a day off every ten days, and Yu Zizhen's arrangement was already giving the greatest consideration to this young official.
However, to her surprise, the other party actually replied to Yu Zizhen with a wry smile, "Your Highness, you don't know that the Minister of the Temple has already given this humble official a long vacation as soon as he received the imperial edict."
After a pause, he continued, "Our Honglu Temple...is now useless."
Yu Zizhen: ...Has the Honglu Temple become idle and useless now?
When he thought about the large number of officials sitting there with nothing to do, Yu Zizhen's heart, which belonged to the King of Rolls, suddenly became uneasy.
As far as she knew, the Honglu Temple actually had a lot to do.
Whenever minority leaders or foreign envoys came to Beijing to pay homage, the Honglu Temple was responsible for determining their rank, the number of banquets they would receive, and their reception and welcome. Tribute items were first reported to the Honglu Temple, which then assessed their value and determined the amount of gifts to be given in return.
Furthermore, officials from the Honglu Temple were responsible for determining the legitimate and illegitimate status of those who inherited a title. If a decree of conferring a title was issued, officials from the Honglu Temple would carry the imperial seal and proceed to confer the title. If a high-ranking official died in the capital, the Minister, Junior Minister, and Chancellor of the Honglu Temple would represent the court in attending the memorial ceremony and providing funeral provisions.
They were also responsible for translating foreign languages, studying foreign customs, and accompanying diplomatic missions to visit surrounding ethnic minorities.
There are so many things to do. Even if Da Qi is weak now and the surrounding ethnic minorities and vassal states no longer pay tribute to the capital, won’t Da Qi still have to continue operating?
The succession of titles to noble families, the ennoblement and appointment of meritorious individuals, and the death of high-ranking officials in the capital, aren't these all handled by the Honglu Temple?
She asked questions when she had any doubts, but the young official was quite cautious and did not dare to speak frankly.
In the end, when he was hesitant and didn't know how to explain the ins and outs to Yu Zizhen in a subtle yet clear way, the little baby voice system told Yu Zizhen directly:
"The current Great Qi has long since collapsed into disarray, and many of the old rules are no longer mentioned. Nobles inherit titles, meritorious individuals are appointed as marquises or prime ministers, and high-ranking officials die in the capital—any lucrative position like these has already been taken over by the Lu family."
Fan Zhongming's grandfather Fan Ting came from a prominent family, and the interest group headed by him simply disdained such petty gains.
Yang Shixian's grandfather, Yang Zhengde, came from a clean family, and his followers were mostly stubborn scholars who valued integrity, character, and reputation. They were unwilling to trample on the law for a little money and make themselves infamous in history books.
The followers of the Lu family therefore have almost no competitors, so they can just fill their pockets with money.
As a relatively weak department, the Honglu Temple was one of the first departments to be targeted by Lu's clique.
As they continued to reach out, the Honglu Temple gradually became almost shut down as it is now.
The more Yu Zizhen listened, the more speechless he became. Lu's cronies could even make this kind of money. No wonder the Lu family took less than twenty years to go from a prosperous and rising state to a miserable state of near genocide.
She put the matter aside and changed the subject, seriously discussing her problem of learning foreign languages with the young official.
The young official said that he was always available, and if Yu Zizhen called him, he would immediately rush to the palace to teach her.
Yu Zizhen thought about her current school schedule and said, "Then please come to my place in the afternoons on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays."
They rest every ten days, and the New Year holidays are counted separately. However, Yu Zizhen usually has other things to do during the rest days and New Year holidays, so she set the time for learning foreign languages on the first, fourth, seventh, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first, twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh days of each month.
They don't have classes in the afternoon during these nine days, so she can make time for it.
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