As Miss Gao's wedding is approaching, the princess's family affairs have also become a major topic of conversation among the people in the palace. She is ten years old, and it is time for her to discuss marriage. In the past few days, the ladies who came to Miao Zhaorong's Pavilion almost always mentioned the princess and asked Miao Zhaorong after chatting a few words about the high girl's makeup and honor guard: "Which son will the official family choose as the concubine?" ”

Miao Zhaorong just shook his head: "I also want to know, but who can guess what the official family thinks?" Anyway, you can't expect him to pick a champion. ”

The fashion of the national dynasty was different from that of the Sui and Tang dynasties, and marriage did not ask about the lord, and intermarriage gradually became a custom. Because this dynasty is especially important to scholars, and the full dynasty is full of vermilions, all of whom are scholars. Many ministers and ministers were born from humble backgrounds, but they could use the imperial examination to become among the nobles and nobles of the Qing Dynasty, so from the noble families to the gentry and wealthy people, they all love to take Jinshi as their son-in-law. Even at the time of each list, people with school-age women in the family often wait under the list, and the city is full of competition for green clothes.

For example, Xue Kui, the former governor of the political council, successively married his two daughters to Wang Gongchen, and his other son-in-law was Ouyang Xiu, who was the same year as Wang Gongchen.

But the emperor could not choose the champion Jinshi as his son-in-law. Because the relatives of the previous generation had many political affairs, which often led to chaos, the ancestors of the dynasty treated their relatives very strictly, and did not grant real power to their relatives, but only raised Fenglu Gaojue, and did not give them the opportunity to get power and do things well. If there is already someone in the Qi family who holds real power before the marriage with the royal clan, he usually has to be removed from office and then conferred a fictitious title. The champion Jinshi is a candidate for Zaifu in the future, so naturally he cannot marry with the royal family. Today, in the face of the young talents of the Manchu Dynasty, he also smiled and said to the concubine: "It is said that the emperor's daughter is not worried about getting married, but I don't think so." If I want to choose a man in green clothes as a colt, he will rather die than obey, and the Taiwanese will also scold me for ruining people's future. ”

Nowadays, the royal family marries women and daughters, and most of them choose the "decaying gate" instructed by the first emperor Zhang Xian Mingsu Empress Liu, that is, his ancestors were the founding fathers, but the descendants are no longer the family of the minister's doctor, or, not from the famous Bu Yiqing after three generations, but the premise is that his clan is not in a high position in the current dynasty.

Of course, even if the scope of choosing a colt is narrowed down to the Gate of Decay and the House of the Cloth Lady, there are not no excellent young men who can be married to the princess.

Once Miao Zhaorong said to test the meaning of choosing a son-in-law today, and Jinshang said: "When the thirteenth return to the palace to worship the door again, when Qi Li enters the congratulatory service, I will let you see someone." ”

After the son-in-law's wedding, he returns to the bride's house and worships his father-in-law and mother-in-law, which is called "worship", and if he goes the next day, it is called "double worship". Miss Gao out of the cabinet, is the "queen girl" identity, with half a princess honor guard, from the palace to her husband's house, so the thirteenth regiment will return to the palace the next day to worship the door, and that day outside the sect relatives will enter the congratulatory ban. Listening to the meaning of today's words, it seems that the horse will be selected in Qili.

Later, Miao Zhaorong told Yu Jieyu about today's reply, and Jieyu smiled and said: "What the official family refers to, isn't it the eldest son of the Cao Lang family?" I heard the queen say that Cao Lang would bring his two sons into the palace that day, and the eldest prince was the same year as the princess, and he was the same as the princess. ”

Miao Zhaorong couldn't help but be overjoyed, clasped his hands together, and said, "Amitabha, it would be good if it was Cao Lang's son!" ”

"Cao Lang" refers to Cao Tong, the grandson of Cao Bin, the founding father of the Great Song Dynasty and the younger brother of the empress. He has a gentle temperament, a good tone and a good sense of arguing, and his poetry and writing are excellent.

