Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 505: The sea of questions is endless, and it is difficult to serve as a foil
Even though Chief Hong had made such a fuss, his daughter Hong was now seen by outsiders as the only choice for the eldest prince's consort - unless they were insane, most of the men who were eligible to marry into the royal family would never want their daughters to jump into this fire pit - but the Queen Mother, as the eldest prince's grandmother, was about to summon Hong, and when the news spread, it still caused quite a stir.
Zhang Shou was sure that if people knew that the Queen Mother had actually chosen him and Zhu Ying to accompany the meeting with Hong, then public opinion would probably be even more outraged. For such an occasion, Princess Yongping was definitely more suitable than Zhu Ying, and children like the Third Prince and the Fourth Prince were far more suitable than him. Why did the Queen Mother insist on bringing him along?
Well, excluding the unrealistic reason that the Queen Mother looked at him differently, is this normal? Now it seems that his life experience should not be exposed, but the Queen Mother seems to treat Zhu Ying better than her own granddaughter. Could it be that Zhu Ying's life experience is a melodrama?
Although he thought that what would happen tomorrow was ridiculous and illogical, Zhang Shou argued with the Queen Mother in Qingning Palace and failed to shirk his responsibility, so it became a done deal. So, after leaving the palace at noon, he taught a full afternoon of classes to a group of freshly-trained students, having missed a whole morning of classes, and then...
Since there would be no classes tomorrow morning, he assigned the students enough exercises to last them the whole morning!
If it were in later generations, Zhang Shou would probably become the most hated devil teacher. However, now, as in the past, his behavior not only did not cause his students to hate him, but was praised by everyone after the class was over that day - of course, the third prince, who had stayed to listen to the lecture in the afternoon on the pretext that Zhang Shou had something to do in the palace in the morning, was Zhang Shou's most die-hard supporter.
"The teacher didn't forget about us even when he had something important to do. He is really dedicated... When I return to the palace, I will definitely tell my father that I won't be going back tomorrow afternoon. Who is he who always summons the teacher to the palace for no reason?"
Third Prince, if our young teacher didn't come to the palace often and hardly had to attend court, wouldn't he have no influence at all? Besides, if you weren't so outstanding in front of the emperor, how could you become his student?
Ji Jiu, the head monk, was Zhang Shou's biggest flatterer. As he was not as talented as Lu Sanlang, he could only surpass him in this aspect. At this moment, he criticized the Third Prince's childishness, and immediately followed up on the Third Prince's words and started to flatter him.
"To come up with so many questions, the teacher must have spent a lot of effort! In the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, there are only one or two questions of each type, but we can learn a little and do a lot of questions to consolidate what we have learned. We are so lucky..."
When Zhang Shou left Jiuzhang Hall and went home that day, he felt very complicated when he learned about the "fawning" behavior of a group of students led by Ji Jiu and the Third Prince because Ah Liu had been watching silently. The tactics of solving a sea of questions were actually praised one day. What kind of world is this? This is probably something that students in later generations would never imagine.
But it is also true that the ability that scholars value most these days is rote memorization. The "Great Learning" with less than 2,000 words, I memorized it! The "Doctrine of the Mean" with only 3,000 words, I was determined to master it! The "Analects" with more than 13,000 words... If you work hard, you can grind an iron rod into a needle! The "Mencius" with more than 34,000 words, although a little difficult, but if you want to take the imperial examination, you must know it by heart!
This is the Four Books. In addition to the Four Books, there are also the Five Classics! Especially the Spring and Autumn Annals, because the original version is too brief, it is often combined with the Spring and Autumn Annals. However, Zuo Zhuan, Guliang and Gongyang are all quite terrifyingly large volumes. Although most students choose one of them for study, they still have to face the length of Guliang and Gongyang, which are 40,000 words at a time, and Zuo Zhuan is even more 190,000 words!
Even if the ancients studied hard for ten years, they might not be able to recite all these books by heart, so how could they have the time to learn other things?
Therefore, the questions in the Four Books were exhausted, from the college examination, the provincial examination, the metropolitan examination, to various low-level annual examinations, and people who knew each other set questions and tested each other. The countless questions and model essays supported so many eight-part essay anthologies and formed a huge industry. But even so, there were still a large number of students from poor families who could not get enough practice and were left out.
As for mathematics, or arithmetic, the number of people studying it is seriously insufficient. Where do so many people with the ability and skills to set questions come from?
"You are not a fish, so how can you know the joy of a fish?"
