Song Shanggong was speechless.
At this time, a female official came to report the news: the emperor had arranged a marriage for the King of Chu, with the eldest daughter of Wang Bi, Marquis of Dingyuan.
The wedding of the King of Chu, the enthronement ceremony of the Queen of Chu...
There is another big event in the harem.
The seven bosses were in a heavy mood, not at all happy. But Fan Gongzheng said, "The wedding date needs to be selected by the Imperial Astronomical Observatory after the horoscopes are matched. It is usually three months or six months later."
This is good news, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Just don't crowd in on such a hot day. The weather is hot, and you sweat just sitting down. Working under the scorching sun is really exhausting.
Cao Shang Gong counted on her fingers, "The marriage of the Sixth Prince, the Prince of Chu, has been decided, but the Prince of Qi, the Prince of Zhao, and Princess Huaiqing in the palace have also reached the age of marriage. These are all big things, everyone should be prepared to be busy from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Stop chatting here, let's talk about business..."
Lady Cao is thirty-four years old this year, which is the time when a woman is most energetic. She assists Empress Ma in handling palace affairs. She has the most power and is the busiest. She is used to being busy and is not used to being idle.
Cao Shang Gong is the youngest female official of the "Shang" generation in the history of the Ming Dynasty court. Among the seven big bosses in the six bureaus and one department, she is the youngest and has the greatest authority. She has a quick and impetuous work style, is impatient, and even a little arrogant. She is not afraid of offending people.
However, it was precisely because of this that she was able to suppress the huge and complex interpersonal relationships in the palace and was an able assistant to Empress Ma.
Only when Lady Cao was busy could Empress Ma free up her hands and mind to play a more complicated chess game.
Kunning Palace.
Concubine Sun came to express her gratitude.
Queen Ma pulled her to sit beside her and said, "You are not feeling well. It won't be too late to come and thank you after the summer heat has dissipated."
Concubine Sun smiled and said, "It was because of the Queen's painstaking efforts that she taught me to stop taking medicine for a few days and pretended to be getting sicker and sicker, and that medicine and remedies were ineffective, which attracted the Emperor's pity. That's why I was able to be made a Concubine so quickly. The Queen has treated me so kindly, I will crawl to Kunning Palace to express my gratitude even if I have to."
Empress Ma said, "You are the one who is helping me. Everyone in the palace has their own position. Hu Shuren died, and the position of imperial concubine became vacant. The concubines in the six palaces seemed calm, but they were actually eyeing this position. Look at Concubine Li, how virtuous she is, how indifferent to fame and gain, and how she lives in harmony with the world. I just tested her with the little princess, and she immediately showed her true colors."
"Concubine Li Xian has no children, so the concubines who gave birth to princes and princesses are even more restless. They are testing each other to see who will make the first move. They are all very smart, waiting to see who loses patience and is ready to shoot the first bird to stand out. But they didn't expect that I would suddenly appear and give this peach to you."
That’s right, it was all Queen Ma’s conspiracy.
Concubine Sun praised: "The Queen has made every possible plan."
Empress Ma sighed, "I don't want to see another imperial concubine who dares to challenge me - even if the challenge is fake and Hu Shuren has other intentions. Since there will be a second imperial concubine sooner or later, I just hope that person is you."
Concubine Sun was naturally grateful: "Sister, you didn't give birth to a prince, only two princesses. You never dreamed of being named a concubine, but the queen gave this position to you. Sister, you will take good care of yourself and stay with the queen."
Empress Ma said: "I only have two princesses. In fact, in the royal family, it is a blessing to have no princes. The princes have grown up slowly, and their hearts have grown up, and the hearts of the mothers behind them have also grown up. You also know that the prince is not born by me. I can already feel that the storm is coming, and the Ming Dynasty court is destined to be swayed by the wind and rain. It is not easy to be the mother of the country and stabilize the royal family. Without your company, I would be too lonely..."
It is said that Empress Ma and Concubine Sun were having a secret conversation. The King of Chu came to Kunning Palace to thank his mother for choosing a princess for him. Liu Siyan said that Empress Ma was taking a nap and asked the King of Chu to kowtow and thank her outside.
The King of Chu did as he was told, kowtowed, and left Kunning Palace. He was about to get married and have a wife, and his heart was filled with emotion. His legs seemed to be possessed by a ghost and walked to the Yanxi Palace, the sixth western palace.
Mother, my son is getting married. Do you know about this in your netherworld
Seeing that there was no one around, the King of Chu quietly pushed open the palace door and walked into the main hall of the Yanx Palace.
