In the early morning of December 25 of the fifth year of He, before the beginning of the hour, Zheng Qi, the left servant of the household department who lived in Xuanyangfang, had already gotten up, as the deputy official of the household department in charge of the world's money and grain, he could be called a high-ranking and powerful four characters, you must know that all the "civil servants" in more than 300 states and counties in Daqi were ultimately begging for a living in the hands of Zheng Shilang, and if Zheng Shilang was in a bad mood and stomped his feet a little, it would be a great thing to spread it to a certain state and county.

But since the second year of Zhihe, Zheng Shilang has basically not had a good mood, not to mention the busy fart and urine flow all year round, and he has to be held accountable by the Holy Lord and the Prime Minister's Office from time to time, for no other reason, just because the taxes in charge of him have not only not increased since the second year of Zhihe, but also worsened, and it has become lower and lower year by year.

Although the overall calculation has not decreased much, but his predecessor has not declined every year in the past few years, and there have even been a sharp increase in a few years, such a comparison, the court has many unfavorable words about his official reputation, and even has a small number of people who are not dealing with him have privately made a statement to the prime minister's office, saying that he is a corpse vegetarian, and should leave such an important position to more talented people.

Although the prime minister and deputy minister changed from time to time in the few years that he served as the deputy minister of the household department, in the end, Shengshang and several prime ministers did not pull him down from the position of Zuo Shilang, and he knew that this had a lot to do with his tireless work and diligence in political affairs in the past few years.

Seeing his uneven white hair in the bronze mirror, Zheng Qi couldn't help but sigh softly, only in his early forties, Hua Fa has quietly climbed up the sideburns, in the eyes of others, this position is infinitely beautiful, but who knows what kind of life he has lived in the past few years, not to mention being busy all day, in the end, it will not be good, when is this day a head?

The concubine next to her, who was arranging Zheng Qi's official uniform, heard his sigh and immediately asked with concern, "What's wrong with the master, do you want to add another cup of ginseng soup?" ”

"No, just thinking about something."

The concubine agreed crisply, and when she walked out of the house, Zheng Qicai sighed and said to herself, "It's up to you today, to see if you can reopen the border trade with the Khitans with the support of the prince, it seems that this tax income can only be found from the word open source." ”

Although there are still a few days before the Spring Festival of the sixth year of Zhihe, but in fact today is the last substantive court meeting of the fifth year of Zhihe, all the things that need to be determined before the end of the year must be agreed at today's court meeting, although the next few days will be nominally held court meeting, but the monarch and ministers know in their hearts that in fact, it has been on annual leave, and the court meeting is just a show according to the patrol rules.

Walking out of the gate under the service of the servants, Zheng Qicai noticed that there was a thick layer of snow on the ground, although the snow was no longer falling, but the cold north wind continued to blow down the snow on the eaves, blowing people all over their faces, and the deep night sky was still as dark as ink, like a big bluestone slab covering the sky, making his already not very good mood even heavier.

The walls on both sides of the streets, the arches of the doors, the ridges of the roofs...... There are also bare branches, covered with inches of snow everywhere, which shone with a faint pale white glow under the light of the lanterns. There were few messy footprints in the snow, as well as horseshoe prints and rut prints, perhaps from colleagues who went to the court meeting like him......

When Zheng Qi arrived at the small square in front of the gate, it was already crowded, and it was estimated that the civil officials and military generals who could participate in the court meeting had already come, because the door had not yet opened, so they gathered in groups to brag and fart, some of them were talking about friendships, some of them were talking about jokes on the Fengyue field, some were discussing current government affairs in a whisper, and some were silent and silent.

He only glanced at it and found his boss, Lord Liu, the head of the household department, in front of the door, who was already discussing something in a whisper with the second prince he was talking about just now, Zheng Qi immediately trotted over, saluted the two solemnly, and listened to the two respectfully.

"Lixin, I discussed it with the prince just now, and today you will come to play first, and then I and the prince will go out again to echo and strive to settle the matter."

