Today is already the tenth day of the first month, after the New Year, the city of Beijing has resumed its former prosperity again, but compared to the prosperity on the street, the Forbidden City, the political center of the Ming Dynasty, seems to be much more deserted, especially last night it snowed heavily, the entire Forbidden City is covered with a layer of white, and it is extremely holy from afar, the concubines in the palace feel the cold of the outside world, and they reduce going out, and those palace maids and eunuchs are naturally happy to be leisurely, one by one shrinking in the house and not coming out, the huge Forbidden City is immediately empty.

However, other people can rest on this kind of snowy day, but there is one kind of person who can't rest, and that is the eunuchs of the direct palace, who are responsible for cleaning the palace, so every time after a strong wind and snow, it is their busiest time.

Fengtian Palace, that is, the Taihe Hall of later generations, also commonly known as the Jinluan Palace, is located on the central axis of the entire imperial city, ranking first in the three major halls, and the Ming Emperor will hold celebrations here when he ascends the throne, a big wedding or a festival. The folk believe that the emperor also held a court meeting in the Fengtian Palace, but in fact this is not the case, the venue of the court meeting is in the Fengtian Gate and the Qianqing Gate, called the "Imperial Gate to listen to the government", when encountering particularly urgent government affairs, the emperor may also summon ministers in the inner palace, but definitely not in the Fengtian Palace.

In other words, the Fengtian Temple is actually a place where grand celebrations are held, and it is not used several times a year. However, because the Fengtian Temple is too important, the cleaning here must not be sloppy, and it needs to be cleaned almost every day, plus the area of the Fengtian Temple is large, and there are many buildings and decorations inside and outside, so for the eunuchs of the direct palace, it is really a chore to be assigned to the Fengtian Temple to clean.

Today, the square in front of the Fengtian Temple is also covered with thick snow, and a team of more than a dozen eunuchs are piling up the snow on the ground into snowdrifts, and then using cars to pull the snow to the Taiye Pool.

"Zhang Rui, what are you doing there. If you don't hurry up and work on the area assigned to you, you won't want to eat at noon today! A shrill voice suddenly sounded among the working eunuchs, which immediately attracted everyone's attention. I saw that the eunuch who spoke looked to be in his forties, with a long sharp-beaked monkey cheeks like a big horse monkey, and it was a coincidence that this eunuch was really surnamed Hou, named Hou San, and he was the head of the eunuch who managed the cleaning of Fengtian Temple.

As the head of the eunuchs, Hou San naturally didn't have to work, he only needed to supervise the work of other eunuchs. Now he was yelling at a young eunuch, this eunuch was demoted from the commander of the East Factory to Zhang Rui, who was cleaning the palace supervisor because he offended Zhou Chong, but now Zhang Rui was glaring at Hou San angrily, obviously unconvinced.

"Ouch~. Do you still dare to stare at me, are you really still the original governor of Dongchang? Tell you. Now you're just a lowly sweeping eunuch. And here in the Sprinkle family, everything has to be listened to the Sprinkle family! Hou San saw that Zhang Rui dared to stare at him, and immediately scolded again.

"Father-in-law, how dare the little one stare at you, it's just that more than a dozen of us clean the square, why is the cleaning area they assigned so small. And the area I have to clean is more than three times as many as others, such a large area, let alone noon, I can't sweep it even at night! Although Zhang Rui was furious in his heart. But under the roof, he didn't dare to really contradict Hou San no matter what, so he could only hold back his anger and reason with the other party in a low voice.

The eunuchs who sweep the snow each clean an area, and whoever finishes sweeping first can go to rest, and these areas are also divided by Hou San, and now Zhang Rui wants to sweep three times the area of others, and it is obvious that Hou San is embarrassing him, so he is so angry.

Hearing Zhang Rui and his own reasoning, Hou San snorted coldly and said: "Zhang Rui, how to work is your business, but how to distribute it is the business of the Sprinkle family, I, Hou San, have been in the direct palace prison for so many years, and I don't need others to teach me how to assign work!" It's still the same sentence, you are not allowed to eat if you can't finish it at noon, don't think that you are still the powerful Governor of Dongchang! ”

Eunuchs are inhumane, and their psychology is inherently more distorted than ordinary people, so the conflict between eunuchs is also extremely serious, and it is common for senior eunuchs to bully low-level eunuchs. In particular, Zhang Rui mentioned Zhang Yong's knowledge at a young age and became the eunuch of the East Factory, which made most of the eunuchs in the palace very jealous, especially Hou San, who was older than Zhang Rui, but after decades of mixing but could only be a person who cleaned the eunuch head in the direct palace, he was even more jealous of Zhang Rui in his heart, and now that Zhang Rui fell into his hands, he naturally had to find a way to rectify the other party, which would make Hou San gain a greater sense of achievement.

