Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1524 Your mother knows!
As soon as Jingren said this, An Miaoyi and Ye Mingsheng, who were originally resting with their eyes closed, both opened their eyes.

An Miaoyi was the first to react and scolded:

"Jingren, I told you, these are not what you should care about right now. The most important thing for you now is to study!"

Facing his mother's preaching, Jingren mustered up the courage to refute:
"Mother, Mr. Gu told me that every man has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country, and I am the crown prince, so how can I be immune to it?"

Seeing Jingren dare to refute, An Miaoyi was undoubtedly even more angry, and immediately began to teach him a lesson:

"Jingren, you still dare to be so stubborn!"

After saying that, An Miaoyi raised her hand and taught Jingren a lesson. Even though he was slapped in the face, Jingren's eyes were still full of stubbornness, and it was obvious that he was not convinced in his heart.

Seeing this, An Miaoyi was about to say something, but Ye Mingsheng waved his hand to stop An Miaoyi and said:
"Jingren, you said that every man has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country. There is nothing wrong with this statement, but the problem is that you are still a child, not a man!"

"So your mother is right. You should focus on your studies now. When you become an adult, you can worry about the country and the people!"

"As for the issue of GS collusion that you mentioned, this is indeed a very serious topic, but I must tell you a cruel truth!"

“GS collusion cannot be prohibited, no matter which dynasty, who is the emperor, what measures are taken, what punishments are imposed, or even what your organizational structure is, it is impossible to completely eliminate it…”

Upon hearing this, Jingren immediately asked back:
"Why can't the emperor forbid it? As long as the emperor is wise enough and the ministers are virtuous enough, I believe we can put an end to the GS collusion and prevent such tragedies from happening again!"

Hearing his son's naive words, Ye Mingsheng was not angry. He smiled and shook his head and said:

"In my opinion, this is still related to human nature. Human nature is greedy. Driven by interests, the rich and the wealthy will inevitably unite to seek the maximization of interests!"

Jingren retorted:
"Dad, I don't think human nature is greedy. Human nature is good. I believe that if everyone abides by morality, then everything will be fine!"

Seeing his son's serious expression, Ye Mingsheng was also very moved. After pondering for a long time, he slowly said:
"Jingren, you are still young, so it's normal to have some idealistic ideas. But when you grow up, you will find that things are not as simple as you think. There are too many people who talk about morality, but are actually full of thieves and prostitutes!"

Jingren wanted to refute when he heard this, but Ye Mingsheng signaled Jingren not to worry, and then said:

"Jingren, do you think Zhang Wenqing is a good person?"

"That's right! Magistrate Zhang has punished so many bad guys. He is a well-deserved clean and good man!"

Hearing his son say this, An Miaoyi's expression changed slightly, and Ye Mingsheng said calmly:
"Jingren, you just asked me what happened to Zhang Wenqing and I didn't answer. Do you know why I didn't answer?"

Hearing Ye Mingsheng say this, An Miaoyi also realized what Ye Mingsheng wanted to say, and immediately pulled Ye Mingsheng's clothes calmly, signaling Ye Mingsheng not to say anything further, but Jingren kept asking:
"Mom, why didn't you let Dad continue? Is there anything you can't let me know?"

Hearing her son's question, An Miaoyi looked helpless, while Ye Mingsheng smiled and said:

“Zhang Wenqing did a good job in Yuyang at the beginning. He punished many corrupt officials and killed many bullies and scoundrels, which made the political ecology of Yuyang present a positive side. This also made him a strong contender for the deputy governor of Youyan…”

"In order to successfully become the deputy governor of Youyan, Zhang Wenqing sent two thousand taels of silver to a big shot through an intermediary in three installments. In addition, there were also other gold bars and jewelry. The total value was about more than 3,700 taels of silver. At that time, the normal annual income of a prefect was about 170 taels of silver!"

"Three thousand seven hundred taels of silver would require this Magistrate Zhang to work without food or drink for twenty years to save up, so Jingren, where do you think this money came from?"

