Shen Qingqiu said: "They are wrong."
The emperor said, "It took the eunuchs nearly half an hour to count twice, and you only took one look. How can you be sure that yours is absolutely correct?"
Shen Qingqiu didn't waste any words, "Your Majesty, whether it's right or wrong, just ask the number of people to count again."
Gu Yanran was eager for Shen Qingqiu to be punished, and hurriedly said: "Qiu'er, how can you be so ignorant? The eunuchs in the palace are all serving the emperor, so they don't have time to count these beans for you. Be obedient, you reported a random number and now you are only one short, which is your luck. Don't mess around anymore, admit your mistake quickly, it's just a slap on the hand anyway."
Shen Qingqiu was too lazy to pay attention to her.
Gu Yanran said this, but no one responded, and she was embarrassed. Seeing this, Princess Yongping felt that she was very pitiful. She didn't like the Ninth Princess in the first place, and now that the people she hated were gathered together, she helped Gu Yanran to speak: "Shen Qingqiu, why are you ignoring me? Yanran is doing this for your own good, why are you so ungrateful?"
Shen Qingqiu could stay with Gu Yanran, but this eleventh princess was the queen's legitimate daughter, and her status was overwhelming.
“Princess Yongping, what do you mean by for my own good?” Shen Qingqiu said, “I only know that my numbers are correct. She asked me to admit that I was wrong for my own good. I got hit on the palm of her hand. Does that mean asking me to get hit was for my own good?”
"You are making excuses!" Yongping was very angry.
The emperor waved his hand and said, "Go to the Ministry of Works and find a few ministers who are good at counting..." He became interested. Originally, he was just teasing the child, but Shen Qingqiu was so confident in her counting. She just judged the number of red beans in the basket in the blink of an eye. Did she really have a photographic memory as she said?
Since it was the emperor who sent someone to invite them, two minor officials from the Ministry of Works soon arrived.
The two men were used to doing this kind of work in the Ministry of Works. Although they were smaller than the four eunuchs, they counted all the red beans in just a moment. One of them stepped forward and bowed, "Your Majesty, the number is 93,247."
Shen Qingqiu was actually right!
Gu Yanran bit her lips tightly, thinking that it was just a blind cat catching a dead mouse, which made what she had just said seem unnecessary.
Princess Yongping held her lips and said, "You are just a blind cat that has caught a dead mouse!"
"Nonsense, it's obviously Qiu'er who is smart!" The Ninth Princess quickly retorted.
Princess Yongping snorted, "Ninth sister, you are almost eleven years old and you can only count to one thousand. Is your study partner better than you?"
The Ninth Princess bit her lip. In the morning, she still had some kindness towards Princess Yongping, but now that she was targeting her, she just burst into tears and nestled directly into the emperor's arms, "Father! She bullied me!" She had always been in poor health, and the emperor simply doted on her. None of the other princesses dared to act like a spoiled child in the emperor's arms.
The emperor was busy coaxing his beloved daughter, "What's wrong with counting to a thousand? When your father was your age, he could only count to a hundred. Good bell, don't cry..." Then he angrily scolded Princess Yongping, "Your sister is not in good health, how can you make her so angry? What did the queen teach you? How come you don't have the tolerance of a legitimate princess?"
The Eleventh Princess immediately held back her tears, but the Emperor couldn't care less about her at this moment. She looked at the Ninth Princess angrily, and then looked at Shen Qingqiu angrily.
"I thought you were just guessing, but I see you are very sure of your number. How did you calculate it?" Letting his daughter sit next to his legs, the emperor looked at Shen Qingqiu curiously again. He just thought that it must be impossible to count one by one so quickly with just his eyes, and felt that Shen Qingqiu must have calculated it.
Shen Qingqiu still pointed at his eyes, "I'll remember all of this after I've seen it."
The emperor was half-believing and half-doubting, and said to the eunuch beside him, "Go and call the people from the Ministry of Rites and bring over the account books of this month." He wanted to see if she really had a photographic memory.
Soon, people from the Ministry of Rites came over. Their account books had been settled for this month, and now their son, the emperor, was suddenly coming to check, which made everyone panic. "What happened? Could it be that the emperor thinks there is something wrong with the Ministry of Rites' accounts?"
The eunuch official was so flustered that he just smiled and said, "Don't worry, sir. It turns out that the emperor and Marquis Gu's daughter are playing a game."
How could they not be concerned, because there was indeed something wrong with the accounts of the Ministry of Rites? When the officials arrived, they saw that the emperor and Lin Taifu were both there, and there were also a number of young girls standing beside them, and they all bowed in turn.
"Go, give her the unfinished account book." The emperor didn't waste any words, pointing at Shen Qingqiu and said: "Shen Qingqiu, if you can settle the accounts of the Ministry of Rites within half an hour, I will make you an official."
Official? There are precedents of women serving as officials in this dynasty, but they are rare. Shen Qingqiu came and said, "The emperor's words are naturally binding, right?"
Seeing that she was still bargaining with him at this time, the emperor smiled and shook his head, "Of course my words are final."
