"As long as you are willing to wear it, as for what... the Ming hand..."
Yang Wan raised one of her fingers, "The Ming Dynasty's handicrafts are unique!"
Deng Ying saw that she was genuinely happy and smiled gently, "Did you give me the title?"
"yes."
As she spoke, she took off the hibiscus jade pendant from her waist, pulled out the original pearl and placed it beside her hand. She lowered her head and put on the new pearl while saying, "I have heard from the craftsmen of the Hall of Supreme Harmony that you are not only proficient in construction techniques, but also very good at carving. You can even carve mountains and rivers in relief on a very small snuff bottle."
The old things she mentioned flowed over like warm water over rocks.
Deng Ying said calmly, "That happened in the past, and I learned it secretly when Mr. Zhang wasn't looking."
“Why do you want to learn secretly?”
Deng Ying bent down and gently held the jade pendant for Yang Wan to prevent her from straining, while she answered honestly:
"Because officials should not spend too much time on specific crafts, my teacher hopes that I will read more Book of Changes and Book of Rites."
He looked at his hands and said, "I wasn't very good at it before, and now I have forgotten many of my skills. As for the snuff bottle, they made it up. I don't actually know how to make it."
Yang Wan lowered her head to tie the jade and said casually, "It's already rare. By the way, have you ever thought about not being an official in the East Factory anymore and going out to be a craftsman?"
Deng Ying shook his head after hearing this. "Scholars can be craftsmen, but can only be officials. Similarly, eunuchs can be craftsmen, but can only be slaves. Even if I thought about it, it would be impossible."
After he said that, he picked up the notebook at hand again.
Only then did Yang Wan notice that on the Jiang-colored seal was written "Qing What Policy", and the middle word was blocked by Deng Ying's hand.
"What are you looking at?"
"Oh." Deng Ying removed her finger and showed the title to Yang Wan, "Your brother wrote it, promoting the strategy of Qingtian in the south."
"Can I have a look?"
"good."
He put the booklet upside down and handed it to Yang Wan.
Yang Wan quickly scanned a few words on the page he turned, and immediately recalled Yang Lun's later world-famous "Plan for Clearing Fields". After the Zhenning period, countless rubbings of this article were still handed down, so it was not only a famous policy article, but also a famous calligraphy work of Yang Lun himself.
Yang Wan took it and asked, "Has the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department not yet discussed this article in front of His Majesty?"
Deng Ying said "hmm".
"This is my copy."
"Did you copy it?"
"right."
Upon hearing this, Yang Wan looked at the words on the paper carefully.
It is said that after Deng Ying died, his house was burned down.
I don’t know if this is the reason why this person did not leave any handwriting in history. Since Yang Wan started studying Deng Ying, this is the first time she has seen his handwriting.
Different from Yang Lun's vigorous style, Deng Ying's calligraphy is extremely neat, and each stroke has its own limits. The horizontal, vertical, left and right strokes are all regulated with just the right strength. When the hostility first appears, it stops abruptly and retracts. It looks non-aggressive and is as standardized as the words on a woodblock print.
Seeing the words is like seeing the person.
If it were modern times, he would be a young man who could wear a white shirt very well, write in typeface, and have a respectable job related to scientific research and technology. Then, like a cold gear, he would turn accurately, quietly, and lonely somewhere in the world.
“The handwriting is really beautiful.”
Yang Wan couldn't help but praise him.
Deng Ying said: "Mr. Yang is a man who has great accomplishments in literature."
Yang Wan smiled broadly after hearing this, "I just felt that he was just like the guy who writes with a mop, as if he had drunk yellow soup, very confused."
Deng Ying couldn't help laughing.
Yang Wan had teased Yang Lun in front of him more than once, but he always felt inexplicably warm in his heart after hearing it.
She was like a suction force between the status gap, pulling Deng Ying out of the dark quagmire, and pulling Yang Lun down from the innocent sky, allowing them to temporarily coexist.
Seeing him smiling and talking, Yang Wan took the booklet and flipped through it.
Yang Lun's writing style is actually average, but his logic is very good. When Yang Wan was a graduate student, a teacher of a professional course liked Yang Lun very much. He said that he was a practical man with average political acumen, but he was very talented in grasping the national economy and military. If Emperor Zhenning could die a few years earlier, his achievements would have been even greater.
From this not-too-long article, Yang Wan read the skills that came from more than ten years of hard study and more than ten years of experience in the imperial examinations.
She put the book down, rubbed her sore eyes, and thought of the historical materials related to Deng Ying in the 13th year of Zhenning. The first paragraph that came to her mind was the one in the History of Ming Dynasty that described his embezzlement of school land in Jiangnan (1).
This was also a very important crime in the later "Record of a Hundred Crimes".
"Deng Ying..."
"What's wrong."
Yang Wan raised her head and looked at him. "If this policy is implemented, who will the court send to the south?"
Deng Ying said: "The Imperial College should select students to calculate the land area. Are you... worried about Yang Lun?"
Yang Wan was originally worried about Deng Ying, but when he mentioned this, Yang Wan remembered the relevant historical records.
The turn of spring and summer in the 13th year of Zhenning was the time when the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department were at their most intense confrontation. This political struggle arose because of the land clearing and involved the royal clans in Jiangnan, as well as most of the hidden fields in the south owned by He Yixian, Hu Xiang and others.
Yang Lun's "Plan for Clearing the Fields" was boycotted on a large scale, and he himself had a hard time in the south, and was even nearly killed on a river boat.
