It's strange.
The early spring of the twelfth year was dry and windy, but in February, the rain suddenly increased.
This kind of weather is not suitable for recuperating from injuries.
Deng Ying didn't want to move around too much and stayed in the Hall of Supreme Harmony almost every day.
It took four years to prepare materials for the reconstruction of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The original engineering drawings were drawn by Zhang Zhanchun. Since the main structure was made of wood, once it encountered lightning and fire, the momentum of the fire would be almost irreversible. Before rebuilding the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Deng Ying and other craftsmen revised the drawings many times. Now the drawings placed in the felt tent (1) are piled up half a person high.
Due to continuous heavy rain, the drawings and files were damaged and the process requiring the transportation of large timber could not be completed.
When the craftsmen had free time, most of them sat in the felt tents, hiding from the rain and chatting.
The heels of the tables and chairs were moldy, but the fragrance of the old wood was also brought out.
Someone brewed some hot tea and hung it over a small stove. I took a sip of it while it was hot, and the dampness in my body didn't seem so uncomfortable.
Deng Ying held a tea bowl and stood among the crowd, talking to the craftsmen.
Most of these craftsmen were from Zhang Zhanchun's Xiangshan Gang (2), and many of them had known Deng Ying for more than ten years. They all made a living from their craftsmanship, and were not too involved with the court and the imperial court. They were not so cautious and dared to speak out, but they had no sense of the overall situation. They wanted to express something to Deng Ying, but they could not say it specifically. Instead, they became cautious in front of Deng Ying.
However, Deng Ying knew that these people cared about his inner peace much more than he did.
But he also understood that "recovery" would be a long process for both him and these people.
So, in addition to engineering matters, he would occasionally talk to them about his daily life in the inner court.
"I was thinking a few days ago that the tea that Master Song sent should be taken out and drunk after the Waking of Insects this year. But today we were all stuck here in the rain, so we just took it out."
The craftsman who brought him the tea was delighted to hear this and said hurriedly:
"I'm glad you like it. There are new crops in the fields this year, but my wife was sick at the beginning of the year, so I didn't have time to pick them. I went back a few days ago and asked the people in the village to help. Finally, I harvested half of them. When my wife feels better tomorrow, I'll ask her to bring some more to you, sir."
He called Deng Ying "Sir", but as soon as he finished speaking, someone grabbed his arm.
A bunch of glances came at him fiercely, and he was stunned for a moment.
He regretted his words and lowered his head, not daring to look at Deng Ying again.
Deng Ying casually replied, "I'm afraid that if you come in to work, you won't care about the land at home."
Seeing that Deng Ying did not blame him, the man regretted it even more. He did not dare to speak loudly, but lowered his head and said angrily: "Yes, no matter how little it is, it is still our ancestral inheritance. I dare not not keep it..."
The atmosphere was a bit gloomy, and the door of the shed was creaking in the wind.
It was raining heavily outside, and the smell of wood and earth brought with it a chill of spring. Deng Ying's health had not been very good, especially her legs. She was afraid of the cold in the morning and evening, and felt uncomfortable after standing for a long time.
But he was still used to standing among these craftsmen.
This is also what Zhang Zhanchun has insisted on for decades.
He once said to Deng Ying: "Building a palace is the same as leading troops outside. There is no complicated calculation of human hearts. Everyone has the same goal. As long as you can make them feel at ease, they can focus on their own affairs. The stability of a building comes from the stability of people's hearts. But to achieve this, it is useless to just improve yourself. You must have the perseverance of 'being a scholar for life and never giving up the literary heart'. Only with such perseverance can you have the responsibility you should have. In this way, the palaces and cities you lead them to build will not be a pile of nanmu bones."
When Zhang Zhanchun said this, Deng Ying was still very young.
One cannot help but ask, "Then how can one preserve the 'literary mind'?"
Zhang Zhanchun said to him, "No matter where you are, you must not forget that you spent ten years in the study and studied hard. Even though you don't like the people and things in the official career and have taken a different path from Yang Lun and others, you must remember that your real teacher is always Grand Secretary Bai Huan. Like Yang Lun, you must live up to your fame and status in this world."