Zheng Qi immediately responded, "Please rest assured, Lord Wang and Lord Dutang, I thought about this matter carefully last night, and I also roughly sorted out an outline of how to say it, and my subordinates also think that the reopening of border trade is a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, and I think the Holy Lord and the Prime Minister's Mansion will definitely consider it carefully." ”

"I have communicated with Li Xiang about this matter when I entered Beijing, and Li Xiang also agrees with the border trade matter, but the key lies in Yang Xiang's attitude, at least he cannot hold an opposing opinion, after all, the opinion of the left minister on such a matter is even more important."

"Lord Wang, I have briefly reported this matter to Yang Xiang once before, but Yang Xiang did not make any statement on this matter after hearing it." Liu Limin, the head of the household, said.

"Let's act when the opportunity arises, if it really doesn't work, we can only fight for it."

"Okay, follow the order of the prince."

At the beginning of the hour, the officials of the Ministry of Rites finished the roll call, and entered the Zichen Hall through the left door in order, and at the same time, the Jingyang bell in the imperial city rang, and then the professor of the music fang outside the Zichen Hall responded with the chime, and the last substantive court meeting of the five years of Daqi began.

In the melodious music, the current Holy Emperor Gaozong of the Great Qi was dressed in light court clothes, stepped out of the east pavilion gate on the side of the main hall with slow steps, stepped on the music point and walked to the throne, walked to the middle of the throne to face the hundred officials, and the eunuchs around him immediately recited, "The Holy Lord has arrived!" ”

The ministers who were already waiting below cleaned up their clothes, bowed to the ground, and shouted long live from the mountains. Emperor Gaozong glanced down, slowly walked to the dragon chair and sat down, and said casually, "Get up." ”

After all the officials got up and stood up, Emperor Gaozong gave a seat to the two prime ministers who were over the age of sixtieth and a few old courtiers and old generals, picked up the teacup placed on the imperial case and took a sip, before he opened his mouth and said to Wei Gang, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites in the second row on the left hand, "Wei Aiqing, have all the etiquette procedures of the Zhengdan Dynasty Meeting been properly deployed?" ”

"Qi Sheng, the ceremonial items have been prepared, all the civil and military generals, clan members, and envoys and etiquette departments of various countries who participated in the great court meeting have sent people to explain the etiquette process of Yifan, only four envoys from the small country of Tianzhu sent people to teach for two days, until yesterday there was still a slight deficiency, it is estimated that it will be almost the same for two more days."

"Very good, but please ask the Ministry of Etiquette to check it carefully, and it is best to take time to organize a rehearsal in terms of etiquette, and be sure that there will be no omissions."

"Wechen obeys the order, and Wechen will start to arrange it immediately after the court meeting!"

"Do you Aiqing have anything to discuss?"

"Your Majesty, the minister has a book to play!" I saw the squire of the military department take a step forward from the queue and bow down and said.

"Aiqing, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it."

"Your Majesty, that's right, when I was in Liangzhou at the beginning of October, one day in the after-hours of official business, Li Xiang inadvertently mentioned one thing to us, saying that recently in the three forbidden armies in the northwest camp to carry out a new type of training with sentry as a unit, some sentry in order to improve the training performance, even in spite of the scolding of the superior officers, pulled the soldiers out late at night and still trained, Your Majesty also knows that Weichen has been in the military department for more than ten years, and has seen no less than dozens of military training, but has never heard of that army taking the initiative to drill and train regardless of the reprimands of the superiors, many troops just cope with training as an errand. ”

"I felt very strange after listening to it, not only me, but also Lord Pan of the Ministry of Officials, Lord Zheng of the Ministry of Households, as well as Li Xiang and General Manager Guo all felt incredible, so our group of five people did not alarm others after the evening after the ya, and quietly came to the training ground located in the large school field outside Liangzhou City, when we went there it was about three o'clock, and it was already dark."

"When we entered the school field, we were not disappointed, there were more than a dozen soldiers in the field who were fighting at night, although there were more than a thousand people in total, but we still felt a strong shock from the bottom of our hearts, from the eyes of all the soldiers, we saw the importance of this new type of training and the strong desire to achieve the best, the hot training atmosphere stunned several of us, Master Pan left and said, "It's really an eye-opener, It is truly unheard of to raise the enthusiasm of the troops for training to such an extent. ”