Chapter 6: The Princess's Summons

There are a lot of sequel poems, and the number of them is not enough for Zhu Pingjin.

Zhu Pingjin originally thought that since he wanted to submit a letter to the S Committee, no matter how arrogant the person was, he had to be cautious, and he would only make a move before he made a move. Unexpectedly, the scholars quickly made a risk-benefit assessment in their minds, and the conclusion was that the benefits were great and the risks were zero. How many sheets of paper are worth a few copper plates? The reward of five hundred taels and the fame that comes with it, which one is not blushing? So they shot one after another, and they counted dozens of songs, and they made a lot of profits. Even some rich men who fight cocks and lackeys also came in, and asked some down-and-out literati to connect a few words to see if they could bump into good luck.

The review process designed by Zhu Pingjin is to read it by himself first, and then send it to Master Shu to see. In order to ensure that every submission is not lost, Cao Sanbao arranged eight reliable and capable eunuchs in advance to guard the cabinet on the imperial city dam. The cabinet was almost full, and the carriage pulled another cabinet to replace it, keeping plenty of room to accept each submission.

On this day, the courtyard in front of the main hall in the prince's mansion was full of people, and it was not lively. On a recliner in the courtyard, Zhu Pingjian, the prince of the world, put his feet on the brocade quilt, half leaning on the recliner, facing the slanting sun, drinking tea, sipping melon seeds, and swinging his index finger outward from time to time. The eunuch palace maid was divided into three splashes, centered on Zhu Pingjian's chair, going back and forth like a swarm of ants. The one on the left is responsible for opening the cabinet to pick up the pieces, flatten the poems, and pass them to the middle of the splash; In the middle, the people gathered on both sides of Zhu Pingjian, among which the four loyalists and the four sages were the closest, and they were responsible for reading the poems one by one; The one on the right is responsible for retracting the poems according to the finger signals of the prince, stacking them neatly, and then loading them into the basket, and transporting them to Master Shu's house for evaluation.

"It's been an hour or two, and I haven't heard what I want to hear. It's so tiring to draw the lottery alone. Seeing that a wooden cabinet was transported in by a cart again, Zhu Pingjin sighed in his heart, and out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Cao Sanbao hurrying in.

It turned out to be summoned by my mother.

There are six formal halls in the Shu Palace, which are distributed on the central axis of the city from north to south, which is also the central axis of the Chengdu Palace. The three offices on the south side and the three sleeping blocks on the north side are separated by a high wall and three doors on the left, middle and right. Although the sleeping palace of the king of Shu is separated by a wall from the three main halls in the south, it has long been empty. There is a separate garden in the northeast corner of the house, pavilions and water pavilions, birds and flowers, and the daily life of the prince is there. The sleeping palace of the princess of Shu is the northernmost one on the central axis, named Changchun Palace. On the large platform where the two bedrooms of the prince and princess are connected, there is a slightly smaller square palace with the top of the palace in the middle, which is officially used as a place where yin and yang meet, but because it has not been used for a long time, it has been entangled with spider silk.

The prince doesn't like his bedroom, lingering among the flowers, waters, mountains and rocks outside the palace; Not so with the princess. She steadfastly occupies her nest, vigilantly defending the fruits of her victory, and not allowing any pretenders to take advantage of it.

Princess Qiu of Shu was born in a scholarly family in Chongqing Mansion and was just in her early thirties. My grandmother was the secretary of the Jiajing Dynasty, but my father was just a show talent and has passed away. There is a younger brother named Qiu Zigong. The family has 100 hectares of fertile land, 100 shops, 100 large ships, in short, very rich.

After receiving the news from Cao Sanbao, Zhu Pingjin immediately called for all the poems, took the east gate of the Shizi Mansion, and crossed Xichang Street to Changchun Palace. Under the platform, there were already two lines of eunuch female officials waiting for the matter, and they were honestly waiting for the big eunuch Cao Yicheng to call in one by one.

Cao Yicheng is Cao Sanbao's godfather, who entered the palace at an early age and worked in the Shu King's Mansion for forty or fifty years, serving three generations of Shu kings. The princess married into the palace of Shu and followed here, and she was the most loyal and powerful. Cao Yicheng saw the honor guard of the prince from afar, and hurriedly entered the palace to report. But the princess didn't squeak with a cold face, and continued to be busy ordering all kinds of messy things. Cao Yicheng had no choice but to go out of the main hall again, and greeted Zhu Pingjin outside the palace gate to confess.

Zhu Pingjin stood and waited for a while before he had the will to let him in.

Zhu Pingjin knelt and listened to the princess's reprimand:

"The son of the world is out, and Xiao has poetry to meet friends!" The princess's voice was cold, "One shot is five hundred taels, generous enough!" And Master Shu's hard-earned money, it is estimated that he can't beat a thousand taels, right? ”

"Initiating the Mother ......"

