lady, please calm down

Chapter 356
  "Anyway. In short, there it is."

Entering a certain wing of the palace, Chen Chu had just finished telling Yu Nong and A Yu something.

Both women were in extreme shock, but their reactions were completely different.

Yu Nong suddenly flashed her big round eyes, and blurted out after two breaths: "Young master, are you saying that the eldest princess of the current dynasty is pregnant with our baby?"

"."

The question was like whipping a corpse, and Chen Chu didn't know how to answer.

"." Ayu glanced at Yunong speechlessly. Uncle had already confessed that in October, he got drunk and stayed overnight in the palace.

Look at Jiarou's relentless pursuit from Tokyo to Caizhou. Isn't the answer obvious?
  The reactions of Chen Chu and Ayu made Yunong confirm the matter and said with surprise and pride: "Master! You are so awesome!"

"." Chen Chu scratched his scalp in embarrassment.

Although A-Yu was a little bit dissatisfied, she didn't show any signs of it. Instead, she said, "What are you going to do, uncle? Do you need sister Yunong and I to help arrange for His Highness?"

She guessed that Chen Chu came to the two of them to confess immediately because he wanted her to help.

Although Ayu may occasionally be a bit teay, such women are often the most considerate.

Chen Chu really wanted to ask Ayu for help, "The crop disease is very urgent now, and I will take people out for a while today. Can Ayu find a courtyard in the city?"

Chen Chu's words were cryptic, but Ayu understood clearly. She nodded and said: "The post house is full of people and it is indeed not a place to stay for a long time. Later, Sister Yunong and I will find a seat in a secluded courtyard and bring the princess to the house." Settling it there temporarily. My uncle left me a team of personal soldiers to guard the place, and I asked Aunt Zhang to bring the maids there to serve. They are all born in the same family, and they are very strict with their mouths. They will not let any news get out. "

The most important thing in this matter is that the regent princess of a country strictly keeps a secret. She has never been married, but she is already married.

If the news spreads, I don’t know how big a chain reaction it will cause.

At this time, when Si entered the flower hall, Jiarou sat alone in the big chair.

Because he had been crying just now, his eyes were red and his eyes were looking somewhere, but there was no focus, making him look a little dazed.

There were footsteps outside the hall. Jiarou raised her head slightly nervously. Seeing that the person who came was Chen Chu who had left and returned, she subconsciously said: "What... what should I do?"

In recent months, Jiarou has been in a state of great anxiety and confusion.

Now that I have seen the culprit of this matter, I can't help but regard him as the backbone.

Before Chen Chu spoke, he deliberately calmed down the anxiety caused by the recent crop diseases and said gently: "Don't worry, Your Highness, I have made arrangements. A-Yu will pick up Your Highness and move out of the post house temporarily in the next two days." elsewhere."

Hearing that the moving matter was left to the royal family, Jiarou became nervous again, "Isn't King Chu here?"

"Go back to Your Highness. Now a crop disease has been discovered in Huaibei. Treating the disease is like putting out a fire. There must be no delay. I need to go out for more than ten days."

Chen Chu explained, turned around and called Ayu and Yunong who were waiting outside the door.

Although they had just met half an hour ago, when Ayu and Yunong came in to greet Jiarou this time, they couldn't help but look at the latter again.

There was a little bit of pride in Yu Nong's eyes. It seemed that Chen Chu's victory over Jia Rou was something worthy of the whole family's honor.

My young master, great!

But Ayu's eyes were much more complicated. Who would have thought that the eldest princess, who looked like an orchid in the empty valley, would have such a secret with her uncle?
  At the beginning, Caihua and Ayu were both in Tokyo. The former guarded Ayu day and night. Neither of them expected that the cold Jiarou would steal their home!
  Jia Rou avoided the eyes of the two of them and did not look at them, feeling very tangled in her heart.

