It wasn't until the time of the lantern that the birthday feast in the Lu Mansion gradually came to an end.

Lu Ji has been standing in front of the stairs with a smile on his face to see off customers. When the lantern on the last car disappeared around the corner of the alley, the smile on his face slowly faded. A lingering tiredness gradually covered his thin face.

He turned around, said a few words to the two respectful nephews behind him, and then dragged his tired steps up the steps into the front yard.

The lanterns in the front yard had been extinguished a little, but the fire was still bright, and the figures in the flower hall were shaking, and a large group of servants and servants were nervously cleaning up; The two housekeepers in the house were here, and they were directing a few stewards to urge everyone to clean up the large utensils and the wooden chairs on the tables and tables and put them in the outer warehouse.

Lu Ji smiled and said, "It's hard work for the two of you." ”

The two housekeepers said "not hard" together. The chief butler said with a smile: "The master is busy and tired for a day, so he should rest early." And he said, "There was a word in the inner house just now, and the old lady has had dinner and has rested. ”

"What did the old lady eat for dinner?"

"Back to the old man's words, it is two bowls of red date stem rice porridge, half a white flour bun, a small dish of fried bean sprouts, and sesame oil mixed with bean tendon and sheep brain soup. The old lady was in a good mood, and later called for a chicken cup, and ate most of it. ”

Lu Ji nodded.

"The congratulatory gifts for the guests who came today have been opened, and the lady has sent a copy there, and there is also a copy in the upper room."

Lu Ji nodded again in satisfaction. He has always believed that the friendship of gentlemen is as light as water, although the time to Yanshan is not short, but in addition to official business, there are basically no friends who can say what is in their hearts, so the most important thing is to pay attention to the exchange of courtesies, and the list received by Mrs. is the reference for returning gifts to others in the future. As for himself, he attaches more importance to the subtleties revealed in a thin list of gifts, and many times, people's real thoughts are actually hidden in this birthday celebration.

He went back to the upper room, changed his clothes, changed into a warm blue-gray cotton robe, kicked a pair of old cotton shoes with thick soles, and sat down at the table. Instead of immediately going through the guest roster on the desk, he reached out and baked a fire on the brazier at his feet. He closed his eyes slightly, carefully feeling the warmth coming from the back of his palms and hands, while slowly thinking about some things.

Ten days earlier, on the seventh day of the twelfth month, Yanxi's guards had captured Lankou. This was the last stronghold of the Turquoise in the territory of Yanshan, and the recovery of it meant that the Yanshan counterattack in the winter of the 19th year of the Eastern Common Era was completely victorious. But the victory in this battle brought not only joy, but also suffering. Beginning in mid-August, in less than three months, the iron hooves of the Turks trampled all over the small half of Yanshan, 14 military villages and eight county towns fell, countless villages in 13 prefectures and counties were plundered, and more than 300,000 people were displaced from their homes...... Not to mention anything else, just to clean up this mess and let the refugees return to their hometowns smoothly, it can make people's hair gray. And that's not even taking into account the problems that the fleeing population poses to neighboring states and counties. There is also the problem of repatriation and resettlement, the problem of farmers surviving the famine in the spring, the problem of seed grain for spring ploughing, and the problem of rations before the autumn harvest......

Alas! He let out a long sigh. These many problems are in front of us, and it is really instructive to scratch people's heads.

The top priority is to fill the bellies of those who have fled everywhere!

There is no shortage of grain in Yanshan, and there is grain in more than ten counties in the south that have not suffered, but in winter, the wind and snow block the road, and the road traffic is extremely inconvenient, even if there is food, it can't be delivered! But at present, Duanzhou, Xinxian, and Lucheng are ...... Including Yanzhou, the grain in the official warehouses and Anping warehouses in these states and counties is either exhausted or there is very little left, and it is really impossible to support so many mouths to persist until tomorrow's spring ploughing. The counties with serious damage such as Liyuan, Beizheng, and Chuxian have already run out of food at the moment, and if they don't think of a way, they will soon kill people!

Once again, he realized that a feasible solution to the food problem must be found as soon as possible!