Without an owner, the Yanxi Palace fell into a state of decay, with weeds growing in the gaps between the floor tiles and the rockery covered with cobwebs.
The King of Chu heard a woman's suppressed crying at the door of the main hall.
How could there be a haunting in broad daylight
The King of Chu refused to believe it, so he pushed open the door and shouted, "Who is playing tricks here?"
Jiang Quan turned around abruptly, and the midday sun pierced into his eyes like a sharp sword, but what was more dazzling than the sun was the four-clawed python robe on the young man.
Jiang Quan's heart suddenly started beating wildly. The blood bond made her realize who this young man was.
King Zhu Zhen of Chu, her grandson.
Jiang Quan wiped away his tears, suppressed his excitement, bowed and saluted, "I am Jiang Quan, the director of the Shangfu Bureau. I have been very kind to Lady Hu and have taken good care of me. Today is Lady Hu's seventh day of death. I dare not burn incense at night for fear of violating palace rules. I can only place a few fruits that Lady Hu loved to eat in the main hall of Yanxi Palace in broad daylight to show my love."
When the King of Chu took a look, he saw only a crab, a pile of pickled garlic, and two fresh lotus pods on the table in the main hall.
The King of Chu knew that his mother loved to eat crabs and lotus pods when she was alive, but he had no memory of his mother ever eating such vulgar and pungent food as pickled garlic.
The King of Chu felt that the female official in front of him was suspicious. "You look unfamiliar. Are you a newcomer to the palace?"
Jiang Quan said: "Yes. I just passed the imperial examination and entered the palace this spring."
At that time, the King of Chu had just gone to his hometown of Fengyang, Zhongdu, with the Crown Prince Zhu Biao.
The King of Chu pointed at the pickled garlic and said, "You must have remembered it wrongly. My mother... Hu Shuren doesn't like to eat pickled garlic."
Jiang Quan said, "This is not garlic, this is scallion, they just look similar. Garlic is round, scallion is born in cloves, tastes delicious, not as pungent as garlic, Hu Shuren likes to eat it with rice porridge."
The King of Chu lowered his head and took a closer look. It was indeed different from garlic. When did his mother eat this kind of thing? He had to find a chance to ask the old people in the Yanxi Palace whether this female official named Jiang Quan was lying.
When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. In order to protect themselves, the former palace maids of Yanx Palace dared not step in. Regardless of whether Jiang Quan's statement was true or false, she still remembered her mother's seventh day, which showed that she was sincere.
The King of Chu said, "You should go now. Your feelings should be known to the common people of Hu. Sooner or later, there will be a new owner of the Yanxi Palace. You should not come again."
Things and people have changed, which only adds to the sadness.
"Yes." Jiang Quan didn't dare to look at the King of Chu any longer and stepped back - she was afraid that once she looked at him, she would not be able to take her eyes away and would involuntarily want to get closer.
Queen Ma said that she could stay in the palace to work and silently protect the little princess, but she had to conceal her identity, otherwise the day her identity was revealed would be the day she was driven out of the palace. The King of Chu and the little princess must not be allowed to know the existence of her grandmother.
The moment Jiang Quan and King Chu passed by each other, the King of Chu discovered that this female official already had some white hair on her temples. Not many, like spider silk quietly forming a web on her temples.
The King of Chu thought: The new female officials in the palace are between thirteen and nineteen, twenty-nine and thirty-nine years old. How come this female official already has white hair? She must be at least forty years old, right
Why did this female official do this? The King of Chu wrote down Jiang Quan's name.
The celebration banquet of the Mu and Feng families turned into a Hongmen Banquet, and a fight broke out, becoming a farce among the wealthy families in Beijing. The undercurrents in the Ming Dynasty court were surging, and Empress Ma planned and strategized, and she laughed to the end without making a sound, becoming the big winner. Whether it was the wealthy nobles or the royal family in the palace, they were all fighting, but Hu Shanwei and Mu Chun, who went to Hangzhou to print books, had a rare and comfortable time in their lives.
Hu Shanwei had been dealing with books for the first half of his life, and he had enough money. Two thousand taels of silver and five hundred books meant an average budget of four taels of silver for each book!
With the money, Hu Shanwei started printing books. He selected 20 famous woodblock printmakers from Hangzhou, each of whom was only responsible for carving two pages of wooden templates, and the deadline was one day to complete them.
These woodblock printing masters have experienced apprentices to help them, so one day and one night are enough.
