Today is the second day since the opening of the anthology. Compared to yesterday's quietness, the atmosphere has become more and more lively after a night of preparation.
Yu Shaoxie stared at the pile of gold, and couldn't help but twitch his lips: "...too ostentatious."
Xiao Rong: "How can we attract others if we don't show off? This also shows our determination and lets them know that the King of Zhenbei is not just pretending to be mysterious. He really has prepared 10,000 gold coins to put here."
Yu Shaoxie: “…”
This ten thousand gold was just collected a few days ago.
There was no such link originally, but Yu Shaoxie won a great victory in Huaiyin. He stayed there for five days. After five days, he returned with the 30,000 gold that Sun Renluan had promised long ago but did not want to fulfill. In addition, there were also food needed by the Zhenbei Army and the logistics troops to transport the food.
Xiao Rong asked for so many things just to get Sun Renluan to pay. He never thought of making Nan Yong bleed heavily. But who knew that Yang Zangyi was so helpful and gave them the handle to use. It would be a waste not to take advantage of this.
Money, food, and troops were the bulk of the items. Yu Shaoxie also brought back two warships, two pleasure boats, several large boxes of gold, silver, and jade, and three secret recipes.
Two of them were compensated by the Yang family, one was the improved formula of the crossbow, and the other was the method of making tofu.
Xiao Rong: “…”
God knows how he felt when he saw Yu Shaoxie presenting the tofu recipe like a treasure, especially since Yu Shaoxie had spent a lot of effort to get this recipe. He thought that Xiao Rong, who loved eating so much, must also like this novel food. ... That's all.
Rubbing his internal organs that felt like vomiting blood, Xiao Rong looked at the third portion. This was what he wanted most.
Before Yu Shaoxie set out, Xiao Rong specially gave him the bamboo hairpin and told him to give it to Sun Renluan at the critical moment to let him know that Xiao Rong did not blame the court. He could see clearly that Yang Zangyi was separated from the court. He would still try his best to fight for the court as he had said before, but there was a prerequisite: Sun Renluan had to help him accomplish something.
The most expensive things are always free, Sun Renluan agreed with this truth very much. After knowing what Xiao Rong wanted, Sun Renluan was completely relieved. In his opinion, this was like giving it for free. He gave an order that the third secret recipe be handed over to Yu Shaoxie that day.
As for the third secret recipe, it is the method of making Xiao Gong paper.
In fact, papermaking also requires skills. It is not as simple as printing, where you can only know how to make it at a glance. Besides, Xiao Rong's surname is Xiao. Even if he knows that the paper he made has nothing to do with the Xiao family, after the Xiao family members and the people of the world know about it, they will definitely scold him for being shameless for taking the family's things for himself.
Now he doesn't have to worry about this. With the help of Sun Renluan, this formula was nominally given to Xiao Rong by the Xiao family. He can use and buy and sell it at will in the future.
The Xiao family was so angry that they were about to vomit blood. When Xiao Rong came to Jinling, Sun Renluan asked them to contact Xiao Rong, but they looked down on Xiao Rong and did not want to acknowledge this poor relative, so they did not take the initiative to invite him. Yes... they did not even consider going to find Xiao Rong. In their opinion, they were already humble enough to send an invitation to Xiao Rong, so what else did they want?
They had not even sent out the invitation, but planned to delay it until Xiao Rong was about to pass away, and then reluctantly invite him to come and recognize each other as relatives. But who knew that such a big thing would happen in the middle of the process, and Xiao Rong ran away overnight. Sun Renluan almost had Prime Minister Yang thrown into jail. Everyone has been behaving themselves in fear these days, and only the Xiao family is relatively relaxed.
Because they felt that they were members of Xiao Rong's clan, Sun Renluan would not vent his anger on them. Maybe Sun Renluan still needed to rely on them, so they could use the name of being from the same clan to persuade Xiao Rong to make a small matter out of a big one.
One thing I need to mention here is that although many of the Xiao family's ancestors served as officials in Chang'an and were considered a Chang'an aristocratic family, their hometown was in Linchuan after all, and they were considered a southern aristocratic family. After the Yong Dynasty moved its capital, disputes between the north and the south arose, and the Xiao family became unpopular both inside and outside. The northern aristocratic families excluded them, and the southern aristocratic families did not recognize them. In addition, the descendants of the Xiao family were a bit mediocre. Even though they were still in the second-class ranks, their voice in the court was no longer as strong as before.
