Renqiu emphasized his innocence, and Lord Lu sneered.
"Without spies, how did you get this information? Even I don't know, yet you know it all. Who would believe you if you said there were no spies?"
The soul-searching questioning made Renqiu sigh repeatedly.
"I am innocent. There is really no spy. But I have a good student."
"You mean His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?"
"No!"
"His Royal Highness the Second Prince?"
Renqiu nodded.
Liu Heng often asked Renqiu for advice, and as time went by, Renqiu became half a teacher to the second prince Liu Heng.
"How could His Royal Highness the Second Prince know the Empress's plan?"
"He wanted to go overseas to mine gold and asked me for advice on the feasibility. I scolded him."
puff!
Lord Lu laughed so hard that he choked.
His Royal Highness the Second Prince is as unreliable as ever, and he does whatever he wants.
"Does he think going out to sea is as easy as leaving the capital?" Lord Lu snorted coldly and cursed secretly.
Ren Qiu casually said, "There are gold and silver mines overseas. That's the truth. The Second Prince used to be a day-to-day person, with no goals or ambitions. But since returning from his study abroad and gaining experience, he has decided to go overseas and explore the Western Regions. It's a good thing that he has set such an ambition, and I support him very much."
Lord Lu, please wait for the next step.
Ren Qiu continued, "I guess the Empress kept mentioning things overseas to him, and that's why he became interested. As for me, based on the Empress's recent arrangements, Chang En came to ask me about geography and feng shui. I took the opportunity to test him a few times, and combined with my own speculation, I roughly calculated the Empress's next plan. So, I really didn't have any spies; I figured everything out entirely through my own intelligence."
Lord Lu nodded, and Renqiu passed the test.
As for Renqiu's boasting about his intelligence and talent, he simply ignored it.
"You mean to ask me to go to His Majesty and the Empress to ask for the territory?"
Renqiu suggested, "You could try to get the civil and military officials to pool their money to set up a trading company, and ask the Empress for a sea map and a map of the northwest. With the civil and military officials, you have both money and people. Are you afraid of not being able to defeat a bunch of private miners? Get ahead of them and seize the prime land first."
"Keep talking!" Lord Lu reminded him.
Renqiu took a sip of water. He was dying of thirst after talking so much. "Besides occupying territory, it can also solve the future of idle young men. Think about it, the Queen Mother promised to give me an official position, starting at the sixth rank. This is a pie in the sky, a good thing that only comes once in a century. Which civil official or military general doesn't have a few idle young men in their family? Sending them away will make them no longer an eyesore and they can also seek official positions. Such a good thing, the court officials will be grateful to you. If you can really do something and dig up a mine, it will be a pleasant surprise."
Lord Lu nodded, "That makes sense. It's just that there are idle young men. I believe many civil and military officials would be willing to give it a try."
As long as the heir is kept by your side, sending the other descendants away is also a way out.
Ren Qiu continued to use his eloquence, "It's obvious that the Empress intends to expand her business in the grasslands and overseas. Look at the money she's made from trade with the west and overseas in recent years. It's incredible. There are mountains of gold and silver outside the Great Zhou. This is not an exaggeration. Just raising cattle, sheep, and horses can make a fortune."
If you officials don't seize this opportunity, those private miners will become wealthy. Once they occupy the territory and have the money, they'll become local tyrants. Just think about it, this vast grassland is larger than three Zhou dynasties. A few hundred hectares is no big deal for grabbing land. If you have the ability, you can grab thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of hectares of pastureland. How many cattle and sheep would you need to raise? How much money would you make in a year?
Besides, overseas, the land is harvested three times a day, and even a single seed can yield a full granary of rice. Those natives, all barbaric and uncivilized, yet they wear gold and silver. What does this mean? It means that the gold and silver mines are open-air, open-air! And in Sindhu, there's gold everywhere, and if you have the ability, you can pick it up."
Lord Lu stared at Ren Qiu suspiciously, "The more I listen, the more I feel like you're trying to trick me."
Renqiu rolled his eyes. "If you don't believe me, then go to Lantai Temple and look up information yourself to see if what I say is true. Quite a few people have gone overseas in recent years. You can always find out what's going on overseas by asking people. It's true that cattle, sheep, and horses are raised on the prairie. It's also true that there are mines on the prairie. Even if they don't raise anything, just putting a piece of land there to help provide for the future of the idle children at home would be fine."
There is some truth in this.
However, Lord Lu was very suspicious of Renqiu's intentions.
This guy can’t be a shill.
"Have you met the Queen recently?"
Ren Qiu shook his head. "I haven't been to the palace for almost a month. I even asked for leave for the grand court meeting because I didn't want to see the stupidity of those imperial censors."
That's really rude.
"You said you met Chang En?"
Ren Qiu said calmly, "Yes, I met with Eunuch Chang once and had a drink with him. That old guy can still drink a lot despite his age."
Lord Lu asked, "Did Chang En ask you to come and persuade me?"
"Don't be too suspicious. Before Chang En came to me, the incident with the royal family had not happened yet." Ren Qiu spoke righteously, criticizing Lord Lu for being suspicious and doubting his innocence, which was too shameless.
