The first day of the first lunar month in the fifth year of Longqing.

The whole capital was filled with joy, and people were celebrating the Spring Festival.

Even in the Forbidden City, the rules were rarely relaxed, allowing eunuchs and palace maids to play and laugh freely. The louder the laughter, the better, as it was said that this would bring more joy.

Of course, no one dared to be really presumptuous, otherwise after the New Year, the manager and the palace maid would definitely settle the accounts.

At this moment, the concubines from the three palaces and six courtyards were playing mahjong with the imperial concubine in the west room of the Yikun Palace. This entertainment activity introduced by the eldest princess quickly became popular in the harem. The concubines, maids, and eunuchs were all obsessed with the shuffling sound of cards, which helped them to kill the loneliness and boredom in the deep palace.

But playing cards with Concubine Li was too painful. She would lose face if anyone dared to cheat her. If you were too obvious, she would laugh at you and make you look bad. You had to find ways to give her money, but you still had to accept the insults. It was really unbearable.

"Oh, I won again!" Regardless of whether they were happy or not, Empress Li was extremely happy. She pushed the mahjong tiles in her hand away, took the silver bills from the three families with a smile and said, "Thank you, thank you. My card skills are so high that it's hard for you to win even two rounds."

"It's not a big deal, it's not a big deal." The concubines smiled and apologized, "It was originally a reward from the Queen."

"Thanks to the blessing of the Queen, I have a prosperous life this year. I should be more filial to the Queen..."

The smile on Li Guifei's face was noble and reserved, and she was deeply intoxicated by the flattery. She would not remind them that there was a lonely queen in the palace; nor would she tell them that they should thank Mr. Zhao first...

But she was indeed grateful to Zhao Hao in her heart. At the end of the year, Concubine Li received a dividend of 80,000 taels of silver from the Xishan Group, which doubled from last year! After her useless father and brother turned the royal industry into a bottomless pit with huge losses, this money was the biggest guarantee for her to maintain her dignity as a concubine.

Of course, given the petty-mindedness of Empress Li, she would not use her own money to buy people's hearts. The reward money given to the palace came from the royal family's dividends from Xishan Group and Royal Shipping.

The former was worth as much as 200,000 taels, and the latter was as much as 800,000 taels!

This one million taels of dividend income finally freed the palace from the situation of being unable to make ends meet at the end of the year and being tight-fisted during the Chinese New Year every year.

Of course, everything has its pros and cons. Your Majesty has more money now, and he is having more fun... I heard that he wants to restore a Qinghe County in the Houyuan Garden, and when it is completed, he will live in Ximen Mansion and not return to the Forbidden City.

Empress Li asked Feng Bao, saying that the Ximen Mansion came from a pornographic book, in which lived the pervert Ximen Qing and his wives and concubines, living a shameless and licentious life all day long. Is this reasonable? Is this reasonable? Empress Li hated the author of the book so much that she asked Feng Bao to arrest him. But novels in this era were all published anonymously, and even the East Factory couldn't find the author of "Jin Ping Mei". Who was it...

"Your Majesty, it's time to draw the cards..." Seeing her sitting there with her face turning pale and blue, motionless for a long time, Concubine Qin Shu couldn't help but remind her in a low voice.

"Oh." Empress Li finally came back to her senses and reached out to touch Zhang Yaoji.

Hey, how long have I not seen this thing?

Forget it, just focus on playing cards. It's New Year's Day, don't think about these bad things.

~~

The main hall of Yikun Palace is five rooms wide. In the middle of the main room, there is a throne, a screen, an incense table, and a palace fan. On it hangs a plaque written by Emperor Longqing: "Your tolerance is greatness". There are rosewood floor covers on the east and west sides, separating the main room from the east and west secondary rooms.

In stark contrast to the bright and lively west room, the east room was pitch black with only a bright beam of light projected onto the snow-white wall, reflecting a bright animation of a three-foot square area.

In the animation, it is a child with two bags on his head and wearing golden armor, acting opposite a beautiful woman who is sitting cross-legged on a lotus platform.

This is the Lunar New Year blockbuster "Calabash Boy" launched by "Tsui Brothers Films" for the Year of the Sheep.

There is also a special soundtrack, which is definitely a big upgrade in audio-visual enjoyment compared to the original "moving mirror movie" where you could only put your eyes close to the box to watch and there was no sound.

As for why the little gourd boy didn't wear shorts or a revealing vest, it was of course because of the opinion of the Crown Prince. Mr. Zhao, who attached great importance to user experience, had the gourd boy wear golden armor in this version of the animation.

Not to mention, it doesn't look out of place at all for King Kong to wear golden armor.

I saw the little gourd-shaped King Kong spitting fire at the beautiful female monster, but the female monster was unharmed and even giggled.

The voice actor hiding behind the scenes said in a disgusted voice: "I am not afraid of fire or water. I am a woman and I don't want anything. I just like you, a silly boy."

"Fairy, what are you trying to do by being so sticky?" Then a clear child's voice said, "Show us your abilities!"

"Although my ability is very small, you are a hero who is the reincarnation of a god from heaven. It is not easy to pass my test. Here, this handkerchief smells so good..."

