The elite did not migrate south

Chapter 818: Can't Explain

At daybreak, the ministers began to gather in front of the palace.

This court meeting was quite important, and even some old ministers with honorary titles were invited.

When Zhong Hui's carriage arrived here, the ministers who were originally greeting each other with smiles suddenly stopped talking.

Everyone looked slightly uncomfortable.

Zhong Hui's carriage was parked aside. He was the only person who could drive the carriage directly to the gate of the palace. He got out of the carriage, stuck his head out and looked around.

Within a moment, he locked onto his target in the crowd.

Then, Zhong Hui raised his head and walked over with exaggerated steps.

There, Zhang Hua and Lu Kang were whispering something. They were not surprised to notice Zhong Hui walking towards them.

"Greetings, Lord Situ."

The two of them bowed quietly to greet each other.

Zhong Hui did not return the greeting, but just stared at Zhang Hua in front of him with an inexplicable smile on his face.

"I heard that your disciples were going to take part in the spring exam this year. Why did they suddenly stop participating?"

Zhang Hua said calmly, "I just think he's too young, and I don't want to do anything that would force him to grow just to gain fame."

Zhong Hui snorted coldly and scolded, "How can someone who tries to avoid a little difficulty achieve great things? If the teacher is not virtuous, the students will not succeed!"

Zhang Hua pursed his lips but did not refute.

Zhong Hui felt that he had won and left triumphantly.

Lu Kang then smiled and said, "It's a good thing that he is not involved. Your disciple is smart and there is no need to rush to stand out. With careful work, he may not be worse than his disciples."

Zhang Hua shook his head, his face nonchalant. "We don't teach our disciples for the sake of competition. Even if my disciples are not as good as others, as long as they have the ambition to serve the country and be loyal to the emperor, that's enough."

Lu Kang agreed.

The two of them talked about the topic of this court meeting again.

The new Minister of Revenue is about to take office, and the court also needs to discuss agricultural and financial matters for the next few years, which is quite important.

Everyone has different opinions about the new Shangshu.

Some people were full of expectations for him, thinking that he would be able to accomplish great things and would not let his name down, while others were skeptical about his character and felt that he was not worthy of being on the same level as the other ministers.

As for Xun Xu himself, he stood not far away, smiling broadly, smiling at everyone except his uncle Zhong Hui.
Zhang Hua and Lu Kang watched as Zhong Hui walked up to Xun Xu arrogantly. They didn't know what he said, but Xun Xu's face turned red and his eyes were full of anger.

Soon, Xun Xu appeared beside the two men.

Xun Xu saluted first, and the two of them hurriedly returned the salute.

Xun Xu then smiled and said, "I have little talent, and I will need your guidance in the future!"

Zhang Hua quickly replied, "I dare not. We all know Xun Gong's talent."

Xun Xu glanced at Zhong Hui in the distance and said, "I really don't know how Shangshu Zhang could have accomplished anything under his command. He is selfish and jealous of talented people. If he were to become the chief minister of the Wei Dynasty, I'm afraid future generations would laugh at him!"

The three of them chatted for a while and finally waited for the day to enter the palace.

Led by a certain minister, the crowd walked into the palace.

The main reason was that Guanqiu Jian did not come, so Your Majesty gave him leave and asked him to go and see his old friend off.

When he was not around, Zhong Hui naturally looked like no one dared to provoke him.

After all the ministers entered the hall and sat down, the emperor slowly arrived.

But what surprised the ministers was that the emperor did not come alone. There was a little guy following him. Yes, it was the prince of Wei.

The prince was no longer as naive as he used to be. Facing this huge group of ministers, there was not much fear or panic in his eyes. He lowered his head, calm and composed.

Just this appearance alone made the ministers praise him.

At this age, being able to be stared at by nearly a hundred people without feeling anything strange is already very impressive.

But no one quite understands why His Majesty brought the prince here as well. Is it to let the prince see the world?
During these years, Cao Mao often sent the prince to do some small things, sometimes to pick up people, sometimes to attend classes at the Imperial Academy, and sometimes to help a few elderly people.

This is to hone the prince's courage, so that he dares to do things and not be too timid.

Anyway, the expectations of the "people of the world" for the prince are getting higher and higher, especially those guys who are oppressed very badly, they dream of the prince ascending the throne as soon as possible.

The emperor's cruelty formed a sharp contrast with the prince's gentleness.

This was also the result of Cao Mao's promotion.

The two men sat in the upper seats, and all the ministers hurriedly bowed to greet them. Cao Mao returned the greeting, and then they began to discuss important matters.

The previous practice of the Wei Dynasty was to insult the Wu and Shu Kingdoms first, but now that both of them have perished, the court changed its practice to start by talking about the situation in Wu and Shu.

After all, the Wei people still held power in the government, so the contempt and criticism of Shu and Wu never truly ended. People like Lu Kang, who came from a prominent family, ended up hanging out with humble people like Zhang Hua because he was from Wu and was not accepted by the Wei clan.

