It seemed as if he was asking him, could it be that the new emperor really meant this?

Prince Li slightly raised the corner of his mouth, confirming Prince Shun's guess with a subtle expression, his eyes deep.

He felt that Gu Jue was playing a big game.

The young new monarch's plan was not only to select suitable young men from official families this time, he also had longer-term plans and goals.

If his guess was correct, Gu Jue's move should kill three birds with one stone. It not only selected talented people, but also diverted trouble away. In addition, he also wanted to guide those official families to take fewer concubines. Just imagine, if there were no illegitimate children in the family, there would be fewer disputes between brothers, and a harmonious family would bring prosperity.

However, this matter is not that simple and it cannot be accomplished overnight. Even if the new emperor takes action, he can only guide slowly and influence people bit by bit. The road ahead is long and arduous.

Prince Shun felt that Prince Li seemed to know some secret that he didn't know, so he took advantage of the cover of Prince Li's sleeve and quickly pulled Prince Li's sleeve.

However, Prince Li did not move at all, staring straight ahead, standing with his hands hanging down.

This is the Golden Palace, and the morning court is still in progress. Prince Shun cannot be too excited. He thinks that after the court is over, he must go to Prince Li's mansion to find out the new emperor's intentions.

Anyway, he just needs to follow Prince Li's lead and follow the steps of the new emperor.

Thinking of this, Prince Shun felt relieved.

Many other officials had similar ideas to Prince Shun, thinking that they should get closer to Prince Li and Prime Minister Zhang in the future so that they could correctly understand the new emperor's intentions.

This time, it was Prime Minister Zhang who was the first to bow to Gu Jue and express his attitude concisely: "I second the motion."

Immediately afterwards, other ministers could not wait to respond:

"I second the motion."

"Your Majesty is wise!"

“…”

The atmosphere in the hall became lively with each voice of approval, sweeping away the previous solemnity. At a glance, it seemed that the emperor and his subjects were in harmony and joy.

If we say that the ministers knelt on the ground together just now because they were forced by the power of the new emperor to do so helplessly, but now they have long forgotten their previous unwillingness and dissatisfaction and are sincerely convinced of the new emperor.

Many people secretly sighed in their hearts: If Ji Mingzhi knew how many opportunities he had missed because of this wrong move, he would regret it to death! It's time, it's fate.

Duke Mu, who was standing aside, glanced silently at the Golden Palace, with the corners of his lips curled up.

However, within just a stick of incense, Gu Jue easily won over most of the officials here with just a few words.

His tactics were flexible and cautious, and his moves were careful and cunning. His tactics and schemes were nothing like those of a new king who had ascended the throne yesterday. He was so experienced that he had the entire court firmly in his hands.

Compared to Gu Jue's father, Emperor Renzong, Gu Jue is truly better than his father!

After the matter of selecting tutors and guards was finalized, the court officials continued to report on other matters.

Gu Jue had just established his authority among his ministers, and they all knew how powerful he was, so no one dared to play any tricks anymore.

As a result, all subsequent court affairs went smoothly.

Zhang Shoufu submitted a memorial from the governor of Xuzhou, requesting the management of the Huai River; the Ministry of War requested that the generals of the garrisons of various states report to the capital this summer...

No one made any trouble and everyone just focused on the matter at hand, which resulted in high efficiency. The morning court ended around noon.

After Gu Jue announced the adjournment of the court, the ministers were still somewhat excited and in high spirits. Many of them were still thinking about the selection of tutors and guards, and were eager to leave the palace and return home.

After the morning court session, Gu Jue went straight back to the Qianqing Palace.

Logically speaking, as the queen, Shen Qianchen should live in Kunning Palace. However, except for going there to accept the kowtows of the ladies after the queen coronation ceremony yesterday, Shen Qianchen has never been to Kunning Palace again.

She lived in the Qianqing Palace with Gu Jue.

Shen Qianchen had been watching the kettle leak half an hour ago, and from time to time he sent people to Qianqing Gate to see if Gu Jue had returned. This wait lasted for half an hour.

Shen Qianchen felt very sorry for Gu Jue.

The morning court session started very early. Gu Jue got up at dawn this morning and only ate a steamed bun before going to court. He didn't even have a mouthful of porridge. Originally, Shen Qianchen thought that Gu Jue would be back soon, but he didn't expect that he would be delayed until noon for his first morning court session today.

"Jiu Xia!"

Shen Qianchen greeted him with a smile, put his arm around Gu Jue affectionately, and pulled him to the banquet hall for dinner.

As she walked, she said seriously, "This morning court session is a little too early. I think it should be moved to a later time, maybe after mid-morning. Don't you think so?"

Morning court sessions are really a hassle. Gu Jue has to get up at the crowing of the cock and cannot enjoy a hearty breakfast in peace. No wonder there are so few long-lived emperors throughout history.

