Great Qing Xiangguo

Chapter 22

Chen Tingjing and others bid farewell to Master Wei and went back to the city together.Newcomers to the Imperial Academy only study in the Shuchang Hall all day long, and have no important errands.Chen Tingjing invited everyone to go to his house for a short talk, but they only said they would go another day, which was too abrupt and afraid of nagging Mr. Li.Only Zhang Jian had been to Li's house and still wanted to visit the old man, so he went with Chen Tingjing.

It was Cuiping who opened the door, and upon meeting him, he said, "Young master, there was a letter from home, so I left on a business trip."

Chen Tingjing was very happy and hurriedly asked Cuiping to bring the letter.He had been thinking about whether Shuxian had given birth, and calculated that the due date would be here, so he wrote back a few days ago.Chen Tingjing led Zhang Qian into the house to meet the old man, and they were polite to each other.He also asked Yueyuan to come out and met Zhang Qian.Yueyuan greeted Zhang Qian and went back to her room.Chen Tingjing waited for Tian Ma to serve tea, and then opened the letter to read.

Seeing Chen Tingjing's happy face, Cuiping said, "Young Mistress must have given birth?"

Sure enough, Chen Tingjing handed the letter to the old man and said: "Father, Shuxian has added a daughter to my family, mother and daughter are safe!"

The old man read the letter, nodded and smiled, "I'm overjoyed!"

Zhang Qian also expressed his joy.Chen Tingjing said: "Father, my father asked me to name my daughter. I was so confused. You always think about it for me. What name should I choose?"

The old man smiled and said: "There are two Hanlin here, you two should think about it."

Without waiting for Chen Tingjing to open his mouth, Zhang Jian hurriedly said, "Naming a name is a big deal, you can do it yourself."

Chen Tingjing wanted to ask for auspiciousness, so he asked the old man to name it.The old man was modest, and told Chen Tingjing to be himself.Chen Tingjing thought and thought, and said, "It's very hard for Shuxian to respect her in-laws at home. To comfort her, I once wrote a poem with these lines: Who lives for a hundred years? One worry and one old age. Send a message to the golden boudoir , Yao grass grows in the mountains. How about calling the little girl Jiayao?"

The old man heard this, and hurriedly said: "Jiayao, yes! Yao is a fairy grass, born in Yaochi, and can live forever. Yes, yes!"

Zhang Jian also said: "Jiayao, Jiayao, you must be a blessed person in the future!"

Chen Tingjing went straight to ask his brother for auspicious words, and he couldn't help but feel happy.Cuiping ran into the house to tell Yueyuan, and Yueyuan was also happy for Ting Jing's brother.

Gossiping for a long time, Zhang Qian suddenly said: "Ting Jing, old man Li is also here, I have a request, I hope you will agree!"

Chen Tingjing hurriedly said: "You and I love brothers, you don't have to be polite, but it doesn't matter."

Zhang Qian said: "There is a dog at home, named Zu Yan, Xu Zi is five years old, this year he has been educated and enlightened, although people are stupid, they can still study hard."

Tian's mother smiled and said: "I can tell, Lord Hanlin wants to propose marriage for his son, right?"

Zhang Qian said with a smile: "That's what I meant, Zhengchou couldn't open his mouth, Tian Ma said it for me."

Chen Tingjing laughed loudly, and said: "If you are smart and motivated, you will have a great future, how dare the Chen family dare to climb up!"

But Zhang Qian said seriously: "If Ting Jing dislikes it, I won't say that again."

Chen Tingjing hurriedly said: "Brother Zhang Bao, how can you say that? If you don't give up, this matter is settled like this! Father, what do you think?"

The old man had nothing to say, and said with a smile: "Okay, this is a great thing! Ting Jing is happy to get a daughter, and he also recruited a wealthy son-in-law. Double happiness! Tian Ma, hurry up and prepare some wine and vegetables, and celebrate well!"

Chen Tingjing and Zhang Qian drank and chatted with the old man, now they are considered a family, they are polite as they are, but they speak their hearts out.Because they talked about Mr. Wei Xiangshu again, they were full of emotion.Finally knowing something about the number one scholar, the old man only said that Mr. Wei is mature and thoughtful, so he said what he wanted to say that day, and said: "It is gratifying to be young, but there are also hidden worries. You must always be vigilant. Keep an eye on it. If you have many people, you will inevitably attract jealousy, which is a disaster. Without some experience in the officialdom, it is difficult to become a great weapon. The so-called experience means seeing the world through experience. You are not a lazy person, you are not afraid of hard work, the most important thing is to be able to bear complaints. Then you have to have patience!"

Chen Tingjing said: "Master Wei taught me the word "Wait", and what he said was exactly what Dad meant, telling me to endure slowly. Now Dad taught me the word "Forbearance". I will remember these two words, Wait, Na Wait patiently; endure, bite the bullet and endure."

Zhang Jian also said that he had benefited a lot from his old man's kind words, but he felt that it was a pity that Chen Tingjing didn't choose the number one scholar, and Mr. Wei was probably worrying too much.The old man shook his head and smiled, and said: "I really don't think so, Ting Jing is too young. If Zhang Xian's nephew wins the first prize, I'm very happy. After all, you are more than ten years older than him, and you will be promoted soon after you leave the hall. .”

But Zhang Bang blushed, and said: "Old man said so, my nephew is ashamed. I failed in three trials, and finally won a fellow Jinshi."

