"I... I think I understand!"
"Then use a small bowl to put some fresh soy sauce for the cold dish and cut some ginger slices in it. Hurry up!"
Hou Hongtu, "Princess, we've had lunch!"
"I know. I'm bringing this to you as an afternoon snack. Otherwise, who will teach you how to eat it after I'm gone?"
Qin Qingyao followed the tutor into the house. Her every move was generous and open, without any restraint.
"Uncle Taifu, how did you find time to leave the palace? How are the Crown Prince and my second brother? Are you busy lately?"
The Grand Tutor thought she was probably worried about her second brother, so he came to ask, "Thank you for your concern, Princess. Your Highness the Crown Prince and the Second Young Master, are everything well."
"Harvest season is approaching soon, but some areas in the south have suffered from floods this year, destroying crops. I'm afraid the harvest won't be enough to feed next year, so the prince and his men are worried about how to deal with this problem."
"Is that so? Did the prince send anyone to the south to check? Just how badly have the crops been damaged?"
"This...is reported by local officials."
Qin Qingyao asked, "Who can be sure that every word the local officials say is true?"
"This... As a parent official, I must be worthy of the emperor and the people. This is my basic duty!"
Qin Qingyao asked, "Who can be sure that every official in the court is doing their job conscientiously?"
Grand Tutor, “…”
Hou Hongtu saw that Qin Qingyao was speechless when asked by his father, and her eyes were shining. This woman is quite interesting.
Qin Qingyao really didn't mean to embarrass the Grand Tutor on purpose. She came here today by accident, but the floods that the Grand Tutor mentioned were actually written in the book.
The prince stays in the palace all day long. Although he is brave, resourceful and concerned about the world, his knowledge of what the world is like is mostly hearsay and he has never seen it with his own eyes!
He has indeed worked hard to come up with a solution for this flood, and will also talk about it at the court tomorrow morning. The result, of course, is that the emperor is so angry that he is blowing his beard and glaring, and all the civil and military officials in the court are greatly disappointed.
Finally, the emperor asked Prince Duan to come out and asked him what the prince had done wrong. Prince Duan, who had traveled all over the country, had been in the underworld and had even led troops in battles, naturally pointed out all the assumptions and absurdities in the prince's words.
What they said is that we can grind beans into flour and eat beans first if there is no rice. Isn’t this a joke?
The rice all rotted in the flood, but the beans were still alive? Do your beans grow in the lake?
He came up with this idea from the cakes he ate. Since they could use cakes as snacks, the people could also use them to fill their stomachs.
The whole time he was just an idiot who kept shouting "Why don't you eat meat?"
"Is the prince so short of people around him? Can't he even find a trustworthy errand boy?"
Taifu, "But now even if the prince sends someone, it's too late."
"What did you do this morning?"
Grand Tutor: “…”
You can't say Qin Qingyao is rude, she is just disappointed with him!
She had just decided to take her husband to join the prince's camp, thinking that he would be a great man, a super villain who needed the cooperation of the male and female protagonists and had to sacrifice the life of the second male lead to be killed.
It turns out that he is a big idiot. How sad she was!
"Besides, if we send people out now, they will have to travel for a month or two and arrive in October or November, which is the most difficult time for the local people."
"Not only can we see the losses of the people, but also how they are getting by, whether the relief from the court has arrived, whether it has been withheld by others, and we can also think about how to deal with such a situation next time."
"Who can be sure there won't be floods next year? Should we dig ditches or build a canal to divert the water?"
"If the annual harvest depends entirely on God, then what use does he have to the people? What if next year there's drought instead of floods? How will he deal with it?"
Grand Tutor: “…”
"The prince is still young after all..."
Haha, Uncle Taifu, are you joking with me? He is younger than Prince Duan.
When he gets slapped in the face by His Royal Highness Prince Duan at the morning court tomorrow, do you think the Emperor will think he is still young and just wave away the question?
"Oh," Qin Qingyao got angry just thinking about it. With her husband's status, the result of not taking sides is that both sides think that if he takes sides, he will definitely not end up well.
Therefore, he had to stand firm from the beginning, and that position was the Crown Prince, who was chosen by Qin Qingyao, because if he chose Prince Duan, Dugu Yu would die regardless of whether Prince Duan became the emperor or not, which would be too much of a loss.
"I thought the prince was so powerful, but he turned out to be a complete idiot. I'm so pissed!"
"Princess, you must not be disrespectful to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!"
"Uh..." He accidentally let out what was in his heart.
But how could she be disrespectful to the prince? He was hopelessly stupid, yet people still had to flatter him and coax him into thinking he was great. Was that right?
