The topic of marriage is really a bit heavy, Taohua is reluctant to mention it again, so she pushed the plate with lotus root flour cake in front of Jiang Xinghua: "I cook it myself, my sister will try it, if you like it, bring a few pieces back." "The dim sum in Jiang Xinghua's room, you don't have to think about it to know that it's not good.

"Thank you, sister." Jiang Xinghua took a bite of it, "My sister's skills are really good, and the cooks in the family can't even catch up with half of my sister." ”

Not even half of hers, that snack is really not good. Taohua felt a little pity in her heart: "You don't dislike it, I'll give you a snack when I go back." ”

Jiang Xinghua showed a grateful smile with a little sadness: "Only the third sister is so benevolent and willing to help me......" She was already born delicate, with a melon seed face, two crescent eyebrows, and when she smiled sadly, she was like an apricot blossom with dew, which was moving.

Taohua sighed secretly, and was about to change the topic, when Mint's voice sounded outside the door: "Girl, Miss Lu has sent someone to deliver the letter." ”

It was Lu Ying's personal maid Cherry, who came in, and saluted Taohua with a smile on her face: "Miss Jiang, our girl has been sealed Baolin, and she will enter the palace in five days." ”

Momoka didn't speak for a while. The smile on Cherry's face was a little complicated, she had served Lu Ying since she was a child, and she knew Lu Ying's situation best. Lu Ying was forced to enter the palace by the situation, so although it is said that "all wishes come true" now, it is really not a happy thing, so that Cherry doesn't know whether to be happy or sad.

Jiang Xinghua glanced at the cherry, got up and said, "The third sister has something, I'll go back first." She didn't remember that Taohua also had a friend who also entered the palace, and she didn't think she was a favored concubine.

Taohua nodded, sent her to the door, and sighed at the cherry when she came back: "Your girl, how are you now?" ”

Cherry lowered her eyes: "The eldest lady heard that the girl was selected, and she was so happy that she was about to buy something for the girl." However, our girl's position is not high, and I am afraid that we will not be able to bring anything into the palace. ”

This is a plain statement, but it is ironic.

The women who enter the palace, except for the queen, are not considered to be married, so there is no dowry to bring. A beauty like Lu Ying, she can only bring two maids to the palace at most, and bringing another box is the limit, don't look at Mrs. Lu now at first glance to prepare this and that, in fact, she can't bring it into the palace at all, just to show her concern as an aunt. But if you really care about your niece, you won't only give fifteen taels of silver when you enter the palace.

"Our girl said, fortunately, with the silver you gave the girl, I didn't suffer any grievances in the palace. The place where she lived during the draft was a little damp and dark, and the girl saw with her own eyes that a show girl was assigned to live in the shaded room, and within a few days she fell ill and was immediately carried out. When Cherry looked up and spoke to Momoka, she smiled genuinely gratefully.

"It's not like that in the palace." Taohua sighed, she really didn't want to congratulate Lu Ying, but what could she say, "It's this time, how much silver does your eldest wife prepare?" ”

Cherry sighed: "The eldest lady hasn't said it yet, but the slave maid is afraid that there are not many people who say something boldly." As soon as she heard that the girl could bring two maids in, she immediately busied herself with a young maid beside her, and renamed her loquat. ”

Cherry is a cautious maid, although she is angry with Mrs. Lu, she doesn't say too much in front of Taohua, just to the point. Lu Ying is difficult to enter the palace, cherry is young and young, Mrs. Lu should send a maid who is old enough to do things, but she sent a young one. Looking at the meaning of cherries, I didn't say anything about beauty, Mrs. Lu sent such a maid, did she come to serve Lu Ying, or did she want to "share her worries"?

"It's really-" Taohua said two words hatefully, swallowing the second half of the sentence back, Mrs. Lu was no longer cheeky, and it was useless to say anything, "You are a cautious person, go into the palace and serve your girl well." As for that loquat, the restless person in the palace may not live long, so don't let her bother you girl. I guess before you girl enters the palace, I can't go to see her, right? ”

has been selected, that is the emperor's person, not to mention outsiders, even if his family wants to see it, he has to keep the state ceremony.