Lord Lu chuckled coldly, "No matter what your intentions are, I will give this matter careful consideration. If it's really as good as you say, your method is not a bad idea."
"Can you get any other benefits from His Majesty and the Queen?" Renqiu was not polite.
Lord Lu waved his hand, took the initiative to end the conversation, and left.
Ren Qiu looked very proud, "I have fulfilled my mission!"
It was a pity that the Queen Mother had the idea to ask him to fool Lord Lu, but she almost got exposed.
I can only say that the Queen Mother really tried her best for the Northwest and overseas plans.
This series of plans complemented the westward advance of the Northwest Army.
Every link is indispensable.
Releasing the royal family members at this time and provoking a struggle between them and the court officials was also part of the plan.
Otherwise, given the conservative and stubborn thinking of the court officials, you can never expect them to take the initiative to move forward.
Since the court officials did not take the initiative, Gu Jiu pushed everyone forward.
Tie everyone to the big ship of interests and check and balance each other.
Gu Jiu and Liu Zhao set the rules of the game, and only the couple have the right to overturn the table.
When everyone is on the ship called Da Zhou, if they want to get off, they have to think about whether they can bear the consequences.
…
The court officials had not yet realized that they had fallen into a trap, and they had jumped into it on their own initiative.
They also did not realize that they were about to usher in a great era.
In this era where heroes are made by the times, everyone has the opportunity to stand out. It just depends on whether you have the courage to take a chance.
The court officials were busy fighting back against the royal family, and their counterattack was fierce and spicy.
The royal family is a pile of mud. Just digging up some of their dark history can nail them into the mire and they will never be able to turn over.
Previous emperors basically condoned court officials in suppressing royal family members in order to consolidate imperial power and prevent anyone from seizing power and rebelling secretly.
It's just a pile of mud and not worth pulling.
Liu Zhao and Gu Jiu did the opposite.
Even if it is a pile of mud, they have the ability to pull people out of the mire, wash them and make them look like human beings.
Tens of thousands of members of the imperial clan suffered from their lack of education and were rubbed to the ground by a group of pen-wielders.
The educated royal family members were careful to protect their reputation and did not get involved in the dispute, but watched from the sidelines.
Princess Huyang couldn't hold on any longer. The assassins she hired were no match for those civil officials.
If he really had the ability to be a rival to the civil officials, he would not have been a ghostwriter for Huyang.
Princess Huyang was furious and rolled up her sleeves, "I just don't believe I can't deal with this group of lawless civil and military officials."
She came up with a plan and prepared to drag Princess Fuya into the water.
Princess Fu Ya had anticipated her plan and closed the door early, refusing to accept the challenge.
For the sake of her son, she couldn't easily get involved in a fight.
If Huang Qubing's reputation were ruined, his official career would be difficult.
Even if he could successfully return to Wenqing Bookstore, how could he carry out his work as the general manager of a bookstore who had offended the literary world?
The main customers of Wenqing Bookstore are scholars, so Huang Qubing must not offend scholars and ruin its reputation.
Princess Huyang was turned away and was so angry that her heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys ached.
She asked someone to send a letter to Princess Fu Ya, in which she scolded Princess Fu Ya for being a coward.
Princess Fuya snorted coldly and set the letter on fire.
"It's the son who has implicated his mother." Huang Qubing felt a little guilty.
Princess Fuya glared at him and said, "Even if you weren't here, I wouldn't be working with Hu Yang. With her brain, she only does things that make people hate her."
"Princess Huyang is also considering the interests of the royal family."
"It's not her turn to intervene in matters concerning the imperial clan. The palace has already made its decision. The court officials are like grasshoppers waiting in autumn; they will eventually submit. Look at what His Majesty and the Empress have done over the years. Which one of them is in accordance with ancestral rules? And yet, didn't they all succeed in the end? It's just those court officials who keep shouting and refusing to admit defeat."
Huang Qubing understood the court officials' thoughts. "If you don't want to be a yes-man in the court, you have to have an attitude in everything. If you speak louder and yell more forcefully, you might even get some benefits."
Princess Fuya laughed. "It's only because His Majesty and the Empress are so magnanimous that they didn't bother with those court officials. In your grandfather's time, anyone who dared to say anything more would have been arrested by the Jinwu Guards."
Huang Qubing grumbled, "So my grandfather's temple name is Wuzong, which is a compliment in name only and a criticism in reality."
Princess Fuya gnashed her teeth, deeply hating it, "Those civil servants just love playing word games."
Huang Qubing sighed, "Even if you're an emperor, your reputation after death depends on the pen. Therefore, you can't be too harsh on the pen holders. Let them make some noise in the court."
"Letting them stir up trouble will only make them more arrogant. Your Majesty has only been on the throne for two years, and he's already been called a tyrant countless times." Princess Fuya was very unhappy. "If it were me, I would say, don't exile him, just behead him."
"A lot of heads have been chopped off." Huang Qubing reminded Fu Ya that two heads had been chopped off last year, and the blood in Caishikou might not have dried yet.
Fu Ya raised an eyebrow, "It seems that I didn't cut enough."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
