Feng Xing - Chapter 116
This time Feng Sheng and King Wei came to the palace to visit the imperial concubine.
First there was the matter of erysipelas, coupled with the fact that King Hui was in the limelight recently, the imperial concubine seemed to have been restless and fell ill a few days ago. It’s not a serious illness, it’s just a headache and brain fever. As for the cause of the illness, Feng Sheng guessed it himself.
After arriving at Xianfu Palace, Feng Sheng checked his words and expressions, and had a conversation with the imperial concubine, which confirmed her guess even more. It’s hard for her to say anything, she can only pick up some trivial and interesting things to tell, to make the imperial concubine happy.
The imperial concubine is such a transparent person, seeing her daughter-in-law with a big belly, she still doesn’t forget to care about herself, and since Feng Sheng married the king of Wei, she has never been picky about her behavior. Needless to say, the mother-in-law who treats the imperial concubine, even a little uncle like Shiliu, she almost treats her as her own son, and whatever the elder brother has, she will definitely send another copy to the palace.
It doesn’t matter whether it is expensive or not, it doesn’t matter if you have a heart, and the imperial concubine is also willing to get closer and closer between brothers. After all, Shiliu was still young, if Emperor Jianping had that day, he would have to rely on his brother and sister-in-law in the future, so it would be beneficial to have a good relationship in many places.
Thinking of Emperor Jianping, even if the imperial concubine wanted to hold on to prevent her daughter-in-law from worrying, she couldn’t help showing a bit of gloom. Feng Sheng saw it, and couldn’t help sighing.
She didn’t say anything else, but talked about seeing King Hui come to talk to King Wei just now.
After hearing this, the imperial concubine’s beautiful eyes rolled, just like the flickering candlelight, making people unable to see what was going on in her heart, but her expression was full of sarcasm, with a hint of fear.
“I’ve said it a long time ago, that one is not an easy one, no matter how difficult the situation is, she can act out of desperation. Over the years, I have watched it too much, and I am tired of watching it, and I am tired of watching it. How many people are wondering why I didn’t kill the snake, so as to avoid repercussions in the future, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t have a chance.”
Feng Sheng listened to the imperial concubine’s words quietly, feeling infinitely moved in her heart.
“Look at how good the prodigal son turns back and don’t exchange money for gold. How many jokes she made in order to marry the eldest prince, and everyone in the capital is probably laughing at it. Married Sun, but they didn’t know that they had made a decision long ago, and marrying Sun was just the right thing to do. On the day of the wedding, Sun’s reputation spread, and outsiders only regarded it as a joke. Let Your Majesty see it, but they can’t help but feel pity.
“After all, this son was valued at the beginning, and if he hurt his face, he would hurt His Majesty. With the notoriety of the Sun family, it is only natural for the eldest prince to take care of the eldest prince. The jokes that were made after that, one was to win His Majesty’s sympathy, and the other was just Create momentum for yourself, so it will be logical for the prodigal son to turn around later.”
It’s rare that the imperial concubine is willing to say these things, so Feng Sheng listened quietly.
“Now Mrs. Sun manages the mansion in an orderly manner. There are iron buckets up and down. King Hui has also changed from the absurdity earlier, and now he has become more and more successful. Why do people in the world never remember good people? Because good people are so inconspicuous. On the contrary, those who used to be absurd Uninhibited, it is easy to remember people who change their past mistakes afterwards, because the world firmly believes that the prodigal son will not change his money when he returns. Now the court still says that King Hui is wrong? Even if there is, it is blamed on the people around him. Bewitched by others, he took the blame for the people below.”
Feng Sheng naturally understands these reasons, but it’s not like what the imperial concubine said.
“Now that his reputation has improved, he has become a king, and he has a son-in-law. Everything is ready, but Dongfeng owes it to him. It’s not a good idea for him to find Yue’er today, but it’s just to use Yue’er to show his brotherly love.” The imperial concubine sneered.
In fact, the imperial concubine was right, Feng Sheng saw it at the time, and asked Wei Wang on the way back to the mansion, and it was true that Hui Wang had this idea.
Everyone in the world knows that Hui Wang and Wei Wang are brothers, but that was only a few years ago. Ever since he became the imperial concubine, King Wei married Feng Sheng again, and the two sides have torn faces several times, but they didn’t quarrel in front of others.
Now Hui Wang pretended to be fine, and came to find Wei Wang to act as a brother. If Wang Ruo couldn’t hold back and took the initiative to mention it, he took advantage of the other party’s wish. I’m afraid it will be the turn of Queen Chen to make fun of her being too ignorant.
So Wei Wang could only bear with it and had to accompany him.
After all, it was too aggrieved, and Feng Sheng could see it now, the imperial concubine could sit still before, but since the erysipelas incident happened, she became anxious instead.
Feng Sheng and King Wei both knew why they were in a hurry, but it was difficult to express it.