Cherry nodded: "The palace has come to teach my aunt, and the girl has to learn the rules these days, so she asked the slave to deliver the letter." ”

Taohua sighed a little stunned, and took a purse out: "There are two hundred taels of silver tickets here, all of them are small, take them back to your girl." ”

"No, no—" Cherry waved her hand in confusion, "You've spent a lot of money before—"

"Take it." Taohua forced it into her hand, "This time I entered the palace, and it will probably not be easy to meet in the future." This pair of bracelets is for you, serve your girl well, and live a good life. ”

Cherry eyes turned red: "This purse slave maid accepted it for our girl, and the bracelet slave maid never dared to accept it." It is the duty of a slave to serve a girl, how can I ask for your reward? Speaking of which, except for Mrs. and Mrs. Tan, you really care about our girl. ”

"Don't cry, don't cry." Taohua also felt very uncomfortable, "You hold the bracelet, it's not a reward, just take it as a thought." Sit down and tell me, is the aunt who came to teach the rules strict, and is she teaching with all her heart? "Go back with red eyes like this, so that Mrs. Lu can see it, and she may not know what to say.

Cherry also understood, sat diagonally on the embroidery pier brought by Mint, wiped the corners of her eyes and said: "Look at the teaching aunt is still kind, in addition to teaching salutes or something, occasionally talk about some old things in the palace." The girl came out of the palace with a dozen taels of silver left in her hand, and gave her a silver ticket—by the way, and the girl Wu, who also gave her aunt a pair of gold earrings. ”

"Miss Wu was also chosen?"

"Like our girl, they are all Baolin's titles, and they are all taught by this teaching aunt." When Cherry said this, she also sighed a little emotionally, "The sixth girl was not selected, and she came out to cry all night...... "I was not selected, I am afraid that it means that she will go back to marry that gentleman."

In fact, there is nothing to say about the draft, but I thought that Lu Ying would probably never see each other again when she entered the palace, Taohua was reluctant to let Cherry go, and chattered for half an hour, but there was really nothing to say, so Cherry got up and left, ignoring Mint's obstruction before leaving, and seriously kowtowed to Taohua three times.

After sending the cherry away, Mint quietly returned to the room, and saw her girl sitting there in a daze. She lightly went over to clean up the things on the table, and suddenly heard Taohua sigh: "Mint, in fact, I am still very lucky." ”

"Yes, the girl is a blessed person." Mint said in a low voice, "Although the wife went early, the lord really loves the girl, and in the future, he will definitely choose a good family for the girl." ”

"Good people-" Taohua smiled, "What kind of people are considered good people?" ”

Mint couldn't answer this time, so he thought for a while before saying, "Like the master, he is a good person." ”

Momoka laughed: "You're right. "If you can marry a person who is the right person, and you can get married to old age. Anyway, no matter what, it's better than Lu Ying being forced into the palace.

The news of the draft spread a few days later, and a total of twelve people entered the palace in this draft, but most of them were petty officials or daughters of declining noble families, and most of them were given low-ranking titles such as Baolin Imperial Maid. The only one who has been sealed as nine concubines is Zhao Yunrong, the youngest daughter of the Ministry of Works, who should be the daughter of the in-laws of the Yu family.

The emperor ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, and now for ten years, there are few high-ranking concubines in the harem except for the queen.

The harem of this dynasty is based on the Tang system. From the queen downwards are the four concubines of Guide Shuxian, and now there are three empty ones, and there is only one concubine Yuan. Yuan is the emperor's good when he was the crown prince, although he was named a concubine after entering the palace, and he was also a little favored in front of the emperor, but since Longqing had a miscarriage in the eighth year, there has been no good news so far.