In her opinion, they were tortured to death by the morning court.

Shen Qianchen's thoughts were scattered for a moment, and he was thinking about all sorts of things.

Gu Jue rubbed her soft hair, knowing that his little girl was feeling sorry for him, and stroked her hair as she wished, smiling and saying, "That makes sense!"

He immediately instructed Jiang Yuan to tell Jingfeng about the matter, calmly and without caring what kind of turmoil his decree would cause in the court.

Jiang Yuan obeyed the order and walked out steadily under Amber's indescribable gaze.

Amber felt that this matter must be kept secret. If others knew that the new emperor changed the time of the morning court session because of the queen's words, their queen would probably become a demon who brought disaster to the country.

Shen Qianchen smiled with satisfaction and continued to make suggestions: "If we haven't finished discussing things by noon, don't discuss things on an empty stomach. Can't we continue discussing after lunch?"

"At most, we can let all the officials have a simple meal in the palace. Do you think the palace will be short of food for them?"

"Man is made of iron and food is made of steel. There is no need to be hard on your body."

"I'm a doctor, what I say is absolutely correct!"

“…”

She spoke whatever came to her mind and talked eloquently.

Gu Jue dared to nod whenever she said anything, agreeing with her and doing what she said.

At last, he nodded and sighed: "Yes, you are absolutely right!"

“You’re the best!”

Gu Jue's voice ended slightly higher, and he obviously didn't say anything particularly cheesy, but Shen Qianchen's ears began to heat up and his heart skipped a beat.

Why did she feel like he was drinking honey water and everything he said was sweet?

At this moment, Shen Qianchen felt as if he had lost to him.

Well, should she read some storybooks to learn from them? With this unyielding thought, Shen Qianchen diligently served Gu Jue dishes and peeled shrimps for him.

Shrimp is an irritant. In the past, Shen Qianchen did not allow Gu Jue to eat it. Now that Gu Jue's body has completely recovered, Shen Qianchen has added shrimp to Gu Jue's menu. So far, Gu Jue's three meals a day plus medicinal food are still under Shen Qianchen's control.

She peeled a shrimp for Gu Jue and then one for herself. While eating the shrimp, she thought about the crab and said happily, "When the crabs are plump in the fall, I'll have someone get more crabs and set up a crab feast. We'll eat our fill this year!"

Last year, she had hosted a crab feast at Prince Chen's Mansion to entertain the Chu Yunyi brothers, but Gu Jue had a cold body at that time, and crabs are cold in nature, so she only allowed him to eat one crab to satisfy his craving.

Gu Jue: “…”

Gu Jue was stunned for a moment, his eyes softening.

He had long forgotten about this little thing, but she had always kept it in mind, always wanting to treat him better and give him more.

The same goes for him.

Want to treat her better and give her more.

"Yeah. In the fall..."

He smiled slightly, suddenly raised his hand, and gently rubbed the corner of her mouth with the thumb of his right hand.

Shen Qianchen thought there was some residue on the corner of her mouth and pointed to the handkerchief placed aside. Then, Gu Jue grabbed the handkerchief and wiped the nonexistent "residue" for her in a serious manner.

Here, the young couple was enjoying the meal with love and affection; there, Xu Hanlin, who had received the message from Jingfeng, was almost stupefied.

On the first day of the new emperor's accession to the throne, he changed the time of the morning court sessions that had been practiced in previous dynasties!

Xu Hanlin could already imagine how many people would come to him after the imperial edict was issued, asking him why he didn't persuade the new emperor and why he didn't wait for the cabinet to discuss before drafting the edict! If it were normal times, Xu Hanlin would probably go to the Prime Minister and the cabinet elders right now, but the new emperor's vigorous and resolute style in the morning court was still vivid in his mind. Xu Hanlin hesitated and struggled for a long time alone, and finally did not dare to challenge the new emperor's temper.

To put it bluntly, his position is just to draft edicts for the new emperor, which is something that any scholar can do, and there is nothing irreplaceable about it. If he offends the new emperor, he will probably have to compile history books in the Hanlin Academy for the rest of his life.

Their new emperor is different from other emperors of Da Qi. His word is final.

Therefore, the imperial edict to change the time of the morning court was issued that afternoon and announced to all the ministers, which caused a huge uproar.

Although court officials often quarreled over different political views, as long as Gu Jue made a decision, no one dared to question it or raise any objections.

There were fewer unnecessary temptations and fewer unnecessary quarrels, and the efficiency of court meetings was much higher. Since Gu Jue ascended the throne, there were very few cases of "keeping things in the court without issuing them" or "discussing them tomorrow". Generally, today's affairs would be dealt with today.

Soon, all the ministers discovered that although the time of the morning court was delayed by half an hour, the time of adjourning the court was not much different from before. The new emperor would definitely adjourn the court before noon, as if he was in a hurry.