"Dad! You lied to me! This is absolutely not true! Magistrate Zhang is definitely not that kind of person. He is a good man!"

Upon hearing this, Ye Mingsheng pointed at An Miaoyi and said:
"Jingren, your mother knows about this! Ask your mother to tell you!"

Upon hearing this, Jingren immediately looked at An Miaoyi and said anxiously:

"Mom, tell me, is what my dad said true?"

Although An Miaoyi was somewhat helpless, she had to admit it:

“What your father said is true. Yuyang is an important trading hub with the grasslands. Zhang Wenqing took advantage of this to make things difficult for those businesses doing tea and horse business. Over the course of a few years, he extorted nearly five thousand taels of silver from these businesses…”

As soon as Jingren heard this, his expression immediately became unbelievable, while Ye Mingsheng continued to educate him:
"Jingren, don't be sad. Zhang Wenqing is just a microcosm of countless people on GC. There's nothing to be surprised about!"

"People are good at disguising themselves. Do those corrupt TG officials have it written on their foreheads? Especially the big corrupt officials, they are very cunning. They will deliberately package themselves into a righteous appearance to make themselves look very upright!" "As I said before, human nature is greedy. It is impossible to completely eliminate the collusion with GS. Such a situation will exist anyway!"

"This is just like the birth, aging, illness and death of human beings. It is inevitable for anyone who is human!"

“The key point of the problem lies in a good organizational structure, which can reduce the occurrence of GS collusion and limit the scale of these harms!”

"This sounds a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. On the surface, it seems that everyone has this problem, and it seems that all crows are black, so no one should laugh at anyone else. But in fact, there is a big difference between fifty steps and a hundred steps!"

"In this world, there are few good people and few bad people, but many people who are neither good nor bad. A good organizational structure can turn these people into good people, but a bad organizational structure will turn them into bad people!"

Jingren nodded as if he understood what was said, and at this time Ye Mingsheng touched his head lovingly and said:
"And Jingren, you have to remember that this world is not static, it is constantly changing. Just because you are a good person now does not mean you will be a good person forever. A good person can become a bad person, and a bad person can become a good person!"

“It’s just like emperors like Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. They were once wise and powerful and created great achievements, but in the end they made mistakes, which made their wise lives go to waste and they were despised by the world…”

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Night, Palace

Under the dim kerosene lamp, Murong Xinyun looked at the letter in her hand, and a hint of melancholy appeared on her pretty face.

Now it has been almost a year since she entered the palace. When she first entered the palace, her father and brother could be said to have been in Murong Xinyun's care.

There are huge expectations placed on them, thinking that they can gain more power by relying on their daughters as fathers and brothers by relying on their sisters as brothers!
But unfortunately, Murong Xinyun did not have this idea. She wanted her own ideas to survive in the palace. She did not want to become one of those concubines who revolved around Ye Mingsheng all day long, vying for Ye Mingsheng's favor, and worrying about gains and losses.

It was this kind of thinking that caused Murong Xinyun to not sleep with Ye Mingsheng until today. Murong Xinyun did not care too much about this kind of thing, and she even felt fortunate for it. After all, although she was already Ye Mingsheng's concubine, in her heart, Murong Xinyun still regarded Ye Mingsheng as her brother-in-law and the father of her nephew and niece!

Therefore, just thinking about what happened between him and Ye Mingsheng, Murong Xinyun would feel a sense of shame for being immoral!

Although Murong Xinyun thought so, her father and brother who wanted to rely on their daughter to get to the top did not think so. When they saw that Murong Xinyun had not taken any action, they frequently wrote letters to urge her. At first, Murong Xinyun was able to ignore it, but under the urging of letters, Murong Xinyun's mentality was shaken...
And the letter from home today made Murong Xinyun feel extremely conflicted. Today's letter was different from the previous ones. Before, it was Murong Xinyun's father Murong Xiu, or Murong Xinyun's elder brother Murong Hongye who wrote to Murong Xinyun, but today's letter was written by his mother Zhao.