"Uncle Taifu, let me tell you a little story. There is an island country on the sea. There are no four seasons there. It is always spring, and there are always flowers in full bloom. They make their living by the sea."
"Then their king heard that there was a land nation in this world and that many people had never seen the sea. The king felt that those people were so pitiful. Without the sea, what would they eat?"
"So he sent messengers out to sea, hoping to see the land and how those people lived."
"It takes three months to travel from this island nation to the mainland and back. The team he sent arrived on the mainland a month and a half after their departure and found that everything was golden and the fields were overflowing with food, so much so that they couldn't even finish it all."
"So the envoys returned home and told the king that the people on the mainland had nothing to worry about. Their fields were full of grain, and everything was golden."
"The king asked, 'Why don't you bring me some of their food?' So he sent another group of people to the mainland."
"This group arrived on the continent exactly three months later than the first wave. It was winter on the continent at that time. There was snow everywhere, the rivers were frozen, the land was hard and desolate, and nothing could grow at all!"
"This group of people hurried back to the country and told the emperor that it was impossible to survive on the mainland. Not only did they almost freeze to death there, but there was also a white substance called snow everywhere, covering the sky and the earth."
"Everything is white. There isn't a single plant, let alone golden crops."
"The emperor was very angry and decided to behead all the people in the first wave because they dared to lie and deceive people. The first wave cried and shouted that the second wave were liars! There was clearly plenty of food on the mainland."
"In order to demonstrate fairness, the Emperor sent a third group of people to verify who was right."
"The third wave of people arrived on the mainland, and three months later, spring arrived. Grass was growing everywhere, birds were singing, and flowers were blooming. It was just as pleasant and warm as their island."
"It's not like the first wave of people said everything was golden and there were endless crops in the fields, nor is it like the second wave of people said there was snow everywhere and it was freezing cold."
"After the third wave returned home, they reported the truth, saying the first two groups had lied. They said the mainland was no different from the islands. There were flowers and trees everywhere, and they were green, not golden or white."
"The people in the first two teams were very angry and stood up to say that the people in the third team were lying and that the mainland was not green at all."
"The emperor on the island was terrified. He had clearly sent his most honest soldiers, but why did they go to the mainland and come back all lying?"
Qin Qingyao looked at the Grand Tutor and asked, "Uncle Grand Tutor, why are those people lying?"
The Taifu twitched his lips. No one was lying. The three teams arrived on the continent three months apart, which was exactly the change of seasons. One came in autumn, one in winter, and one in spring.
He seemed to understand what Qin Qingyao wanted to say.
"Uncle Taifu, you've devoted your heart and soul to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, devoting yourself to him until your death! So you definitely wouldn't want to hear others call the Crown Prince a fool, right?"
Nonsense, you still curse me even though you know it?
"It's the same principle. Every official thinks they're a good official. If something bad happens in the area they oversee, the memorials they write about it will reflect their own subjective interpretations, making it difficult for the emperor to see the true picture."
"Even if they don't write it down, no one will know about it."
"Let me ask you, with so many officials in the entire court, including civil and military officials, Uncle Taifu, have you ever heard of any official submitting memorials all day complaining about how bad their management is and how many major incidents have occurred in their jurisdiction? I don't think so!"
"The Emperor and the Crown Prince are actually quite pitiful, because they can only hear information that has been filtered through layers of scrutiny by others, and can only see the facts that their subordinates are willing to show them."
"Take the flood disaster for example! What if it's really too severe, drowning many people and rotting crops? Wouldn't the officials be seen as incompetent? Why didn't they do a good job of flood control in advance? If someone dies, won't they be scolded by the emperor?"
"So, to protect his own position, he had to conceal the incident, saying only that the floods were severe and the people had no food to eat, and he hoped the court would provide relief."
"In the second case, there were floods, but they were not serious. They only destroyed a few percent of the crops, so the people could still barely eat their fill."
"Then we met a corrupt official who, in order to enrich himself, told the emperor that the floods were too severe and that if he didn't send money to help, the people would starve to death!"
"The emperor has distributed relief grain and silver, but the people have enough to eat and don't need it, or only need a little. So will anyone return the relief grain to the court?"
"No, if I pay it back, it will prove that I lied and deceived the emperor before. So all this money will go into the pockets of the officials."
The Grand Tutor and Hou Hongtu were stunned when they heard this. Qin Qingyao asked, "Master Grand Tutor, do you know whether the flood disaster in the south today belongs to the former, which is particularly serious, or the latter, which is not too serious?"
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