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At the end of January, Daqin, the capital of Xianyang, has become more and more spring.

A few days ago, there had just been a light rain, so the blue sky was like washing the mountains and rivers, the wheat seedlings on both sides of the Wei River were already verdant and green, the wild grasses in the fields were also sprouting, and the wildflowers on the river beach were blooming in the slightly cold spring breeze, and the earth had already shown the vitality of early spring.

Xianyang is very lively these days.

In addition to the library and Beijing Normal University that are still in full swing, the activities of the people's selection of 100 sages have also come to an end, with the collection of votes from all over the country to the newspaper, the votes received have exceeded 60,000, as the spring gradually warms, the ice and snow thaw road is gradually unblocked, the collection of ballots will soon be completed, and it is impossible to recover all the votes, but more than 50% has exceeded Chen Xu's expectations, Therefore, the newspaper is recently issuing an invitation to invite celebrities from all walks of life to form a ballot review team to count and register the votes, and complete the ranking of the 100 sages as soon as possible.

In addition to the opening of votes, the peak period of donations from all over the country has also passed, and the number of donations collected by Huaxia Qianzhuang has exceeded 10 million, Chen Xu has asked the newspaper to stop donating in the latest issue of the newspaper, and expressed his heartfelt thanks to the people across the country for their donations, and has handed over the names of donors and the task of making statues to a commercial group to operate.

One hundred statues of the sons and ten huge monuments of merit are all made of boulders, just quarrying is a huge project, plus carving, transportation and hoisting in place, from front to back without two years is estimated to be unable to complete, the most important of which is the statue carving, appearance, clothing, action image is a big problem, in this era without photos and videos, everything depends on the imagination of the designer, so Chen Xu also specially convened the palace and folk excellent painters to form a design studio, After the images of the children are drawn, they are posted on the bulletin board outside the construction site for the students to observe and give their opinions.

Therefore, the most discussed among the people recently is the selection and image design of the sages, as for the ranking of these hundred sages, we can only wait until the end of the vote count to know the results, so the whole Xianyang in this spring bustling commotion, are enthusiastically hoping that their sect ancestors can be among the top 100 or even stand at the top of the library.

Compared with the hustle and bustle of the sentient beings, ordinary people are more concerned about another thing, that is, Zuo Xiangqing Hehou has given birth to a third daughter.

On January 26, a news spread in Xianyang that Princess Huayu gave birth to a second daughter for the Marquis of Qinghe, ranking third in the family.

Although the Marquis of Qinghe was as happy as ever, the entire Hou Mansion set off firecrackers and invited relatives and friends to celebrate, but faintly news came out, the five princesses cried sadly for a whole night, and even the atmosphere of the entire Hou Mansion was very depressed, although the five princesses still accepted the fact that they gave birth to a daughter again under the persuasion of the Marquis of Qinghe, but the five princesses were still depressed.

And after getting the fifth princess to give birth to a daughter again, the first emperor also sighed in the palace, this time he didn't go to visit the Qinghe Marquis Mansion in person, only let Concubine Yun go to visit this superfluous granddaughter, and then rewarded a few carts of gifts without pain and then didn't ask, obviously dissatisfied with her daughter, this stimulated the five princesses were even more sad, and their emotions were extremely sad.

In order to relieve Ying Shiyan, Chen Xu also had to often find time to chat with his wife to relieve boredom, otherwise it would be a big trouble to leave a postpartum depression.

"Master Hou, Your Majesty has summoned you to the palace!"

At the beginning of February, the wind and the sun were beautiful, this day was the day of the mid-day holiday, Chen Xu was accompanying Ying Shiyan, who was in a slightly better mood, and a group of wives and concubines and maids to enjoy the spring in the back garden.

"What's going to happen today?"

Although Chen Xu was inexplicable, he still hurriedly washed and changed his clothes, packed up and took the car to the palace, but when he arrived at the palace, he realized that it was something that made him confused.

Meng Yi, the general in charge of the camp of the Western Army, sent a letter asking the enamel factory to add 10,000 sets of enamel tea jars and military kettles again, saying that the enamel equipment of the two armies guarding the Western Regions was seriously damaged and needed to be replenished urgently.

"Last year, I asked the Finance Department to allocate a full five million dollars for the manufacture of enamel tea trays and military kettles, and it was not easy to complete the equipment of the 30,000 troops of the Western Army in the summer of last year, but this is the third time General Meng has requested an application for additional enamel equipment, I know that the enamel products are strong and durable, and they will not be damaged easily, but why is the damage and loss so serious......

In the Zichen Palace, Qin Shi Huang sat on the big chair and pulled his slightly gray beard, and his face was confused.

Chen Xu was also confused, the first two times Meng Tian wrote to increase the enamel equipment of the Western Army, Chen Xu didn't know about it at all, because this kind of trivial matter was reviewed and approved by the corresponding government officials in the three provinces and six ministries, and he didn't need to worry about it at all, but he didn't expect that this time Meng Tian's recital went directly to the emperor's imperial case without going through Zhongshu Province, and it was obviously reported directly by Shangshu Province.

This kind of thing has happened before, but it is rare, after the reform of the three provinces and six ministries, there is a fixed process for handling official documents everywhere, and it is rare that this kind of situation will go directly to the emperor across the Zhongshu Province.

