Chapter 0054: Immoral
If no one called him, Xiao Rong could sleep until tomorrow morning.
However, before dusk, someone came from the palace. This time it was a real eunuch, and one with a high official position.
The term eunuch also appeared a very long time later. If you called people eunuchs at that time, they might not understand what it meant. After all, even the eunuch eunuch had not appeared at that time, let alone the general term eunuch.
Therefore, people at that time called them eunuchs or eunuchs behind their backs. Of course, they could not call them that in front of them. Instead, they would respectfully address them by their official titles.
The eunuch who was sent to invite Xiao Rong was an eunuch in the Empress Dowager Sun's palace. His official title was Changle Shaofu. When the emperor was sidelined and the empress was still unknown, the Empress Dowager Sun was the only one in power in the entire harem. This Shaofu was equivalent to the chief eunuch in the palace.
But... eunuchs are like this. When they are doing well, they can control the whole world. When they are not doing well, they are just high-level servants. With Sun Renluan in control of the power, even the Queen Mother Sun can't get involved in the government, let alone these eunuchs who are living in fear.
Therefore, Xiao Rong didn't need to be too polite to them. Mainly, being polite was useless. Although this person held a high position, he had no status at all. It was better not to waste energy on him. ...
But the Empress Dowager's eunuch was the one sent out when the Empress Dowager was asked to do the job. This is quite intriguing. Was it because there was no one else around the Emperor who was useful, or was it because Sun Renluan thought that he was just a small character and did not need to be taken seriously, so he just sent someone at random?
Or maybe, Sun Renluan was worried that he would try to get information from the eunuchs around the emperor, so he blocked this path in advance and sent his sister, who was beautiful but had no IQ, to come over. This not only fulfilled the etiquette, but also did not have to worry about the eunuchs not being able to keep their mouths shut. As the saying goes, a bad soldier makes a bad general. Empress Dowager Sun was a stupid beauty, and the eunuchs who followed her had no chance to know anything useful.
Xiao Rong curled his lips, looked at himself carefully, made sure there was no place that could be criticized, and then went out in high spirits.
As the only person with an official position, Zhang Biezhi naturally had to follow him. He was shocked to see that Xiao Rong was back to full health after just one hour of sleep.
Are scholars so energetic? Xiao Rong's brother seems to be the same. He reads a book whenever he wants. He also writes articles and handles various emergencies. For example, Zhang Biezhi wanted to jump into the river to commit suicide after spending only a quarter of an hour with the old lady in his family, but Xiao Yi can coax the old lady with just a few words. Even if there are new problems after a while, he is still patient and in good condition.
Zhang Biezhi: I understand.
The difference between him and the Xiao brothers is that there is no such a troublesome old lady in his family. No matter whether Xiao Rong is exceptionally strong or Xiao Yi is exceptionally patient, it must be the result of the old lady's torture day after day.
Very good, he doesn't have to doubt his life anymore, because his growth process was too smooth, no one tortured him during his childhood, he was also helpless. ...
Xiao Rong didn't know what was in Zhang Biezhi's mind, and he wouldn't delve into it. After all, people would never understand a monkey's train of thought. But Zhang Biezhi's mood had visibly improved, and he really did as Xiao Rong said, and began to resemble his old self, looking down on everyone and snorting from time to time, as if he looked down on the things here.
However, in reality, Jinling was much more prosperous than Chenliu. There were still many empty houses in Chenliu. It was not because there were too few people, but because living in the city was inconvenient and it cost money to go anywhere, so some people would rather live outside the city. The streets of Jinling were bustling with people and hawking. Almost every few seconds, you could see someone walking by with an ox cart or a donkey cart, which either carried a pile of goods or a nobleman wearing gold and silver.
What surprised Xiao Rong the most was that he actually saw quite a few foreigners here. Those foreigners usually stood together in groups. If they were merchants, they would carry a backpack on their backs and looked much wealthier when they walked. If they were mercenaries, their eyes would be more alert, and there was little communication between them. They always had weapons in their hands, and the people around them would walk around them, but it seemed that they had gotten used to living in the same city with them.
This is the legendary alien mercenary...
Xiao Rong couldn't tell which country they came from, but he still stared at these people eagerly. To be able to appear in the city and so close to the palace, this group of people must be small, probably just a few dozen people looking for an employer together. At this level, they can no longer be considered mercenaries, but hired thugs and bodyguards.
Xiao Rong also wanted it.
In this world, money is definitely not the most worrying thing for the leaders of various forces. No matter how poor a leader is, as long as he takes his troops out for a period of time, people will naturally come to give him money. Although it cannot guarantee that the people under him will have food to eat, it will not be a problem for the leader himself to suddenly become a wealthy family.
Just like the Zhenbei Army, Qu Yunmie had never worried about the Zhenbei Army's armaments. If it weren't for Xiao Rong's sudden inspiration to ask them to move the capital to Chenliu, the money in their treasury would have been enough to last for several years. It was Xiao Rong who insisted on moving the capital and vigorously developing so many things, so they began to run short of money.
And there is no need to worry too much about this gap. As long as there is enough time, it will be filled slowly.
But people are different.