Even the big families in Wei were divided into those from the Central Plains, Hebei, and the border areas.

The big families in the border areas are not well recognized either.

It is believed that he rose to prominence through military merit and had no knowledge of scriptures.

The first thing to talk about is Shu. A minister impeached Shu for its currency problem.

After Shu surrendered, Wei abolished Shu's original currency and unified the use of Wei's currency, but the people still stored a lot of Shu's currency.

At present, Shu currency is still circulating in Shu. The impeacher believes that it is because of Deng Ai's inaction that Shu has not forgotten its former master to this day.

There are even radicals who think that there are still disloyal thoughts in Shu, and that heavy troops should be sent to suppress them.

Cao Mao did not care much about this. In the later period of Shu Kingdom, inflation was serious. Their money was very light and could not meet the standards at all. The currency depreciated seriously. After the demise of Shu Kingdom, Wei Dynasty announced the unification of currency, but did not recycle the currency of Shu Han. Even if it was recycled, there would be no compensation.
The current Shu coins cannot be circulated at all. They can only be traded at an extremely exaggerated depreciation and then be refined.

This is not currency anymore, but barter, using copper to exchange for things.

During the years that Deng Ai was in Shu, the area developed faster and faster. After improving the past water conservancy plans, eliminating the powerful families, and handing over the arable land to the people, Shu was able to give full play to its original superior agricultural attributes.

At present, the grain production in Shu is becoming more and more exaggerated, and it has become the most important grain-producing area for the court.

The governance of the Great Wei over there is becoming more and more popular. They may still miss their prime minister, but no one will miss the Shu Han that caused the people to live in dire straits. People are afraid of comparison in everything.

Then someone impeached Wu. Compared with Shu, the situation there was much more exciting.

There's impeachment and all that.

Chen Tai has returned to the imperial court and holds an honorary position, which is out of the question.

Wang Jing began to govern the local area directly. Cao Mao originally wanted to summon Wang Jing over, but considering the complicated situation there, he decided to let him stay for a while.

After the normal impeachment phase, the court meeting officially began.

And in this court meeting, Xun Xu was the protagonist.

Cao Mao appointed Xun Xu as the Minister of Revenue. Everyone actually knew about this a long time ago, but Xun Xu only officially took office from today.

Xun Xu stood up. He was not very old, only a few years older than his uncle Zhong Hui.

Cao Mao nodded at him, signaling him to speak.

Xun Xu then said, "Gentlemen, I have always served in the Youbei Mansion. Perhaps you don't know this, but the Youbei Mansion has been established for a long time, much earlier than many departments in the current court."

"We have established government offices in all regions, and currently there are over 8,400 officials and clerks at all levels in the prefectures."

Xun Xu talked about the situation of Youbei Prefecture in various places.

But the ministers were not very concerned about this.

They have always believed that Youbei Mansion is just a toy of Cao Mao and is of no use in major events.

Even Ji Kang, a staunch supporter of Cao Mao, criticized Youbei Prefecture.

This is mainly because in the past value system, disasters were signs from heaven, so disasters could not be predicted or resisted in advance.

If you want to eliminate disasters, then practice benevolent governance.

Of course, in the era when Wang's school of thought was flourishing, no one dared to boast about this theory in front of the emperor.

But it is still quite popular in other places. In any case, Zheng Xue’s disciples still promote this set of things today, and nothing has changed.

Xun Xu described the scale of Youbei Prefecture very seriously, and then talked about the work over the years.

"Liangzhou hasn't seen heavy rain for several years, and the drought has intensified, causing the river to drop significantly. After receiving a report from the local government, we speculated that Liangzhou would be hit by multiple disasters, so we took precautions. Local officials built several reservoirs to store water and dug canals to divert water."

"We also transported food to the area in advance and relocated some people from areas that might be severely affected."

Xun Xu was particularly proud when he said this.

"Thanks to the predictions and defenses of the Youbei Prefecture, Liangzhou has not suffered any major disasters so far, and all situations are under control."

Seeing Xun Xu's smug expression, most of the ministers disagreed.

There is no way around it. It is difficult to clearly explain the effectiveness of the Beifu. Unless someone like Cao Mao knows how big a blow the drought in Liang Province would cause without external interference, no one will realize how great the contribution of the Beifu is.

Perhaps because of this, Cao Mao continued to promote Xun Xu, but people did not recognize his contributions.

People felt they had done nothing and that things wouldn't have been any different without them.

They even thought that Xun Xu's department was a way for Cao Mao to gain credit for himself, using the same method he used to educate the barbarians outside the Great Wall.

They all use this method to increase their own merits and attribute all the achievements to their own policies.

However, there were also a few ministers who had a thoughtful expression on their faces while listening to Xun Xu's story.

(End of this chapter)