While waiting for the woodblocks to be completed, Hu Shanwei went to various shops selling paper and ink to select ink and paper. Good ink is very expensive, and many woodblock printed books actually use coal ash mixed with flour to save costs. It looks like ink, but over time, the handwriting will fade or even fall off.
The paper chosen is the best white cotton paper, and the front and back covers are sandwiched with a bright red anti-moth paper. This kind of paper is impregnated with anti-bookworm drugs. It is not only beautiful, but also insect-proof and easy to preserve.
Seeing that he still had a lot of spare money, Hu Shanwei simply gilded the title of the book on the cover. The glittering golden words showed the royal dignity.
The binding is not made with ordinary thread binding, but with the "butterfly binding" imitating the Song Dynasty. There is no need to drill holes in the book. It is pasted with glue and cut neatly, making it very easy to flip through the pages, like a butterfly fluttering its wings.
Hu Shanwei was rich and had not yet developed the bad habit of embezzling money, so he spent all his money on making books. With enough wages, the skilled craftsmen in Hangzhou worked day and night, and on the seventh day, they finished 550 copies of "The Instructions/Admonitions of Concubines of the Zhao and Song Dynasties", which could be called works of art.
In order to deal with unexpected situations, Hu Shanwei deliberately printed fifty more copies as backup.
Hu Shanwei was very satisfied as he stroked the gold-plated words on the cover. He said to the two female historians and Meixiang, "Check every book to see if there are any wrong or missing pages. There can't be any mistakes."
Everything goes smoothly for Hu Shanwei, not to mention Mu Chun, who is far away from the capital. He doesn't have to suffer from the pressure from the Feng and Mu families, nor does he have to work as a gatekeeper for the Jinyiwei, nor does he have to please the emperor and empress. He can sleep until the sun shines on his butt every day, and after getting up, he can stroll around Hangzhou, eat delicious food, see beautiful women, and go boating on the West Lake. His life is so comfortable!
Even his face, which was swollen from mosquito bites, began to heal and he regained his handsome appearance (he thought).
Mu Chun also took Hu Shanwei, who was very busy, to the Leifeng Pagoda to enjoy the beautiful scenery together. He was in high spirits and recited a poem: "The sunset towers over the distant trees, and the spring clouds spread over the clear river."
"No one is rowing the boat, only two seagulls are facing me." Hu Shanwei couldn't help but add the second half of the sentence and asked, "This is a poem by the great monk Daoyan from his collection of poems, Du'an Collection. Do you also like Daoyan? In addition to this "Oasis Song", what other poems of his do you appreciate?"
More than ten years ago, Zhang Shicheng was defeated, Suzhou City was captured, Chang Yuchun massacred the city, and the Hu family was almost wiped out. It was Zen Master Daoyan of the Reclining Buddha Temple who sheltered the Hu father and daughter and saved their lives.
At that time, everyone rushed into the temple, but Zen Master Daoyan walked against the flow of people and stood guard at the door. The young Hu Shanwei would never forget this scene, so he admired Zen Master Daoyan very much and memorized his "Du'an Collection".
Muchun was a little embarrassed. "I don't remember the others. This poem is simple and easiest to memorize. I only remember this one."
"Oh." Hu Shanwei was a little disappointed. She thought Mu Chun and she were like-minded and were both loyal readers of Zen Master Daoyan.
Seeing her gaze gradually grow colder, Mu Chun hurriedly said, "I can't recite poems, but I can write them."
Hu Shanwei said, "Then write a poem on Leifeng Pagoda."
"This..." Mu Chun touched his forehead, "This is too sudden. I'm a little nervous."
Hu Shanwei said, "It's okay, I can wait, it's still early."
Mu Chun thought for a while and managed to say a few words: "Look at this tower, it is tall and big. Look at the sun, it is round and bright. Look at the water, this water..."
The atmosphere was awkward and Mu Chun really wanted to jump off the Lei Feng Tower.
Hu Shanwei said, "I'm a little hungry. Let's find a place to eat."
Mu Chun climbed down the ladder and nodded quickly, "Okay."
The author has something to say: Shanwei and Chunchun travel on public funds~~~
100 red envelopes will be given tonight. In addition, congratulations to the reader Luoye, whose hand speed and memory are amazing, and he won a big red envelope of 100 points.
№5 Netizen: Luo Ye Comment: "Hu Shanwei" Score: 2 Published: 2018-11-26 20:32:39 Reviewed chapter: 35
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