Taking a ten thousand step back, if Emperor Jianping really had an emergency one day, he hadn’t clearly established a reserve before. Regardless of whether it is based on the order of the oldest and youngest teeth, or according to the rank and inferiority of the concubines, it should be easy for King Hui. And at that time, the imperial concubine might end badly, and the same is true for King Wei and Sixteen.
This is related to the future stability of the family, and it is understandable for the imperial concubine to be anxious.
At this point, Feng Sheng was somewhat hesitant—whether it is necessary for King Wei to continue to remain silent.
She didn’t say this at the time, but watched it for two days. It was also a coincidence that King Wei also saw that it was powerful, no matter how well he pretended on the surface, he was somewhat unable to restrain himself in private, and he could hide this from outsiders, but he couldn’t hide it from Feng Sheng.
And he was not the only one who had this kind of thought, there were also several staff members in the mansion, especially Mao Dan, who came to look for King Wei several times in the past two days.
This Mao Dan has always been rebellious, and he is also talented. Although Feng Sheng had just married and showed his ability to calm him down, but five or six years later, when King Wei was young and in his prime, it happened that He doesn’t care about anything. Seeing that the other princes are not only prosperous, they at least have their own power. On the contrary, King Wei is inconspicuous. In recent years, Mao Dan has been eager to make a comeback. He secretly encourages King Wei to make a comeback. Wang Sulai ignored him.
Because of this incident, Mao Dan took his anger out on Feng Sheng again. He always felt that the prince was a hero and was saddened by the beauty. He almost didn’t say “beauty’s knees, hero’s grave”, but he didn’t dare to say it in front of Feng Sheng. Forget about that aggrieved.
Seeing him come to find the prince to discuss important matters, the prince does not avoid the princess, and allows her to drink tea and read books next to her with a big belly, leisurely, anyway, Feng Sheng’s goosebumps are all over the ground because of his sad eyes .
She put down the teacup, cleared her throat, and said, “Actually, what Mr. Mao said is very reasonable, even now and then.”
King Wei looked over with interesting eyes.
“Then you agree?”
Feng Sheng rolled his eyes in his heart, what does it mean that she agrees, if he doesn’t agree, Mao Dan can come to her side and talk nonsense, this man will really trip her up if he has the opportunity.
“Your Highness must have made up his mind a long time ago.” This was a declarative sentence, and Feng Sheng smiled falsely.
“But I still want to hear from you.” Wei Wang smiled warmly, with a bright and aboveboard look.
Feng Sheng didn’t hide his inner thoughts at all, and said: “Such a good opportunity is presented to you, so let’s just follow the trend. If you want to come to King Wu, King Zhao, and King Xiang, they are so aggrieved, why don’t we lend them a knife.”
“What knife?” Mao Dan couldn’t help asking.
Feng Sheng looked at him, and slightly raised her red lips: “The heart-killing knife.”
Because Emperor Jianping was particularly disgusted, he also rectified several times, and no one in the court dared to mention the matter of establishing a reserve in recent years.
But this matter is like the lice on the monk’s head, it is obvious, and he has to face it sooner or later. And this matter will not be treated as non-existent just because everyone is ignoring their ears and stealing the bell, but because of long-term depression, it is like that dry haystack, if you don’t light it, it will be enough, and if you don’t light it, it will be a raging fire.
The changes in Prince Hui in the past few years can be clearly seen by everyone. There are many ministers who support orthodoxy in the court. People are not sages. Compared with King Hui, King Wu and other princes lack integrity. Now that the integrity can be established, what reason does the Holy One have to refuse?
Moreover, many people saw that Emperor Jianping had been reluctant to bring up the matter of establishing a heir, and turned around and treated King Hui quite preferentially, just as if the Holy Majesty had not given up on the abolition of the crown prince, so the people of King Wei’s line hardly made any effort. Just did what I wanted to do.
At the beginning, it was just to find a spokesperson who had no factions and was an upright person in the court, and brought up the matter of establishing the crown again, especially the matter of the return of the prodigal son of King Hui. When someone lays the bait, someone will naturally take the bait, and then find someone to beat the side drum, and those old ministers who worry about the country and the country day and night will jump out on their own initiative.
These are just old tricks that are often performed in the court. As long as it is an official who has been in the court for many years, almost no one understands this trick, but the trick is not afraid of being old, and it is good enough. Even if everyone knows it well, there will still be people. Keep getting hooked.
Some are instigated by others, some know that there are tigers in the mountains, and some are just driven by interests.
The momentum at the beginning was not great, but as time passed, more and more people joined in, and in the end, the one who started trouble became a bystander. Naturally, the King of Wei and Feng Sheng would not refuse, so they waited to watch the play from the sidelines.
As for Emperor Jianping, he didn’t take this matter seriously at first, but as the calls for the restoration of the prince became louder and louder, he also saw that someone was secretly fueling the flames.
King Hui is naturally the most suspicious, and if this matter succeeds, he will benefit the most. But King Wu, King Zhao, King Xiang and others couldn’t clear up their suspicions. Who knows if they saw King Hui’s power and deliberately made this move to arouse Emperor Jianping’s fear.