All battlefields are meat grinders. In the era without hot weapons and long-range strikes, every war was fought with lives. Those famous wars may not have many casualties, and it seems common to win with fewer troops. However, this is the deviation of survivors. They are famous because they have done things that ordinary wars cannot do. A famous general may have only one golden battle in his life that can be passed down for thousands of years, recording the moment when he was extraordinary in strategy, but how can there be so many strategies to display? Most of them are the most ordinary head-on confrontations, comparing who has the bigger fist and who has more soldiers.
Now the Zhenbei Army seems to have the largest number of people, but once they are dispersed, they may still be defeated. The Xianbei are like a fork in the road in front of everyone. They are moving in this direction, but they will not stop at this intersection. Sooner or later, they will cross here and choose their own direction. Then there will be more new problems, such as formally ruling the north of the Huai River, clearing out all officials who are in office but doing nothing, and continuing to balance the relationship between the north and the south.
So, they were short of people, not only scholars but also warriors. Even those refugees who were about to starve to death, Xiao Rong wanted to pull them back to his own territory. They were refugees here, but in Chenliu they could be good helpers in the work-for-relief program.
But he could only think about it. People tend to seek benefits and avoid harm. Although Jinling is filled with a bunch of noble families who look down on others, they are really rich and safe. One look at the thick city walls can increase the sense of security. Look at Chenliu, not to mention that everything is in ruins, the king is still sharpening his knife to attack the Xianbei. Unless the Xianbei is defeated and the king can tell the world that he will never leave, otherwise, the people outside will still wait and see.
Except for those crazy Buddhist fans, they don’t care where Qu Yunmie goes, they just want to live closer to the Buddhists. …………
Xiao Rong looked at the people in Jinling with some eager eyes. When Changle Shaofu looked over, he lowered his eyes again, coughed lightly twice, and acted very weak.
Changle Shaofu: "..."
He couldn't help but look at Xiao Rong a few more times, and his eyes seemed to have some meaning.
During the hour when Xiao Rong was sound asleep, the palace had investigated almost everything about him. Of course, that was what they thought they had investigated. …
Xiao Rong, male, is one year away from coming of age. No one knows who his master is, nor where he studied before. He seems to be from the Linchuan Xiao family, but he has never publicized this fact, so whether it is true or not is still to be determined.
The Linchuan Xiao family also had people in the court. One was the Imperial Censor, and the other was a Secretary. Both of their official positions were neither high nor low. Among the second-class families, they were neither high-profile nor downtrodden.
The Xiao family and the Sun family have almost the same history, both became wealthy hundreds of years ago, but their current situations are worlds apart. Compared with other aristocratic families, the Xiao family still has a lot of heritage, but compared with the Sun family, they can only be the other family's younger brother.
When they were called in by the Grand Marshal and asked about a young man from the clan who had no name at all, the two of them racked their brains for a long time and actually remembered something.
"During the Yanping years, someone in the clan did something wrong. I should call him my seventh uncle. His father and my grandfather were brothers. According to the clan rules, the head of the family expelled him from the clan and drove his family out of the Xiao family's land. Later, they found a house near the clan's land and lived there. There has been no news since then. A few years ago, I heard that their family had very few descendants, and few of the two generations survived. Only one grandson was raised well and sent to study outside. That grandson seems to be called Xiao Rong."
Sun Renluan: “…”
During the Yanping period, that was forty or fifty years ago.
But it doesn't matter. People nowadays pay the most attention to blood ties. Not to mention relatives from forty or fifty years ago, even if they are relatives from four or five hundred years ago, as long as both parties recognize them, they can still get along as close as a family. When Sun Renluan was thinking, the two people opposite him looked at his face, guessed his thoughts, and then tentatively asked him if he wanted them to recognize Xiao Rong back.
Judging from the expressions of these two people, they seem to be a little reluctant. After all, they had been driven out of the house a long time ago. Now Xiao Rong is still working for the King of Zhenbei. Everyone knows that the King of Zhenbei is a refugee and a descendant of a foreign race, and his subordinates are either villagers or criminals. Working for such people is simply self-degradation.
Sun Renluan: “…………”
He often felt out of place because he couldn't keep up with the thinking of his colleagues.
No matter how poor the background of the King of Zhenbei was, he had become the King of Zhenbei now. Xiao Rong had suffered so much in his early years and almost all his family members were dead. In this case, if he was a confused person, he would probably be very eager to return to his family. But if he had a little bit of ambition, his thoughts would go to the other extreme, such as hating the family that drove them out and hoping to trample on the family under his feet.
These two people are not mentally retarded, but they cannot see this possibility, because they are too confident in their family's status, and look down on people like Qu Yunmie and Xiao Rong who have a bad background. They think these two people are uneducated outsiders, and they are fundamentally different from themselves from the inside out. These two people look very powerful now, but it's just that the world is bad, so it gave these two grass-roots people a good opportunity to stand out. Even if these two people go higher in the future and become emperors, they will still look down on them. There is no other reason, just the word "background".
Sun Renluan has experienced too much in his life. He has seen countless children from poor families buried, and countless wealthy families having their gates broken down by angry refugees, and the usually high-handed masters being chopped into meat paste. In an era of the collapse of rituals and music, the real way to survive is to maintain awe for everything.
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