The next day, as soon as Su Qi put the lunch he brought back on the table, he spit out with Gu Yunji endlessly:

"Yunji, you don't know, there have been a lot of people in the past two days, what I originally thought was to rush to the cafeteria to get food after class, so that I could bring it back to you as soon as possible. You know what? In just a few moments, the cafeteria was crowded! I don't even know how those people got by, they didn't grow wings? ”

Cheng Yan said with a smile: "These days, the dishes in the canteen are becoming more and more monotonous, there are only a few good dishes, you can't eat them if you go late, everyone wants to run faster, and the meal will naturally be difficult." ”

Then, he opened the food box and pushed it in front of Gu Yunji: "Su Qi is still very good, I robbed you a little bit back, some people only have vegetables to eat when they go late, and you can't compare with you at all, eat quickly, eating more good is also conducive to healing." ”

Gu Yunji looked at the food in the food box, and also felt that the dishes in the past few days were getting worse and worse, not as good as before, and couldn't help but wonder: "It stands to reason that the canteen has a fixed amount of money on purchases, not too much and not too little, and we have never paid less for food, why is this meal still not as good as day by day?" ”

Su Qi sighed: "Hey, it's not the locust plague yet. This summer, the locust plague in the north is raging, and I thought it would only affect a small area, but who knew that it would now spread to the area of Kaifeng and Zhili, and it may soon endanger Shuntianfu. ”

Gu Yunji frowned: "Shuntian Mansion is where the Jingshi is located, at the feet of the Son of Heaven." If the disaster is allowed to develop, if there are too many people who have lost their land and food, and there is a stir for displaced people, will it not shake the foundation of the country? ”

"Who's to say it isn't? It's all like this, is it possible for the imperial court to care? Su Qi spread his hands, "The locust plague has already risen, and it is too late to cull the larvae at this time, so grain is being transferred from all over the country to the north to reassure the people." The south of the Yangtze River is rich, the land of fish and rice, and it bears the brunt. ”

Cheng Yan said: "Judging from the Di newspaper, half of the grain transferred this time is from the south of the Yangtze River, although we have no locust plague, but the local grain reserves are small, and the price of grain will naturally rise, and everything is expensive." Correspondingly, the canteen dishes are not as good as before. ”

Luxi Academy is just a little worse in terms of food, but the north is the hardest hit area, the crops are ruined, and the people have nothing to eat, maybe even the bark and grass roots will be gnawed clean, where can they still pick and choose like them. A few fluttering sentences of disaster reports on the newspaper were tens of thousands of lives.

Thinking of this, Gu Yunji felt a sense of compassion in his heart: "It's only autumn, and the people have no food to eat, and in winter, the weather is cold, I'm afraid that just cold can kill a large number of people, and it's even worse." Hey, the people's livelihood is difficult, and I hope that the imperial court can come up with a disaster relief charter as soon as possible to help the victims tide over the difficulties. ”

"Disaster relief charter? Hmph, the old men in the court can't care about this. Su Qi sneered, "One and two are busy attacking each other and shirking responsibility." ”

Gu Yunji had only seen three or two sentences of reports on the disaster in the newspaper, but he didn't know that there were other inside stories in it, and he was a little incredulous when he heard it:

"It's all this time, I don't think about how to help the disaster, and I'm still shirking responsibility? If you delay for one more day, you don't know how many more people will die, but they can really sit still! ”

Cheng Yan's eyes were full of coldness: "Those who don't have food to eat are not those princes and ministers, of course they can sit still." In their eyes, the cheap life of the foolish people is as important as being promoted to an official and making a fortune, even if they die tens of thousands of thousands, they don't matter. ”

"Isn't it always like this since ancient times, from the princes and nobles to the county officials, how many of them really treat civilians as people? It's not unusual for them to do so. I heard that just the matter of adjusting grain, the court officials quarreled for more than ten days before it was settled, as for the rest, what else can be hoped for? ”

Gu Yunji only thought that Cheng Yan was angry, and didn't notice that the ink in his eyes was surging when he spoke, and his fingertips were white. After a while, Cheng Yan came back to his senses, the hatred on his face disappeared, and he continued to put on a gentle expression as if nothing had happened.