It was only after Deng Ying grew up that she gradually understood the deeper meaning of these words.
The inheritance of master-disciple relationship and the interactions between fellow students have been constantly debating and explaining their desire to "cultivate oneself, govern the country and bring peace to the world." These desires support the backbone of most scholars. They are the backbone of the dynasty and the founders of most of the country's social and people's livelihood undertakings.
In her early years, Yang Wan also gave a general explanation of the so-called "literary mind" of the Ming Dynasty in her early research on the Ming Dynasty.
With the intervention of dialectics, she had to look at the pedantic side of it, but in her later research on Deng Ying, she believed that the concept of "literary mind" had always been the support point of Deng Ying's style of doing things, and even the root cause of his tragic ending.
He just didn't like thinking from the perspective of the eunuch group, and wanted to do things that were inconsistent with his status.
But how to say it.
When Yang Wan was having a tantrum, she would occasionally have the idea of making trouble.
"The skin of a eunuch and the bones of a scholar" is as taboo and exciting as "the body of a prostitute and the heart of Guanyin". With a little development, you can write a few tens of thousands of words of jj literature about it.
She loves this kind of cracked things, which, compared with the listing of historical materials, can highlight the "humanity" in the liberal arts.
Unfortunately, she didn't have the chance to meet Deng Ying about this.
Deng Ying used his own personality to internalize things of that era that were like deep and still waters.
Therefore, his sense of advance and retreat is completely different from Yang Wan's.
Just as Zhang Luo disliked Yang Wan, he felt that Yang Wan's sense of propriety was superior to all the women at that time, which made him extremely uneasy.
However, people around Deng Ying never felt that there was any deliberate cultivation in his character.
"I have been in prison for several months and I miss this cup of tea very much. If I can get some new tea, that would be even better. I just don't know if it would bother your family."
Deng Ying took the initiative to mention what had happened to her before.
After hearing what Deng Ying said, the craftsman immediately understood that Deng Ying wanted him to relax.
He felt guilty, so he stood up and bowed, saying, "How can this be a bother? I'm so talkative that I can't say anything. You don't need me to help you anymore. From now on, I'll just keep my hands to work for you and bring you things."
Everyone burst into laughter after hearing this.
Deng Ying also smiled and shook her head.
The tea smoke was very warm and made his nose itchy. He raised his other hand and gently pressed the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand.
He was not on duty in the inner school. Today he was wearing a blue uniform with the cuffs hanging on his arms, revealing two or three old wounds that were almost healed.
"Are you still not fully recovered?"
After the atmosphere became harmonious, people began to speak up.
Deng Ying looked at her arm and nodded, "It's almost healed."
After saying that, he turned sideways, closed the rain curtain behind him, and continued, "I... actually didn't think too much about it. Although I'm no longer in the Ministry of Industry, the things I do with everyone now are still the same as before. If you are willing, you can call me by my name from now on."
"How dare I?"
The others also echoed.
The man who had just spoken turned around and said to the crowd, "I think we should call you Master just like we did before outside the palace."
Deng Ying agreed with a smile without delaying.
There was a thunder outside the shed at that moment, and everyone stood up and crowded to the door of the shed.
Blue thunder flashed darkly in the sky, the clouds were getting lower and lower, and it seemed like the rain showed no sign of stopping.
Deng Ying looked up, staring at the glazed tiles that were less than half covered in the rain, with his hands behind his back, and said nothing.
"gentlemen."
"Um."
"It's unusually rainy this year."
Deng Ying nodded. "Yes. There was no snow at the beginning of the year, but it rained a lot in early spring, so it was hard to avoid it. When I came here just now, I saw that most of the nanmu (3) material had been soaked by the rain."
"yes."
The craftsmen looked worried. "We have to report this to the government. The brackets on the south side have been built, and we haven't seen the materials sent to Liulichang yet. If the rain continues like this, the main beam will have to be repaired again."
As he was speaking, Xu Qi came back from a meeting at the Ministry of Works, soaked in rain, looking bad and a little embarrassed.
The craftsmen stepped aside and saluted.
Xu Qi glanced at them, poured himself a cup of tea, waved his hand and said, "You guys take a break."
