On the 28th day of the lunar month, the sky that had been gloomy for days was rarely clear. Although the temperature is still extremely low, and the snow on the roadside has frozen into ice mounds that cannot melt at all, the sun shines on the body, and it is always warm, which makes people feel a lot more comfortable.

It's just that the end of the year is approaching, and for many poor people, life is not easy. If there is no arrears, then it is better, no matter how tight the hand, you have to buy some New Year's goods, buy a few firecrackers, wrap dumplings, and then pull a few feet of cloth, and sew a new clothes for the child. The child is happy, and the year is over.

If you had to borrow money from a rich person before, it would have been miserable. At this time, the market borrowed money is donkey rolling, rolling profits, if you borrow ten taels of silver at the beginning of the year, by the end of the year, you will have to repay thirty taels. The poor have no way to make money, so where can they find so much silver? Therefore, at the end of the year, many poor people who could not afford to repay their debts began to hide in Tibet, for fear that their creditors would be blocked at home.

At this time, the Chinese New Year is really more difficult than "passing". When the creditor comes to the door and cannot find a man, he takes out his anger at the woman and the child. catch up with the good-tempered, just scold; If you have a bad temper, you will inevitably smash the pot and bowl, and even beat people. If the woman who catches up with this family is still a little beautiful, she may even be molested.

It wasn't until the end of the year that the man who hid the debt dared to go home secretly in the dark. At this time, the home is often a mess, and there is not even a grain of rice left. The wife and children also cried, and the man was helpless and could only cry silently. And those usury creditors are feasting and singing and dancing. Such a scene can really be described as "the moon bends and shines on Kyushu, a few happy and a few sad"!

And Zhu Youzhen has a deeper understanding of this in the past few days. The poor people in the city have a place to live; And the large number of hungry people outside the city did not even have a decent shack. Although Sun Chuanting purchased hundreds of cotton clothes, there were too many hungry people, and ten people could not get a single one, so they had to give priority to the young children and the frail elderly.

Rao is like this, at night, the hungry people can only huddle together and use their body temperature to warm each other. Although the soldiers guarding the city did not dare to let the hungry people into the city without the order to go to the peak, at night, they turned a blind eye and allowed a large number of hungry people to lie down by the tall city wall, so as to use one wall to block the bone-chilling wind.

Although Zhu Youzhen did not dare to risk going out of the palace again, Sun Chuanting reported the situation to him every day. In the past few days, Zhu Youzhen asked Sun Chuanting to withdraw more than 10,000 taels of silver, and there is no shortage of food for the time being. But in a hurry, I couldn't buy so many cotton clothes to keep out the cold. As a result, the number of people who froze to death increased every day, and on the 26th day of the lunar month, more than 70 people froze to death overnight.

Zhu Youzhen listened like a knife, and big tears continued to drip down, wetting the table in front of him.

Sun Chuanting was so anxious that his mouth was full of foam, and he asked in a hoarse voice: "Your Highness, your recitals have been presented for several days, why hasn't the court moved?" Even if you don't allow it, you should give a word! ”

Zhu Youzhen shook his head. These days, the eunuch party led by Wei Zhongxian is busy purging the Donglin party; The Donglin Party members were busy protecting themselves, either resigning and returning to their hometowns, or drawing a line with Yang Lian and others, or simply turning around one hundred and eighty degrees and taking refuge in Wei Zhongxian. And the emperor of the Ming Empire, Tianqi, is still studying carpenter work as always. The tens of thousands of hungry people outside the city were not in their consideration at all.

Fortunately, Zhu Youzhen racked his brains and finally came up with a temporary solution yesterday. He asked Sun Chuanting to buy a large amount of cloth, and then nailed wooden sticks into the frozen ground to set up dozens of simple big tents. Inside the tent, a large bunk is made of firewood and dry grass.

Although the performance of this temporary tent is too far worse than that of military tents, it leaks everywhere and is very unstrong, but it is better than nothing.

Last night, thousands of victims were arranged to spend the night in large tents, and sure enough, not a single one froze to death. Only one of the tents, accidentally ignited by a fire at night, burned to ashes, and several elderly people who could not escape were burned to death. Fortunately, the other tents were far away and did not cause a bigger disaster.

Zhu You listened to Sun Chuanting's report, and said with a little relief in his heart: "It seems that this method still works, but from now on, it is necessary to strictly prevent fires, and it is strictly forbidden to raise fires at night." Sir, go buy more cloth and make the tents thicker, so that the victims can have a warm year! ”

He has been unable to sleep at night for the past few days, but today he got some good news and finally relaxed a little. After Sun Chuanting left, he hurriedly returned to the Red Calyx Tower and slept beautifully. When I woke up, it was already a red sun.

The dinner party of his father-in-law Zhou Kui's family is scheduled for today. Zhu Youzhen also attached great importance to this banquet, after all, it was the first time for his son-in-law to go to the door of his father-in-law, so he had to behave well.

To this end, the Xinwang Mansion dispatched five carriages to pull the gifts sent to the Xiaoyao Mansion. In addition to 10,000 taels of silver, Zhu Youzhen also picked out some antique jade and gave them to Zhou Kui. The husband and wife sat in eight sedan chairs, while Lin Youkun and Guan Ning rode with them. The group of people set off from the Xinwang Mansion in the northern city, circled around the Jingshi for most of the circle, and then arrived at the Xiaoyao Bo Mansion located in the Zhengyang Gate.

