Zhurou

Chapter 257 Pen

The more Pei Yong seemed unwilling to get involved, the more Zhang Yi wanted to drag him into the water.

But after all, they are in the same class and the same court. If they force each other too much, it would be tantamount to tearing each other apart, which would be ugly.

Zhang Yi had no choice but to take a half step back and stop talking.

On the left side of the side hall, Lu Xianzhang was in the middle of the class with his hands folded in his sleeves.

Lu Xianzhang was wearing court robes, with his outer garment and long ribbon almost reaching the ground, covering his half-raised right foot tightly, but that right foot never took a step forward.

He could not help but look at Pei Yong first, but seeing that he could not see anything, he looked at Zhang Yi again, and finally at Zhao Hong who was sitting on the seat. He wanted to speak as well, but he had rehearsed the speech in his mind countless times. Whether it was persuading the emperor to carefully recruit a son-in-law for His Highness, or other suggestions, after thinking it over, he felt that they were inappropriate.

Especially when Lu Xianzhang thought about his own situation and the fact that since he came to the Council of State, many of Peng Xianggong's followers had taken the initiative to gather his connections. He was also afraid that if he opened his mouth, he might not say the right thing and bring trouble upon himself. Although he was not too afraid, many of the people who had just joined him would inevitably be implicated.

After thinking it over again and again, he hesitated and retracted his right foot, which had been slightly raised, and continued to polish the draft in his mind.

Sitting on the throne, although Zhao Hong didn't know what the people in the hall below were thinking, he knew that his anger had reached its peak.

If Pei Yong hadn't interrupted him several times just now, he would have exploded on the spot. Seeing that no one was talking, he said, "I will summon the Taichang Temple and the Imperial Observatory to inquire about my sister's marriage. Once the person is chosen, you all just need to be happy - but don't worry about it!"

He spoke bluntly, but no one responded.

Seeing this, Yang Ting tried to smooth things over by saying, "Your Highness, this is a major matter, so you must be careful and not rush into it."

After saying that, he changed the subject and turned the topic to the matter of going north to redeem the emperor.

It's no wonder that Concubine Li is anxious. It has been a long time since the Jin army won a great victory and the Di people were defeated. Even the commander-in-chief Pei Yong has led the three armies back to the court. Many people have been sent out, and many have even taken up their posts. However, the candidates for the northern delegation have not yet been determined.

When it comes to the emperor emeritus, everyone starts to express their opinions. In the end, everyone avoids the issue of the candidate and only talks about other things.

If it is a ransom, it is nothing more than money or prisoner exchange.

If money was mentioned, the envoys from the Three Departments would cry poor and their cries were very organized. They first counted the current accounts, and found that there were only expenditures and no income, so they could not even afford to eat today. Then they counted the future taxes, and found that the Secretariat had reduced and exempted them, and there were still many disaster-stricken counties that needed relief. Even if they were lucky enough not to die of poverty today, they would starve to death in the future, and they would not be able to get a grain of rice out of their throats.

After he cried about his poverty, he said, "Bringing back the emperor is of course the most important thing, but the court is really short of money. It's not that we don't want to do it, but we can't do it. Unless we make another transfer, I don't know if there is any money that can be borrowed from other places."

If the imperial court doesn’t pay, then who else can pay?

Naturally, only the emperor has his own secret treasury.

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone looked towards the throne.

It took Zhao Hong a long time to slowly react.

The Di people burned, killed and looted along the way. The retired emperor was abducted and taken north. The palace was a scorched earth. When Zhao Mingzhi returned to the capital, there were not many palaces that were not windproof and rainproof. Even at this time, the house where the siblings lived was only hastily repaired, and there was no money or property left.

To be more precise, the current imperial treasury, apart from the land assets that cannot be moved, is actually the money that the Zhao brothers and sisters brought from Prince Jia's Palace.

Zhao Hong wished that Xia Zhou would never come back, so how could he possibly give money to go there?