Deng Ying put down the teacup, walked up to Xu Qi and bowed.
"We are discussing the Liulichang matter, sir..."
Xu Qi stopped him and said, "You don't have to rush me. I'll get the money in the next two days anyway."
After saying this, he took a sip of tea and felt that it was very rough. He was already angry, so he simply stomped on the teacup and used the tea to vent his anger. "Tea is like this, and so are people. They both make their mouths full of sour and stinky food, but they can't spit it out."
Deng Ying stood aside without saying a word. Xu Qi became angrier and angrier as he spoke, and he even started to curse.
"Those who are beheaded eat the court, and those who behead others also eat the court, Deng Ying,"
Deng Ying was still thinking about the Liulichang incident and was unable to respond for a while.
"Are you not used to being called by your name?"
Xu Qi was unhappy and couldn't help but make fun of him.
"no."
He said, bowing again, "Please speak, sir."
Xu Qi put down his teacup and asked, "When you were in the Ministry of Industry, how did you get along with the Cabinet?"
Deng Ying responded calmly, "We don't need to get involved too much in the settlement and budget of the cabinet and the six ministries at the beginning of the year."
Xu Qi raised his eyes, "What do you mean?"
"After my father was executed, the land in Shandong is still being liquidated. The Imperial Household Department and the other five ministries are waiting for the final accounts. The salt business and maritime trade have not been doing well in the past two years, so no matter how the allocation is calculated this year, we have to wait for the report from the Shandong governor to be submitted to the capital. At that time, we will report the actual needs of rebuilding the three main halls, and then we can find out the bottom line of the Ministry of Revenue and the true intentions of the inner court. It is meaningless to say too much now."
This was a long speech, and after he finished it, he couldn't help but lower his head and cough once or twice.
Xu Qi had not expected that he would personally bring up the matter of clearing up Deng Yi's land. He was somewhat surprised and asked, "You really didn't know anything about your Deng family's hegemony in Shandong before."
"yes."
Deng Ying responded calmly, "I haven't visited you for ten years."
Haven't visited for ten years.
Is it considered as being neglected by one's own flesh and blood, or is it considered as being clean and innocent
For a moment, Xu Qi actually wanted to make a more specific judgment about the person in front of him.
"you… "
He had just opened his mouth to speak when the eunuch at the Taihe Gate started pressing the key.
Xu Qi had no choice but to give up. He and the craftsmen quickly completed the list of materials required, then got up and left.
Seeing that the rain showed no sign of stopping, Deng Ying asked the craftsmen to take a rest.
I walked alone with an umbrella across Taihemen Square and back to my room.
That day was the fifth day of the second lunar month, the day when the Cabinet and the Six Ministries held a meeting (4). The lights were still on in the duty room of the South Three Offices. Not only was there a casual conversation today, but the conduct of several officials in the capital was also discussed. Zhang Cong, the Deputy Minister of the Cabinet, was displeased that the Six Ministries had reported on his students, and the two sides started arguing, which lasted well beyond the time limit.
When Deng Ying arrived at the gate of the South Third Office, the Cabinet Chief Minister Bai Huan had just walked out of Huiyi's duty room.
It was raining heavily and Deng Ying didn't have a lantern, so he couldn't recognize Deng Ying's appearance for a moment.
In the year when Deng Ying passed the imperial examination, Bai Huan was the chief examiner.
Among the candidates who passed the imperial examination that year, although there were some younger generations of his family, Bai Huan liked the two young men Deng Ying and Yang Lun the most. Yang Lun was promoted by him, but Deng Ying was favored by Zhang Zhanchun in his second year as a scholar (5). Zhang Zhanchun later told him privately many times that even though Deng Ying was no longer in the official career, he still didn't want him to break the relationship between teacher and student with Bai Huan. He was not the kind of person who would spend his whole life on earth and stone, and he would return Deng Ying to Bai Huan after the three main halls were completed.
Unexpectedly, before he could return, Zhang Zhanchun suffered a stroke.
Then, the Deng Party, which had been rampant for many years, finally collapsed completely under Zhang Cong's planning and his instigation.
In old age, I finally see the light of day.
And his favorite student was gone forever.