The sun shone on the Imperial Garden, and it was full of purple and red.

Female officers and guards shuttled between them, and among the flowers and branches, they saw quite enchanting girls.

Since Li Qing became the country, the eunuchs have been quite unpopular, and there are fewer and fewer eunuchs who have entered the palace, and there are more and more female officials, and even among the inner guards, there are more and more women who practice martial arts.

Su Lu sat in the lakeside pavilion, thinking about how to increase the number of cards available to him.

Li Qing took a few female officials into the water pavilion, and Changning presented a piece of folding in his hand.

"This is the excerpt of Zhang Mo of the Three Law Divisions, Qian Qianyi, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, was imprisoned, and the charges played by Zhang Mo before are the same."

Li Qing said, a little lost in his tone.

Su Lu took Changning's fold, unfolded it, glanced at it, and put it aside.

"The old ministers in the past, all the past, have you thought about it, who will take over the Ministry of Rites?"

Li Qing sat down in the water pavilion and said casually:

"I want Cao Hua to be in charge of the Ministry of Rites, she is your disciple, loyal and reliable, and her ability is also excellent."

Su Lu shook his head:

"Cao Hua is not suitable, for the purpose of restraint, Cao Hua cannot be allowed to take charge of the Ministry of Rites, she is one of the double Shangshu of the Ministry of War, it is already the limit, the generals of the Wutang family are all over the army, if Cao Hua is the only Shangshu, it is not a good thing for the monarch to be the minister."

Li Qing sighed, didn't say anything more about Li Qing, and asked Su Lu instead:

"The matter of exploring the special gold vein has been arranged, summoning all the prefectures and counties and the army, and the reward is so heavy, I know you have your considerations, but if you find that the ore vein is too many, will this reward be too heavy."

In the eyes of the courtiers, the search for ore veins was nothing more than the work of coolie miners, how to deserve the title reward of the imperial court.

The miners in the mines in Liaoxi also felt that this was their own survival work, how to deserve the heavy reward of the imperial court, and the reward of thousands of silver was already a heavy enough reward.

Su Lu looked at the flowers in the Imperial Garden, and said lightly:

"If you don't think it's going to work, then that's the reward."

Li Qing was overjoyed when he heard this:

"Really?"

"Of course."

Su Lu said indifferently:

"Anyway, this country belongs to you Li Qing, and when it is corrupted, it is also the country that corrupts your Li Qing."

Li Qing was stunned when he heard this, knowing that Su Lu had said the opposite, and sighed helplessly:

"I don't want to refute your words, it's just that the courtiers are very opposed, and among the clans, the clans led by Li Yan have also come to see me many times and talk about the harm of this matter."

"So you back down, thinking that maybe I'm wrong."

Su Lu turned his head and looked at Li Qing and said, with no hesitation in his tone.

Li Qing smiled bitterly and sat down a little depressed, his cheeks full of embarrassment.

Su Ge's eyes swept over the female officers and guards around him, and with a wave of his hand hanging by his side, the female officers retreated quickly, and the guards widened their protective circle and stayed away from the water pavilion.

Su Lu got up, looked at Zuo Jin, sighed and said:

"The civil officials complained to you, and the clan complained to you, but did you hear the generals complain to you?"

"I have a high title, and those who have a knight, whether they have a ministry or not, can be seen that the official does not kneel, and the king does not kneel, and enjoys a certain amount of acres of land, and has the right of children to enter the Wutang country."

"If you don't have military merits, you can't be knighted, Wenchen naturally has no hope, and if you want to be knighted, unless you fight before entering the army, you can't be knighted. This knighthood, breaking the previous convention, naturally made all the ministers and relatives red-eyed. ”

"What you can't get, you naturally have to find ways to make others can't get it, these sons of Wenchen are relatives, and their hearts can be punished."

Li Qingyan's face was a little ugly when she heard this, she was annoyed by the ministers these days, thinking that if she could take back this unreasonable will, it would not be a big deal.

But Su Lu's words made her see a lot more clearly and think a lot more clearly.

