Chapter 264 Qingcheng Mountain Tribute Tea
Zhao Yulin thanked Mr. Ding, raised his glass and invited everyone to drink together.
After coming out, he sent Zhao Feiyan back. The little girl got on the carriage and fell into his arms and pretended to be dead.
Zhao Yulin asked what was wrong and said he had caught a cold and felt like a dough.
The little girl asked angrily why he didn't go to see her when he came back?
Zhao Yulin hugged her in his arms, patted her on the shoulder and said, "Aren't you busy?"
The little girl pouted and said it was an excuse. She didn't come to see her when she arrived in Chengdu.
He said that Chengdu is not like the border areas, she is a princess, everyone is watching her, so she has to pay attention to her image in the future, remember to be reserved, reserved, do you understand?
The little girl turned over, hugged him and bit him fiercely, saying proudly that they were the only two in the carriage and she would not be reserved.
The temperature in the carriage rose rapidly.
The two people were still interacting enthusiastically, and Feihu was shouting outside: Young Master, we’re here.
Only then did Zhao Yulin realize that the carriage had stopped. He put the girl down, tidied her clothes, and went out to help her out of the carriage.
Zhao Feiyan asked him: "Would you like to come in and sit down?"
He said he just came back and had a lot of things to do.
The two said goodbye and Zhao Yulin went back home.
Ma Ling'er was still busy harvesting crops in the government office, and he was the only one at home in the huge yard. He asked the maid to bring Zhao Guangyuan over, and held the child and walked around in the yard.
It was past Qingming Festival, and the weather was getting hotter. Zhao Yulin was sweating after walking around for just two laps with the light source that looked like a charcoal stove. Fortunately, his son understood his father's hard work and had fallen asleep.
He sent his son into the house, and after he bathed and changed his clothes, he went to the study to have tea.
When Ma Linger came back and heard the maid say that he was happily sleeping with the young master in his arms, she personally refilled his water and said that she and her mother were blessed.
He asked Ma Ling if she was tired as there was a lot of things to do.
The woman said that she was not tired physically, but mentally. She had to negotiate and argue more often, unlike when she was in Chang'an, where she could do things directly.
Zhao Yulin said this is the court.
Even though we don't have a small court, we are still the ones in charge.
The woman told him that she planned to bring General Cao's youngest daughter Cao E to work with her.
He asked if this was Hua Yue's intention or her idea?
The woman said that it was her idea. When the general sent her to take office, she sighed and said, it would be great if his Cao E could also work like Ma Ling.
She had already gone to Cao's house to ask Mrs. Cao. Although Cao E was still young, Feiyan was not much older either. Moreover, Cao E was studious, bold and careful, and good at calculations, which made her just suitable for auditing accounts.
Zhao Yulin said that they were already short of manpower for the transportation, and now they had to redeem the land, so he asked her to discuss it with Hua Yue.
While the two were talking, Xu Zhiyuan from Shunfeng arrived.
Xu Zhiyuan said that he was on duty today and there were two urgent secret reports to be presented to him.
Zhao Yulin took it and read it: one said that King Lu of Shandong established King Zhao Bing as the false emperor in Yingtian Prefecture and issued orders to the Song territory; the second was forwarded by the Beggar Gang, and a disciple of the Beggar Gang risked his life to find out that the Mongolian army's military workshop in Hebei was producing large quantities of gunpowder and thunderbolt bombs and transporting them to Datong Prefecture, and that the Shi family army in Hebei was also marching westward in large numbers.
Zhao Yulin felt that a storm was coming and a war was just around the corner.
He asked Xu Zhiyuan to deliver a message to Guanzhong, closely monitor the movements of the Mongolian army, and prepare for war.
After Xu Zhiyuan left, Ma Linger saw that he was frowning, so she went up to massage his temples. The woman gently persuaded him: Brother, didn’t you say that the sky won’t fall? Why are you worried?
As he spoke, he pulled him to take a shower and rest.
In the imperial city of Lin’an, the small court began to become troubled.
The small court established by Shi's son with great effort had only been in operation for a few months when the Mongol Empire sent eight documents of reprimand. The Khan of the grassland did not gain any benefits from the small court in Lin'an and cursed the young emperor for being disloyal and unfilial. The tribute silk had not been delivered after three requests.
Therefore, the Khan was furious and ordered the Prince of Lu to establish a new emperor to rule over the Song territory.
In this way, two emperors appeared in the original territory of the Song Dynasty, the false emperor Zhao Wangbing and the young emperor Zhao Du, not including the Sichuan Administration Office which had actually become independent and Meng Gong of the Jingzhou Army who had remained silent.
Zhao Qi'er and Meng Gong in the west did not cause trouble for him, but his godfather, the Khan of the grassland, came to him.
Although Zhao Wangbing was thrown into prison by the previous emperor before the fall of Lin'an City, he was the crown prince chosen by the empress dowager and the emperor, and the legitimate successor to the throne. Of course, he was much more valuable than Zhao Du, whom he had found on his own initiative.
A group of old people who gathered in Lin'an drank cheap Chengyi Shao in the restored tavern in the city and discussed the legitimacy of the government.
The ministers were all asking what Shi's son should do?
What should I do?
It was raining outside the palace. Shi Xiang sat on the small dragon chair of the regent, half closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the rain, not paying any attention to the emperor in the court three steps away. He said very casually, "It's okay, let's wait for a while and see. If it doesn't work, we can express the wish of the northern barbarians."
The little emperor Zhao Du was in a miserable situation. He pricked up his ears and heard everything clearly.
This guy got angry for a rare time. He waved the sleeves of his dragon robe with his right hand, stood up and walked away, going straight to the harem without saying a word.
