Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1511 Old things!

Before Ye Mingsheng said anything after Jingren finished speaking, An Miaoyi anxiously glanced at her son, indicating that Jingren should not expose his own scandal anymore!

This was the first time that An Miaoyi heard Jingren talk about his dream about Jiang Cong, so she seemed very passive at this moment.

Ye Mingsheng smiled and said:
"Jingren, humans are not machines. We have emotions and desires. It is normal for us to have fear and terror. There is no need for you to feel guilty or ashamed about it!"

Jingren's expression eased a little after hearing this. Then he seemed to have thought of something and asked Ye Mingsheng curiously:
"Father, are you afraid sometimes?"

Facing his son's gaze, Ye Mingsheng smiled and nodded and said:

"Of course!"

After saying this, Ye Mingsheng also said with some emotion:

"When I was eleven or twelve years old, I entered the Zhaowu Camp. Every day there was a military management. Every day, I was either taught to wield swords and guns, or to read and write, and command battles. At that time, if you didn't perform well, the coach would whip you without saying a word!"

"Even if the coach is not happy, you will still be whipped. You cannot shout when you are whipped. You have to grit your teeth and bear it. Otherwise, if you shout, the coach will whip you even more!"

“At that time, we had high-intensity training every day, which made us exhausted. We originally had food subsidies in Zhaowu Camp, and the food was actually quite good, but that bastard Coach Zhao was addicted to gambling. After he lost all his money, he used our food subsidies to gamble, and finally lost everything. As a result, we could only eat radishes and cabbages in Zhaowu Camp...”

"We were all young boys at the time. We ate radishes and cabbages every day, without any meat. We almost vomited after eating so much. Sometimes we were still not full. So in order to have enough food, some people started stealing the coach's food!"

"Those coaches eat much better than us. We eat steamed buns, they eat white rice, we eat radishes and cabbages, and they have wine and meat for every meal, so we steal their food!"

"Father, did you steal too?"

Ye Mingsheng nodded with some emotion and said:
"I remember one night when I was so hungry that I couldn't stand it anymore, so I sneaked into the kitchen and took half a bowl of white rice, a braised chicken drumstick, and an egg. I still remember that meal vividly. I wolfed it down and it tasted really good!"

"Then have you been caught, Father?"

"I wasn't caught, but there was a kid named Wang in the same military camp as me. He was unlucky and got caught. He took a pig's trotter and was caught in the act. Coach Zhao was very angry and put all the blame on him for stealing food. He tied him to a tree and whipped him!"

“I was young at the time and didn’t understand so much, but now I think about it, the coach might have wanted to make an example of him, so he whipped the kid surnamed Wang very badly. The kid was able to beg for mercy at first, but after ten or twenty whips, he couldn’t even scream…”

Ye Mingsheng, who recalled the past, looked very sad. At this time, Jingren continued to ask:

"So is he still alive?"

Ye Mingsheng shook his head and said:

"After the kid surnamed Wang fainted, other coaches came to stop him. But by that time, the kid surnamed Wang was breathing more than he was breathing out, and he died that night!"

"Coach Zhao found a few of us and dug a hole in the wild overnight to bury the kid surnamed Wang. In order to cover up the fact that he had beaten someone to death, he asked us to say that the kid surnamed Wang died of a sudden illness. If anyone told the truth, he would punish us and made us keep the kid surnamed Wang company!"

At the end of his speech, Ye Mingsheng also showed a bitter smile, and then continued slowly:

"It was the first time I saw a dead person, and it was a dead person next to me. I was very scared at the time. I was afraid that the coach surnamed Zhao would know that I took the chicken leg and then whip me to death!"

"I couldn't sleep the whole night. As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw Wang, the kid, being beaten by Coach Zhao until he was covered in blood!"

Listening to Ye Mingsheng's story, Jingren was stunned, and An Miaoyi's eyes flashed with some strangeness. Although she knew that Zhaowu Camp was nominally the place where Shangguan Hongyuan trained officers from a young age in the name of his personal guards, she did not expect that Zhaowu Camp was so dark.

"Father, what happened afterwards? Didn't anyone come to investigate?"

