Near the beginning of the first month of the year, Chen Qiuzhi, one of the female officials in the Shangyi Bureau, suddenly died of illness. The two female officials under her were both newcomers who were promoted only last year and were not up to the task. The Sizan department was unable to be replaced for the time being.
After discussing with the two Shanggongs from the Shanggong Bureau, Jiang Shangyi decided to replace a female official in charge of guests with the position of Sizan, so that she could handle the duties of guiding and assisting the ladies from both the inner and outer court when they entered the palace to attend the annual grand banquet.
The vacancy of Dianbin was filled by a senior female official who was in charge of guests, and the vacancy of Zhongbin was filled by Song Yunqing.
Song Yunqing is only nineteen years old this year. She is the first young female official in the same batch of female servants to come to the fore in the Shangyi Bureau. Yang Wan and others are happy for her and are planning to gather together to celebrate after the New Year.
Song Yunqing was caught off guard.
The two of them lay on their respective beds at night, but she always felt uneasy sleeping.
Yang Wan heard her turning over and coughing, so she put on her clothes, lit the lamp, and asked, "Do you want me to serve you a sip of tea?"
Song Yunqing sat up quickly, "Don't work too hard. It's snowing heavily these days. It's hard to sleep warmly, but when you get up, you get caught in the wind. You'll have a cough in the spring."
Yang Wan gathered the quilt and shrunk back onto the couch. "What's wrong with you? You haven't been able to sleep well for several nights."
Song Yunqing also wrapped himself in the quilt, and the two of them chatted across the candlelight.
"I'm worried that something might go wrong at the banquet given in the first month of the lunar year. You know that you and I usually only deal with paperwork in the bureau, and we've never been the hostess. Now that I've suddenly been put on the spot, I look down on myself from the bottom of my heart."
Yang Wan dragged a pillow over and placed it under her chin, comforting her: "We only serve the concubines and the ladies of the inner and outer courts, how big a mistake can we make? The ladies are all living Bodhisattvas, so even if we make a mistake, can't we forgive it?"
Song Yunqing said: "I am not you. You learn and remember things so quickly, just like a nail is being hammered into your brain."
Yang Wan couldn't help but laugh after hearing this, "What you said... that's really scary."
"Is that scary?"
Song Yun gently lifted the bed curtains. She woke up in the night and felt like chatting. She held her chin and asked Yang Wan: "Have you heard about the story of the great grandfather who used iron nails to kill ministers?"
Yang Wan was stunned, and immediately became extremely interested in scientific research.
This is a story that is not even found in unofficial history.
"Why kill with a nail?"
Song Yunqing said: "During the reign of our great grandfather, there was a minister named Wu Shan, who was a famous scholar in Shandong. Our great grandfather invited him to serve as an official, but he refused. Later, it was said that he was cut off a finger by the Jinyiwei, and he was forced to come to the capital. As a result, when he met the emperor, he did not listen to the guidance of the eunuchs of the Silijian and made the mistake of paying homage. As a result, the emperor was furious and thought that he was disrespectful. He ordered the Northern Pacification Office to put him in the imperial prison and nailed his hands and knees to the ground with iron nails. Wu Shan died after three days. And the eunuch who was in charge of guiding him was beaten to death."
Yang Wan's exposed hands suddenly felt cold and she quickly reached out to the charcoal fire to warm them.
“Is this very obscure?”
Song Yun nodded, "After all, it was too cruel. When the female officials lectured us, they only said the latter part, asking us to take it as a warning and not to treat the palace ceremony as a joke. We dare not say anything about the narrow-mindedness of the first emperor. Hey, you must not spread it around."
Yang Wan pursed her lips, put her warm hands back into the quilt, stood up with the quilt wrapped around her, held up the lamp, walked to the desk, sat down, and took out her notes.
Song Yunqing said: "What are you doing in the middle of the night?"
Yang Wan responded: "I remembered something, so I wrote it down, or I'll forget it tomorrow."
Song Yunqing didn't care after hearing this. He raised the bed curtains and pressed his temples: "I think I should do the same as you and get up to study the ritual process in silence."
Yang Wan held the pen and turned back and said, "Don't just talk, get up."
Song Yun gently pinched the quilt and stood still for a while, and finally made up his mind, "Hey, I'm going to get up."
As she spoke, she put on her clothes, got off the bed, and walked to the desk.
The two of them each held a lamp, and before they knew it, it was past the hour of Yin.
After Yang Wan finished memorizing the story that Song Yun had just told her, she read it silently again.
To say how cruel this story is, in fact, compared with the later imperial prison cleansing and torture, it is nothing, but the reason why it was not recorded is probably that the first emperor, who was born in the mud, felt that Wu Shan was rude and looked down on him from the bottom of his heart, which made him lose face. This behavior was really childish and extreme, and even Song Yunqing would think that this first emperor was too narrow-minded.
Yang Wan leaned against the lamp with her chin supported. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that historical events like these, which were related to the personal emotions or personal character of those in power, were too accidental and could not be explained by consistent historical laws.
"By the way, Yun Qing..."
She turned around and was about to ask more details, but found that Song Yunqing had fallen asleep on the desk.
Yang Wan shook her head helplessly, put a cloak on her, put away her notes, blew out the light and lay back in the quilt.
She wrote it down as a note in her notebook and didn't think too much about it.
However, something happened at the palace banquet on New Year's Eve, which turned the story Song Yunqing inadvertently told into a prophecy with great foresight.
**
On New Year's Eve, the cabinet was idle, but Yang Lun still entered Huiji Gate early in the morning.