He felt sick and depressed, and he gritted his teeth and said, "There is no money in the inner treasury. My sister has already spent all her money to defend the city. The remaining money was used to reward the three armies. There is no money left..."

Then he asked, "Do you have any other ideas?"

For a moment, the hall was unusually quiet.

After a while, Sun Chong came out and said, "Although the matter of redeeming the emperor is urgent, it cannot be settled in a short time. We might as well send an envoy to the north to reveal a little to the Di people, and then negotiate, and then slowly raise money later."

As soon as he finished speaking, the others had a way out and rolled down one after another, and started discussing other things again.

Pei Yong never took the initiative to speak during the long court meeting. However, once the Northwest Affairs was mentioned, he would no longer remain silent. He would have something to say no matter whether it was personnel deployment or tax arrangement.

He had been in charge of the Northwest for a long time and was familiar with everything, including old military and political precedents and current situations. He spoke about them one by one, presenting facts, reasoning, and listing figures.

Everyone was in such a hurry that they couldn't check it at all, and they couldn't even check the family files, let alone refute it. They had to put it aside and make a decision later.

After everyone left, Zhao Hong saw that it was lunchtime. Knowing that Zhao Mingzhi had been unwell recently, he did not ask anyone to report her previous affairs, nor did he rush back to Funing Palace. Instead, he sat alone for a long time before summoning the Minister of Rites and the Director of the Imperial Observatory to enter the palace. He was no longer the ignorant child he used to be. Today, he saw that Concubine Li came for no reason. Not only was she worried about the Emperor, but she even wanted to interfere in the princess' marriage. He also saw the officials' reactions to Concubine Li's proposal, and he knew that he could not just brush it off this time.

Although Zhao Hong didn't know the principle that men should get married when they are old enough and women should get married when they are old enough, he knew that he couldn't throw tantrums anymore because no one would pay attention to his temper. In this case, getting angry would not help, so he might as well take matters into his own hands so that he would have room to speak.

He told the two not to make it public, but to secretly select a talented consort for the princess, and to report back when there was a result.

Besides, the officials from the two governments dispersed. Before Pei Yong even left the second gate, he was detained by Zhang Yi and others, who went to the government office to discuss the transfer of officials from the northwest for half a day.

However, everyone held their own opinions, and when it came to the key points, disputes were inevitable. No consensus was reached until midnight, so they had to disperse and discuss the matter again tomorrow.

From then on, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the two governments seemed to be in coordination. Today you look for Pei Yong, tomorrow I look for him, and we always look for Pei Yong to discuss matters in the northwest, either this or that, entangled him in the discussions and leaving him no time to spare.

After receiving instructions from Zhao Hong, the Minister of Rites did not delay for a moment and prepared a list within two days. The list contained all the young talents, some with outstanding literary talent, and some who were descendants of clan relatives and important officials. As long as their ages matched, they were all recorded down, and the name was also investigated to learn about their appearance, character, conversation, personality, etc.

With so many candidates, no matter how careful one is, it is impossible for there to be no clues when questioning. Moreover, many people saw Concubine Li personally asking about the princess' marriage the day before yesterday, so it is impossible to cover it up. There were all kinds of discussions in the court and the public.

In fact, the matter of Zhao Mingzhi's marriage had already been rumored when Zhao Hong had just ascended the throne. There were many speculations on that day, but it was never resolved. Later, the Northern Dynasty forced the princess to marry, which caused many people to spontaneously oppose it. It can be said that there were many twists and turns.

It seemed natural that the matter was brought up again this time. Not only the officials were concerned, but the people of the city were also very concerned. Especially after going through many things like building shelters for refugees, recognizing farmland, and defending the city, Zhao Mingzhi had a very high reputation in the city. Everyone helped to count the names, but they all felt that they could not find any suitable matches, so they couldn't help but point fingers at the many possible names behind their backs.

Public discussions are private and will not affect the selection of the actual prince consort.