In the letter, Zhao chatted with her daughter about some family matters and also told Murong Xinyun about the recent situation of some family members. For example, her father Murong Xiu was reprimanded by her second uncle Murong Yuliang in a letter for spending too much money, and her eldest brother Murong Hongye's wife Wang, who had always been in poor health, died of illness some time ago. Someone introduced Ye Xiaohua, the granddaughter of Ye Dasheng, an old man of the Ye clan, to Murong Hongye.

Originally Murong Hongye was unwilling to do this. After all, the Ye family had only been rising for a short time. Although they were now members of the royal family, many of them were illiterate upstarts!
Although he wouldn't say it on the surface, deep down he still looked down on an old family like the Murong family that had been passed down for hundreds of years!

The girl from the Ye family who was introduced to Murong Hongye, although she was the granddaughter of the elder of the Ye family, to be honest, she was just a rural girl!

Although I haven't seen her yet, just hearing the name Ye Xiaohua tells me she is extremely unsophisticated! ·················
If we go back ten years, Murong Hongye would not even want to marry her as his wife, let alone let her be his maid!

But the world has changed. Ye Mingsheng is now the emperor, and the Ye family has become the royal clan. In order to cling to the Ye family and have a better career development, Murong Hongye had to make sacrifices!
Murong Hongye originally thought that if he was willing to make sacrifices, everything would fall into place, but he never expected that although he was willing, Ye Dasheng was not!
Ye Dasheng felt that although Murong Hongye was a descendant of the Murong family, he did not have a great future and was still staying at home without any official position. Secondly, he was more than ten years older than his granddaughter and was a second wife, so he was unwilling to let his granddaughter marry Murong Hongye.

Therefore, although the middleman tried his best to bring the marriage together, it still fell through!
This incident was a huge blow to Murong Xiu and his son Murong Hongye. They thought that it was good enough that we, the Murong family, did not look down on you. How dare you look down on us? Where did you get the courage?

Although both father and son were indignant about this, Ye Dasheng was an elder of the Ye family and had a great influence in the family. He was one of the most powerful elders of the Ye family. Therefore, Murong Xiu and Murong Hongye, father and son, did not dare to offend him. They only dared to shout a few times at home to vent their anger!

Although her mother did not say or write what she said in the letter, based on Murong Xinyun's understanding of her father and brother, she knew that he and brother must have talked about her. After all, she did not fight for their favor like they expected, thus completing the saying that a father is honored by his daughter and a brother is honored by his sister. In their eyes, this was undoubtedly her fault. She was the unfilial daughter and the disobedient sister...

Thinking of this, Murong Xinyun felt very aggrieved and helpless. She just wanted to live according to her own ideas and not do things she didn't want to do. Is there anything wrong with this?
Being a woman is so difficult!
This life is a foregone conclusion and cannot be changed, but in the next life, Murong Xinyun no longer wants to be a woman. She wants to be a man, so that she can be free and do what she likes!

Thinking of this, Murong Xinyun couldn't help but start to fantasize. If possible, she wanted to become a great general, leading millions of troops to gallop on the battlefield, conquer the Wolf and Lair, and create unprecedented achievements!

Or you can become a civil official who passes the imperial examination and assists the king, making plans and becoming a wise prime minister, and be praised by future generations!

Or maybe it would be nice to be a wandering knight, where you can be free to take revenge and be happy, without any constraints or restraints. What a wonderful life that would be! Just as Murong Xinyun was fantasizing, her maid Xia Zhu suddenly came in and said to Murong Xinyun:

"My queen, something bad has happened!"

After hearing this, Murong Xinyun ended his fantasy and asked Xia Zhu:

"Xia Zhu, don't panic, tell me what happened slowly!"

"Your Majesty, when little Chenzi went to the Inner Court to get something, he had a conflict with the eunuchs beside Concubine Rou and was beaten by the eunuchs beside Concubine Rou. Little Chenzi was beaten to a bloody mess..."