It's not that the problem can't be solved. In fact, when he first realized the food problem, he was inspired by the Yanshan Zhongjun to open the Nanguan Daying grain depot in Yixian County, so he thought of a solution. His solution was to borrow military rations. He thought that at present, it is impossible for Yanshan to encounter another major war, and the several large grain depots set up by the Xingying camp to conquer the Tuqi people can first take out the grain to help the fleeing people, and then wait for the road to open the spring to clear, and then use the grain from the south to fill the gap in the military rations. This approach is also supported by the camp. But the problem is that the camp agreed to borrow grain, but repeatedly insisted that this matter must be approved by the imperial court, otherwise no one can afford this responsibility One by one, the two brigade commanders who were cut first and then played in Yi County were punished by the Ministry of War, and the Qian Gou, who took the lead, was demoted by two ranks, and Sun Zhongshan, who was attached, was demoted by one level, and it was only because of the urgency of the war at that time that they did not move their positions for the time being; Even Sima Shangcheng, the Chinese army who was not very careful, was reprimanded for conniving at his subordinates, and he did not appear in front of people for a long time after that.

A low voice came from outside the cotton door curtain: "Master,"

"Huh?" This call woke Lu Ji from his contemplation. He heard that it was the voice of one of his wife's personal maids, and frowned and asked, "What's the matter?" ”

"Madame said, my lord is tired of the day, please rest early. The lady has already instructed someone to fry the sweet tea soup with red dates and ask the master to use it. ”

Lu Ji lowered his eyelids and thought for a while, and said, "You go and tell Madam that I still have official business, so I won't go back to the inner room at night, let her rest early." Hearing the maid's promise, he went lightly, he took the tongs by the brazier, added a few pieces of charcoal, rubbed his cheeks that were hot from the fire, and picked up the list on the table.

The first person on the roster is Chen Pu. What the princess of Changsha sent was a four-color birthday gift, Shou Tao Shou Noodles Shou Cake Shou Lian, if it weren't for a painting of Cao Buxing's "Shakya Flower Picture" during the Three Kingdoms, this gift would simply make people feel shabby. He had heard of this Buddhist painting, it is said that Li Wei received Xie Yi when he helped people to do things, and he has always cherished it very much, and even his closest relatives are rare to see, and now it is in the hands of Chen Pu, it seems that Li Wei's family has been sick and rushed to the hospital in order to get over the current hurdle. He couldn't help but be a little amused when he thought of this. What's the use of giving Chen Changsha a heavy gift? A nominal general of the Pillar State, even if he is willing to help Li Wei say two good words, who will listen? He picked up the teacup and took a gentle sip of the tea. The tea soup was already warm, and the fragrance was not so strong, but he didn't notice the thoughts in his head.

His mind is still wandering on the "Buddha Flower Picture".

If nothing else, after the military parade of the three armed forces to surrender prisoners, Chen Changsha will soon step down from his post. According to his guess, the time when she left Yanshan should not be later than the eleventh day of the first month, the third day of the first month, the third day of the first month, Chen Pu will definitely rush back to Beijing before this, and the court officials will not let her continue to control the military and political affairs of Yanshan, and she must be ordered to return to Beijing under the pretext of filial piety......

Since Chen Pu is going back to Beijing, he has to think about what to send Cheng Yi to express his feelings. But it was not easy to choose a gift, it could not be precious or light, and if it was to be given properly, the difficulty was no less than the food problem that made him scratch his head. Fortunately, he is extremely fond of calligraphy and painting today, otherwise his predecessor made such a big mistake, and it would not have been possible to use a mere copy of "63 Stickers" to exempt the crime of exile; That is, under the influence of today, many princes and princesses are either good at calligraphy or painting skills one by one, and Chen Changsha is no exception. If people are good, then things are easy to do, there is no shortage of good words and paintings in the Lu Mansion, but she even gives away Buddhist paintings like "Shakya Flower Picture", so what kind of calligraphy and painting can fall into her eyes in this world? If there are good book stickers, of course, it would be great. But where can I go to find another copy of "63 Stickers"? Alas, not to mention that he wanted to find another post in a hurry, it was the "shortage" of the payment on the "63 Post", and he still didn't know whether this person was alive or dead.

Hey, that's a hassle, too!

