Chapter 275 Old Bottle
Late April is the time when summer is approaching.
If it does not rain at this time, the moon will be unclear but the stars will be bright at night, and the heat will be steaming during the day; but if it rains, it will not be a heavy rain, but it will rain day and night, with a fragrant breeze coming from the rain, and all things will rush to get moldy.
But Emperor Zhao did not get angry. On the contrary, he became even angrier... The officials from the outer court who came to interact with the emperor almost watched helplessly as the blisters on the corners of Emperor Zhao's mouth became larger and larger, so much so that they had to apply medicine in the end.
Furthermore, these people also soon realized or heard that the official often became furious.
"Does Mr. Zhao know Zhang Quwei?"
At noon that day, in Chongwenyuan, the rain had just stopped for half a day and the heat had subsided a little. Several officials came out of their public housing as usual to have ice porridge in the cool corridor of the courtyard... The Privy Council was on the west side, and the provincial government was on the east side. As soon as they sat down, a doctor from the provincial government could not help but talk to Zhao Ding.
Zhao Ding seemed to be thinking about something, then nodded in agreement: "I've heard of it. It is said that he is a young eunuch sent by Empress Dowager Yuanyou. Later, because he was the most capable in contracting the fish pond, he caught the emperor's attention and was brought to serve him. It is said that he may be promoted to the third shift supervisor... What happened?"
"Let me tell you, sir. This morning I went to the fish pond to deliver documents to several internal officials (Hanlin scholars). I saw with my own eyes that Zhang Quwei was hung up and beaten by several martial arts students in the rain. After being whipped with twenty lashes, he was chased back to Yangzhou." The doctor sneered.
Zhao Ding was puzzled for a moment: "Usually, when eunuchs commit crimes, they are just kicked out or handed over to the officials for formal punishment. This is the first time I heard that the emperor tortured a eunuch... How did Zhang Quwei offend the emperor?"
"I just heard some information from the internal officials, but I can't guarantee its authenticity." The doctor quickly stopped laughing and shook his head solemnly. "It is said that the emperor is very dissatisfied with the peace talks these days, and the envoy Jin happened to bring many princesses..."
"Princess." Liu Ji, the vice chancellor of the capital province, suddenly interrupted and corrected. "Not long after the emperor ascended the throne, the name was changed back."
"Yes, princesses." The doctor corrected quickly. "It just so happened that the Jin envoy brought many princesses with him, so Zhang Quwei came up with an idea to find a day to hold a grand court session and let the princesses cry and complain in court about how barbaric and shameless the Jin people were, making the whole court afraid to talk about peace..."
"This kind of scoundrel is so self-righteous and clever that he deserves to be beaten to death!" Liu Ji cursed loudly on the spot. "If this is done, all officials will be speechless, but I don't know where the dignity of the royal family will be?! How will it be interpreted in the market and in history books in the future?"
"Not only is it a matter of respectability, but even if they are not princesses, can they be brought to the court to expose their own scars?" Zhao Ding was also rarely angry. "And after all, when it comes to national affairs, we should look at the big picture. What does this twisted little thing mean? A eunuch, relying on the favor of the Queen Mother and the Emperor, dares to make such a suggestion?"
"That's right!" Liu Ji responded.
As the two gentlemen became furious, the corridor on the east side of Chongwenyuan suddenly fell silent, but soon it became noisy again, with everyone following the two gentlemen in denouncing the shameless eunuchs, which attracted the attention of people on the west side of Chongwenyuan, which was more than a hundred steps away.
However, after Zhao Ding became angry, he felt helpless... He was different from Liu Ji. As a person who had worked in the middle and lower classes for decades, he knew very well that although all the provincial officials were indignant at the moment, privately, after returning, he didn't know how many of them would write some unofficial histories of their own imagination, exaggerating the process of the abduction of those princesses to satisfy their own dark psychology.
We are all human beings in essence, and as human beings, we will have dark mindsets.
For example, the common people below cannot reach the royal family, so they will privately spread some ridiculous royal secrets; the eunuchs think they know something, so they can't help but interfere; and the officials have some information, but they are kept secret from some things, yet they have to appear righteous on the surface, so they can't help but make up their own stories... Those messy rumors are most likely made up by these officials.
Of course, the emperor is no exception. If you meet an emperor with vulgar and low-level behavior, he will be in trouble. Empress Zhou of the Southern Tang Dynasty was often summoned into the palace by Emperor Taizu of Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, and would quarrel with Li Yu as soon as she returned.
Of course, what Zhao Ding didn't know was that not only was it hard to say whether the example he thought of was true or not, but what was even more ridiculous was that hundreds of years later, the person who summoned Concubine Zhou into the palace changed from Emperor Taizu of Song to Emperor Taizong of Song, and there were even special erotic pictures... which proved again and again that the dark psychology of literati was the most difficult to deal with.
Coming back to the present, Zhao Ding sighed about the shallowness of human nature. After eating some porridge, he was about to go back to work. Unexpectedly, the chief guard Lan Gui suddenly arrived in person. He was summoned by the emperor, and asked the four prime ministers to go to the harem to meet the emperor in half an hour. He hurriedly agreed, and then forced himself to act like a prime minister. He stayed in the public room for half an hour before abandoning his official duties with Liu Ji, and went out to meet Zhang Jun and Chen Gui, and left in a hurry.
After the rain, the sky cleared up and most of the roads in the palace were still clean. However, after entering the former imperial garden area of the harem, which is now the fish pond and mulberry forest area, it was inevitably a bit muddy... If it was just the muddy roads, it would be fine. However, several ministers were feeling a little nervous and struggling.
After all, when the emperor heard that the Jin people returned the looted people and abolished Liu Yu as a condition for peace talks, he was not happy but angry, and was furious. His resolute attitude can be said to have made everyone look at him sideways. At the same time, the desire for peace talks among the people and the bureaucracy was surging and difficult to stop for a while.
At such times, as a prime minister, even if there are slight differences in political views, one must unify the pace and maintain the situation. One must not let the government overturn the table, nor let the people below hijack the court policies.
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