In the Taichang Temple, a group of officials carefully sorted out the shortlisted names according to their origins, native places, etc., and compared them carefully, and they were busy until late at night.

Zhang Li, assistant minister of the Taichang Temple, sat among them.

He has always been well versed in music, and is famous for his literary talent and calligraphy. In the past, he often drank wine and composed poems with the poets in the palace, clapping his hands and singing, which won the praise of the Supreme Emperor. Later, he was ordered to return to the capital and ask the current emperor to provide money and people to redeem the people in Xiazhou. However, he was left aside by Zhao Mingzhi, and although he tried his best, it was of no avail, so he was left out.

This time everyone in the Taichang Temple was busy, but since he still had some literary talent, he was arranged by the Minister of Taichang to help polish and copy the biographies of a number of candidates for imperial consorts.

He went from the capital to Xiazhou, then from Xiazhou back to the capital, then moved to Caizhou, and then returned to the capital. He experienced several setbacks, especially when his family members were left in Xiazhou as hostages. How could Zhang Li not be heartbroken?

He was deeply grateful to the retired emperor for his kindness and rose rapidly in his career. However, after returning to the court, he was abandoned by the current princess for a long time. How could he not feel resentful and angry? But he could not do anything about it and had already been filled with resentment and hatred.

But he could not refuse the task given by his superiors, so he naturally had no mood to polish the work of other talented people. He could only curse inwardly while copying it randomly.

The candidates for imperial concubines who were selected by the Taichang Temple all had outstanding qualities, especially the talented men in the capital, almost all of whom were included.

As Zhang Li copied, he felt that a mean and vicious woman like Zhao was more disgusting than cow dung. Although those young men were not extremely talented, they were all pure and innocent. He wondered who had the bad luck to be chosen to be the flower stuck in the cow dung.

He was naturally reluctant, so his hands and feet naturally slowed down. By midnight, he had only done one-tenth or twelve-tenth of the work. Just as he was about to leave on the pretext of returning home due to some family matters, he suddenly heard a colleague gossiping, "Forget about the rest of the people. Are Prime Minister Lu and Jiedu Pei also going to be selected?"

Someone replied, "Why? Isn't it possible? With your highness's conditions, wouldn't it be unfair to them?"

The man in front said, "You have to tell others what you said. Although the prince consort can still take up real posts now, if he really becomes the prince consort, let's not talk about other things. Your Highness has his own ideas in doing things. Can you let the prince consort have the final say? If the prince consort is in the court in the future, he will be looked at with strange eyes..."

The man paused for a moment and said nothing more, just smiled tacitly with his colleagues.

At one point, someone else said, "That being said, if we put these two in now, it's fine if they're not chosen. If they are chosen, will they come to the Taichang Temple to settle old scores in the future?"

"Not being chosen is a good thing, but once you tell others about it, you will inevitably be criticized, which is also a bad thing. In short, if we accept such a job, we will offend people. Those who are not chosen will have something to say, and those who are chosen will have even more to say."

"It's fine if we offend Mr. Lu, he's a good person to talk to. Even if he cares about something, he'll only complain to the people in front of him. How could he bear grudges against us little guys? But if we offend Mr. Pei... it's said that he will take revenge for even the slightest grudge!"

"In the previous incident, I heard that Deputy Envoy Qian had hidden in Dengzhou, but he still sent people to chase him thousands of miles away. Not only did he lose his life, but even his personal soldiers were killed, not a single one was left..."

At this point, everyone in the room was frightened, and no one dared to say anything. After a while, someone whispered, "After all, the horoscopes have to be matched by the Imperial Observatory, and the emperor and the princess have to be selected together. Even if there is a connection, it has nothing to do with you and me, right?"

"How is it irrelevant? Pei Yong's biography was written from the Taichang Temple, right? Whether it is well written or not depends on how you and I write it."

Hearing this, Zhang Li, who had half stood up, suddenly felt something in his heart, and slowly sat back down and picked up the pen again.