The snow fell heavily last night, and the sound of snow sweeping on the palace road was even piercing. Yang Lun pressed his ears and walked into the duty room, took off his outer cloak, and asked someone to bring in water to warm his hands. But after a long time, there was a sound at the door.
Yang Lun had already laid out the ink and paper, and complained without even looking up, "Did you guys go out to relax too? You're so slow."
As he said this, he stood up, rolled up his sleeves and walked towards the door. When he looked up, he saw that the person standing in front of the sparse snow shadows, holding a cup of water was Deng Ying.
"Why is it you?"
Deng Ying put down the basin, turned around and closed the door.
"It's not very hot anymore, Lord Yang, just bear with it."
Yang Lun glanced at Deng Ying, lowered his sleeves and said, "I don't want to touch what you brought."
Deng Ying didn't say much. He took out a memorial from his sleeve and handed it to Yang Lun.
"Take a look."
Yang Lun glanced at it and scolded, "How dare you steal the memorial from the Imperial Household Department!"
After saying that, he snatched the memorial from Deng Ying's hand and said, "I'll ask He Yixian to come over and take a look."
Deng Ying looked at the memorial in Yang Lunyang's hand and said calmly, "Privately stealing the memorial is a capital crime."
raised her head and looked at Yang Lun, "My lord, are you unwilling to give me even a chance to defend myself?"
Yang Lun glanced at the memorial and found that it was written by the censor Huang Ran.
"What do you mean?"
Deng Ying said: "Your Majesty has rejected twenty memorials in a row requesting the appointment of the crown prince. I have suppressed Huang Ran's one privately. Lord Yang, you must go and see Lord Huang. You cannot act like a loyal minister and make harsh remonstrations at this time, or you will get into trouble."
Yang Lun slammed the memorial on the table, "What do you want me to say? In order to implement the land clearing in Jiangnan next spring, the cabinet has suppressed most officials. Don't debate the crown prince at this time. But Huang Ran is a lecturer in Wenhua Palace and has long regarded Your Highness as the king. Now that Your Majesty is praising Jiang in every way, how can I not speak up for Your Highness?"
Deng Ying said: "That's right, but you have to be afraid."
Yang Lun laughed, "Do you think I'm you? In the case of Zhang Zhanchun, I was not afraid. I was beaten outside the Meridian Gate and was half dead. Now it's for my own student. What do you want me to say? Let him learn from you. Seeing that His Majesty's attitude has changed, he changed his direction. This is worse than pigs and dogs..."
was originally angry about what happened to Concubine Ning and Yi Lang, but he couldn't help suppressing it because of the new policy in the south next year. Now, he was forced to get angry by Deng Ying's words, and he vented his anger at . In the end, he ran out of words and was stunned.
Deng Ying stood in front of him and listened to his words quietly. She said nothing but coughed twice to one side.
Seeing that Yang Lun had stopped talking, he said calmly: "Don't worry about it, Lord Yang. These words are much more merciful than those of the Donglin people."
After he finished speaking, he looked at the memorial Yang Lun had put on the table. "This memorial will be returned to Censor Huang. If he refuses to forgive me and reports me to the Imperial Household Department, I will also be guilty of the death penalty. I am not like what the Donglin people say, stepping on the bones of Tongjia Academy to seek a future. In fact, I have no future at all. I hand my life to you. I don't ask for anything else. I only ask you to be kind to me and not take my life and let it go to waste."
After hearing this, Yang Lun was a little surprised.
Deng Ying exhaled, trying to steady her voice, "You and Prime Minister Bai, you probably don't know yet, Zhang Luo ordered people to set up a secret stake outside Huang Ran's house last month, and the drunken words he scolded His Majesty after drinking have been caught by several thousand households."
"What?"
Yang Lun's mind exploded.
"Then why haven't you arrested him yet?"
Deng Ying said: "Huang Ran is from an aristocratic family with a lot of money. I asked the guards of the East Factory to go to his house and demand money and property on a trumped-up charge. The people from the Northern Pacification Office saw him and followed him on this path to get rich, so we haven't arrested him yet."
Yang Lun clenched his hands, "How did you know this?"
Deng Ying raised his head and said, "Since I am the Imperial Commissioner to supervise the Northern Pacification Office, I naturally have my own eyes."
Yang Lun gnashed his teeth: "What a hawkish and dogish act..."
Deng Ying turned sideways and said, "You can blame me however you want, but I am now..."
As he spoke, his throat felt slightly hot, "I don't dare to harbor any resentment."
Yang Lun felt a chill down his spine. "What do you mean?"
Deng Ying didn't say anything, but Yang Lun's voice became colder and colder, "What did you do to Wan'er?"
Deng Ying closed her eyes, "I..."
Before he could finish his words, Yang Lun had already grabbed his collar and shouted, "Don't dream that you still have a reputation to live for. Even if you saved Huang Ran, I will never forgive you. Do you think you can be with my sister if you live like this? I told you not to humiliate her, otherwise I will not let you go. Why don't you listen!"
After saying this, he picked up the memorial on the table and threw it at Deng Ying's face.
"Take this memorial back. I won't give it to Huang Ran. Even if I give it to Huang Ran, he will definitely report you to the Imperial Household Department. You'd better not seek death."
Deng Ying met Yang Lun's gaze and said, "You must persuade Huang Ran to stay. Once he is imprisoned, He Yixian will try every means to transfer the crime to you! If you are convicted, what will happen to Prime Minister Bai, Concubine Ning, the little prince, and Yang Wan?"