A flash of lightning struck, followed by the rumbling and booming sound of spring thunder.
The little emperor and his ministers were all startled with panic.
When the queen saw the emperor coming back, she immediately went to greet him. The little emperor hugged the queen and cried.
Since the couple got married, living in the palace was like living in a prison. They were guarded everywhere by the historians and ministers. Even when they slept, there were people watching them to check whether their posture was correct. It was really depressing.
The emperor lost his temper, cursed the palace maids, then hugged the queen and went into the palace, planning to escape home.
The ministers in the hall were still discussing. Someone said: Prime Minister Shi, there was a loud thunder just now. It seems that God will not allow us to welcome back the fake emperor. We must be cautious about this matter.
The prince of Nalu established a false emperor, but the previous emperor found out that he was collaborating with the enemy and threw him into the prison to be executed.
Someone else said helplessly: What other good solutions are there? If we don't follow the northern barbarians, and they march south again, this broken court will probably invite more slaughter.
Several ministers gnashed their teeth and said: It's all the fault of Zhao Qier from Western Shu. If he had given us 50 million in taxes, we would have taken the glittering gold as tribute to the Northern Barbarians, and would this have happened?
Zhao Qier really deserves to die.
Shi's son finally heard someone speak out his true feelings, and his closed eyes opened.
He said with a smile that it was all right, the emperor was nothing but a clay sculpture or wooden ornament. Even if Zhao Bing came back to be the emperor, we would still be the ones to take care of him, so how could he escape from our hands?
When everyone heard this, they understood it immediately. Looking at Shi's son, they immediately had a clear idea and shouted: "Gao, Prime Minister Shi is Gao."
In Chengdu, Zhao Yulin rested for a night and got up to practice boxing in the yard. He took a walk with Feihu and observed the terrain around the yard. He asked Feihu to find Dongmei and ask Cuipingshan to equip Ma Ling with a hundred-man guard, leaving some familiar brothers to protect the safety of his family.
Feihu knew that the young master was leaving, so he immediately agreed to do it himself.
After Zhao Yulin had breakfast, Mr. Ding came to invite him to chat, and he happened to go out with Ma Ling.
The couple went about their own business at the government office. He came to the small flower hall in the backyard, where Mr. Ding, Zhao Feiyan, and Professor Wu Yong were already seated.
When they saw Zhao Yulin arriving, they all stood up and greeted him with a smile, which made Zhao Yulin feel embarrassed. He kept apologizing to everyone for being late.
Zhao Yulin went up and sat next to Zhao Feiyan, and a maid immediately brought her new tea from Qingcheng Mountain.
Mr. Ding happily asked to try it. It was the new tea sent by Taoist Tianjizi of Qingcheng, which was the palace tea of the Tang Dynasty.
He picked up the teacup with a smile and was still smelling the fragrance. Professor Wu Lao couldn't wait to say that the provincial school should have changed long ago, and he wanted to hear the commander-in-chief's ideas for the changes to the provincial school.
Zhao Feiyan happily told him that she had discussed it with the old gentleman, and the next day all the teachers and students of the prefectural school would be sent to Cuiping Mountain for study.
Zhao Yulin nodded and said: Seeing is believing, hearing is not. Sometimes what you see and hear may not be true, so you should go out and take a look. Confucius said: "Traveling ten thousand miles is better than reading ten thousand books."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
He said that he was temporarily living there after the current provincial school was renovated, and the old gentleman would go to Jiading and Xuzhou for an outing and come back to plan what to do next.
He made some suggestions for your reference, and Zhao Feiyan immediately picked up a pen to record them.
He said that the first topic for everyone to discuss now is how to position the provincial school . Once this issue is clarified, it will be clear what to do with the provincial school.
He believed that the provincial school in Chengdu should be changed into a university.
Everyone was immediately stunned.
Zhao Yulin took a sip of tea and said, "We don't have an emperor or a court here, so we won't build an imperial university. But our Sichuan-Shaanxi Administration has jurisdiction over at least eight routes and a population of nearly 20 million. It is the largest administration in the western part of the Song Dynasty, and we need an endless stream of talents."
As Chengdu is the seat of government where the Ministry of Administration issues orders, it would be right for it to build a school that is larger than the provincial school to train talents for the country, right?
Everyone's spirits were lifted, and there was surprise on their faces, thinking that what Zhao Yulin said made a lot of sense.
There is definitely nothing wrong in running a school. Professor Wu Lao is even more looking forward to running the largest school in the Song Dynasty so that countless students can get the opportunity to study.
Zhao Yulin said that when Tang Monk went to the West to seek Buddhist scriptures, there was a place called Caotang where the great poet lived to the west of Chengdu. He proposed to build a new school there. It was called Caotang University and could accommodate 3,000 people. It would also have a liberal arts college, a business college, an engineering college, a medical college, a sports college, and a music and art college, so that all the eager children in the world could come to study.
When everyone heard that he attached so much importance to learning, they were all excited and shocked.
Zhao Yulin looked at the north thoughtfully and said, "Don't think that the grassland people are all barbaric and superficial, and can only use knives to chop people. They also know the importance of learning. I heard that the Great Mongolian Empire built the Taiji Academy in Zhending Prefecture. They collected many famous scholars in the field of Neo-Confucianism to organize historical books and open official schools. This is to compete with our Song Dynasty for talents. Our academy's academic officer Zhao Fu went to the Taiji Academy."
Professor Wu Lao immediately felt ashamed and said that he had not disciplined these professors well and had brought shame to the country.
Some people said bitterly that they were all shameless traitors and rebels and were not worth mentioning.
Zhao Yulin said slowly: But we have to find ways to create conditions for more students to receive a good education. This is the job of the Department of Academic Affairs.