Seeing Hou San's attitude so tough, and repeatedly mentioning his previous work as the governor of Dongchang, Zhang Rui was even more angry, and he couldn't wait to smash a punch on the other party's hateful face. However, Zhang Rui didn't dare, because the eunuchs in the palace were of a strict class, and the following crimes were even more serious crimes, and they were even likely to be executed privately.

Thinking of the serious consequences of beating his boss, Zhang Rui had to quietly let go of the clenched fist in his sleeve, and at the same time lowered his head and admitted his mistake: "Thank you for the teachings of Father-in-law, the little one knows that he is wrong, I will go to clean up!" ”

Seeing Zhang Rui bow his head and admit his mistake, Hou San sneered again, thinking to himself what if he was an ordinary governor of Dongchang, didn't he want to bow to himself now? This gave him an unprecedented sense of satisfaction, and he also wanted to see Zhang Rui starving when he couldn't finish his work, which must be very interesting!

However, Hou San, who was immersed in satisfaction, didn't notice it, and at the moment when Zhang Rui turned around to work, a hideous look immediately flashed on his face, and the green tendons on both sides of his clenched teeth burst out, looking like a vicious wolf who chose to devour.

Zhang Rui's heart is full of hatred now, he hates Hou San, hates Zhou Chong, hates Gu Dayong, and even hates Zhang Yong, who promoted him before but later abandoned him. I think he used to be a dignified person, but because of some accidents, he entered the palace and became a eunuch, and then he desperately tied up with Zhang Yong, and finally sat in the position of the eunuch of the commander of Dongchang, but just because he offended Zhou Chong, he was suddenly beaten into the dust, and fell to the point of being bullied by others, which made Zhang Rui unacceptable no matter what, so he now hates everyone, and even if he has the opportunity, he wants to kill everyone!

However, no matter how much hatred Zhang Rui had in his heart, he couldn't help him complete today's snow clearing task at the very least, and by noon, everyone else had swept the snow away, but only Zhang Rui's area was only half swept, and he was scolded by Hou Sanyi, and there was naturally no lunch at noon.

When Zhang Rui swept until dusk, he finally cleared the snow in his area, but instead of being satisfied, Hou San scolded him for not doing other work in the afternoon, and asked others to do it for him, so he didn't want to eat dinner tonight.

At night, Zhang Ruiqiang endured hunger and dragged his heavy body back to his residence. In the past, when he was the eunuch of the Admiral of Dongchang, he not only had his own independent courtyard, but also had a few small eunuchs to serve, but since he lost the position of governor, that kind of treatment is no longer there, and now he is crammed into a large shop with a group of lowly miscellaneous eunuchs.

"Yo~, our admiral eunuch is back, how is it, are you hungry, do you want to fry a few dishes for you?" As soon as Zhang Rui came in, he immediately heard a yin and yang strange voice say, and his tone was also full of sarcasm.

There is no need to look up, Zhang Rui also knows that the person who speaks must be the eunuch named Liu Xi, this eunuch is also the direct palace eunuch who works, but he is responsible for cleaning the leopard room where His Majesty lives there, and it is easier to see His Majesty and some big eunuchs in the palace, which also gives him more opportunities to get ahead, so among the low-level eunuchs, the status is relatively high, at least in the house where he lives, except for him, all the eunuchs are headed by Liu Xi.

Regarding Liu Xi's sarcasm, Zhang Rui was too lazy to take care of him, besides, after a whole day's work, and he didn't eat twice, he was already tired and exhausted, and he didn't have the strength to talk to Liu Xi, so he didn't want to get up when he walked to the bed where he lived, and fell on the bed. Zhang Rui's bed is closest to the door, and whenever the wind blows, the cold wind outside squeezes in through the crack in the door, often waking him up from his sleep, which can be said to be the worst bed in the whole room.

Liu Xi saw that Zhang Rui ignored him, but instead of giving up, he annoyed him, because in his opinion, Zhang Rui was ignoring himself, in other words, he disdained to talk to himself, which made Liu Xi feel that he had been insulted, plus he was also a hot temper, so he strode to Zhang Rui's bed and kicked Zhang Rui is up.

Seeing Liu Xi do it, the other people in the room instead of stopping it, began to applaud loudly. Zhang Rui also sat up angrily, but when he saw Liu Xi and the other people in the room, he lay down silently, and no matter how Liu Xi beat him, he just didn't fight back, because Zhang Rui knew that if he dared to fight back, I was afraid that he would immediately let others beat him.

Liu Xi saw Zhang Rui motionless like a dead man, he felt that it was not interesting after a few hits, and spat at Zhang Rui at the moment, and then scolded and returned to his bed to rest, while the others scolded Zhang Rui for being a coward and coward, and then came to Liu Xi's side and began to talk about the interesting things he encountered today.

Just when Zhang Rui's house was bustling, he suddenly heard a sound of footsteps outside the house, and then a little eunuch entered the house, looked at the people in the house, and then said: "Who is Zhang Rui, let's go with our family!" (To be continued......)