She has lived in the palace for so many years and has heard too many stories about the harem killing each other. She knows that there are more than ten maids who were hanged by Queen Qian and filled in the well.
  It's just because these maids have been favored by their father either actively or passively.

Moreover, in the ten years since Liu Yu took control of Tokyo, there was no new prince in the palace who could live safely past the age of three.
  This shows how vicious a woman's methods can be when competing for favor or seizing a legitimate heir.

Therefore, when she heard that Chen Chu was leaving and handed her over to the palace's female family members, she was frightened.

At this moment, she had no intention of having anything to do with Chen Chu, but she was afraid of losing her life because of it.

There is no one she can trust or rely on around Jia Rou. Only her simple view of family affection makes her feel that at this time, she has Chen Chu's heir in her belly, and Chen Chu will not harm her even for the sake of the child!
  But it's hard to tell about his female relatives.
  It's safe to stay with him!

Thinking of this, Jia Rou became anxious and stammered: "King Chu Chu, where are you going? Can you take me with you? You said before that you would show me around Daqi."

"."

Chen Chu's trip was to Huainan. He sneaked into the enemy's country as King of Chu and Prime Minister. If the officials in Tokyo knew about it, they would probably call him Meng Lang.

Isn’t it a joke to take the regent princess with me?
  "." Yunong also glanced at Jiarou and thought to herself: The princess is so delicate. Nunu has been in the Chen family for so many years. When the master wants to do something serious, he knows not to hold her back!
  Humph, she is not as sensible as Nunu.
  Only Ayu, who was also born in an aristocratic family, could see through Jiarou's thoughts at a glance, and couldn't help but feel a little angry.

But she would not explain anything to Jia Rou. Instead, she knelt down to Chen Chu and said calmly: "Uncle is not here during this period. If there are any questions about His Highness and the baby in his belly, I will just ask him."

Jia Rou's face couldn't help but blush. She understood. A Yu's words were meant for the King of Chu, but in fact they were meant for her. A Yu took responsibility for herself and ridiculed Jia Rou for being a villain. The heart of a gentleman is in his heart.

I have long heard that Princess Chu is virtuous and gentle, but Mrs. Cai is a female devil. Today, Chen Jin Yuyu shows off her talents, which makes her feel unusual.

None of the female members of the royal family are simple, oh, just that Yunong, she looks silly and easy to make friends with.
  Sixth, enter the back house.

Tiedan helped Hutou and Xiaomei tie up two kites, and the two of them ran and laughed in the courtyard while pulling the kite strings.

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  Hanchundang, bedroom on the second floor.

The cat was reclining on the bed against the soft pillow, whispering to the great-grandmother who came to visit her.

"So, Mao'er and Madam Cai have an agreement?"

"Ah."

"Hey," Grandma sighed, her cloudy eyes full of love and helplessness, "It's all because our family has a weak foundation and my uncles and children are incompetent. They can't support Mao'er, so Mao'er is forced to take this step."

What Grandma Tai said was that Mao'er planned to give a child to Cai Hua to raise.

Mao'er had obviously thought deeply about it. He stroked his belly and said in a low voice: "Grandma, don't say that. Sister Cai has no heir, so if I give her a hug, she will love her very much. With me and Sister Cai, The two of them serve as assistants to the unborn child, and he will surely be enlightened throughout his life."

This is true. If a boy can be born this time, and Mao'er and Caihua will support him in the future, the prince's status will be as stable as a mountain.

After witnessing the danger of Yang Dalang's back house with his own eyes, and hearing about the two brothers Liu Lin and Liu Chi fighting each other with swords last year, Mao'er was touched.

It's not that the officials disrespect her and protect her. But most of the man's energy is focused on worldly affairs, and it is impossible for the back house to have him keep an eye on every detail.

Furthermore, although Mao'er is a real wife, she has a fatal shortcoming. There is no one in her natal family to use.

Just imagine, if ten or twenty years later, all the ministers in the dynasty were from Tongshan Cai and Yingchuan Chen, and there was no one on Mao'er's side who could talk to her, how terrible it would be for her child.