"Call Mom! Look at it, well, your mother and I get up early and are greedy for darkness, more than 300 Zhuangzi, more than 700 shops, inside and outside the house, relatives and friends, drinking and feasting, and your father and your unprosperous son! What's one thing you don't want your mother to worry about? What's the one thing you don't ask your mom for money? Just now your third aunt sent someone to say that more than a dozen Zhuangzi outside the city were plagued by thieves, and they couldn't celebrate the New Year, so they didn't come to ask for money again? Isn't our family's Zhuangzi also plagued, why can't we celebrate the New Year without a few Zhuangzi? ”

The third aunt in the princess's mouth is the concubine of Zhu Zhishen, the king of Fushun, and Zhu Zhishen is the third uncle of Zhu Pingjin.

"Initiating the Mother ......"

"Call Mom! And your father, who doesn't do his job, hangs out with your fourth uncle all day long, and you can't see the ghost! raised a group of useless Qing guests, and spent his days chanting poems and paintings. I got a lot of good women, Yingge Yan Dance, and those two fox spirits......"

"Mom......"

"Your mother and I work hard every day, not for you! It's not for this home yet! You still don't understand your mother's mind? ”

"Mom, I'm about to report this matter!"

"If you have something to say, if you have a fart, let it go!"

Zhu Pingjin looked left and right. With a wave of her hand, the surrounding eunuchs and palace maids were well-trained and quickly evaporated.

"Erchen gave out a thousand taels of silver, and Erchen was also distressed." Zhu Pingjin thumped his chest, looking very heartbroken, "However, Erchen thinks it's worth it!" ”

The princess's eyes widened.

"This move of the sons and sons, one is to collect the hearts of the army, and the other is to form a soldier."

"What's the knot with those guys who can only hum two bad words? You take a look at the articles written by those sour people, what flowers, birds, insects, grass, what gold, houses, cars, women, Taishang Laojun, Jiutian Xuannu, Xitian Yaochi, and Yin and Yang double cultivation, I'm bah! Speaking of this, the princess blushed a little: "Shameless! What serious person would write this bullshit! At first glance, you can tell that it is not a good thing! Don't think your mother doesn't understand, our Qiu family is also a generation of scholars! You are not allowed to learn from them. ”

"The sons will never learn from them." Zhu Pingjin hurriedly promised, "Look at what Erchen wrote, although there is only one sentence, it is still heroic and righteous when you read it!" Zhu Pingjin hurriedly recited the fourteen words again.

"Okay, don't read it, I've already heard it when Cao Sanbao came to ask for money. Come on, don't be stupid and kneel, sit next to your mother! ”

The chairs are wide and easy to seat two people.

"Good boy, mom knows what you want." The princess took Zhu Pingjin's hands and kept rubbing, "But this time you did something wrong!" You think, although he is as fierce as a tiger and is very capable of fighting, he is Yu Chu's guest army after all, and he has to leave after all. Don't look at the thief who made a lot of trouble in Sichuan this time, the officials and soldiers can always beat him away. Offering thieves out of Sichuan, most of the fierce tigers are back in Henan, isn't your mind in vain? So, your money should be spent on your own people, such as the left guard of the palace. It's almost the New Year, and the left guard already has a reward, so it's not good to send it together? ”

There's no way, you can't fool your father, you can't fool your mother. However, Zhu Pingjin didn't want to admit it, he wanted to win back a game.

"The palace guards are indeed hard all year round. However, Erchen was a little untrustworthy and left guard. ”

The princess was a little surprised when she heard this.

"It's not that they steal and rob, they don't dare, Mom, you can manage it well." Zhu Pingjin explained, "Erchen feels that everywhere has not been peaceful in recent years, and our Sichuan is not quiet. Shu since the Chongzhen years, the first to calm the rebellion, and then the thieves came again, the thieves just left, and the thieves came again, Baoning Mansion, Kuizhou Mansion is still making trouble, making local riots, the more troublesome the more fierce, the Yamen officers and soldiers have nothing to do. This year, Sichuan is in another severe drought, and the harvest is much less. Erchen heard that Shaanxi and Henan were even worse. First there was a drought, then a plague of locusts. The insects were so overwhelming that they ate up the dead grass and leaves. Erchen heard that he had begun to eat people. ”

Zhu Pingjin felt that the princess's hands were a little tight, so he continued to play: "Officers and soldiers are useless. This time, the thieves entered Sichuan, and the Chu army, the Qin army, the Yu army, and our Sichuan army all went up to fight, but the result was that they couldn't win or catch up, and even Qin Liangyu lost. ”

"Didn't Governor Shao Jiechun arrest and enter Beijing last month, and replaced Liao Dazhong, the superintendent of the army. It's pitiful, then Shao Jiechun was wronged by Yang Sichang! Mom heard that Jinyiwei locked him up in the tribute courtyard at that time, and as a result, tens of thousands of people went to avenge their grievances. Your father also went to the rescue in the book. But these are useless, Shao Jiechun is probably going to die. If Shao Jiechun is still here, maybe the situation will be better. ”

"It's useless for anyone to be the governor, the main thing is that the officers and soldiers can't fight." Zhu Pingjin retorted, "Mom, just look at the left guard, there are all farmers, and there are also turtle lords in Hualou." It's okay to set up a guard of honor to show majesty or something, but if you really go to the battlefield and work hard, more than half of your urine will flow into your pants! ”

"You know all this?" The princess smiled.