Ye Mingsheng heard this and said:

“At that time, there were wars every year and human lives were worthless. It was normal for someone to die in the army. In the end, the matter was left unresolved…”

Jingren heard this and asked unwillingly:

"That Coach Zhao killed someone, didn't he get punished?"

Ye Mingsheng nodded slightly and said:

"Coach Zhao was not punished at the time, but a few years later, when we were 16 or 17 years old, Coach Zhao took us to participate in the war. We went to Yongliang to suppress the rebellion of the Tanguts. One night, the Tanguts attacked our military camp, and two guys took advantage of the darkness and shot Coach Zhao!"

"I saw it with my own eyes. Coach Zhao had just chopped down a Tangut when a kid next to the tent raised his musket and shot Coach Zhao. Coach Zhao was knocked down on the spot. The other kid was afraid that Coach Zhao was not dead yet, so he stabbed him again!" "I remember that one of the brothers was surnamed Song and the other was surnamed Li. They were usually beaten the hardest by Coach Zhao. The one surnamed Li had a scar on his forehead where Coach Zhao hit him with a wine pot. So the two of them killed Coach Zhao!"

"Then didn't you report it, Father?"

Ye Mingsheng smiled and said:

"To be honest, I hesitated. After all, if I reported them, I might get some rewards. But I thought about it and decided not to do it. This dog coach surnamed Zhao is such a damn bastard. At that time, I wanted to cut him into pieces! Chop him into pieces and feed him to the dogs!"

“It’s just that I didn’t dare as much as those two guys at that time! They were really brave. It’s a pity that they both died in the Battle of Jincheng. They were shot to death by the Cumans with arrows…”

After saying that, Ye Mingsheng couldn't help but pick up the wine glass and took a sip. When he was young, he really followed the imperial army to fight in the south and the north, fought against the Cumans, Tanguts, and Robe foreign tribes, and also suppressed the peasant army uprising. Thinking about it now, it is really hard to put it into words!

Ye Mingsheng took back his thoughts and warned Jingren:

"Jingren, what father is telling you is that it is normal to be afraid. You must learn to face it and even accept it!
"When I first went to the battlefield, my hands and legs were shaking, and I couldn't even hold the sword steady, for fear that an arrow would fly over and kill me. Those ferocious Luobi cavalry were simply the bull-headed and horse-faced demons from the underworld!"

"After the war, I couldn't eat for a few days after seeing the corpses scattered all over the ground. I felt sick and wanted to vomit after eating anything. But after a few times, I became numb. Killing people really makes you numb!"

"In the end you will find that killing is far from the most terrible thing!"

"You must learn to face fear, grow in fear, and finally become fear. Especially as an emperor, your subjects hope that their emperor is an iron-fisted strongman who can lead them to prosperity. If you are not such a character, they will be disappointed and eventually shake your rule!"

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"So even if you are not such a strong man, you have to learn to be an actor and play the role of a strong man in front of everyone!"

When Ye Mingsheng said this, a complicated expression unconsciously appeared on his face, and Jingren nodded as if he understood it.

Ye Mingsheng continued to smile and nodded and said:
“Sometimes it’s like the grassland, where the strong prey on the weak. If you want to not be afraid, you have to make people fear you and be in awe of you. If they are cruel, you have to be crueler, worse, and more vicious than them. Only in this way can you feel a little bit of security and respite…”

After this topic ended, Ye Mingsheng and his family of three talked about some other topics and ended the dinner. Ye Mingsheng originally wanted to go back and find a place to rest, but under An Miaoyi's somewhat resentful gaze, the Daqian Emperor had to go back with An Miaoyi.

At night, lying on the boat, An Miaoyi handed an account book to Ye Mingsheng and said;

"This is the account book of the imperial treasury. Your Majesty, please take a look!"

Hearing what An Miaoyi said, Ye Mingsheng looked at the account book in his hand and felt a little surprised. He heard this morning that Murong Qingwu wanted to see the account book in the Inner Court but didn't see it, and had a very unpleasant quarrel with several maids in the Inner Court. Ye Mingsheng knew very well that these maids in the Inner Court were An Miaoyi's people. The reason why they dared to argue with Murong Qingwu, the imperial concubine, must be because of An Miaoyi's instructions!
So based on this situation and Ye Mingsheng's consistent understanding of An Miaoyi, Ye Mingsheng thought that the treasury had suffered a huge loss!