And this kind of thing cannot be rushed. Even if his cousin Qin Shengwu joins the army, he will have to wait until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse before he becomes influential.

The background of a small farm family is simply not enough to support a faction.

If people without talent are forcibly promoted, Xiaomei's father Zhao Kaiyuan, who colluded with unscrupulous businessmen to sell counterfeit medicines to the army, is an example.
  After much thought, the childless Cai sister became Mao'er's best political ally.

The two met each other at a young age, and despite their early stumbling blocks, they now regard each other as family.

Mao'er firmly believes that the human heart grows from flesh. If Sister Cai raises the child for a few years, she will definitely treat it as her own.

At that time, Mao'er's own status as the head wife, coupled with the support of the Cai family, no one can touch the child's eldest son, or even more noble position.

It is said that parents have profound plans for their children.

The baby in the belly has not yet been born, but the cat is already making plans in advance.

Speaking of which, Mao'er was able to make such a decision partly because of the pressure brought by Ayu's family background.

Mao'er is no longer a political novice. She knows that Ayu's entry will be helpful to official affairs, so she is very cooperative in this matter.

But as the power of the officials rose, the life experience of the female relatives in the family also became more and more noble. If Mao'er's natal family was a powerful and powerful family with many talents, she would naturally not need to plan so hard.

But she was just a peasant girl. Sister Cai's family was rich in Tongshan, and Ayu's family was a famous family. There was no telling if there would be another princess in the future!

Grandma and grandson chatted for a while. Seeing that the golden phoenix of the Zhao family had made up her mind, the great-grandmother smiled and said: "Since my dear grandson has made up his mind, I, the old woman, can only go home and supervise the younger members of the clan." Study well and strive to train a few talents to serve your grandson-in-law."

Mao'er pursed her lips and smiled, then thought for a moment and said, "Grandma, you don't necessarily need to have a master's degree to work in Huaibei. Officials pay more attention to practice. You see, not many of the juniors from Tongshan are from serious imperial examination backgrounds." For example, Sister Cai’s cousin Cai Si, after studying for several years, first became a village official, and then went to the local county government to work as a minor official. After the chaos in Hebei this time, he stayed in the local county and served as a county official. parents."

"Oh? Mao'er, please show us a clear path for our children."

The old lady patted the back of Cat's hand and said with a smile. What the cat said is not a back door, but the information contained in it is extremely important.

The standard for selecting officials in Huaibei is the standard used by Chen to select officials. Now, only Cai, Chen, Xu, and Ximen in the core of Huaibei have probably figured out this standard.

It is simple to say. Young people must start from the grassroots level and manage a village well before they can be promoted to officials. Only after they are promoted can they become officials.

But in practice, there are many troubles in managing a village. Whose family occupies more of the neighbor's land, whose children accidentally set fire to the grass of the people in the same village, bachelors peeked at the widows taking a bath, and idle men stole from other houses. egg.
  Most of these small mistakes are not serious enough to warrant a slap in the face from the reporting officer, but they cannot be ignored.

How to resolve trivial neighborhood disputes requires not only high emotional intelligence, but also great patience and communication skills.

In addition, how to gather people to repair canals, clean up the accumulated garbage in the village, and repair the roads in the village during the winter leisure time requires superb organizational skills.

Basically, those who can excel as village officials will not have much problem managing a county.

Mao'er, as Chen Chu's bedfellow and in charge of a lot of things, could certainly get a glimpse of the key.

Without breaking the rules of the officials, of course she also wanted her family to be more prominent, so after thinking for a while, she said: "Grandma, last month, more than [-] scholars from Tokyo City were sent to Caizhou. You Do you know?"

"My great-grandmother has heard someone mention it. Those scholars are full of food and support themselves, and they are against my grandson-in-law." My great-grandmother expressed her firm position in one sentence.

These people are the same people who caused trouble in Xuandemen last year.