Shen Qingqiu clapped his hands, and walked forward to pick up the account book of the Ministry of Rites. Now the officials of the Ministry of Rites were not afraid. Those who did the accounting were all veterans, and a little girl could not tell. It seemed that the emperor was really in a good mood, and he smiled and opened the account book for Shen Qingqiu, "Miss, please look, this is the account book for June, and some accounts are from May. If you want to check it again, I will show it to you later."
"Don't bother me." Shen Qingqiu said.
The official's smiling face froze for a moment, but he smiled again after a moment. Not to mention that she was the legitimate daughter of Marquis Gu, the fact that the emperor could use the account books of the Ministry of Rites to play around with this girl made him have to be treated with caution.
At first the officials were really afraid that she would see something, but when they saw that she read ten lines at a glance and flipped through the account books as if she was just playing, they felt more at ease.
Master Lin read it all, but shook his head, "Your Majesty, how could you use the account book of the Ministry of Rites to fool around with a little girl..." At this moment, the emperor watched Shen Qingqiu flipping through the book and wondered if his expectations of a little girl were too high. After hearing what Master Lin said, he was about to raise his hand to ask someone to collect the account book.
Shen Qingqiu had already finished reading. She closed the account book, raised her eyes, and said, "They are all wrong."
"What's all wrong?"
"I said the account books are all wrong."
"You are talking nonsense!" the official said immediately, "Miss Shen, if you can't figure it out, how can you say that the account book of the Ministry of Rites is wrong! The account book for June was drafted by all the officials of the Ministry of Rites last month and sent to the emperor for review!"
"How come all the officials in the Ministry of Rites are right? The emperor doesn't just look at the account books. The emperor trusts you, how could he know that you were cheating?"
"You!" The official had no idea that Shen Qingqiu would get straight to the point, "What nonsense are you talking about!"
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, this is unfair! Miss Shen, Miss Shen is too ridiculous!" The official from the Ministry of Rites knelt down. "There are millions of dollars in this account book. It takes the officials from the Ministry of Rites three or four hours to read it. How can Miss Shen finish reading it in just half a quarter? Miss Shen, you can't frame our Ministry of Rites just because you can't calculate the account!"
Shen Qingqiu curled his lips slightly, picked up the account book and walked towards the emperor, "Here you go."
The emperor was confused, so she said, "Turn to page 12 of the account book. It says that in June, 760,000 taels of silver were spent on building the palace and celebrating the Queen Mother's birthday."
The official from the Ministry of Rites immediately broke out in a cold sweat. How could he have known that this little ancestor could see the key point at a glance?
"Seven hundred and sixty thousand taels of silver is not too much?" the emperor asked suspiciously.
Shen Qingqiu said, “It’s not much, but if you look further… the purchases for the Empress Dowager’s Thousand Years Banquet amounted to 970,000 taels.” The emperor flipped through the pages and saw that it was exactly as Shen Qingqiu said, “If you look further, the production of the imperial concubines’ auspicious attire cost 480,000 taels, and there are also the custom-made basins and bowls for the Empress Dowager’s Thousand Years Banquet, which amounted to several hundred thousand taels. Just a cursory look shows that the Empress Dowager’s birthday banquet cost a total of 8 million taels.”
It would be fine if the gifts sent by officials and concubines to the empress dowager were expensive, but the Ministry of Rites calculated the amount of silver spent on a birthday banquet. No matter how much money is spent, the emperor is not stupid. How can he spend eight million silver dollars to host a birthday banquet for his mother?
He took a quick glance and immediately looked at the official from the Ministry of Rites with a stern look.
The official immediately knelt on the ground and said tremblingly: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, the birthday banquet for the Queen Mother must be held according to the rules!"
The emperor was so angry that he wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. "What rules are there? The Queen Mother said a few years ago that she liked cleanliness, and the opera troupe and acrobatics were all stopped. I want to ask you, what kind of delicacies from the mountains and the sea, what kind of gold and jade inlaid, cost eight million taels of silver?!"
The official wished he could disappear from the spot, with beads of sweat streaming down his neck.
The emperor said again: "Investigate, thoroughly investigate! I want to see how the Queen Mother's birthday banquet was held!" The emperor was so angry that he threw the thumb ring on the ground. The eunuch who was serving him hurriedly picked up the thumb ring, and the chief eunuch next to him hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, don't be angry. It's not worth it to get yourself hurt..."
The officials on the side knelt on the ground and dared not breathe. His majesty was so overwhelming that the princesses stood there with their heads shrunk and dared not speak. But Shen Qingqiu dared to say, "Your Majesty, you just said that if I figured out the account, you would give me an official rank. So if I find out the problem with the account for you, what rank will you give me?"
The emperor looked up and said, "Today, if you find out the original accounts, I will confer you the title of Xiangjun and let you take charge of the deficit in the Ministry of Revenue's account books." There was no proper official position conferred on women, but Xiangjun had a rank, and was responsible for taking charge of the deficit in the Ministry of Revenue's account books - from another perspective, she was an alternative imperial envoy.
Shen Qingqiu pondered this... To put it bluntly, Xiangjun is just a title, just like Junzhu and Princess. It is noble in the eyes of others, but it has no real power. To put it bluntly, she helped the emperor so much, but she only got a nominal position.
In the end, she still lost.
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