Moreover, he is extremely beautiful. The queen's temperament is like Zhilan in the deep valley, not unpleasant, but only in terms of appearance, it is not the kind that makes people amazing at first sight, and the beauty of Cao Tong is not ignored. He has a fair complexion, and his hair is a strange cyan color, faintly revealing a little red, and he is called a man among the gods. Although his face is beautiful, he is not weak, he is agile in riding and dancing with a sword, and his demeanor is sparse and chic.

Since he was a teenager, he often went in and out of the forbidden place on the occasion of banquets, and the concubines in the palace were all happy to see him, and they all competed for the bead curtain to see Cao Lang. When I first saw this grand occasion, I thought that the beauties written in "Tolerance and Tolerance" in "The World Speaks New Words" are nothing more than that.

He is among the descendants, but he has no arrogance, his eyes are clear, and he seems to have no desire in the world. It is said that when I talked to him for the first time, I found that he liked to read Lao Zhuang, but his words were quiet and natural, and he did not govern the government, so he was very happy today, and there were many rewards, and he was not surprised or displeased, but only thanked him. Therefore, he often praises people today, saying: "Cao Lang's good temperament and beauty can be recorded in the history of the country in the future." ”

When Cao Tong first arrived, he had two sons under his knees, the eldest son was famous and the second son was tempted. Cao Ping is ten years old, at a young age, he has a great father's style, loves to read literature and history books, and writes well, especially good at shooting, and can pull the bow after extinguishing the candle at night, there are many hears in the palace, so Miao Zhaorong is full of joy and looks forward to choosing him as his son-in-law.

In the early summer of this year, the thirteenth regiment practiced and married Miss Gao. Since it was the "official family" marrying the "queen's daughter", it was naturally unprecedented, and the subjects of Tokyo poured into the streets, and tens of thousands of people competed to see the honor guard.

The next day, the thirteenth group practiced and brought the bride back to the palace to worship the door, and the relatives outside the sect also brought their families into the congratulatory ban. The queen sat in the water pavilion in the back garden to meet Qi Li, with a bead curtain hanging in front of the throne, and Miao Zhaorong's mother and daughter sat on the side of the queen behind the curtain.

Because of the choice of son-in-law, I pay more attention to Cao Tong's father and son. Although Cao Tong is the queen's brother, the queen has nothing special about him, he is still separated by a bead curtain, and the distance between the two is about two zhang away, and what he says is nothing more than to ask for warmth. The queen asked, Cao Tong replied outside, his demeanor was gentle, and his voice was not loud, but he spoke clearly, and people inside and outside the bead curtain could hear it.

Cao Ping and Cao Lu came with their father, because the two sons were young, the queen summoned them into the curtain, and asked about studies and other things, and the two sons answered calmly, and their speech and demeanor were quite popular. Miao Zhaorong has always paid close attention to the two little sons, and after the queen finished asking, he called them to his side, looked left and right, was overjoyed, and ordered the insider to take out the gifts that had been prepared for them, but was stopped by the queen.

The queen smiled and said: "They are little boys, bouncing around all day long, and wearing these golden locks and jade pendants on them is just afraid that it will be ruined, just give them some candy to eat." ”

Then he ordered a reward for the two nephews--really sugar, two lactose lions, which were much thinner than those given to other children.

Zhaorong asked about the birthday of the second son, and saw that Cao Ping was two months older than the princess, so he asked the princess to call his brother, the princess nodded, and called him "Brother Cao". The princess smiled and called Cao Lu "Brother Cao", and Cao Lu immediately called her "Sister Princess" very cleverly. Everyone laughed, the atmosphere was very harmonious, and at that moment I thought that the princess's happy marriage had been decided.

The thirteenth group practiced and the high girl came over after meeting Jinshang in the front hall, and the queen left them to talk in the water pavilion, and saw that there was still some time to leave the banquet, and I was the closest in age to the two young princes in the surrounding chamberlain, so she asked me to take them to play in the garden and rest for a while.

On this day, the fields such as willow shooting, bowing, and shot shooting in the Houyuan have been prepared for the nobles of the clan to play arts. The colorful flags fluttered in the shoting field, and the two little sons stopped to watch. Seeing that they seemed very interested, I asked for several sets of bats of different sizes and let them choose to enter the shot.

