"Are you listening to me, or are you listening to the prime minister?"

In the dormitory of the Ezhou Palace, the angry voice of the Son of Heaven echoed. The chamberlains and maids were lying on the ground, and no one dared to speak. In Zhao Qi's view, this silent resistance is more like an iron cage. The Prime Minister used these cowardly villains to completely turn the emperor into a lonely man who was ignored. Zhao Qi's gaze turned out of the window again. The iron-brown trunk of the locust tree is like a craggy withered claw, but the branches and leaves are surprisingly luxuriant, and the clusters of white flowers are entwined in the green shade, like the white scales of the poisonous snake's body. The viper's eyes seemed to be staring coldly at Zhao Qi. The breeze blows the flower branches and trembles, like a snake letter, and Zhao Qi seems to be able to see the fierce light that devours people.

"You, I will ...... you rebels"

Zhao Qi roared like a trapped beast, his face was pale, and he was so angry that he couldn't speak.

Outside the hall, Deng Su heard His Majesty's roar from a distance and couldn't help frowning. Zhao Qi didn't listen to anyone's persuasion at all when he was angry, and going in at this time was tantamount to bringing humiliation on himself. He sighed and turned to leave. Deng Su came to meet Zhao Qi, originally there were some things to report, but Zhao Qi was so irritable, the timing was obviously inappropriate. When he left the palace from the side gate, he went straight to see Chen Dong and reported to him on the preparations for the Great Rites Conference.

Deng Su won Chen Dong's trust, and he could go straight to the prime minister's acting official document signing room without passing it on, and when he stepped inside, Chen Dong, as usual, buried his head in the mountains of official documents. According to the etiquette system, the prime minister has the sole power, and the responsibility is also extremely heavy. State capitals, rich and barren, are doing everything they can to reduce taxes. There are many disasters in the territory, and it is necessary to provide relief to the affected people in three days. The household can only play the prime minister, and one must win. There were all kinds of disputes between officials in various places, between officials and gentry, between Qingliu and vulgarity, and no one in the court wanted to bear the infamy, and finally went to the prime minister.

There were scribes sitting at the door of the signing room, and they all stood up and saluted, "Lord Deng." ”

Deng Su smiled and returned the salute, Chen Dong looked up and saw that it was Deng Su, and said with a smile: "Tomorrow is a big ceremony, Deng Shangshu is still leisurely?" ”

"It's good to be in order, it's good to have time," Deng Su said with a smile, "Besides, no matter how busy you are, you can't compare to the Prime Minister." With that, he sat down.

Chen Dongguan was looking through a dossier, nodded and said: "Everything is complicated, and I can't take the time to prepare carefully for the Great Rites Discussion, if it weren't for Shouyi's ability, I really don't know what to do?" "The cover of the dossier is painted with the image of a military emergency. The gold medal has now been passed in the pigeon book, but the pattern has not changed. Now that the Song State has a Zhongxing atmosphere, the Liao army retreats north, and the Xia State is trapped in the war in the west, and the border troubles are greatly alleviated compared with before. It is no longer common to have a hundred thousand urgent military intelligence pigeon books, and when they appear, there must be a big event.

"What's wrong?" Deng Su was slightly surprised, and asked worriedly: "Are the Liao thieves committing a big attack?" ”

"No," Chen Dong shook his head, and said with a gloomy face, "The Great Food Haikou has appeared on Guangnan Road again. His fingers kept knocking on the military dossier, "The arrogance of the Great Eater Haikou, not only looted in the coastal villages, but also attacked Lianzhou City, the state city was lost, the defense made Jiang Qingli die in battle, the state school students fled, Zhizhou Wang Minglun sat upright with the school, the Haikou was so big, Wang Minglun scolded endlessly, and was harmed by the Great Eating Haikou. Chen Dong and Wang Minglun did not know each other, but when he was an official in Guangzhou, he had heard of Wang Minglun's name, and later Daxingzhou Xue was promoted, Chen Dong sent a special letter to Wang Minglun, asking him to go out of the mountain to preside over Lianzhou, but unfortunately he was killed by the pirates.

Deng Su was surprised: "Isn't the Great Food Haikou already dying down?" ”

"They just waited for the trade winds to come back with a full load." Chen Dong stroked the black dossier cover with his hand, "During this period, some of the original Haikou profiteers on the southeast coast have hooked up with the big cannibals again. They served as guides for the Great Cannibals, sold the stolen goods for the Great Cannibals, and exchanged the things they did not like for gold and silver money. These people tasted the sweetness, just like the eunuch Zhongxing in the Han Dynasty said, lest the big eater Haikou wash his hands. According to the escaped Lisheng, only two or three out of ten of the thieves who attacked Lianzhou were big cannibals, and the remaining six or seven out of ten were either following the robbing rogues or the homeless people who were coerced along the way. With the help of the thieves, the pirates invaded our interior deeper and deeper, and the thieves took advantage of the self-esteem of the pirates to resist the invasion of the officials and troops. This internal and external collusion has become a problem in the heart. ”

"Is that so?" Deng Su was surprised. He has been busy with the great etiquette discussion these days, and he does not know that the sea disaster has become serious again.

"I have ordered Zhao Xingde to lead the sailor to the south immediately." Chen Dong's right hand was tightly clenched into a fist, and it slammed on the table with a "bang", and the scribes in the signing room looked at it in shock, "If Haikou is not removed, I, Chen Dong, will not be a person!" "Fujian, Guangnan, the places that suffered the most, are the places where he feels the deepest. His face was as ugly as it could be.