There is still a distance from the boss of the house, and Zhu Youzhen can hear the sound of firecrackers in front of him, and people shouting horses neighing, so it is not lively. After taking a few steps further, Zhou Kui personally took him out of the mansion and welcomed Zhu Youzhen and Rui'er's sedan chair into the mansion with gongs and drums. Zhu Youzhen sat in the sedan chair, feeling like a bride, and couldn't help but laugh dumbly.

The sedan chair landed, Zhu Youzhen and Rui'er just stepped out of the sedan chair, and the people in the courtyard immediately hugged and knelt down, and shouted in unison: "His Royal Highness King Xin, Chitose Chitose!" The princess is a thousand years old! ”

Zhu Youzhen has been most annoyed by this set since he played in his previous life. A stupid leader came to inspect, and a group of stupid people held flowers and shouted stupidly: "Welcome, welcome, warm welcome!" "It's one of the stupidest things in the world.

After the salute, everyone entered the spacious front hall together, and Rui'er was let to the back house. At this time, three tables of banquets had been set up in the front hall, and the table in the center naturally allowed Zhu Youzhen to sit in the main seat, Zhou Kui was accompanied by the prime minister, and the rest of the people who could sit were also high-ranking officials. Those with a slightly lower rank can only sit in the other two seats.

After taking his seat, Zhou Kui first introduced today's guests to Zhu Youzhen. As the new deputy commander of the Jinyi Guard, he temporarily took charge of the Jinyi Guard on behalf of Tian Ergeng, and when the new mansion was completed, his subordinates naturally came to cheer. Like Xu Xianchun, Cui Yingyuan, Sun Yunhe, Yang Huan and other members of the "Five Biao" of the Eunuch Party, they were all present, but Sun Yunhe and Yang Huan's official quality was low, so they could only do it at other tables.

Zhu Youzhen glanced at Xu Xianchun and Cui Yingyuan, who were at the same table, and saw that these two people were relatively obese, and they were smiling all the time, as if two Maitreya Buddhas were embedded in the chairs. If you just look at the appearance, no matter what, it is impossible to connect these two people with the legendary murderous demon. But one of these two people is the commander of Jinyiwei, and the other is the commander of Jinyiwei, both of whom are figures who hold real power in Jinyiwei, and Yang Lian and other "six gentlemen of Donglin" should be tried in the edict prison for which they are directly responsible.

Zhu Youzhen vaguely remembered that in history, the last of the "six gentlemen" did not get out of the edict alive. Except for Gu Dazhang, who could not bear the punishment and hanged himself, the other five were all brutally killed in prison. And the person directly responsible for the interrogation of the "Six Gentlemen" seems to be this Xu Xianchun. At this time, seeing him talking and laughing, Zhu Youzhen felt extremely disgusted like eating a fly.

After Zhou Kui introduced Xu Xianchun and others, who were in high rank, he pointed to an old man who was about fifty years old, with a thin face, and his hair and beard had begun to turn gray, and introduced: "This one is Lord Xu Guangqi, the head of the Ministry of Rites. ”

Xu Guangqi? Zhu Youzhen was stunned for a moment, thinking that this person was also very famous in history, and he was a very rare academic official in Chinese history, and he had a deep study of mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, and military affairs. He hurriedly left his seat and smiled at Xu Guangqi: "It turned out to be Lord Xu, look up for a long time!" ”

Zhu Youzhen's move surprised everyone at the table. When Xu Xianchun and others were introduced just now, he just nodded and snorted with his nose, which seemed a little careless, which made Xu Xianchun feel unhappy in his heart. And Xu Guangqi is just a small six-rank master, and he has just been promoted from the imperial history of Qipin Henan Province, and he was not in Beijing at all before. Why Zhu Youzhen "admired" Xu Guangqi for a long time, everyone is really elusive.

Xu Guangqi was also taken aback, and hurriedly avoided the table and knelt down and said: "Weichen is cheap, how can you disturb His Highness's hearing?" ”

Zhu Youzhen walked forward bypassing the banquet, picked up Xu Guangqi with both hands and said: "Who doesn't know the name of Lord Xu, but seeing it today, it's really a blessing for three lives!" Your translation of "Geometric Originals" is truly a masterpiece of the world! Terms like parallel lines, triangles, right angles, acute angles, obtuse angles, diagonals, similarities, etc., can be immortalized for thousands of years! ”

Zhu Youzhen is not a compliment, hundreds of years later, every junior high school student can be said to be a disciple of Xu Guangqi, and these terms are also used every day. The word "geometry" was first used by Xu Guangqi in this translation. Although the emperor is called "long live", after his death, he is only slowly decaying in the coffin. But Xu Guangqi is a hundred generations, and his influence on the future is far greater than that of any person in the same era, and he really died immortal.

But Zhu Youzhen's praise of Xu Guangqi made the others at the table disagree. In this era, everything is inferior, only reading is high, and the books in this do not refer to "miscellaneous books" such as "Geometric Originals", but specifically refer to the books of sages such as the Four Books and the Five Classics. In particular, Xu Guangqi is still translating overseas works, which makes the people present even more despised, and they all think that they are just some strange skills.

At this time, Zhu Youzhen noticed that there was a blonde foreigner sitting next to Xu Guangqi, and hurriedly asked, "Who is this?" ”

Unexpectedly, the foreigner immediately got up and bowed deeply, drew a cross on his chest, and said in fluent Chinese: "Cao Min Tang John, I have seen His Royal Highness King Xin, may the Lord bless you!" ”