Zhu Pingjin continued to fan the flames: "Besides, the guard commanded Liu Fatzi, opened a shop and put money in the flower building, and bullied men and women all day long under the banner of the palace. Do you expect him to protect my family? ”

This is the real poke at the princess's sore spot. What the princess hates the most is not that this fat man Liu did all the bad things, but that he got two wild women out of nowhere to present them to the prince, saying that they were all his sisters, and the prince believed them. Hearing this, the princess gritted her teeth and asked Zhu Pingjin what she wanted to do.

"Erchen wants money."

"Don't you have the prince of the imperial court?"

"I still owe most of this year's 3,000 stones! Mom, it's not like you don't know! ”

"Then what do you want money for?"

"Buy a few orphans to raise."

The princess ordered loudly: "Cao Yicheng, you also go out!" ”

The vast hall was empty, except for the mother and son whispering.

The princess whispered to Zhu Pingjian: "Good girl, you can give you whatever you want!" Anyway, it's all yours in the end, just give a little bit to your brother. Don't think about rebellion, that's going to kill your head! No one can protect you, including your father! ”

"What rebellion? Mom, you're thinking too much! Zhu Pingjin laughed innocently: "Erchen is only fourteen years old, not yet fifteen!" Such a small anti-minister, who believes it? Erchen just wanted to do the tea and horse business, and raised 100 orphans to take the road from Yazhou to Dajian Furnace. Erchen asked Cao Sanbao, that road is very dangerous! The road is next to a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other, and at the bottom of the cliff is a river. Stones often fall from the mountains, and the number of people killed by stones and drowned in the river every year is too many to count. I heard Cao Sanbao say that this year was plagued by disasters and thieves, and the tea harvest was less, so the market over there was very good. Erchen thought that this year's orphans must be cheap, and they don't have to bury the silver for their families when they die, so ......"

Hearing Zhu Pingjian's explanation, the princess was obviously relieved: "It's my mother who wants to fork in." The imperial court is very close to us, the vassal families. It doesn't matter if you occupy a little field and sell some tea, as long as it is stained with military armor or something, there will be local officials who will immediately participate in the impeachment. A few years ago, Jingshi was surrounded by Tartars, and Lord Chongzhen issued an order to the king of Qin. The Tang King of Nanyang had a hot head, and he took it seriously, and he also wanted to lead troops into Beijing, but he was blocked by the magistrate before he left the domain, and he was soon locked and taken into Beijing. In the end, Lord Chongzhen somehow still had a good heart, but he just sent Fengyang to guard the mausoleum. THERE IS ALSO ZHU YI (YI) ZHONG, THE SON OF ZHENG IN HUAIQING MANSION (NOW QINYANG), WHO WAS ORIGINALLY NOT IN THE RIGHT POSITION (NOTE 1), AND HE HIMSELF HAD A VERY BAD REPUTATION IN THE VASSAL STATE, AND HE ALSO SOLD SLAVES AND ILLEGALLY KEPT CUSTOMERS. Last year, just a few months after his death, he was given death by the emperor on a crime charge. ”

In the end, the princess pressed Zhu Pingjian's head: "The matter of leading soldiers has nothing to do with my family, don't think about it!" Tea and horses are feasible, and anything that makes money is fine! Let's discuss it again when we find time, and think of a safe way. But there's been a lot of things lately, so I'll talk about it after the New Year. Mom has been tired and panicked recently, and she can't sleep, so she beats her back. ”

The princess turned around and let Zhu Pingjin beat her back, and suddenly twisted back: "That's right!" You'll be fifteen years old in the new year, do you have someone you like? Bring it back to Mom to see. If you don't have any, Mom will tell you a few, you look at the Zhang family in the south of the city and the ancestral family in the west of the city, Mom thinks it's good......"

Note 1: King Zheng's throne was supposed to be inherited by his son, Zhu Jaeyu (YU). However, in the past fifteen years, he has resigned and returned to China, and has devoted himself to writing books, including 40 volumes of "The Complete Book of Music and Rhythm" and other works of millions of words. The common people did not believe that his act of giving up the country was from their hearts, and felt that there was a conspiracy in it, so there were many people who took the initiative to cry out for him.