Therefore, they were not afraid, and they thought this was an opportunity for them to turn things around. Previously, they just wanted Xiao Rong to recognize his ancestry and continue to be a branch of the Xiao family. This time, they even decided to spend a lot of money to let someone in the family recognize Xiao Rong and write Xiao Rong's name on the eldest branch.
Of course, it can't be the eldest son of the eldest house. They can't let a side branch inherit the family no matter what. But they can let him go to the second or third son of the eldest house and gain the reputation of a legitimate son, which will not bring any impact to them.
In a corner unknown to everyone, the Xiao family was arguing fiercely over this matter. No one wanted to have a stranger in their family, because several wives even wanted to go back to their parents' home. Then, Yu Shaoxie took the hairpin and went to find Sun Renluan. …………
It wasn't their fault, but they have to pay the price. Moreover, Xiao Rong is such a lack of virtue that he doesn't even care about tracing his ancestry. What he really wants is their family's Xiao Gong Paper recipe!
If they knew that Xiao Rong wanted the formula of Xiao Gong Paper just to pave the way for his next action, and that he had no intention of selling Xiao Gong Paper, but planned to use the name of Xiao Gong Paper and then announce to the outside world that he had improved the paper to be cheaper and more useful, and thereby bring down the price of paper, they would probably be even more vomiting blood.
But this has nothing to do with Xiao Rong. After all, he also has the formula, which was given to him by the Xiao family. The Xiao family can't control what he wants to do. ...
The formula has just been obtained, and the production of paper has not yet been put on the agenda. Besides, Chen Liu already has enough new gadgets, so he doesn't care if one is missing.
Xiao Rong lowered his eyes and looked at the bustling crowd below. Almost every newcomer would tremble in fear when seeing the pile of gold. Although they still wanted to be reserved and show their indifference to money, everyone walked to the front honestly. There was a notice board over there with the first of the three questions in the collection posted on it.
The first one is the simplest. It can be summed up in one sentence: govern with virtue. What is virtue?
When they saw the topic, many people laughed out loud. Nowadays, scholars love to have idle conversations, and their topics almost always revolve around the books of sages. Questions like this have been discussed countless times. They didn't expect that the King of Zhenbei would use this to test them. It was simply the lowest level of repeating what others had said.
Upon learning that this was the level of the topic of this collection of essays, those who were aiming to compete with the literati north of the Huai River immediately lost interest. At this time, someone uttered a soft "hmm".
It turns out that there is not only a huge title on the notice board, but also three densely packed small characters below it. A closer look reveals that they are all articles written based on the title, and next to these three articles there is a line of words: "On xx day, the articles will be reserved for selection and randomly displayed for tourists to enjoy."
This xx day was yesterday, and people didn’t notice that someone had already submitted the articles in just one day. They just wanted to know how these articles were written.
The first article attracted everyone's attention because its views were particularly radical. It almost criticized the long-standing default values, and the words between the lines revealed a sense of being the only one sober while everyone else is drunk. It was just short of saying that you are all losers and those you support are also losers.
Everyone: “…”
The second article is not in this style. The tone of the second article is quite normal, but the problem is that its values, outlook on life and values are too abnormal. It actually advocates that everyone should stop reading because reading will make people think too much. If you don’t understand anything, you won’t think about what virtue is. If you don’t even think about it, you won’t know that you are not living a good life. Since you don’t know that you are not living a good life, then you are living a good life. Since you are living a good life, it means that you have met a benevolent monarch. Since everyone is a benevolent monarch, why force yourself to read and think about what virtue is?
Everyone: “…………”
What kind of psychopath you are.
These two articles made everyone angry. They turned to the third article with anger. Well, this one was much more normal. The words were gorgeous and the views were sophisticated. Not only could everyone agree with it, but he also said something that others had never thought of. After the baptism of the first two articles, the third article won the applause of most people. But when they saw the last paragraph, they were silent.
Because this person was humble in the last paragraph and said that his views were immature. After all, he was only fourteen years old. If anyone felt that what he said was wrong, they were welcome to come to him and correct him.
Everyone: “…”
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