Others didn't know why Gu Jue came, but Su Mubai knew it very well. He was very tactful. He calculated the time and thought that Gu Jue and Shen Qianchen should have finished their lunch, so he showed up at the perfect time when they were drinking digestive tea.

"Master Jiu." Su Mubai saluted Gu Jue gracefully.

Since Gu Jue ascended the throne, his old subordinates no longer called him Prince. They called him Emperor in public and Ninth Master in private.

This was what Gu Jue meant, and it also showed that the relationship between him and these old subordinates in the Qiandi Palace was different from that between him and others.

In the imperial study, Gu Jue was there, and Shen Qianchen was also there.

Shen Qianchen was sitting by the window reading a storybook. There was a pile of storybooks on the coffee table next to her. She was very focused and engrossed. She seemed not to even notice that Su Mubai had come and did not even glance in his direction.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

The slender and beautiful girl does not fit in with this masculine imperial study.

On weekdays, Su Mubai came here ten times, and Shen Qianchen would be here seven or eight times. He had long been accustomed to it, and did not specially greet her. He directly presented a thick memorial to Gu Jue.

Su Mubai has been busy for quite some days investigating the case of people drawing salaries without working in the military, and today is finally the day to close the case.

Su Mubai didn't say any more nonsense and let Gu Jue read the memorial himself.

Due to limited time, he temporarily only checked the situation of the Imperial Guards, the Twelve Guards, the Jizhou Guards and the Qingzhou Guards in Beijing.

In April, Su Mubai discovered that there was a problem with the number of troops in the three battalions of the Imperial Guard. The Ministry of War registered 230,000 troops, but the actual number was half less than that on the military register.

The situation of Jizhou Guard and Qingzhou Guard was not much worse. The actual number of people in both of them was reduced by half. Only the Twelve Guards responsible for guarding the imperial palace were better, as their actual number of people was reduced by one third.

Although Su Mubai did not have time to check the garrisons in other states due to lack of time, it is conceivable that the Jizhou Garrison and Qingzhou Garrison near the capital are in this situation, let alone those places where the emperor is far away.

Every level in the military is collecting this empty salary, and the exploitation has reached the point where half of the salaries are falsely reported.

Su Mubai came from the military, so he naturally knew that the situation was already quite serious. For example, if Nanhao's army were to march north now, the imperial court would have to consider transferring troops from other garrisons, and then they would be faced with the dilemma of "no troops to transfer". With the current strength of each garrison, they could only barely maintain stability in their respective states.

The troops in the north could not be moved either. After all, the 60,000 main forces of the Black Armor Army had already been transferred to the capital by Gu Jue, and of course, they would try to deploy troops as close to home as possible. They simply did not have enough time to transfer troops from the north to the south.

But if the troops are not mobilized, Da Qi will definitely suffer a disastrous defeat.

Gu Jue finished reading the memorial in his hand in silence and rubbed the edge of it twice with his fingertips.

Su Mubai had already sat down on a chair nearby and drank half a cup of tea. When he saw Gu Jue finish reading the memorial, he said, "Master Jiu, I plan to start with the Imperial Guards and then move on to the Garrison. What do you think?"

If the imperial court attacked the imperial guards and all the garrisons at once, it might be able to kill them by surprise, but it might also cause turmoil in the army.

Too much is as bad as too little. Su Mubai thinks it is better to take it step by step and proceed steadily.

Gu Jue's next sentence was irrelevant: "How is the Black Armor Army doing these days?"

Although Su Mubai didn't understand, he still answered: "We have just completed the integration with the upper twelve guards."

The Twelve Upper Guards were responsible for protecting the emperor and the palace, but Gu Jue would never leave the safety of the imperial city to the original Twelve Upper Guards. So Su Mubai carried out a major purge of the Twelve Upper Guards and transferred the members of the Black Armor Army to the Twelve Upper Guards. Only one-third of the original Twelve Upper Guards with "clean backgrounds" were retained.

The personnel transferred from the Twelve Guards formed a battalion, which temporarily served as the deputy battalion of the Black Armor Army.

Gu Jue closed the letter with both hands and said calmly: "Then let the Black Armor Army practice for a while."

Su Mubai: "..."

Su Mubai was thinking about Gu Jue's intentions when he saw Gu Jue's gaze passing through him and looking at Shen Qianchen behind him, and asked, "Qianchen, do you want to go out and play?"

Shen Qianchen, who was originally immersed in the storybook, immediately put down the storybook in his hand and looked accurately into Gu Jue's eyes.

She simply replied, "Yes!"

Of course I have to play.

Although she didn't know what to play, she was of course willing to go out and play with Gu Jue.