The fairy smiled tenderly and threw a pink handkerchief onto Little King Kong's face. Little King Kong was hypnotized and fell asleep on the ground. The fairy held him in her arms and caressed him gently...

"Oh, my dear, I will always be with you. Go to sleep, put all your worries aside, go to sleep, have a beautiful dream, go to sleep, have a sweet dream, long sleep is bliss, go to sleep, go to sleep..."

The fat boy Zhu Yijun was also lying in the arms of a palace maid, staring at him intently, drooling. There were two palace maids beside him, one feeding him popcorn and the other feeding him orange soda full of bubbles.

A movie is incomplete without popcorn and soda. Since Mr. Zhao wants to lead the fat boy to the path of fat death... heavy fog, cross it out and change it to, since Mr. Zhao is determined to set up a cinema chain, how can he not come up with these two magic weapons?

Popcorn is very simple, needless to say. As for soda, it is not simple at all, because there is no natural sparkling water in the Ming Dynasty, and carbon dioxide must be prepared in the laboratory and then injected into the water.

However, this is not conducive to storage and transportation, and the carbon dioxide gas obtained by high-temperature calcining limestone, or the reaction of limestone with dilute hydrochloric acid, always contains impurities with a pungent odor, and the taste of the soda produced is hard to describe.

It was not until July last year that Institute 04 successfully prepared soda ash in the laboratory. The soda ash solution was then reacted with carbon dioxide gas, and then purified and dried to obtain baking soda. Mr. Zhao can finally make his own soda anytime and anywhere!

For this purpose, he specially asked someone to make several sets of soda-making machines based on the Kipp generator in the chemical laboratory.

It is very simple to use. Just add a proper amount of baking soda and white vinegar into the generator to release carbon dioxide gas violently. Then insert the other end of the catheter deep into the water bottle, plug the bottle mouth, open the valve, and the gas will be continuously injected into the water.

When the reaction is complete, unplug the tube, plug the bottle with a wooden stopper, shake it vigorously, and you will get bubbly soda water!

You can also add various fruit juices, honey and sugar to clean water in advance to easily prepare sodas of different flavors.

Although it is not possible to mass-produce soda drinks at present, it is still possible to produce them on a small scale so that a small number of people can drink soda first.

~~

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince loves this soda so much that he won’t drink water without bubbles.

Eunuch Feng also liked it very much, but he drank sparkling wine. While the Crown Prince was watching a movie, he took Zhao Hao, who was showing the movie, to have a drink in the side room.

He wiped his tears while drinking, choking and crying, "Gao Huzi is such a bully. You said he let Chen Hong cut in line, and we tolerated it. But after we finally got rid of Chen Hong, he let a cook ride on our necks again!"

"Alas, Lord Gao really went too far in this matter." Zhao Hao gently shook the slender glass in his hand, watching the bubbles float to the surface of the cup, and comforted poor Eunuch Feng with a common hatred of the enemy. "I didn't expect that he would let such a person replace Chen Hong."

Last winter, Feng Bao had to work very hard to drive Chen Hong out of the Forbidden City with the help of Concubine Li and Gao Gong. He thought it was his turn to be the eunuch in charge of the imperial seal.

Who would have known that after Emperor Longqing discussed with Gao Gong, in the twelfth lunar month he actually let Meng Chong, who was born in the Shangshen Supervisor and ranked last in the Silijian, take over the position of the eunuch in charge of the seal, but Feng Bao was still not included.

It is easy to imagine how frustrated Eunuch Feng was. Otherwise, he wouldn't be crying on New Year's Day.

In fact, Zhao Hao was not surprised by this result. Feng Bao acted too hastily at the beginning, which inevitably made Gao Gong alert. Besides, even if Gao Gong was not alert, he knew that Eunuch Feng had a problem with him, so how could he let him take the position?

Although Meng Chong is not familiar with Eunuch Gao, he has a shallow foundation, a simple mind and is easy to control, so he can only obey Gao's orders. As I said before, a mature politician will not jump back and forth...

What shocked Zhao Hao was that after all this trouble, history was still moving along its inherent trajectory—the order of Chen Hong followed by Meng Chong did not change. It seemed that the butterfly's wings were still too weak to easily change the track of history.

In the words of Stone Gate, this small change is not enough to affect the conclusion of the world line.

However, Lin Run escaped death and became the governor of Guangdong, and the world had actually changed.

It seems that if you want to make the world line go to a completely different outcome, you still have to make great efforts to change the world. It is difficult to rely on small efforts to achieve great results and take shortcuts...

Thinking of this, Zhao Hao temporarily suppressed the idea of ​​asking that person to go to Liaodong to assassinate the wild boar skin. Because if he only killed the wild boar skin and did not change the environment where the wild boar skin was produced, it would probably produce wild dog skin, wild bull skin and the like. In that case, it would be better to keep the twelve-year-old boy first, at least he knew everything about him.

Fortunately, there is plenty of time. There is no rush. Let's first solve the Liaodong issue. If that doesn't work, we can carry out a decapitation operation...

Zhao Haoshen believed that if he had to be beheaded, it would be his great failure. That meant that he had not made any major changes to the world line, and the Jurchens had still become the number one threat to the Ming Dynasty...