They didn't compete in groups, they just swung their sticks and shot at random, and I watched silently and found that they were very skilled and obviously played this game regularly. After a while, they became bored, so they asked me if I would fight, and I had fought many times in the past two years, and when I said yes, they suggested that I join them and fight them in groups. When I saw that there were only three of us in the room, I said, "If you want to play, you need at least one more person." ”

"I'm coming!" At this time, I suddenly heard someone outside the venue, I turned my head to look, and found that it was actually a princess.

She didn't wait for us to answer, ran into the room, stood beside me, and said to the son of the Cao family with a smile: "Brother Cao and Brother Cao are in a group, and I am in a group with Huaiji." ”

Cao Ping was a little hesitant, Cao Lu was young and didn't have so many worries, but clapped his hands and applauded: "It turns out that the princess sister can also shoot pills!" ”

The princess smiled at him confidently, as if she was in control, and said to me, "Choose me a bat." ”

I whispered to her, "Will the princess play this ball?" ”

She also lowered her voice: "You can teach me." ”

It's hard to get her to give up when she's excited about something. Thinking about it again, although the son of the Cao family is a man, he is still young after all, not to mention that there will be no physical contact between the players of this kind of sports, and the women in the palace will occasionally play, so I finally agreed, and went to choose a bat and handed it to her.

If you play in groups, if you hit the ball into the corresponding socket within three hits of each group, you will be awarded a score, and finally the winner will be awarded according to the number of chips scored in each group. The princess's performance at the beginning was naturally miserable, and when she went down, she didn't touch the ball at all, and a large piece of innocent grass next to her was shoveled off. Later, although the ball hit, she kept her eyes wide and didn't find the spot in front of her, because the ball landed behind her......

Naturally, the game couldn't be played in this way, so all three of us gathered around her and taught her the basic techniques, from her stance and bat holding gestures to the angle of her swing and the contact surface of the ball. Fortunately, the princess's comprehension is still good, and it won't be long before she gets better.

Draw the arm upward, stretch the bat above the right shoulder, swing down, the bat face touches the side of the agate ball, and after hitting the ball, the bat rises with the trend, retracts from the upper left side of the head, and draws a smooth arc...... After doing all the moves right, the princess struck the perfect blow, and the agate ball flew by like a meteor and landed far away near the ball nest.

We cheered in unison, and the princess was very surprised, and ran over happily, and swung the bat in the same position as before, so fast that I did not have time to follow her, because the ball was so close to the socket, there was no need to swing the bat this time, only to change the bat and push it......

As a result, with a swing of the bat, the agate ball spun in the air again, crossed the socket, and went straight to the outside of the field.

I was very upset, and the place where the ball landed should be a pedestrian passage.

The princess must have sensed this, and hurried towards it, and I hastened to check it out. She ran to the edge of the field, which was a small hill, and she stopped, looked down the hillside at the path, as if she saw something, and stood motionless.

I walked over with my bat, stopped behind her, and quickly swept my gaze down, and sure enough, I saw that someone seemed to have been hit by the ball, and was rubbing his forehead and looking up in a daze.

It was a boy of about thirteen or fourteen years of age, not tall in stature, but very stocky, with a simple face like that of a peasant child, with slightly dark skin, red cheeks, and a slightly thick mouth half open at this time, and after staring blankly at the princess for a long time, he moved his gaze to me.

I haven't guessed his identity yet. His appearance is very different from that of a family like the son of the Cao family, but he is wearing a very valuable boy climbing pattern silk robe, and when he enters the palace today, it seems that he should also belong to the Chinese people.

"This boy, did that ball hurt you just now?" I asked him.

He seemed to take a moment to ponder my words, rubbed his forehead again, and then pointed to the ground beside him, and said, "The ball fell there, bounced up again, and touched my head...... It's okay, it's okay......"