He let out a long sigh, put the matter aside for a moment, and continued to scroll down the roster.

The second place on the roster is Li Shen. The congratulatory gifts are not heavy, some satin cloth, a white jade eight-armed Guanyin with a height of a certain size, and a few Buddhist scriptures. This ceremony is not heavy, but it is not light. According to the interaction between the two people, these things are a little too much, but this is Mrs. Lu's birthday, and it makes sense to give such a gift. But the gift was sent by Li Shen from Duanzhou, and the meaning was completely different. And Li Shen also wrote a letter to Lu about this matter. There was no other meaning in the letter, that is, to congratulate the old lady on her birthday, and then apologize for not being able to come to the door in person, and finally implore Lu Ji to inform the old lady of his apology. The letter was not written for long, with only a dozen sentences, not half a word of mentioning the post of admiral who was about to become vacant, nor did he make any promises to Lu, and even looking back on the previous correspondence between the two, it was only a faint sentence "Disputes are inevitable." But it was this text message that made Lu Ji read it several times, one by one, Li Shen begged him to speak.

Thinking of this, he secretly smiled in his heart. Li Shen didn't know yet, even if he didn't have this letter, he had to help him with this, right? He couldn't watch his opponent sit in the position of Admiral of Yanshan!

He weighed the possibility of Li Shen sitting in this position again and again in his heart. Li Shen has qualifications and achievements, there is no doubt about this, especially this time in Beizheng has made a lot of contributions, in the army and the people are prestige, even the camp has proposed to give him a separate meritorious service, and ask the court to grant the title of the founding son. And Lu Ji also knew that this proposal was secretly approved by Chen Pu, but when it was put forward at the meeting, it was fiercely opposed by a group of Yanshan Wenchen, and a group of people led by the inspector Di Xu even threatened to resign, Chen Pu had no choice, and in the end he had no choice but to give up.

Lu Ji felt a headache again.

The two brothers, Li Wei and Li Shen, have been operating in Yanshan for so many years, and there are too many people who have offended......

But it's not like there's room for things to turn around. If he was with Chen Pu and Xingying, Di Xu and the others would have retreated. Moreover, he was confident that he would persuade Tao Qi to let Tao Mengchang also say a few words for Li Shen, so that a large part of the local officials who were only Tao Qi would also support Li Shen to take over Yanshan.

He decided to go and talk to Tao Qi about it tomorrow. He was determined to get Tao Qi to agree. It has been almost half a year since the deputy recorder of the Wei Mu Mansion Transit Department was vacant, and Tao Qi has always wanted to find this errand for his second son.

He thought about how to open the mouth as he browsed the roster.

The last person on the first page is Sima Shangcheng of the Chinese army, and the congratulatory gift is a set of five kinds of gilded incense burners of the Tu Shi people.

When did the blind man come? Why wasn't he impressed at all? The old lady's birthday, he didn't plan to handle it, so there were very few posts sent out, he had nothing to do with Shang Cheng, and Shang Cheng had been recuperating from his injuries, so naturally he didn't send it.

He thought for a moment, greeted him, and asked the attendant who had been waiting at the door to call the chief butler.

The big butler soon arrived. After listening to Lu Ji's question, he said: "Shang Sima didn't come in person, but an officer surnamed Bao came, as if he was Shang Sima's personal captain. There were a lot of people at that time, so I didn't ask in detail. The person surnamed Bao left after giving the gift. ”

Lu Ji nodded and waved his hand to let the housekeeper step back. He didn't care about the gilded incense burner or anything, what he cared about was Shang Cheng's approach. It seems that this man is not all a reckless horseman, at least he knows the etiquette. He picked up the pen, dipped it in cinnabar, and made a mark of Shang Cheng's name, one by one, this gift must be returned, and it must be returned very solemnly.

"Master," the chief butler came back as soon as he left, and said outside the door, "Master Tao, the prefect of Yanzhou, came to visit the mansion, did you see it or not?" ”

Lu Ji was a little surprised. Why did he just remember to look for Tao Qi, and Tao Qi came to the door first? He hurriedly said, "See." Please come over to Meng Changgong. No! I'll pick it up myself! ”

When he went out, Lu Ji was still thinking, what was Tao Qi looking for him so late?