At the same time, a major event known as the "Heju Case" occurred in the palace. Yi Jue, the second son of the emperor who had just been crowned as a king, was almost strangled to death by a palace maid in Heju. This case involved a wide range of people. Although only one palace maid was involved in the assassination, because of her escape, the Northern Pacification Office and the Eastern Depot found 300 pairs of criminals. Some of these palace maids were beaten to death or strangled. However, although the "History of Ming Dynasty" focused on narrating this period of history, not even the name of a palace maid was left.
Yang Wan's mentor believed that this was actually a cover-up. He guessed that the mastermind behind the murder of Yi Jue should be Concubine Ning. However, the later Emperor Jinghe Zhu Yilang deliberately left such a heavy record of "killing three hundred people" in history books in order to cover up this scandal for his mother.
However, this was just his personal inference, and he did not find enough historical materials to support it, so he did not write a paper to publish it in the end. But this has always been one of his research directions, and he especially hoped that Yang Wan could help him do it. Unfortunately, Yang Wan was devoted to Deng Ying and refused to participate in that project. Thinking about it now, I feel quite regretful.
"Deng Ying, do you think... now is a good time to clear the field?"
Deng Ying saw the worry on Yang Wan's face and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter whether it is a good time or not. The cabinet will only ask whether it is right or not. What I can do is to prevent those who serve the people from dying and those who serve the country from perishing."
Let those who serve the people die, and those who serve the country perish.
Yang Wan repeated this sentence silently in her heart.
Yang Lun had a good end, but the person in front of him was cut into pieces.
Those who serve the people are indeed not dead, and those who serve the country are praised by the world. However, who can make the person who said this die
Let alone let him die, at least let him die, so that he won't have to suffer so much.
She thought about it and decided not to bring up the complicated history of Zhenning Thirteen Years in front of Deng Ying for the time being. She reached out and gently patted the back of Deng Ying's hand.
"You can eat nuts. I brought some. You can peel some fresh ones."
Deng Ying nodded, "Then I'll go get a pot of tea."
Yang Wan watched him stand up while holding onto the edge of the table. He even hesitated for a moment before straightening his back. It was obvious that he was still in great pain. She suddenly blurted out, "I want to ask Imperial Physician Peng if there is anything that can help you recover."
"I'm fine."
Yang Wan asked suspiciously, “Actually, I think Zhang Luo is already able to take up his duties, so why were you beaten so badly after only ten strokes of the cane?”
After she finished speaking, she suddenly realized, "Was it the punishment in charge of the Northern Pacification Division?"
Deng Ying didn't answer, but just said, "It's okay."
"How can it be okay? Zhang Luo is really..."
Deng Ying shook her head and comforted him, "It's really okay. Although Lord Zhang is cruel in prison, he is not only partial to personal feelings, but also vents personal anger. He is the same to everyone. He was beaten too, but he is in good health. He didn't make a sound when he was beaten, and he could even walk back by himself after being beaten." After that, she picked up the kettle on the small stove, brewed the second cup of tea, filled a cup and handed it to Yang Wan.
Yang Wan took the tea and said, "Is he venting his anger? But I think he hates me to death."
"Why?"
Yang Wan smiled and her voice became calm. "This is the second time I've had him caned. To be honest, I hope he has some humanity. The imperial prison during the Zhenning period wasn't that horrible."
Deng Ying slowly sat down on the bed, "Yang Wan, Zhang Luo is not a very evil person, and the imperial prison... is not completely hell. The judicial system is full of officials and complicated connections, and many cases may not be able to enter the three-division yamen. But the Northern Pacification Division is different. Although the prison there is cruel to the officials, it is not necessarily a door for the powerless to seek justice. It is a way for the common people and slaves to make their voices heard by the emperor. In this regard, Zhang Luo has done something wrong."
After hearing these words, Yang Wan lowered her head and remained silent for a while, then said softly, "You make me ashamed."
The implication of this sentence includes Yang Wan's self-reflection as a person who has always adhered to dialectics, but Deng Ying could not hear it.
He looked at Yang Wan, who was talking with her head down, and subconsciously thought that he had said something wrong.
"What's wrong."
Yang Wan shook her head and picked up a peanut and peeled it.
Seeing this, Deng Ying hurriedly grabbed one and peeled it with her.
"Let me peel it."
As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and gathered the large mess in front of Yang Wan in front of himself, "I'm sorry..."
Yang Wan smiled and shook her head, "Deng Ying, you always said that I could do anything. I am the same, you can say anything to me, but you have to always be honest with me."
The peanut shell crackled open, and two clean peanut kernels fell into Yang Wan's palm. She extended her hand to Deng Ying.
"I feel ashamed because I think I have a shallow view of people compared to you. I think he was cruel to me and strict to you, so he is just an evil person. It's okay for others, but it's wrong for me to think so..."
At the end of her words, she laughed at herself and looked at Deng Ying's hand.
"People like you really deserve to be treated like this."
She spoke this sentence very softly and Deng Ying did not hear it clearly.
The hands were still peeling peanuts, and the white kernels jumped out of the shells and fell into the oil paper.
"What?"
Yang Wan suddenly felt very regretful. Why didn't she travel through time and space to become a man? If she were a man, she would have taken the imperial examination, entered the Imperial Academy, and finally become a historian. Even if she was going to be beheaded by the superiors, she would have wanted to write this man's life truthfully in the history of the Ming Dynasty.
"I said, if I were a man, I would be a historian."
"Why."
Yang Wan raised her head. "I want to protect the man who 'let those who serve the people die'. Although he cares about his reputation after death, I want to fight for him in words."