When Shen Qianchen looked up, he finally saw Su Mubai. He was smiling sweetly the moment before, but the next moment, he gave Su Mubai a look of disdain, as if to say, "Why are you here again? Don't you know it's lunch time now? Don't you let people drink a cup of tea to digest food after dinner?" He wanted to die from overwork, but he shouldn't cause trouble for others!

Shen Qianchen regretted it. If she had known earlier, she should have dragged Gu Jue out for a walk. She should have combined work and rest. She shouldn't have let someone like Su Mubai, who was not at home every day, take advantage of the situation and drag Gu Jue to work with him! Shen Qianchen stared at him, stared at him, stared at him.

Su Mubai was stared at by Shen Qianchen for a long time, and suddenly he had the illusion that he was a sinner for all eternity.

Gu Jue seemed to find the silent gaze between the two very interesting and laughed out loud.

Su Mubai raised his eyebrows and looked at Gu Jue, meaning, Master Jiu, are you not going to take care of it? Gu Jue responded by continuing to drink his digestive tea and ignoring him.

Su Mubai was very aware of the current situation. Never mind. He couldn't win the argument with the Queen. Besides, she had the support of Master Jiu, so she should be more sensible.

Su Mubai no longer asked about the issue of the empty salary, as Gu Jue had his own ideas anyway.

He left the memorial he brought with him and left. Before leaving, he remembered to finish the cup of new Longjing tea.

As for Shen Qianchen, he did not ask Gu Jue where they were going to play tomorrow, but just excitedly pulled Gu Jue to pick out clothes to wear tomorrow.

The three-month national mourning has not yet ended, so Shen Qianchen cannot wear bright red, green or purple. Most of the summer clothes made this season are very plain, such as aqua green, snow blue, moon white, water blue, etc., each one is beautiful.

The two finally chose a light smoky blue color.

Gu Jue also picked a robe of the same color as hers, and they both wore a pair of jade pendants, one with a dragon pattern and the other with a phoenix pattern.

After Gu Jue finished his morning court session the next day, the young couple changed into matching clothes and accessories and left the palace incognito. The secret guards hid in the dark and followed quietly to avoid spoiling their master's mood.

It was not until they were on horseback at the palace gate that Gu Jue asked Shen Qianchen, "Where do you want to go?"

Gu Jue asked, and Shen Qianchen answered: "Baiyun Temple, I just happened to go see Chu Qianhuang."

Shen Qianchen raised his eyes and looked in the direction of Baiyun Temple, his eyes were calm, as if he was thinking about something.

It has been almost a month since she had Chu Qianhuang sent to Huangjue Temple.

"Okay." Gu Jue didn't ask Shen Qianchen why he wanted to see Chu Qianhuang, and simply agreed.

The couple rode their horses directly to Baiyun Temple.

Today is neither the first nor the fifteenth day of the lunar month nor is it a festival, so there are not many pilgrims in Baiyun Temple. The two came on short notice without notifying the temple in advance, so no one arranged for a monk to receive them. The two went to the Main Hall to burn incense hand in hand.

All the way from the temple entrance to the main hall, the two received many envious glances from women and girls. They guessed that they were a newly married couple and felt that they were truly a perfect match.

Although they were looking at him, no one dared to approach them and talk to them. Although Gu Jue had a gentle smile and simple clothes, his cold and noble temperament always revealed a sense of keeping people at a distance.

After burning incense, the two found a young monk to take them to the side room for a vegetarian meal. Gu Jue actually went into the side room, while Shen Qianchen went to the side room where Chu Qianhuang was.

“Squeak!”

When the door of the wing room was opened from the outside, Chu Qianhuang, who was originally standing in front of the window, turned his head in disbelief.

The time is wrong.

Ever since she was locked up here, it was just like being in prison. The daily schedule was strictly regulated without any deviation. This had been the case for the past month.

It was not yet time for lunch, nor was it time for her to listen to the sutras or take a bath.

Boom boom! Chu Qianhuang's heartbeat quickened by two beats, and her dim eyes brightened a little. She looked towards the door and happened to meet Shen Qianchen's eyes.

Chu Qianhuang: "..."

Chu Qianhuang opened her eyes slightly, she didn't expect Shen Qianchen to come.

In comparison, Shen Qianchen was much calmer, neither happy nor surprised.

Ever since Chu Qianhuang was brought here, every ten days, the old woman who was guarding Chu Qianhuang would go to the palace to report some information about Chu Qianhuang.

At first, Chu Qianhuang was very noisy and tried various ways to escape. Until the day Gu Jue ascended the throne, Chu Qianhuang suddenly quieted down, as if she had figured it out, as if she had accepted her fate, so she behaved herself every day.

This is what the old woman said, but Shen Qianchen understood Chu Qianhuang's current personality and she would not accept her fate.

For this reason, Shen Qianchen also had the idea of ​​meeting Chu Qianhuang.

(End of this chapter)