Before Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself King of Wu, he lived in what is now the residence of Xu Da, Duke of Wei.
The location of the Ming Dynasty Imperial Palace was very strange. Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang did not choose an ordinary place, but chose the vast Yanque Lake and filled the lake to build the palace.
In addition to soil, countless huge wooden piles and stones were thrown into the lake to fill it with land and build the palace.
This is a huge project.
From the choice of the location of the imperial palace, we can tell how stubborn this founding monarch was. He dared to change the world and turn the vast ocean into mulberry fields.
After the main construction of the Ming Imperial Palace was completed, Emperor Hongwu moved from his former residence to his new home and gave the old house he had lived in to Xu Da, his most admired founding general, and renamed it Zhanyuan.
When filling the lake, the craftsmen deliberately left a small lake in the Forbidden City to facilitate the construction of garden landscapes in the future.
However, after Emperor Hongwu ascended the throne, for some unknown reason he wanted to move the capital to his hometown Fengyang, and called Fengyang "Zhongdu". He stopped the subsequent construction of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, and transferred manpower and material resources to Fengyang to build the imperial palace, preparing to move the capital to his hometown.
As a result, the construction of the planned royal gardens such as the Imperial Garden of the Nanjing Palace was suspended.
Moving the capital was a major event, and all the ministers advised against it, trying to stop the king's crazy idea.
Finally, in the eighth year of Hongwu, Emperor Hongwu gave up the idea of moving the capital, ordered the construction of Fengyang Palace to be stopped, and restarted the project of Nanjing Palace which had been shelved for many years.
Because the construction period was delayed too long, the harem garden was not completed until this year, the 13th year of Hongwu. Both Emperor Hongwu and Empress Ma believed that the rituals and music of the Yuan Dynasty had collapsed, and they wanted to rebuild the rituals and revise various books, so they built a library to collect books presented from all over the country.
Books are most afraid of fire, so most of the Tibetans were built in places with water. This Tibetan was located in the center of a winding lake, surrounded by water on three sides, making it convenient to get water for firefighting.
All the affairs of the palace are shared by six bureaus and one department, each with its own duties and clear rights and responsibilities. However, the library had just been built and had not yet been clearly assigned to a specific bureau.
All six bureaus felt that hiding was tedious and laborious, and it was difficult to get praise from the emperor and empress, so it was a thankless task and no one competed for the job.
In order to move the books from the warehouse to the storage room for classification and organization, a female official who is literate and well-versed in literature and arts is needed. Fan Gongzheng thought that since none of the six bureaus and one department wanted Hu Shanwei, and her family happened to be a bookseller before she entered the palace, why not arrange her here
Anyway, the hiding place is remote, he only comes into contact with books every day and is almost isolated from the outside world. Even if Mu Chun, the devil, comes again, he can't cause any big waves and implicate others.
Overnight, Hu Shanwei went from being a popular candidate to being deserted with few visitors. Her dream of becoming a female official in charge of the imperial seal in the Shangfu Bureau was shattered. Hu Shanwei had no chance to touch the heart of the empire - the national seal, and her newly rising ambition fell from the clouds.
Hu Shanwei tightly grasped the key to the storage and warehouse, and kept comforting himself that as long as he had something to do, he would have a chance to turn things around.
No matter what you do, do it well first, then talk about other things.
In the past, she did not take a penny for copying books at home. Now she manages the collection in the palace, and she has a monthly salary. She has food delivered to her three times a day, and she is well fed and clothed. This is also progress.
In any case, it's much better than being a free maid at home, squatting at the well and washing diapers.
Every morning at 5:30 a.m., when it was still light, Hu Shanwei would go to the female official in the Shanggong Bureau to queue up to get the key.
After getting the key, she opened the door of the "Bing" library. It was already dawn. Taking advantage of the daylight, Hu Shanwei quickly flipped through each book. There were four book boxes in the library, with the words "Classics", "History", "Philosophy" and "Collection" labeled on them respectively. After she identified the types of books, she put them into the corresponding boxes and made a rough classification first.
The classics are Confucian classics and various annotations.
History refers to books related to history, including various official histories, biographies, county chronicles, reviews, etc.
Zi refers to the various schools of thought, including law, agronomy, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, etc.
Collections include various literary collections, Taoist scriptures, and Buddhist scriptures.
Whenever a book box was full, she would ask a few eunuchs to carry the box to the storage room. There were four floors in the storage room, and Hu Shanwei divided each floor into four major categories: classics, history, philosophy, and collections. The fourth floor was the classics area, the third floor was the history area, the second floor was the philosophy area, and the first floor was the collection area.
When she first entered the palace, Hu Shanwei was ranked 37th and was a neglected figure. Only Meixiang was willing to worship her as her teacher, giving her guidance and telling her everything she knew.
