Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 39 Decoration
"Not bright enough!"

Yang Chao directly confronted Ruan Huangdao.

Ruan Huang is Ruan Dacheng's housekeeper.In the past few days, he led the servants of the Ruan family to renovate the Ruan family's river house.

"The screens have all been replaced with new ones. The lights have been polished."

Ruan Huangdao was obviously not convinced.

Yang Chao said: "You did a good job. But it's not bright enough."

Yang Chao was also very sure.

Ruan Huang said: "Then what do you say?"

Yang Chao frowned and said, "Change, change all of them!"

Ruan Huang said: "Change? It's easy to say, so many people, so many days, you can change it if you want?"

"Change!"

This time it was not Yang Chao who spoke, but Ruan Dacheng, Ruan Dacheng said in a deep voice.

"Mr. Yang can change as he says. What he said is what I said."

Ruan Dacheng just walked in. He was away all day and just came back.

For the past few days, he has been accompanying one person, Zhang Pu. As one of the two cores of this political meeting, Qian Qianyi's side is handled by Yang Chao, and Zhang Pu's side is handled by Ruan Dacheng.

"master!"

Seeing Ruan Dacheng, Ruan Huang quickly saluted.

"The old gentleman is back."

Yang Chao smiled and bowed.

Ruan Dacheng nodded: "You have worked hard. You need to work harder here."

Yang Chao said: "It should."

Ruan Dacheng nodded and stepped out.

The so-called wise man labors, and the mediocre labors.

Intellectuals like Ruan Dacheng don't need to work hard, nor do they need to work hard.

As long as he wants to do something, someone will help him do it.

And they feel right.

It's not just Ruan Dacheng who is like this, but the intellectuals in the whole country are like this.

It seems that they only need to read books and don't care about everything else.

So what is reading for?

After the official passed the imperial examination, he then took office, and he could do nothing while he was in office. Those who worked hard had masters, and those who worked hard had small officials at all levels.

Officials with a sense of responsibility will also check and issue orders. Those who have no sense of responsibility can eat, drink and have fun all day long, and go to brothels to enjoy elegance, but they will be regarded as a romantic scribe.

With Ruan Dacheng's backing, Ruan Huang no longer dared to talk back, and Yang Chao never said 'no' when he said he didn't want to.

But with such an attitude, it is impossible for him to do things sincerely. Yang Chao really put a lot of effort into it.

In fact, the layout of the Ruanjiahe room is extremely elegant, every piece of furniture in the room is very reasonable, there will never be more than one flower in the room, and the paintings and calligraphy hanging on the walls are all from famous artists.

The only thing is, the light is not bright enough.

What Yang Chao wants is to be big and powerful, and he doesn't care about being judged as vulgar, because the meeting is held at night, and it is extremely important. Without bright light, many things may be missed.

Yang Chao had seen every arrangement of the Ruan Family River House, and he already knew it, but it was already late, and the Jingjie Drum had been played long ago. Yang Chao stayed in the Ruan Family River House for one night, and at the same time had another discussion with Ruan Dacheng. , also took the opportunity to report his work to Ruan Dacheng and communicated.

Ruan Dacheng had no objection to the young talents invited by Yang Chao, but he was a little worried, fearing that there would be a confrontation at that time, which would cause the meeting to break up unhappy.

Now it's about Zhang Pu. Zhang Pu has been busy raising political donations, but he is not optimistic.

He traveled all over the south of the Yangtze River. It can't be said that he didn't raise money at all, but it was far from enough.

Because most of the people Zhang Pu visited were literati. Some of these literati were wealthy and had thousands of acres of fertile land, and some were relatively poor and had no money left. However, they were not necessarily optimistic about Zhou Yanru. In order to curry favor with the current high-ranking officials, no matter whether it is money or effort, they are not very dedicated.

Zhang Pu completely wanted to fulfill his political ambitions and develop his own political ideas by supporting a Ming chief assistant, so he had some differences in ideas with these scribes who only wanted to be officials.

As a result, many people were reluctant to give money, basically because of Zhang Pu's face.

In addition, not all scribes were wealthy, so Zhang Pu raised less than 2 taels of donations, and Zhang Pu needed at least 10 taels for bribery activities.

It was precisely because of the difficulty in raising donations that when Ruan Dacheng agreed to donate 1 taels, Zhang Pu did not mind making friends with Ruan Dacheng.

Yang Chao has gotten to know Zhang Pu a little these days, and has read a lot of Zhang Pu's works, such as the famous "Tombstone of Five People". From the article, he can see that this man is determined and full of a kind of respect for the current dynasty. Political dissatisfaction, desperately want to change the status quo.

To put it bluntly, Zhang Pu has extremely strong political ambitions and ambitions. Perhaps this is not a good attitude in the eyes of some people. Chinese literati value indifference and tranquility.

Yang Chao didn't think there was anything wrong, on the contrary, Yang Chao felt that this was what a politician should do.

A person engaged in politics, without political ideals and ambitions, is no different from a person engaged in business, who does not want to become bigger and stronger.

On the contrary, they are not conscientious and dedicated.

It's just that Zhang Pu did some things that were not fair enough, that is, the process was unfair. His purpose was good, but his means were deviated.

For example, seeking Zhou Yanru to come to power as the first assistant is to realize his idea of ​​reforming Ming Dynasty politics, but it is a bit clumsy to bribe eunuchs to achieve it.

With Zhang Pu's temperament, I am afraid that he is also very contradictory. He probably also wants to pursue fair and honest methods. Unfortunately, after years of traveling, he has seen through the filthy face of the Ming court.

But Zhang Pu still has a bottom line. He refuses to break the rules to pray to those merchants, but to his fellow literati. In the end, he has already taken the first step of betraying his dignity, but he has not completely abandoned everything, even his soul. Betrayal, he hasn't completely fallen down yet.

But once the first step is taken, the bottom line is often not far away.

Yang Chao calmly analyzed Zhang Pu, and after listening to Ruan Dacheng's situation, Yang Chao gave Ruan Dacheng a plan.

Ask Ruan Dacheng to tell Zhang Pu that a certain famous prostitute in the old courtyard redeemed herself, and because she had no money, other sisters pooled in 2 taels.

A prostitute can collect 2 taels of silver to redeem herself, but Zhang Pu, a well-known celebrity, raised such a little donation, and it took a long time to travel around and see how many people's faces before he got it.

A great scribe is not as good as a prostitute.

With Zhang Pu's aloof temperament, he definitely couldn't accept it. Once he felt angry, he wouldn't care if it was a businessman who donated money to him at that time. He probably wanted money from beggars.

Ruan Dacheng said that he could give it a try.

The next day Yang Chao went to Mingwa Gallery early in the morning.

Still went to Liu's workshop, of course Liu Maocai still remembered Yang Chao.

"Dong Liu's family is sorry, I'm a little busy these days, so I didn't have time to send the money over."

When Yang Chao asked Liu Maocai to help make the windows and roof of the carriage, he promised to give 100 taels of silver, but he never came.

Now, he gave all the money to Liu Maocai, paid a deposit of 50 taels, and told Liu Maocai that he wanted a large number of large-scale Mingwa lamps, and he didn't need to be fancy. There was only one requirement, which was translucent.

Liu Maocai directly said that the deposit was too much, and he trusted Yang Chao, so he insisted on not asking for a deposit.

Yang Chao said that he was very busy, so he might not have time to pay the bill, and he would take less if he had any lanterns, and the bill would be deducted from the deposit first.

Only in this way did Liu Maocai accept the deposit, and warmly invited Yang Chao to dinner, but Yang Chao shook his head and refused, and left.

(End of this chapter)