Mao'er couldn't help but laugh lightly and continued: "The official wants to remove the aura of purity from them and let them get a little rustic. The official is now recruiting local scholars in Huaibei, asking each local scholar to bring two Three Tokyo scholars, ranging in age, are trying to manage a village. There are many children in our family currently studying at Lanxiang Academy. This is a good opportunity. I will order them to sign up when I go back."

Some people can understand the meaning of village official, but some people can't.

Furthermore, most of the scholars are young people, who are in the unrestrained fantasy of "talking and laughing, feather fans and towels are blown away, and the oars and oars are turned into ashes".

There was little enthusiasm for managing dirty villages, so not many local scholars signed up.

But since Mao'er mentioned this matter to Grandma, the old lady will definitely carry it out.
  After talking about the business, the old lady in a good mood said: "My dear grandson has taken good care of the back house of the palace. Now that I have difficulty moving, there is no need to worry too much. Xiao Yunong can help you share some of the burden, and the girl from the Chen family is also a Those who are knowledgeable and courteous come here every morning to say hello."

Mao'er smiled and said, "Yes. Just now, His Highness Jiarou came again. Maybe they were afraid of my hard work, so they just went to deal with it for me."

"What's going on with this, Your Highness? He's been running home all day."

"Strange to say. I asked her"

Before he finished speaking, Han Lu knocked on the door and came in, saying, "Madam, has the prince returned to his residence?"

"Oh?" Mao'er glanced sideways at the sky and immediately ordered: "At this hour, it's neither early nor late. I think I didn't eat because I was on the road, so I ordered the stove to prepare food for the officials."

After saying that, Mao'er still seemed uneasy, clumsily holding on to her lower back, trying to get out of bed.

Han Lu hurriedly stepped forward to help her, and then said: "Madam, the prince did not come back. He went to the flower hall to see His Highness. When His Highness came out, he seemed to have cried a lot and his eyes were red."

"Ever cried?" Mao'er looked suspiciously out the window in the direction of the front house.

The second day of March.

early morning.

Huainan West Road of Zhou Dynasty, Laiyuan Water Village on the bank of Huai River in Huoqiu County.

At that ugly moment of silence, three [-]-ton flat-bottomed merchant ships crossed southward with white lanterns hung on them.

In less than a quarter of an hour, they approached the south bank.

Laiyuan Water Village is located at the forefront of the confrontation between Zhou and Qi. The soldiers in the water village are still more or less on guard. When the sergeants on the arrow tower saw a ship approaching, they first alerted themselves, then saw the white lantern on the mast, and immediately relaxed.

But he still shouted as usual, "Who's coming to the ship? Quickly anchor! Anyone who dares to come close will be killed without mercy!"

The ship was still approaching slowly, but there was a man dressed as a businessman in a satin gown standing on the bow of the ship and replied, "I'm seeing my bride at home and lost my way. Please be merciful, military master."

There are obviously white lanterns hanging, but it says 'seeing relatives at home', coupled with the thick night sky and the sound of gurgling water, it's indescribably weird.

But after hearing this, the sergeant turned to the brother downstairs and whispered: "The code is facing you. Tell Zhang Yingzheng to get up. The northern trading house has taken goods from our military village again, hehe."

It sounds like the sergeant is quite looking forward to the arrival of the caravan.

Not long after, Zhang Duofu led two sergeants out of the Huaixi water camp of the Zhou Dynasty.

The two sides were still four or five feet apart. When Zhang Duofu saw the man on the bow of the boat, he greeted him warmly from a distance: "Shopkeeper Cao, I haven't seen you for a long time! I heard that you made several trips to Bujiawan Water Village upstream in the past few days! What's wrong? Brother, why are you not being well treated?"

"What the hell. Hahaha, what did Brother Zhang say? You and I have been friends for many years, how could we easily change the shipping route? It must be that other managers in the firm went to Bujiawan!"