"Put your hand down for me to see," said the princess, with a hint of command, "is there any bloodshed?" ”

The young man shook his head and lowered his hand obediently, and the princess leaned over to take a closer look, relieved: "It's okay, it's just a little red." ”

Seeing that I was also relieved, the princess smiled at the boy without any scruples and said, "You don't look like a stupid rabbit." ”

Then I noticed that the boy was wearing a cotton hood on his head, and a pair of winged feet stood up like a head facing the sky, but because it was made of cloth, it was extraordinarily thick and broad, and it did look a little like rabbit ears.

I didn't answer the princess's words, but bowed my head and explained to the boy a little about the shot, and apologized on behalf of the princess, but he didn't seem to care about what I said, but seemed to be very interested in the bat in my hand, and stared at it for a long time.

His attentive look drew me from looking down at the bat. The lower part of the bat is hooked, and the whole looks like a long-handled wooden spoon, and the body of the bat has a gold trim, and the top is decorated with jade, which is very dazzling.

"This brother might as well come up and shoot with us." I suddenly heard Cao Ping say so. He also rushed over with his younger brother, and stood beside me looking down at the boy down the hillside, his eyes very gentle.

The young man was silent and looked at the Cao brothers and me repeatedly, and then looked at the princess, hesitating. The place where he was standing was a tuyere, and it was blown for a long time, and he couldn't help but sneeze and let out some snot, and he immediately raised his hand and wiped the snot off with the back of his hand.

The princess's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

At this time, an attendant hurriedly ran over and said to the young man: "Li Gongzi, it turns out that you are here!" Madame Li is looking for you everywhere, and she wants to take you to meet the queen and Miao Niangzi......"

The young man let out an "oh" and was dragged away by the attendant. Shang Yi was reluctant, he turned back step by step.

The princess turned to us and said, "Leave him alone, let's continue to play." ”

Cao Ping has a very good demeanor, completely gave up the fun of his game, and taught the princess to shoot pills wholeheartedly, so the princess was in a good mood, until the dinner, and frequently turned to the direction where Cao Ping was sitting, smiling slightly.

But Miao Zhaorong's expression at the moment was very different from that of the day, her face darkened, and she didn't smile at all when she sang and danced and staggered during the banquet, blindly lowered her head, and had no intention of looking at Cao's son.

After the banquet, he returned to Yifeng Pavilion, Miao Zhaorong asked the insiders to take the princess back to the room, and sat down in the hall in a daze. Han Shi saw that her expression was wrong, so he cautiously asked, "Why is the lady unhappy?" ”

As soon as he heard this, Miao Zhaorong's tears immediately poured out like the water of a broken embankment: "Can I still be happy?" The official family wants to marry the princess to his uncle's house who sells paper money! ”

When I heard it, I was amazed, I didn't expect it to be this way.

"The maternal uncle who sells paper money" refers to Li Yonghe, the younger brother of the Empress Dowager Li of the current biological mother, Zhang Yi.

Jinshang was raised by Zhang Xianmingsu Empress Dowager Liu and Zhang Hui Empress Dowager Yang, but his biological mother was Empress Dowager Liu's maid Li. When Empress Dowager Liu was the concubine of Emperor Zhenzong, she favored the six palaces but had no children. Once Zhenzong came to Liu's place occasionally, and saw that Li's beauty and fair complexion led to his death, so he ordered him to sleep, and Li became pregnant and gave birth to a prince. The Liu family brought the son of the Li family to raise him, claiming that he was born to the outside world, and the Li family did not fight for the title, and was silently in the concubines of the previous dynasty, keeping this secret secret, and did not recognize him until his death.

When Li was critically ill, Empress Dowager Liu instructed Jinshang to make her a concubine. When Li entered the palace, his younger brother Li Yonghe was only seven years old, and when he grew up, he lived in poverty, and he was engaged in chiseling paper money in Beijing, which was one of the despicable professions despised by the world. Later, Empress Dowager Liu sent people to visit him among the people and rewarded him with some official work.