"That's it, whoever gets the veins will be rewarded and knighted."

……

Rouran grassland, the land of the far north.

The grass is thinning out and the moss is increasing.

Grazing cattle and sheep gradually decreased, and the sparse snow and ice could already be seen to the north.

A convoy of horses came slowly from the north, starting with a gray mussel with several sacks tied on its back, followed by a dozen gray horses, also carrying such bags.

The people who drove the horse team were a little tired, and walked deep and shallow.

The horse team did not know how far they had traveled, and they came to a camp at the end of the official road, the gate was facing the official road, and on the high gatehouse, several steppe men with bows patrolled back and forth.

The gate of the camp was wide open, and the horses were let in, but after a while, the horses came out of the camp again, and the horses had been replaced by brown horses, and the people who drove the horses were still the same people.

After returning along the same road, the horse team traveled for more than an hour, and rocks began to appear on the side of the road, more and more stones, and the terrain became more and more uneven.

The snow began to appear, and there was already a creaking sound when you stepped on it.

The sound of the wind was accompanied by the sound of tinkling bells, and the horses turned a mountain beam, and suddenly a basin appeared in front of them, and the basin was full of black open-pit coal mines, and countless people squatted on the coal mines, clanging axes and chisels.

When the horses entered the basin, someone came to deliver the goods, gave the horses water and graze, and then loaded the bags full of coal on the horses' backs, and everything began to get lively.

"Smack"

A miner who was digging through coal gangue was whipped, and his cotton clothes were torn open, revealing black cotton and a blood-stained back.

"Make your dogmatic tongue chew."

"Bang Bang Bang"

The overseer's whip swung sharply, and the miner rolled on the ground with his head in his hands, whining and screaming.

After a few moments, the overseer was tired, and then he spat out:

"Dog, let you go this time, and next time, Lao Tzu will kill you."

Cursing, the overseer stepped aside.

The overseer walked away, and only then did the miners dare to come and pick up the beaten miners.

"Wang Gaoqiu, why did you provoke the living Hades again."

The miner who picked up the beaten miner asked cautiously.

Wang Gaoqiu spat out a mouthful of bloody spit, and said scoldingly:

"How did Lao Tzu provoke him, it's not because Lao Tzu is a fellow countryman with him, when he was in his hometown, my clan had a big brother in the army as a general, my family has some cards in the village, he Huo Yan is often bullied by people from my old Wang family, this is looking for me to be angry."

Hearing this, the fellow miner laughed at him:

"Wang Gaoqiu, you can talk about it, if someone in your family is a general in the guards, they will come to this place where birds don't to mine."

Wang Gaoqiu's face darkened:

"I was tricked."

The miners were busy for a while, and when it was too dark to see the axe and chisel, they were driven back by the overseers.

Wang Gaoqiu inevitably received a few more whips from Huo Yan, and there were more whip marks on his body, and there was more cotton exposed on his cotton clothes.

After lining up, Wang Gaoqiu received a crockpot of rice like clear soup, two hard nests like stones, casually touched the wind-proof ground, and squatted to eat the only meal of the day.

The companions who had eaten came over one after another, squatting down near Wang Gaoqiu, talking about what they had seen and heard for the day.

The men in charge of escorting the horses were the lightest and the most knowledgeable, and they could always hear some news from the camp in front of them, surrounded by miners gnawing at their nests.

"The imperial court has issued a holy decree, which is related to our miners."

The miners, who had received the news, spoke on their toes and talked about what they had heard in the camp.

The surrounding miners became excited:

"But I'm going to kill these black coal kiln killers."

"How is it possible, these people have an official background, otherwise they can open coal here."

"Han San, tell me quickly, what news is related to us?"

Han San took a bite of the hard nest head, gasped for cold air, spit out the nest head, and picked out a tooth from the middle.

"Grandma's, this nest is hard enough, and Lao Tzu's teeth have fallen out again."

"The court decreed that whoever can find a vein of special gold will be knighted."

Han San said proudly.