The old man didn't expect his words to touch Zhang Qian's hidden pain, and he was quite embarrassed, so he said that the stereotyped articles would wear away the heroism of generations, and the most important thing is to make good contributions in the future.

The three-year-old Xin Hanlin in Shuchang Hall was very poor, and some of them didn't want to stay in the capital and go back to their hometown to study.The emperor's personal examination was also used to disband the hall, and Chen Tingjing got the first place in the examination again, and was awarded a review by the Academy of Internal Secretaries.The emperor only looked at the rankings of the Imperial Academy exams, and chose the best ones to stay in the Imperial Academy as attendants, and the second ones were assigned as servants of the Ministry, and the rest were sent to the county magistrates.Zhang Qian was sent to Dezhou, Shandong Province as the county magistrate, and he was very disappointed.Chen Tingjing persuaded him in every possible way, only that it might be better for Taoist officials to start from the ground, while the small Beijing official is free to listen to others, and he is in the deep end all day long, trembling with fear.Zhang Qian knew that these were all words of forgiveness for him, so what could he do if his fate was already like this!I had to choose an auspicious day, resigned from my teachers and friends, looked at the palace and worshiped, and went to Shandong.

Yueyuan is now 15 years old, and she is already a big girl.After all, the capital is far away from Shanxi, so the adults of both sides had to choose an auspicious day in the family letter, and the two got married.Yueyuan is a well-educated person, thinking that it is unfilial for her to fail to serve her parents-in-law, so she sent a letter from her family back to her old house in Shanxi to plead guilty.Mrs. Chen was delighted to receive the letter, and the old couple said that Ting Jingsheng was a lucky person.

Chen Tingjing went to the Imperial Academy every day, and lived a leisurely life.Seeing that it was the end of the year again, the sealing period selected by Qin Tianjian was the auspicious day of December 21st.That day Chen Tingjing saw that the sky was turning yellow early in the morning, and he thought it might snow.He added some clothes and rode to the Hanlin Academy as usual.There were few pedestrians in the early morning, so they rode their horses and ran on the street.Suddenly a person sprang out from the entrance of the alley, and he quickly reined in his horse and stopped.The man was still frightened and fell to the ground.Chen Tingjing hurriedly got off his horse, but the man hurriedly got up, knelt down on the ground, and said: "I've startled my lord's horse, I deserve death!"

Chen Tingjing quickly helped the man up, and said: "Please get up quickly, are you hurt? I scared you!"

The man was very frightened and said, "I'm guilty, I deserve to die."

Seeing that there seemed to be blood on the man's face, Chen Tingjing said, "You're hurt!"

The man shook his head and said, "My lord's injury is none of your business, it was done by him."

Chen Tingjing said: "Under the Son of Heaven's feet, in broad daylight, who dares to beat someone for no reason?"

The man said: "My name is Zhu Qi. My family of five lives in Shimo'er Hutong. A small courtyard house was left behind by a rogue named Yu Ziyi and sold to an official surnamed Gao. I love it every day." The Gao family went to reason, but they said that the house was bought from Yu Ziyi, and it had nothing to do with me. I went again early this morning and told his family to beat him up."

Chen Tingjing asked: "Take care of your own house, how can it be taken over by others?"

Zhu Qi looked at Chen Tingjing, and asked: "Which yamen is your lord? If you are in charge, I will tell you, otherwise it will be useless and cause trouble."

Chen Tingjing faltered, unable to utter a word for a long time.Zhu Qi shook his head again, sighed again, and said: "It seems that you can't decide what to do, so I'd better not say anything." After saying that, Zhu Qi left in a hurry.Chen Tingjing was so embarrassed that he had nowhere to put his face. He was just a poor scholar, so he really couldn't help others.

After getting on his horse and walking not far, he suddenly saw soldiers with swords leading many people out of the city.Chen Tingjing was feeling strange when he heard someone calling him.It turned out that Gao Shiqi came to meet him on horseback and said, "Ting Jing, go back quickly, don't go to the Imperial Academy."

Chen Tingjing didn't have time to ask the reason in detail, Gao Shiqi only said that you come with me to talk, and then he rode away.Chen Tingjing didn't know what happened, so he had to follow him.In an alley, Gao Shiqi asked Chen Tingjing to get off his horse and talk.There was no one around, so Gao Shiqi whispered: "There is smallpox in the palace, the emperor and the third elder brother are both suffering from smallpox!"

Chen Tingjing was frightened half to death, and hurriedly asked: "How do you know?"

Gao Shiqi said: "I just heard that those people on the street are all suffering from smallpox and want to be driven out of the city."

Chen Tingjing said: "It's no wonder that the rules of the winter solstice festival have been changed. The second rank and above are only outside the Taihe Gate, and other officials are only allowed outside the Meridian Gate."

Gao Shiqi said: "All the doors in the palace have been closed for many days. I heard that these people who have smallpox, as long as the wind blows over them, you will be infected. Zhan Shifu didn't see many people anymore, they all hid At home. Don’t go to the Hanlin Academy either.”

Chen Tingjing said, "Today is the day of the seal, and we still have to pray. How could so many people suffer from smallpox? It has never been heard of since ancient times!"

Gao Shiqi said: "Have you ever heard of smallpox in the imperial palace? This is also unheard of since ancient times! Forget it, go home quickly, your life is at stake, how can you control the seal!"

(End of this chapter)