But there are always exceptions, one is that Meng Tian's identity is different, and the other is that there are big differences of opinion on the handling of this matter in Shangshu Province.

After a recital arrived in Shangshu Province, it was sent to six different ministries for disposal, and the officials in charge at all levels wrote out the disposition opinions, and then handed them over to the six department supervisors for review, and after the review, they were selected according to the priority of the official document and then handed over to Feng Quji for review again.

This letter was sent to the emperor by skipping the Zhongshu Province in charge of Chen Xu, and the biggest possibility was that there was a great difference between Feng Quji and the Ministry of War, and then Feng Quji had to send the book directly to Qin Shi Huang to get ideas.

"Your Majesty, what do Feng Xiang and the Lieutenant Department think should be handled?" Chen Xu thought for a moment and asked.

"The Ministry of Lieutenants and Soldiers thinks that since it is a lack of armaments, it needs to be replenished immediately, so that the enamel factory can speed up the production and transportation to the barracks for distribution, Feng Xiang thinks that there are other reasons behind this matter, and the treasury of the Finance Department is tight, and it cannot be rashly allocated to build, I hope that I will arrange for Yu Shi to go to the barracks to investigate, and see why tens of thousands of sets of enamel equipment have been lost in just one year, which is unreasonable, Jingwuhou's recital is here, Aiqing take a look...... "Qin Shihuang put the recital in his hand and let the palace people send it to Chen Xu.

The content of the recital is similar to what the First Emperor said, that is, Meng Tian received constant requests from Li Xin and Jiang Hu to guard the Western Regions, asking to increase the number of enamel equipment to make up for the losses.

Later in the recital, the Ministry of War ordered Wei Yu's approval to agree to build 10,000 sets of enamel equipment, and requested the Finance Department to allocate 2 million dollars.

However, this reply was directly rejected by Feng Quji, who believed that Meng Tian's request and the disposition of the Ministry of War were unreasonable, and asked to re-examine the matter.

For Wei Yu, he is responsible for the equipment, military status, military order transmission and the review and transfer of military titles and other matters of the national army, the military department is not responsible for fighting, they are to ensure the stability and logistics of the army, and they don't care about the money, so they don't care about the army's request to increase equipment at all, they are generally responsive, if it is just armor, weapons, military uniforms, bedding and even stirrups, saddles, horseshoes and other ordinary equipment, warehouses all over Daqin have reserves, and generally Feng Quji will not investigate too carefully, It will directly hand over the recital to the Zhongshu Province for review, and then order the local warehouses to allocate equipment to replenish the army, and the review of this kind of thing is the matter of the Zhongshu Province, and the Shangshu Province is only the executive department.

But this time is different, this time 10,000 sets of enamel equipment has made Feng Qujian suspicious, Meng Tian asked for an increase of 2,000 sets of enamel equipment after the autumn last year, Feng Qujian did not think much about it and asked the Finance Department to allocate money to implement it as approved, but after the winter, Meng Tian wrote a letter to ask for an increase of 3,000 sets of enamel equipment, although Feng Quji was slightly suspicious, but thought that the Western Regions were seven or eight thousand miles away from Xianyang and the situation there was complicated, so he still ordered the Finance Department to allocate money to build, but he didn't expect that this time Meng Tian actually opened his mouth to ask for 10,000 sets of supplements, but also asked to build 5,000 enamel cauldrons, this time let Feng go to the hair, Nima is still finished, the Western Regions plus the Longxi military camp, a total of only 30,000 horses, but has built more than 35,000 sets of supplementary enamel equipment, plus 10,000 sets this time, that is to say, the loss of enamel equipment in the Western Army is as high as fifty percent.

If something goes wrong, it is a demon, Feng Quji stopped doing it this time, and directly threw the book to the emperor to get his own idea, anyway, the army is the emperor's, and the money in the treasury is also the emperor's, what do you say the minister will do.

For this letter, the emperor was confused for a long time, and then played the tradition of asking the Marquis of Qinghe without making a decision, and asked Chen Xu to discuss countermeasures.

But Chen Xu was also confused at this time, he couldn't figure out why the loss of the enamel equipment of the Western Army would be so huge, he still remembered that the enamel teapot and enamel washbasin at home when he was a child, it is said that they are all old objects that have been used for decades, and the enamel has been knocked off in some places, but it can still be used, the Western Army has not fought in the past two years since the conquest of the Western Regions, and it stands to reason that the clothes should be very clean and complete.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that Feng Xiang's judgment will not be wrong, it is not common sense that the enamel equipment has lost so much, Jingwu Marquis sits in the Longxi Army to operate and control the two armies, but after all, it is thousands of miles away, and it will take several months to come and go, and there is definitely no way to find out the internal reasons, the minister thinks that it is now spring, and he can arrange for the imperial history to go to the military camp to inspect, and then make arrangements after figuring it out!" Chen Xu thought about it and felt that it was better to stand up to Feng Quji, after all, the two had been cooperating better, not to mention that this kind of thing was indeed too incredible.

Nima's clothes and shoes don't break so quickly, are all those fools in the barracks used to knock each other and play?

And from beginning to end, Chen Xu didn't think about this matter commercially, after all, this is military equipment, according to Chen Xu's understanding of soldiers, that is, the internal affairs quilt of the military camp must be tofu blocks, the tooth jar must be a line, standing like a loose clock, secretly buying equipment This kind of thing is done by Ukrainians.