It wasn't until after the death of Empress Dowager Liu that King Yan told Jinshang the truth about his biological mother. Today, I am very compassionate, ignoring the accumulation of the sun, and blame myself for the edict of grief, posthumously honoring the Li family as the queen mother, and rewarding Li Yonghe and adding officials to him. Now Li Yonghe's official title is Zhangxin Jiedu envoy and Tongping Zhangshi, although it is a fictitious title and has no real power, but the treatment he has received is the same as that of the prime minister, and it is enough to see that he treats the Li family well today, and he is second to none among his relatives.

However, the dignity of the imperial gift did not enhance Uncle Li's status in the hearts of the palace people. Many people talk about him in private, and they still say that he is a paper money seller, and they often talk about his "sudden wealth" in a disdainful tone. When he and his wife were in the ban, they often had some inappropriate manners and words, which would always be criticized by the palace people.

"Today, the official family ordered Uncle Li Guo and his wife to bring his second son, Li Wei, to see the queen and me in the curtain." Miao Zhaorong wiped his tears and said to Han angrily, "That kid is thirteen years old, and he looks stupid. The queen asked him what he was reading, and he first said a "Thousand Character Text", thought for a while, and then said that he was reading "The Book of Filial Piety". Speaking slowly, the official family liked it when they heard it, and actually said that he was 'taking advantage of the grace', giving him to sit, and rewarding him with something to eat, he knelt down to thank him, and the official praised him for being sensible, saying that he 'behaved considerably'. I saw that he had a red and swollen patch on his forehead, and asked what was going on, and he said that he had bumped into a locust tree while walking in the back garden......"

Han Shi was surprised when he heard this: "Can you hit a tree while walking?" This kid is really stupid. ”

Miao Zhaorong became more and more annoyed, and continued: "After the official family asked him to retreat, he asked me how I thought Li Wei, I thought, it is not easy for this child to grow so big like this, and say some good things, so he smiled and praised him to the official family, but the official family was overjoyed and said: 'It turns out that you also like him. That's just right, I want to choose him as a colt and marry Huirou to him. ’”

Han shook his head and sighed: "My God, the official family has thousands of choices, and in the end, they have chosen such a person from such a family background...... That's what the queen means? ”

Miao Zhaorong said: "At first, I thought the official family was joking, and I asked him repeatedly, but he actually said that he really meant this. At that moment, even the queen was stunned. I think she is also reluctant, but seeing that the official family is so serious, who dares to say anything? After a pause, Zhaorong began to whimper again, "I was in a panic when I heard this, and during the banquet, I heard Uncle Li Guo and Mrs. Li talking about Mrs. Cao beside her, and she smiled, saying how much money her mother's family made in business this year. Mrs. Cao is so self-contained, she just smiles. But, oh my God, when I remembered that my uncle and wife were my future mother-in-law, I wanted to crash to death in the palace! ”

Han Shi also sighed, accompanied Miao Zhaorong to tears, and said with hope: "Perhaps, the official family just said this on a whim, and when they come back to their senses in two days, they will not mention this matter again." ”

Perhaps, after two days, no one will talk about it again. I hope for the same.

That Li Wei is by no means a princess couple. I did not come to this conclusion because I despised the Li family. Through Miao Zhaorong's words, it can be guessed that Li Wei is the young man that the princess agate ball met today, and their incompatibility has already been shown on the tip of the princess's slightly frowning eyebrows. So, now we can only hope that it is just a joke of the moment.

However, in May of this year, we are waiting for the will of today: to take Li Wei, the enshrined officer in the east, as the general of the left guard and the captain of the horse, and choose Princess Shang Fukang.

The reaction of the people in the palace was expected.

"They snickered privately and said that in the future, there is no need to send people to buy paper money in the palace, and the Li Juma family will pay tribute." Miao Zhaorong once cried to Jinshang, "The concubine just can't understand why the official family chose this son-in-law, the eldest son of the Cao Lang family is both talented and beautiful, and his age is commensurate with the princess......"

At that time, he laid out a chess game by himself, and was sitting alone and watching, listening to Miao Zhaorong's words, he picked up a chess piece with two fingers and slowly landed on the chessboard.

"Do you want all the relatives in the world to have the surname Cao?" He said lightly.