Below it are nine concubines. There were only two of them. One is located in Zhaorong, which is the sister of the queen's distant branch, and her position was not high when she entered the palace, but because she gave birth to the emperor's only daughter, she was promoted to nine concubines. When Jiang Meihua was still a beauty, she lived in the side hall of her Xiangyan Palace. Another Wang Chongyuan, from a humble background, was just a palace man who served by the emperor's side, but he once desperately saved the emperor when the East Palace caught fire, but he burned his face. After the emperor ascended the throne, he raised her to the end of the nine concubines, but it is said that she was not favored.

Now there is one more of the nine concubines, although she is not surnamed Yu, but she is the in-law of the Yu family. In addition, whether it was the old people who served in the East Palace back then, or the newcomers and semi-newcomers who had been drafted into the palace several times, none of them could come out. There are a few noble ladies who were drafted for the first time after the emperor ascended the throne, and because they have nothing to do, they are still in the seats of Jieyu and the beauty. The truth in this is really intriguing. It's no wonder that in this year's draft, few high-ranking ladies are willing to participate.

The matter of the palace has always been the most popular thing for people to talk about, not to mention that the Jiang family also has a daughter in the palace, which is related to interests, so naturally they have to talk about it when they meet.

Jing's days are quite busy, but his spirit is the best. The harem was busy choosing new people for the emperor, but the emperor himself didn't seem to have much interest in it, but seized the opportunity to meet many officials who went to Beijing to report on their work, among which General Lu was at the forefront.

After General Lu guarded the East China Sea, he did not often enter Beijing. According to his own account, although the Japanese are now thieves, the coastal defenders can resist the enemy, and although there are frequent wars every year, they are all small battles.

Because of this sentence, even the officials in the capital who didn't deal with him couldn't say what he didn't come from. None of these generals who had led the army was eager to kill one hundred and eighty enemy troops and hurried to report the victory, so that the emperor would know that he had made great efforts. There are very few people like General Lu, and I haven't seen a few since the founding of this dynasty.

It is also because of this sentence that General Lu Da's visit to Beijing to report on his work this time has also attracted countless attention.

The invasion of the Japanese has become commonplace, and the dwarves on these small islands, on the one hand, are calling for the transformation of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and on the other hand, they are burning and looting with long knives, which is simply unreasonable and bastard. However, the arrival of the Japanese is nothing, but the use of sick rats to spread the disease is a big deal.

It is important to know that rats are everywhere, and because of their small and flexible bodies, they are easy to ignore and difficult to catch. This time, thanks to the fact that those rats were mainly put into the barracks, and they were quickly discovered by General Lu and rounded up and annihilated, what if these rats were several times more numerous and scattered into the homes of the people in the city? As soon as they thought of this situation, even those officials who had nothing to do with their own food could not help but fight a cold war -- if this epidemic spread, don't look at you far away in the capital, you may not be safe and sound, and the outbreak of the epidemic in the entire country has been recorded several times in the history books.

First had this fear of the epidemic, and then General Lu Da reported his merits to Jiang Zhu, which added a lot of weight. In particular, Jiang Zhu not only donated medicine himself, but also offered prescriptions, and personally entered the infected soldiers to test the effectiveness of the prescriptions. Even his father-in-law's family donated a sum of money. This kind of credit is counted together, and it is reasonable for General Lu to ask the emperor for rewarding him.

However, as soon as it was said that he wanted to ask for a background, someone in the court jumped out to stop him. Some people said that the plaque of the royal reward of a "righteous businessman" was enough, and some people said that it was better to let him be an imperial businessman, so that fame and fortune would be gained, and some people turned out the fact that the second room of the Jiang family had been convicted, thinking that Jiang Zhu was just offering a medicine, and in the end it was nothing more than repelling more than a hundred Japanese robbers, which was not a great achievement, at most it was just a merit to atone for his sins.