"The sea is vast, and there is collusion between inside and outside...... This, the new construction of the South China Sea Naval Division," Deng Su's face was worried, and he muttered, "Yuan Zhi also has his considerations, if the Naval Division does not go through some training and training, if he rushes into battle, he is afraid that he will not only lose his troops, but also strengthen the momentum of the Great Eater Haikou." Sun Tzu's Art of War said that when the general is outside, the king's order is not affected. And he said, "He who is able to conquer but does not conquer will win." Therefore, the matter of the sailor's attack, the court has been urging too much, so as not to make Yuan Zhi embarrassed. He was able to go on the Northern Expedition alone, and now he will not tease himself to protect himself. What Deng Su didn't say in his heart was that Zhao Xingde was related to the belonging of Jingdong and Henan, and the imperial court could only maintain the territory of the two places by moving with affection, rather than with authority, and wait for the national strength to recover, and then slowly solve it.

"I'm just telling him," Chen Dong sighed, "the tragic situation after the Lianzhou disaster." His tone was gloomy and full of helplessness. Everyone in the world thinks that the power of the prime minister is monstrous, but who knows the heaviness of the courage of the world. In the past two or three years, the national strength of the Great Song Dynasty has been stretched, thanks to the maintenance of the Prime Minister's Mansion. And he looked more than ten years older.

"This son is roasted on the fire," Chen Dong shook his head and smiled bitterly: "The trouble that should be cleaned up is cleaned up, and I have returned to my hometown." ”

"Where are these words," Deng Su persuaded, "The Great Song Dynasty has a faint Zhongxing atmosphere, you can't retreat bravely." His face was complicated, and he turned to say, "Those who understand things know that you are not in love with power." Those who don't understand things are afraid that they will be even more impatient. Tomorrow is the Great Rites Discussion, in Ezhou City, Lu Mingyu is still lobbying the academic politics of various places to impeach you. If his words fall in his ears, I'm afraid he will only sneer a few times, and then criticize him again. "This time, the Ministry of Rites has learned the lesson of the previous time and arranged a lot of eyes and ears in advance, so the movements of the school administration in each state are very clear, and they will secretly play it to the Prime Minister every day.

Although there are voices criticizing the government and politics in various places, Hou Huanyin and Wu Zilong have been frustrated successively, and in this big ceremony discussion, the only threatening figure with weight is Lu Mingyu, a scholar and politician in Chuzhou, however, he tried his best to initiate the impeachment of Chen Dong, but there were few responders, and it was difficult to speak alone. Therefore, in addition to monitoring the movements of all parties, the Ministry of Rites did not do anything else, in the eyes of others, this shows that the imperial court has the capacity to tolerate people, not to exclude dissidents and suppress speech as rumored to be.

"Let him make trouble." Chen Dong shook his head and said lightly, "When you swear an oath this time, don't let him stand in front." ”

"Okay." Deng Su also smiled bitterly, "When I was in Taixue, Lu Fuxiu was also a senior Qingliu who was admired by everyone, but I didn't expect him to be like this." This time, the Ministry of Rites also invited Mr. Zhoushan, but he went to Donglin to give a lecture and couldn't catch up. Mr. Huang first advocated the etiquette of this public recommendation, and we were so busy in Ezhou that he had the leisure to go to Donglin. Zhu Sen and these two guys, they couldn't make three moves or five moves, and the shelf of the 'master hermit' was also picked up. He spoke of these elders and old friends in a complaining tone. The two studied in Taixue classmates, and Chen Dong often made fun of the teacher in private, and accused the court of being a traitor. On the contrary, Deng Su was dignified and steady, and would never speak like this.

When the two of them recalled the past, they both felt a little embarrassed in their hearts.

After Deng Suyu reported the preparations for the big ceremony, he took his leave and left. As spring turns to summer, the trees in the Xiangfu garden have long been flourishing, and the scattered shadows fall on the moss-covered bluestone road in the courtyard. If you are in ordinary Beppu, the garden path is a place for the inner family to go out and play. In the Prime Minister's Office, the court officials and the ministers were all well-behaved, whether it was sunny or rainy, everyone walked from the horizontal and vertical corridors on both sides of the garden, and very few people walked through the courtyard to step on the moss marks on the bluestone of the path. However, this is not the case for everyone, so Deng Su went straight through the green brick path under the shade of the trees and went out through the second small gate on the east side of the Prime Minister's Mansion, which was a narrow alley that only allowed one sedan chair. The alley is lined with high walls of vermilion lacquer, and on one side is the Ezhou Palace, and on the other side is the Prime Minister's Mansion.

The sedan chair driver was already waiting outside the door, and when he saw Deng Sudu standing up, an attendant lifted the curtain.

Deng Su waved his hand at them, did not get into the sedan chair, but walked to the other side of the alley.

There was a small door closest to the dormitory. Deng Su stayed here with Chen Dong for a while just now, and it is estimated that Zhao Qi's anger has calmed down. Zhao Qi often sighed to himself that "the government is the prime minister, and the sacrifice is the widow", although he has ignored the government and politics, but many ceremonial matters still need to be reported to His Majesty in advance. Although the Great Inner Palace Ban was useless to the Ministry of Rites, this time Deng Su did not take the liberty to break in, but first let the guards pass it on. The way of the world has changed, and everyone is adapting to it. Zhao Qi is certainly the Ninth Five-Year Honor, but before he knows that the important ministers are going to visit, he will always press his emotions and give people the image of a "Ming Jun". Deng Su is also very clear about this.