Su Qi looked left and right to make sure that there was no one around, so he leaned over and lowered his voice: "Originally, the locust plague would make a small disturbance almost every year, but I don't know why it was so big this year. An official of the Qin Heavenly Prison wrote a letter, saying that it was because His Majesty did not cultivate his personal virtues and wasted people's efforts to cruise the Yellow River, which caused the anger of the heavens and the resentment of the people. ”

Gu Yunji and Cheng Yan were shocked by Qi Qi, and stammered: "This, which official is this, so bold?" Our country has a vast territory, and occasional floods and droughts are common, how can it all be blamed on Your Majesty? ”

"That's exactly the reason, but there are still a lot of people in the DPRK who seconded such remarks, most of them are old ministers, relying on the old and selling the old with the identity of the elders of several dynasties, and there are also those who let His Majesty write an edict for himself!"

Gu Yunji recalled his impression of Emperor Jingfeng Li Zheng, and felt that although he looked young, he had his own ideas in his heart, and he didn't look like an emperor who was at the mercy of others, and he was afraid that he would not let those old ministers kick their noses in the face.

Thinking of this, he asked: "Speaking of which, it was some old ministers who asked His Majesty to write an edict against himself, and it was also some old ministers who prevented His Majesty from patrolling the river and preventing him from going down to the south of the Yangtze River. ”

"You guessed it!" Su Qi gave him a thumbs up, "There are so many people who come and go in the court, and they hold His Majesty on the throne of God in one hand, so they naturally hope that Your Majesty will listen to them." Who knew that His Majesty had a strong temperament, and he was born unwilling to be constrained by others, and soon after he ascended the throne, he reused Pan Shiliang, greatly changed the strategy of governing the river, and directly removed a group of river ministers who were originally in the position of vegetarian food. ”

"The river is short of fertilizer, how much silver is thrown into it every year? These officials have close contacts with each other, and they have made it convenient for the lower levels to make it easier for them to do so, and the lower levels have offered filial piety to the higher-ups, and they are orderly and mutually beneficial. ”

"Without the relationship of the river, they will have one less big mouth to make money, so they are naturally unwilling. These people keep their eyes on His Majesty every day, hoping that he will make some mistake, so that they can take advantage of this to suppress the ministers of the pro-imperial faction, so as to put their own people on the throne. ”

Gu Yunji and Cheng Yan used to be buried in books with full eyes in the past, and their knowledge in this area is naturally not as good as Su Qi, who has been immersed in the capital since childhood, and the two of them knew for the first time that the relationship between the DPRK and China was so complicated, and they listened to it a little fascination for a while.

Su Qi said dryly, and after taking the teacup on the table and drinking it all, he cleared his throat and continued: "What they think is very good, but who is Your Majesty?" Young Virtuous King, Young Hero! Those who let him make an edict ignore it, and only grabbed the official of the Qin Tianjian who wrote the book to investigate. ”

Only after this investigation did it turn out that it was several magistrates in the disaster area who had turned from the river and embezzled the silver that should have been invested in culling locust larvae, which caused the locust plague to get out of control. After the disaster spread, those officials were afraid of being punished, so they colluded with Qin Tianjian and took the lead in shifting the responsibility for this matter to His Majesty. ”

Gu Yunji sneered: "If something happens, they don't push the responsibility on others, but on Your Majesty, they are really ingenious." ”

Cheng Yan said: "These corrupt officials were transferred from the river, doesn't that mean that they have been greedy for a lot of money in river affairs?" Now you just have a handle, you should take this opportunity to catch all the people who collude up and down! ”

Su Qi shook his head and said disapprerovingly: "You guessed wrong, Your Majesty only dealt with a few corrupt officials and Qin Tianjian people involved, and then the matter was stopped, and other people suspected of covering up were not involved at all." However, after that, as soon as the disaster relief affairs such as food transfer were carried out, it went smoothly. ”

Although Su Qi in the back didn't say it explicitly, Gu Yunji also understood.

If Emperor Jingfeng really took this opportunity to deal with those old ministers together, can he uproot their forces at first, I am afraid that it will affect most of the court, and if something happens, the emperor will not even have anyone available in his hands.

Although these ministers who have been up and down in the officialdom for half their lives are greedy and will work against the emperor, they are also people who do practical things, and the two do not conflict. Rashly removing them may not only make it impossible to mobilize the officials at the bottom, but also may turn the court into an empty shell, and the gains outweigh the losses.

It is better to cut their wings first, give them a warning, and get through this locust plague safely first, and then slowly plan it in the future.

Thinking of this, Gu Yunji couldn't help but sigh: It seems that Li Zheng, the current emperor of the Great Xia Dynasty, is not only smart and young, but also a person with deep thoughts and means, if he enters the officialdom in the future, he must be careful everywhere when dealing with him.