It's okay to say that rewarding the imperial merchants and righteous merchants is fine, but when it comes to Jiang Zhu's fact that it is not a great achievement, some generals can't help but jump up - saving the lives of many soldiers, so that the epidemic does not spread, so that the soldiers can defend the city, this is not considered meritorious, so what is meritorious? When you say "nothing more", you mean that you have repelled more than 100 pirates, which means that repelling more than 100 pirates is not considered a merit? Most of the time, the soldiers guarding the border pass are just fighting off a hundred or so enemies, so aren't they all considered meritorious?

The promotion of military generals depends entirely on military merit, and it is not like civilian officials who can also maintain their qualifications. Now some people say that a hundred or so enemies are not counted, and that is simply a chance for at least half of them to be promoted, how can a military general not jump his feet? Therefore, in the Yinghua Palace, the civil and military generals quarreled so much that Jiang Zhu's name changed from an unknown businessman to a well-known celebrity in the civil and military in one day. Correspondingly, those things about the Jiang family at the beginning were all turned out again.

In fact, when the Jiang family's second room was convicted, none of these officials had an account in their hearts? It is a dangerous thing for a woman to give birth, but what kind of high-ranking official and dignitary you are, and which family has not had a woman who has trouble in childbirth? What's more, in that kind of place in the palace, it's hard to say why Concubine Xian died.

However, when it comes to quarreling, what you think in your heart and what you say are two different things. Those who opposed giving Jiang Zhu an official position naturally criticized Jiang Fanghui's poor medical skills, and also turned out the words of the first emperor that Jiang was not worthy of practicing medicine. And there are many people who agree with General Lu, and some people immediately refute: although the first emperor said that sentence in anger at that time, but after Jiang Fanghui's death, he did not commit another crime, and even the imperial physician Jiang resigned from the post of imperial physician back then, and the first emperor also retained it, so it can be seen that the so-called unworthy words of medicine are just a casual remark in the first emperor's anger. The minister is the king, and the first emperor still has the heart to remedy, but you don't let go of this, what is the intention? Do you want everyone in the world to say that the first emperor was not kind and generous enough, so he casually angered the medical officer?

To say that this literati is powerful. If a different military general came out and said this, he would definitely be caught by someone and hurt his feet - do you mean that the first emperor was angry with the medical officer back then? Does it mean that the first emperor lost his words in anger? Don't you know that Emperor Chrysostom can only be right and not wrong?

But the person who said these words is an imperial history, the imperial history is based on the mouth to eat, these words through him, everyone can understand the meaning, but can not find a handle to grasp - this imperial history did not say a bad word about the first emperor, but praised the first emperor as a person who knows his mistakes and changes, even the "Zuo Biography" said that knowing mistakes can be changed, good is great, only the first emperor does not take wrong as wrong, only to see the virtue of the first emperor, and so distort the meaning of the first emperor, that is, to discredit the reputation of the first emperor.

In short, his words made many people who lifted the Jiang family's hole cards shut up. Especially before, some people said that with the Jiang family's crime back then, Jiang Jun of the Changfang should not be an official now, and he is not qualified to send a woman to the palace. was also scolded by this imperial history - do you mean that you are not filial today, and you actually went against the will of the first emperor and accepted the sin girl into the palace?

The saying that literati don't use knives to kill people is probably what it means. He not only praised the first emperor, but also brought the topic to Jinshang. After all, the first emperor is a dead man, and it doesn't matter if he says it, but now it's in front of him, although the descendants now account for half of the imperial court, but the emperor is the emperor after all, and when he really wants to hate a person, there will always be some way.

So a quarrel that lasted for two days came to an end, and the emperor was invited by General Lu to give Jiang Zhu a loose rank of the seventh-grade Wen Linlang.

The so-called loose rank means that there is only an official rank and no real position, to be precise, it is that Jiang Zhu is only given a false name as an official, and he is not allowed to do practical things, but he can get Yulu.

