Women Wearing Men: The Growth Path of the Bastards of the Aristocratic Family

The next day, as soon as Su Qi put the lunch he brought back on the table, he began to rant with Gu Yunji:

"Yunji, you don't know. There are so many people in these two days. I originally thought that I would rush to the cafeteria to get some food after class, so that I could bring it back to you earlier. Guess what? In just a short time, the cafeteria was full of people. Crowds of people! I don’t even know how those people got there, can’t they grow wings?”

Cheng Yan said with a smile: "These days the food in the cafeteria has become more and more monotonous. There are only a few good dishes, and if you go late, you won't be able to eat them. Everyone wants to run faster, so the food will naturally be difficult to eat."

Afterwards, he opened the food box and pushed it in front of Gu Yunji: "Su Qi is still very good, so I snatched some back for you anyway, some people only eat vegetables when they go late, it is nothing compared to yours, eat quickly Well, eating more good ones is also good for healing.”

Gu Yunji looked at the food in the food box, and also felt that the food quality in the past few days was getting worse and worse, not as good as before, so he couldn't help but wondered: "It stands to reason that there is a quota for the purchase expenses of the cafeteria, and it won't be too late. Too much will never be too little, and we have never paid less for food, so why is the food getting worse day by day?"

Su Qi sighed: "Hey, it's not caused by the locust plague. The locust plague is raging in the north this summer. I thought it would only affect a small area. Who knows that it has spread to the Zhili area of ​​Kaifeng, and it may soon endanger Shuntian Mansion. "

Gu Yunji frowned: "Shuntian Mansion is where the capital is located, under the foot of the emperor. If the disaster is allowed to develop, if there are more people who lose their land and food, and there are more refugees, wouldn't it be to shake the foundation of the country?"

"Who says it's not? It's all like this, maybe the court doesn't care?" Su Qi spread his hands, "The locust plague has already risen, and it's too late to cull the larvae at this time, so the grain is being transferred from the whole country to the north. To reassure the people. Jiangnan is rich and prosperous, a land of fish and rice, and bears the brunt of it."

Cheng Yan said: "According to the report in the mansion, half of the grain transferred this time is from the south of the Yangtze River. Although we don't have locust plagues here, but the local grain reserves are scarce, the price of grain will naturally rise, and everything is expensive. Correspondingly, the cafeteria The food is not as good as it used to be.”

The Luxi Academy is just poor in food quality. The north is the hardest-hit area. The crops are destroyed and the people have nothing to eat. Maybe even the bark and grass roots will be eaten clean. How can they be as picky as they are.A few words of disaster report in the mansion newspaper, but tens of thousands of lives were lost.

Thinking of this, Gu Yunji felt a sense of pity in his heart: "It's only autumn, and the common people will have no food to eat. In winter, it will be freezing cold, and I'm afraid that the cold alone will kill a large number of people, so that's even worse. Yes. Hey, people’s livelihood is difficult, I hope the imperial court can come up with a disaster relief charter as soon as possible to help the victims tide over the difficulties.”

"Disaster relief regulations? Hmph, the gentlemen in the court don't care about this." Su Qi sneered, "One and two are busy attacking each other, shirking responsibility."

Gu Yunji only saw a few sentences about the disaster in the mansion newspaper, but he didn't know that there were other inside stories in it, and he couldn't believe it when he heard it:
"It's this time, and you don't want to think about how to rescue the disaster, but you are still shirking responsibility? If you delay for one more day, you don't know how many people will die. They can really sit still!"

Cheng Yan's eyes were full of coldness: "It's not those princes and ministers who have no food to eat, of course they can sit still. In their eyes, the low life of a fool is not as important as being promoted and getting rich. Yes, it doesn't matter."

"Isn't it always been like this since ancient times? How many of them, from princes and marquises down to county magistrates, really treat civilians as human beings? It's not unusual for them to do this. I heard that it's just for food adjustment. The court officials had to quarrel for more than ten years before they settled down, as for other things, what hope can there be?"

Gu Yunji only thought that Cheng Yan was angry, but he didn't notice that when he spoke, his eyes turned black and his fingertips turned white.After a while, Cheng Yan came back to his senses, the hatred on his face disappeared, and he continued to put on a gentle expression as if nothing had happened.

Su Qi looked around and made sure there was no one around, so he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Originally, the locust plague would occur on a small scale almost every year, but I don't know why it is so big this year. There are officials from the Qin Tianjian In the letter, it is said that because His Majesty does not cultivate his personal morality, he wastes people's resources and insists on cruising the Yellow River, which arouses the wrath of the heavens and the people, so God sent disasters as a warning."