Ye Mingsheng thought about this matter and was considering whether to ask An Miaoyi, but he never thought that An Miaoyi would take out the account book on her own initiative. This caught Ye Mingsheng off guard and was beyond Ye Mingsheng's expectation!

Looking at An Miaoyi's confident expression, although Ye Mingsheng had not checked the situation in the account book, he understood that there was probably a surplus in the account book. Otherwise, with An Miaoyi's personality, she would not give it to him voluntarily, let alone show such an expression.

Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng began to check the contents of the account book. After briefly looking at a few pages, Ye Mingsheng turned directly to the end of the account book...

Looking at the number of 158,700 taels in the account book, Ye Mingsheng initially thought that he had read it wrong. If there had been such a number in the imperial treasury before, Ye Mingsheng would not have been surprised at all. However, the recent expansion plan of the imperial palace is in full swing, and all kinds of expenses are very large!

According to what Ye Mingsheng had learned before, the amount of silver in the treasury had already reached the warning line, which was less than 100,000 taels of silver. But how come more than 100,000 taels of silver suddenly appeared out of nowhere a few months later?
Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng's eyes also showed some doubts. Just when Ye Mingsheng was considering his words and preparing to ask, An Miaoyi seemed to see through Ye Mingsheng's thoughts and spoke directly:
"These 158,700 taels of silver are all in the treasury's silver vault. Not a single tael of silver is missing. Your Majesty, you can send someone to check at any time!"

Hearing what An Miaoyi said, Ye Mingsheng frowned and asked again:
"Miaoyi, have you sold any of the properties in the treasury?"

After this was said, An Miaoyi also said with some dissatisfaction:
"Your Majesty, I have not sold any of the properties you gave to the treasury. They are still part of the treasury. These 158,700 taels of silver were all earned through my careful management during this period of time!"

At the end, An Miaoyi's expression became very aggrieved, as if she had suffered some great injustice.

Ye Mingsheng was even more surprised when he saw this. Ye Mingsheng knew An Miaoyi's abilities very well. An Miaoyi was born in a powerful family and had been exposed to politics since she was a child. So she had some tricks in politics. How to win people over, how to calculate others and so on, An Miaoyi was quite proficient in these...
In addition, An Miaoyi has a keen sense of smell and is good at guessing people's thoughts. She can make changes as soon as she gets wind of something.

But when it comes to business, An Miaoyi seems rather mediocre. Although Ye Mingsheng does not ask the Ministry of Finance to bear the expenses of the palace, Ye Mingsheng is not a saint. The industries he arranged for the inner treasury are also making a fortune every day.

In addition to the unique ZZ resources of the Daqian royal family, even so An Miaoyi did not make much money, and sometimes even had to do some tricks to make money!
Ye Mingsheng was speechless about this. If it wasn't for the purpose of giving An Miaoyi something to do so that she wouldn't reach out to the former dynasty, Ye Mingsheng would have taken back the financial power of the treasury long ago.

Therefore, based on his past knowledge of An Miaoyi's business talent, Ye Mingsheng was so surprised that he even doubted the authenticity of the accounts!

However, looking at An Miaoyi's appearance, Ye Mingsheng more or less believed that the account book was real. At the same time, he couldn't help but sigh that Murong Qingwu's supervision was still very effective. Before Murong Qingwu's supervision, the treasury was almost in deficit, but now, after a few months of Murong Qingwu's supervision, there was a surplus of 158,000 taels of silver!

This fully demonstrates the necessity and correctness of Murong Qingwu's supervision. Thinking of this, Ye Mingsheng regretted not letting Murong Qingwu assist in managing palace affairs and supervising the financial situation of the treasury earlier!

Although Ye Mingsheng thought so in his heart, but looking at An Miaoyi who was aggrieved in front of him, he immediately praised An Miaoyi. Although some of his words were a bit against his will, Ye Mingsheng had said such words so many times that it didn't matter if he praised An Miaoyi with these two sentences...