Shopkeeper Cao jumped off the boat, took a few steps forward, and stuffed the money bag in his hand.

Zhang Duofu took it, it was quite heavy, almost more than a hundred taels, he couldn't help but burst into laughter, and said: "Shopkeeper Cao, talk to your boss, let all the fleets of your trading company come from us. Come ashore, I, Zhang Duofu, will keep you safe!"

Zhang Duofu vowed, but shopkeeper Cao laughed and did not answer. Instead, he pointed to the wooden box that the store clerk was moving down and said: "Last time, Brother Zhang said that Master Taishan likes to eat my Huaibei peach cans. This time I packed a whole Come over with the box. I also brought fifty jars of Huaibei wine to relieve the brothers' fatigue."

As soon as he said this, the sergeants behind Zhang Duofu also smiled and raised their lips.

Only Zhang Duofu asked in a pretentious manner, "Oh, how much does this cost? Shopkeeper Cao will calculate it with me, and I will give you the money."

He was talking about taking the money, but after searching his chest for a long time, he couldn't find a big coin. He was holding the hundred taels of silver that had just been handed to him in his other hand.

Shopkeeper Cao laughed and said: "Brother Zhang and I are very polite! This is a little bit of brother's kindness."

"Haha, that's so bad, brother, so I won't be respectful."

Laiyuan Shuizhai was on the front line of Zhou Qi's danger. It was originally a place that no one wanted to garrison.

But since the rise of Huaibei a few years ago, the merchants who smuggled and leaked ships chose this place as a landing point, and the water village has become a popular place.

Every time the merchants shipped goods, they paid as little as fifty to as many as a hundred taels. They also often gave away some valuable products from Huaibei, some of which were unavailable in the Zhou Dynasty.

In just a few years, Zhang Duofu, the leader of the business here, had accumulated a fortune of several thousand taels. His brothers followed him and lived a well-off life.

In their eyes, Shopkeeper Cao was not an illegal smuggler, but a serious God of Wealth.

There was even competition among several water villages along the river for the smuggling caravans.

Upstream in Bujiawan, comfortable accommodation was specially built for the caravans in the military stronghold for temporary settlement. They even secretly built warehouses to provide warehousing services for the caravans.

Zhang Duofu did not have the business acumen of Bujiawan Yingzheng, but he enthusiastically invited everyone to join the village and asked the kitchen to prepare wine and meat for the reception overnight.

However, while waiting for the caravan members to disembark, Zhang Duofu suddenly became vigilant because there were a lot of people coming this time.

There were two to three hundred more people than usual, and they were all strong men.

Zhang Duofu quickly winked and ordered his brothers behind him to be on guard, and his tone became serious, "Shopkeeper Cao, why did you bring so many people here this time?"

Shopkeeper Cao was stunned for a moment, then patted his forehead, and said: "Ouch! I forgot to tell Zhang Yingzheng. I recently heard that the crops in Huainan are diseased. My boss has a way to cure the disease and specially organized people to come to Huainan. Ready to make some money”

"Oh? Does the treatment work?" Zhang Duofu asked subconsciously.

Nowadays, crop diseases in northeastern Huainan have become a prairie fire and are likely to spread to the local area. Zhang Duofu also has dozens of acres of farmland in his home, so he is naturally concerned about this matter.

"Of course it works! If it can't be cured, it won't cost any money." Shopkeeper Cao assured, patting his chest.

“How much do you charge for treating an acre of land?”

"Ten cents per acre of land"

"." Zhang Duofu was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing, "Shopkeeper Cao, your family has a big business, do you even care about this small amount of money? Your boss is really a money man!"

"uh heh"

Shopkeeper Cao glanced at Qingzhuang out of the corner of his eye and smiled apologetically but refused to answer.

But he agreed with what his boss said. Saving Huainan means saving Huaibei. If it were free, the people in Huainan would definitely think it was a trap, and only by accepting money could they dispel the doubts of the officials and the people.

(End of this chapter)