The Palace Administration Department learned the palace rules and etiquette, and Hu Shanwei's records became a model. On the eve of the big exam, the female officials gathered in her room to test each other, and everyone felt that Meixiang had a keen eye for talent.
However, due to the peach blossom powder incident, Hu Shanwei went from being a hot topic to a cold one. She entered the palace to be a female official, but the six bureaus and one department treated her like the plague and no one wanted her.
Now, Hu Shanwei is in charge of the remote Tibetan area, which has become completely cold and has become an "ice stove"!
At first, the young eunuchs shirked the responsibility, were too lazy to pay attention to Hu Shanwei's instructions, and refused to help carry the heavy book boxes.
Later, Mu Chun stepped forward and no one knew what he said to those young eunuchs, but from then on, without waiting for Hu Shanwei to speak, they all rushed forward to help carry the boxes.
Every morning, Hu Shanwei would select books in the warehouse. After lunch, he would come to the collection and start copying and compiling bibliographies. He would further subdivide the collection according to the forty or so small categories in the "Book of Sui: Bibliography" and place the books in corresponding positions.
Apart from moving the books, everything was done by Hu Shanwei alone. Occasionally, when Meixiang was not on duty, she would come to help, and sometimes she would ask someone to bring her some snacks.
Hu Shanwei was deeply moved. Although the world was cruel, Meixiang remained the same to her.
At dusk, Hu Shanwei checked the doors and windows of the Zang, confirmed that they were closed, locked the door, and handed the keys to the Zang and the storeroom to the key lady of the Shanggong Bureau for safekeeping.
Of the once bustling row of corridor rooms, only Hu Shanwei's room had lights on, making the room look particularly desolate.
At night, Hu Shanwei explained the "Book of Songs" to Meixiang under the lamp until the second watch.
At 5:03 a.m. the next morning, Hu Shanwei went to the key lady to queue up to get the keys and started working.
Over and over again.
This time the Shangyi Bureau held classes again, and the 13-year-old female champion Wu Qionglian became a teacher. Everyone in the palace knew her and she was the most popular female official in the palace.
Meixiang was too old and was not selected, but at the end of each year, the instructors of the Shangyi Bureau would give exams and anyone could sign up. The palace maids who passed the exams were called female scholars. From then on, they were no longer required to do simple physical labor and could go to the six departments and one bureau to assist the female officials in handling palace affairs, thus beginning their path to promotion.
In fact, logically speaking, Hu Shanwei should have been assisted by several female scholars in his work in Tibet, but she was "frozen" and no female scholars were willing to come and help.
She did not belong to any department of the six bureaus and one department, and there was no female official with the surname "Shang" above her to speak up for her and seek help. So Hu Shanwei worked quietly in Tibet and was almost forgotten.
Hu Shanwei was not discouraged. Her goal was to help Meixiang pass the female scholar selection examination at the end of the year and get out of the predicament step by step.
Hu Shanwei was copying the bibliography, and wore out three pens. He carried a ladder and flew back and forth between the rows of tall bookshelves like a swallow.
When the "δΈ™" character library was about to run out of stock, half of the bookshelves had been filled, neatly arranged like soldiers waiting for a general's inspection, and the copied bibliographic indexes filled five drawers.
Busy days always pass quickly and summer comes quietly.
Hu Shanwei's regular clothes were replaced from silk to thin gauze.
Meixiang finished studying the Book of Songs and began to study the Analects of Confucius.
The ink-like tadpoles in the lake had grown into frogs. At dusk, when Hu Shanwei closed the doors and windows of the Tibetan temple and was about to go to the Shanggong Bureau to hand over the keys, he heard the sound of frogs.
On the way, a small stone hit the hem of her skirt.
You don't need to look back to know it's Muchun.
Muchun stood under the cherry tree, clusters of ripe, red, sweet cherries blooming beautifully above his head.
Hu Shanwei saw his rare serious expression and knew the result, "Didn't find anything?"
Mu Chun nodded. "Mao Xiang is too cunning. I can't find any information about Wang Ning from Jinyiwei."
Hu Shanwei's eyes dimmed, "I see, thank you. I'm going to deliver the keys now, bye."
Mu Chun called her, "Have you given up?"
Hu Shanwei turned sideways and said, "If one day I can have a position like Fan Gongzheng that is capable of confronting Mao Xiang, then I will figure out for myself why Mao Xiang kicked me out of the palace."
The peach blossom pollen incident caused her to fall from the clouds to the bottom of the valley. Mao Xiang was the culprit. Mu Chun was just taking the blame.
Mu Chun looked at Hu Shanwei's back, thinking. He picked a bunch of red cherries above his head and stuffed them into his mouth. Hmm, they were sweet, but the core was too hard and hurt his teeth.