Chapter 166: Taking a Concubine is a Bit Tempting
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight; two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight; three, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight..."
At daybreak, Zhao Huan's humming and hawing sounds were heard in the square in front of the Bianjing Palace.
The palace maids and eunuchs who were accompanying the emperor watched his majesty jumping and doing strange stretching movements in the square. They wanted to laugh but didn't dare, and it was very difficult for them to hold it back.
"Come, come, come here." After finishing the eight beats, Zhao Huan gathered the palace maids and eunuchs around him.
"Sharing joy is worse than enjoying it alone. Today, I will teach you this unique set of physical fitness techniques. The times are calling. Follow me and dance every morning."
Let me first introduce a few terms:
"With Huang Banban as the core, spread out in a gymnastics formation." This means that Huang Banban stays in a different place, and everyone else has to spread out to the sides at an arm's length.
"Count the number!" means to start counting from the leftmost side of the first row, one, two, three, four, five to count the number of people.
"Disbanded!" means the activity is over, you can bend down and clap and then go back to your normal business.
After half an hour of teaching by words and deeds, Zhao Huan promoted the eighth set of national radio gymnastics for primary and secondary school students in the Song Dynasty for the first time.
"Today you will practice first. Song Tian will do it at the same time. You will follow me. You are using public time to train your own bodies. You are making a profit."
After stretching his body, Zhao Huan felt relaxed and went back to the warm room to wash up and eat.
At eight o'clock, Zhao Huan went to work on time and read the memorials sent by the Ministry of Public Security at the desk in the warm room.
Thanks to Zhu Yuanzhang's intimidation, memorials in the Song Dynasty were concise and to the point. If something could be written clearly in 500 words, they would never write 600 words.
Zhao Huan flipped open a memorial from the Minister of Rites, Mao Cheng. "In three months, the Autumn Examination will be held. This is a crucial event for the imperial court's selection of officials. Your Majesty, please confirm the date and examiners for Northern Zhili."
At the end of the memorial, there was a thoughtful note of the opinions of the Song cabinet: September 3, September 11 and September 13 were all auspicious days calculated by the Astronomical Observatory.
"It's a pity that on the night of the third day of September, the dew looks like pearls and the moon looks like a bow. Let's choose the third day of September!" Zhao Huan drew a circle with a red pen where the third day of September was written.
The cabinet did not give any opinions on the chief examiner, and the chief examiner of the imperial examination was always decided by the emperor himself.
Chief examiner, is there any need to think about this? Zhao Huan picked up the pen and annotated Yang Tinghe's name on the memorial. Presiding over the imperial examination was a manifestation of the emperor's trust in him.
I picked up another memorial, which was from Wang Yanqi, the prefect of Yan'an Prefecture. The content was shocking.
"Since last year, there has been no rain, and the vegetation has withered. In August and September, people scramble to gather weeds from the mountains to eat. The grains are like chaff, bitter and astringent. Eating them can only keep them from dying. After October, when the weeds are gone, people peel the bark of trees and eat it. The bark of elm trees is the only good one, and mixing it with the bark of other trees can also delay death. At the end of the year, when the bark has also run out, people turn to digging up rocks from the mountains and eating them. Rocks are cold and fishy, and a small amount of them will fill you up. Within a few days, your stomach will swell and you will die. Some people, unwilling to die from eating rocks, gather together and become bandits. Those who have some food will be robbed and plundered. The officials are unable to stop them. The occasional robbers who are caught are not surprised at all, saying, 'It's the difference between dying from hunger and dying from bandits. Why not die as a bandit? You can still become a well-fed ghost instead of just sitting there and starving to death?'"
Wang Yanqi requested the court to allocate 50,000 shi of grain as food seeds and emergency supplies, and to exempt this year's taxes and corvee labor so that Yan'an Prefecture could quickly resume production.
The Ministry of Revenue said it was powerless, as the grain reserves were planned and it could only allocate a maximum of 20,000 shi of grain. It also stated that this was a loan from the Song Dynasty and needed to be returned later.
The Tongpan (commandatory) from Yan'an Prefecture, accompanying him to Beijing, believed the current situation was extremely urgent. Fifty thousand shi (approximately 10,000 dan) of grain was already the most basic guarantee. Without sufficient grain, production in Yan'an Prefecture would be impossible, and nine out of ten households in the prefecture would be destitute. The grain reserve plan was a plan, but it wasn't so urgent as to threaten human lives or local stability. He hoped that the specific circumstances of Yan'an Prefecture would be taken into consideration and that some flexibility could be applied.
Due to the large differences in opinions between the two parties, the memorial was screened by the Ministry of Public Administration and sent to the emperor, asking for his opinion.
Zhao Huan put down the memorial, his heart still restless for a long time. He was born in the 1990s, and although his family was not well off, he had never worried about going hungry.
Zhao Huan knew that life was very hard for the people in ancient times. Even in times of peace and prosperity, the so-called good days meant just having enough food and clothing.
Now that Zhao Huan has come to this era, the responsibility is on his shoulders. Zhao Huan feels particularly heavy-hearted. If he cannot handle it well, all the people of the Song Dynasty will die because of him.
Zhao Huan felt sad when he thought about how he had been complaining about the bad food in the palace a few days ago, while the people in Yan'an Prefecture could only eat grass, tree bark, and soil to barely survive. He had not yet adapted to the cruelty of feudal society, nor did he have the ruthlessness and indifference unique to feudal landlords. Every life was precious.
Putting down the memorial, Zhao Huan picked up his pen and began to make comments on it.
"Order the Ministry of Revenue to transfer 50,000 dan of grain and the Imperial Treasury to transfer 30,000 dan of grain to Yan'an Prefecture. Urgent, act immediately! Order the Censorate and the Inspection Commissioners to oversee the distribution of grain. Anyone found guilty of corruption will be executed."
"Huang Banban, please send this memorial to the Hanlin Academy urgently. Have them draft the imperial edict and send it out today."
"Yes, I will go right away."
There was a thick stack of memorials on the table. Zhao Huan didn't want to read it, but he had to, for fear of delaying something important.
The pressure is so great!
Zhao Huan took another one, which was a memorial from the Langzhong of the Water Conservancy Department of the Ministry of Works.
"Last year, while inspecting water affairs in Shandong, I observed frequent droughts and floods in many areas. Despite numerous dredging efforts, the situation remains unchanged compared to the Song Dynasty. I worry that if we do not address the situation now, droughts and floods will continue to occur, and people's livelihoods will suffer day by day. The consequences will be untold."
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