Gu Yunji and Cheng Yan were stunned, and stammered: "Hey, which official is this, so bold? Our country has a vast territory, and it is common for floods and droughts to occur occasionally. How can we blame all of them on His Majesty?"

"That's exactly the reason, but there are quite a few people in the court who seconded such remarks, most of them are old officials who relied on their status as the elders of several dynasties to sell their elders, and some even asked His Majesty to write an imperial edict!"

Gu Yunji recalled his impression of Emperor Jingfeng Li Zheng, and felt that although he looked young, he had his own ideas in his heart, and he didn't seem like an emperor who was manipulated by others. He was afraid that he would not let those old ministers push his nose on his face.

Thinking of this, he asked: "Speaking of which, it was some old ministers who asked His Majesty to write an edict of guilt, and those who prevented His Majesty from patrolling the river and not letting him go to the south of the Yangtze River were also some old ministers. When the late emperor died without a son, it was also the old ministers who elected His Majesty to ascend the throne." Some prestigious old ministers, they are not the same group of people, right?"

"You guessed it right!" Su Qi gave him a thumbs up, "There are only a few people who come and go in the court. They hold His Majesty on the throne in one hand, and naturally hope that His Majesty will listen to them. Who knows that His Majesty has a strong temper and is born He didn’t want to be restrained by others, and shortly after he took the throne, he reused Pan Shiliang, greatly changed the river management strategy, and directly removed a group of river affairs ministers who had corpses and vegetarian meals.”

"The river course is rich and short. How much white money is poured into it every year? These officials have close contacts with each other. The upper level is convenient for the lower level, and the lower level is filial to the higher level. The order is orderly and mutual benefit. There has long been a secret trick. With the next method, it is easy for other people to get in their hands."

"Without the relationship of the river course, they will lose a big hole to make money. Naturally, they don't want to. These people keep their eyes on His Majesty every day, hoping that he will make some mistakes, so that they can take advantage of this to suppress the ministers of the pro-imperial faction. , so as to put your own people in position."

Gu Yunji and Cheng Yan used to be full of eyes buried in books. Naturally, their knowledge in this area is not comparable to that of Su Qi, who has been immersed in the capital since childhood. It was the first time for the two of them to know how complicated the relationship between the DPRK and China is. .

Su Qi spoke dryly, picked up the teacup on the table and drank it down, then cleared his throat and continued: "They are thinking very well, but who is Your Majesty? The young virtuous king, the young British lord Those who asked him to commit crimes ignored him, and only grabbed the official of the Qin Tianjian who wrote the letter to investigate vigorously."

"It was only after this investigation that it turned out that several local officials from the disaster area turned over from the river and corrupted the money that should have been invested in killing the locust larvae, which caused the locust disaster to get out of hand. After the disaster spread, that A few officials were afraid of being punished, so they colluded with Qin Tianjian and took the lead in pushing the responsibility for this matter to His Majesty."

Gu Yunji sneered: "If something goes wrong, don't push the responsibility on others, but on His Majesty, they are really ingenious."

Cheng Yan said: "These corrupt officials came from the river. Doesn't that mean that they have already corrupted a lot of money in the river affairs? Now they have something to do, so they should take this opportunity to kill those who have colluded with each other. It's all about killing people!"

Su Qi shook his head, and said disapprovingly: "You guessed it wrong, His Majesty only dealt with the few corrupt officials and people from Qin Tianjian involved in the incident, and then the matter stopped there, and other people suspected of covering up Nothing was involved. But after the food adjustment and other disaster relief work, it went very smoothly."

Although Su Qi didn't say it clearly, Gu Yunji understood.

If Emperor Jingfeng really took this opportunity to deal with those old ministers together, let's not talk about whether they can uproot their power, I am afraid that it will affect most of the court, and if something happens, the emperor will not even have anyone available.

Although these ministers who have been up and down in the officialdom for half their lives are greedy and will fight against the emperor, they are also people who do practical things, and there is no conflict between the two.Retiring them rashly may not only immobilize the officials at the bottom, but may also turn the court into an empty shell, which is not worth the loss.

It's better to cut their wings first, give them a warning, and get through this locust plague safely, and then take it slowly in the future.

Thinking of this, Gu Yunji couldn't help sighing: It seems that Li Zheng, the current emperor of the Great Xia Dynasty, is not only smart and young, but also a man with deep thoughts and means. If he enters the officialdom in the future, he must be careful when dealing with him.