According to the usual practice, Emperor Jianping used the pretext of discussing the royal family’s private affairs, and beat the official who had been promoted to Li Chu, as well as a few small officials who had been jumping up and down recently, and had been particularly eye-catching. After a few days of silence, who would have thought that it would cause trouble.
Several old ministers who were quite prestigious in the court came forward one after another, and even two old cabinet elders appeared in the cabinet. These are the ministers that Emperor Jianping relied heavily on, and Emperor Jianping also knew their position. If it is impossible to have selfishness, but it is very rare, they are really thinking about the country and the country.
These people are really pedantic if they want to be called pedantic, but they are extremely loyal. It is precisely this kind of person who is the most difficult to deal with. They are both loyal and experienced. If they really deal with these old ministers cruelly, what will history books say about him in the future.
Emperor Jianping was caught in a dilemma, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was devastated.
But he has been the emperor for many years, and he is also a generation of Mingjun, so naturally he will not do things that are not worthwhile. While everyone was sitting and waiting to watch the funeral, he actually proclaimed King Wei on an inconspicuous day.
Nowadays, all the princes pay attention to father’s kindness and son’s filial piety. The most conspicuous sign is that everyone enters the palace frequently to pay their respects.
Emperor Jianping encouraged, and the sons below were also willing to show filial piety.
The only one here is King Wei who is not very active, in fact it’s not that he is not active, but he has always been a rigid character, he also comes to the palace to greet him, and he comes very regularly, once every ten days, and he can’t be shaken.
Today, it was King Wei’s turn to enter the palace to pay his respects, and he came to Qianqing Palace as usual.
When I arrived, just as the ministers who had been summoned to discuss matters dispersed, I was invited in by the little **** without any delay.
King Wei didn’t talk much, at least outside, he only had a few words of greetings, and after he was about to leave, Emperor Jianping stopped him.
“Your academy is doing very well. I heard from Li Wenyuan that this time, a group of clerks are recruited who are quick-witted, proficient in official duties, and very efficient in handling affairs.”
Li Wenyuan was a minister of the cabinet and concurrently served as the Minister of the Ministry of Officials, and the matter mentioned by Emperor Jianping was also related to the branch of Jinjiang Academy.
Feng Sheng had a feeling for setting up a women’s branch, and felt that the masters in Shaoxing could form a gang, teach by example, pass on from father to son, and form their own system. Why can’t others? This idea has been realized by King Wei in the past few years.
In addition to the men’s hall, the king of Wei set up two halls specially to cultivate talents such as scribes and masters.
Speaking of this, we have to talk about Daliang’s official vacancy system.
According to the imperial court system, there is a fixed number of officials. When the staff is full but there are vacancies, it is also called filling the vacancies. Among them, it is divided into those who are in the stream and those who are not. The officials who are in the stream naturally refer to officials with a rank, and those who are not in the stream are those who have no rank, and are also called officials who are out of the stream.
Officials who seem to be low-level are very inconspicuous, but they don’t know that the base of such people is the largest. For example, each state and county has no more than 20 or 30 people, but in fact there are many times more than the number.
Not to mention the yamen in the lower places, the yamen of the Six Ministries of Central Beijing, the Five Temples, the Department of General Affairs, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, etc., require a huge number of officials, and because of their inferior positions, they have heavy responsibilities, so the clerks are recruited everywhere. Very demanding.
Part of it is selection. It is selected from those candidates who are hopeless in the imperial examination. There are very few such people, because most of them who can pass the examination do not look down on a small official. It’s not impossible, why bother to be an unpopular person.
There are also some people who accept silver and fill officials, that is, donate silver to buy shortages. This kind of people is the most. However, due to the mixed dragons and snakes, they are used indiscriminately, so that even if the candidates come in, they can’t be reused, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and their salary is for nothing.
The branch library of Jinjiang Academy just solved this problem. It selected those who had no hope of being above the imperial examinations, and focused on teaching the basic talents of officials, such as drafting official documents, drawing up memos for case files, filling out arrest tickets, and filling out tax books. Membership and so on.
These tasks seem to be simple, but in fact they are very complicated, and laymen don’t understand them at all. Even if someone has an introduction, it will take at least half a year or even a year to get familiar with all kinds of documents and official documents, and to understand the rules and regulations of various government departments. Those who came out of the Jinjiang branch skipped this step.
The academy used this as a gimmick to attract people to enter the library. After finishing their studies, they can be directly recommended to the six departments. What Emperor Jianping mentioned was the first batch of clerical students who graduated from Jinjiang Academy. King Wei mentioned it to Emperor Jianping This matter, in the name of probation first, will be expelled if it is not suitable. This matter is specially handed over to the Ministry of Officials. Since Emperor Jianping praised him so much, it shows that it is very useful.
In fact, the king of Wei knew about this a long time ago, and he also knew that Emperor Jianping didn’t want to talk about it at all. Sure enough, after King Wei followed Huatou with a few words of humility, Emperor Jianping changed his face, and there was faint anger and reproach on his face, which made people I couldn’t figure it out for a while.
“You really plan to stay in that academy forever?”