The number of casual officials is less than that of substantive officials at the same level, and Wen Linlang, who is in the seventh grade, is only a few dozen taels of silver a year, which is not enough for Jiang Zhu's family to go out for tea a few times. However, this is a real official, and since then, Jiang Zhu is no longer a businessman, but an official. And with this casual official position, it will be more convenient for him to find a real shortage in the future than a low-level official.

When the will of the official came to the Jiang family, Jiang Zhu was naturally pleased, and said to the Jing family in private that compared to this Wen Linlang's loose rank, what made him even happier was that he was registered in front of the emperor. After all, as long as the emperor remembers him, he will have more opportunities in the future than those who are unknown.

Although it is a loose order, it is also a great joy, the Jiang family should have celebrated, but because the old lady Jiang's birthday is imminent, Jiang Zhu is unwilling to entertain the guests before his father's birthday banquet, one is rude, the other is a loose order to feast the guests, it is too frivolous, and the third - Jiang Jun is in a very bad mood.

Jiang Jun is a five-grade official and has no qualifications to go to the court. But how can the yamen of the various ministries not know about the quarrels between the DPRK and China? He was promoted because of his daughter's miscarriage, and I don't know how many people behind him were red-eyed, so he seized this opportunity and had to say something strange in front of him, so that Jiang Jun always had a black face when he returned home these days.

He can't blame his younger brother for wanting to get a background, but this breath is really hard to swallow, and it is inevitable that he will vent one or two, so everyone in the main courtyard has been a little trembling in the past few days, and they are like a chilling cicada.

"I heard that the eldest girl of the Marquis of Jinghai Mansion has all four virtues, and I thought that she would be selected, but I didn't expect to enter the palace. Otherwise, there will be at least one more concubine in the palace. Jing smiled and gossiped with tea, his eyes swept over the face of Xiao Shi on the side from time to time, full of interest.

Xiao Shi didn't want to say a word. Jiang Jun studied hard for ten years, and at the age of twenty-three, he was admitted to the Jinshi, and now he is in his thirties, and he only has one positive five grades. Jiang Zhu is a businessman, his reading is far inferior to his brother, just donating a few carts of medicinal materials to become a positive seventh grade, how many people who have studied hard and tested their fame may not be able to mix with this grade. It's really full of money and it's not worth a thousand taels of silver, how can there be justice in this world.

Yu naturally didn't like the news either. Which mother-in-law wants to see her concubine come out? In the past, it was just a businessman, and then it was a rich family with brocade clothes and jade, after all, it was the end of the four people, and there was a few layers of difference between it and the taxi at the head of the four people. But now, the concubine has actually won the official, although the grade is still poor, but with General Lu's support, who knows what will happen in the future?

Compared with Jiang Zhu's spring breeze, Jiang Meihua's situation in the palace became more and more embarrassing. Although most of the show girls who entered the palace were only low-level, after all, they were young and had flowers and willows, and they were not as good as Jiang Meihua, who was almost twenty years old. What's more, Zhao Chongyi is Yu's in-law again, she entered the palace, Jiang Meihua is still of use to the queen, I'm afraid it's hard to say. When Xiao Shi thought of his daughter, he felt that this breath was even more blocked.

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were silent, and the Jing family didn't care, so she turned her head and smiled at the Cao family and said, "Third brother and sister, I heard that your mother's family is the same clan as Jinghaihou?" ”

Xiao Shi scolded in his heart, and glanced at Cao Shi coldly. She still remembers the good deeds that Cao's maiden brother did!

Cao sat there absent-mindedly. As soon as the draft ended, she asked Xuancao to go to Mrs. Cao Wu to ask, Mrs. Cao Wu first said that the Cao family had the permission of the Queen Mother, and did not choose Cao Hui into the palace, and then she stood up, only saying that Mrs. Tai has been unwell recently and is not suitable to meet guests, so it is not convenient to take Cao and Jiang Yanhua to meet Yunyun now.

At this moment, even if the Cao family was confused, they could hear it, and sure enough, this sister-in-law was just as Jiang Yanhua said, and she didn't want to introduce them to the Jinghai Marquis Mansion at all.