Zhang Shou said this sentence softly, and then he felt relieved. As long as the students are satisfied, then everything will be fine, right? He laughed and said to Ah Liu beside him: "Go back and see Cao Wu and tell him to stay calm. If you feel uncomfortable being idle, do me a favor. Transfer Yang Hao and the others over there in turn and let them help hone their skills."
Ah Liu, who was a little listless at first, immediately became excited. He even took two quick steps and walked directly in front of Zhang Shou, with a kind of intimidating look in his eyes. People who are familiar with him will definitely not be wrong about this look.
Zhang Shou was naturally the person who knew him best. He could not help but smile helplessly at this moment, and said simply and neatly : "Well, if you want to find someone to practice with, you can go anytime. If you want to invite someone back to practice with, that's up to you too. Anyway, there are plenty of empty rooms at home."
Hearing Zhang Shou's promise, Ah Liu, who usually had a calm expression, finally showed his joy. He nodded heavily, then thought about it again, and suddenly mentioned what Fourth Master Hua said to Xiao Huasheng. Seeing that Zhang Shou didn't look surprised, he repeated his reply to Xiao Huasheng, and Zhang Shou smiled at him.
"No one knows me better than you. You are right. I have those villagers in Rongshui Village who know me well. If I leave their children to be selected and cultivated instead of being bought from outside, wouldn't that be me seeking something far away? As long as the village is willing to send children to the capital, I will keep them. Even if they can't work for me, there are other places that need manpower."
"It's easy to buy some three or four-year-old children who are still ignorant and raise them. It's also easy to use strict rules and instill the concept of loyalty and bravery to train people from an early age. But such demand will undoubtedly give rise to human trafficking. Everyone knows that those human traffickers are shady. There's nothing I can do. I'm not the Duke of Zhao. I can't pick up so many orphans to raise."
"I am the orphan that my wife picked up..."
Hearing Ah Liu's whisper, Zhang Shou could not help but be speechless. What a joke, can you be counted? You were deliberately thrown near my house by Hua Qi, and I watched Wu pick it up, okay? But when he thought of this, he suddenly remembered the guards surnamed Zhu in the Zhaoguo Mansion, from Zhu Hong, Zhu Yu to Zhu Yi and others, and he couldn't help but feel a little puzzled.
Apart from Zhu Yu who had already betrayed, Zhu Hong and others couldn't all be abandoned children, right? And according to the time when Ruizong was alive, Zhu Hong and others couldn't be orphans at all. So, what events made these people orphans?
Judging from their ages, could it be... the Rebellion of the King of Karma?
Although Zhang Shou had a lot of thoughts, this was the Zhu family's business after all, not his own, so he thought about it and let it go. But before he had dinner, Zhu Ying sent Zhu Hong to see him. He thought the eldest lady was so anxious to ask about tomorrow's matter, but he didn't expect that Zhu Hong would bring him a piece of silver that looked like it was only four or five taels with an embarrassed look on his face.
At the same time, Zhu Ying also brought some words that stunned him: "Master Hua sold a chair, which was custom-made by the Duke of Chu. He wanted the best wood and the best workmanship, and paid 50 strings of cash in advance, so he immediately sent 5 strings of cash. 5,000 strings of cash is a full 5,000 coins, which is really too heavy. I will change it into silver and let Zhu Hong send it to you, as a good omen!"
If it was Zhu Jing, Duke of Zhao, or Zhang Chuan, Duke of Qin, who bought a chair for fun out of boredom, Zhang Shou would not find it strange at all. But he found it absurd that the Mansion of the Duke of Chu would interfere.
When he looked at Zhu Hong, he only saw this shrewd and capable guard of the Zhu Mansion with a wry smile on his face. He could only shake his head and sigh, "I'm really curious. The emperor asked her to give the five rocking chairs to Huaiqing Marquis and his family. Could it be that she has already made them and sent them out? Guan Qiu has been busy these days, and she is still messing around with the pendulum clock!"
"The five rocking chairs were made by Fourth Master Hua." Zhu Hong did not make excuses for his eldest daughter and directly stated the facts. "The eldest daughter said that this saved Brother Guan Qiu a lot of trouble. She wanted to settle the bill and pay him, but Fourth Master Hua insisted, so she gave up."
Zhang Shou burst out laughing. This Zhu Ying, it turns out, knows when to arrest and when to let go! The emperor directly pushed Hua Siye to cooperate. Did he see that Zhu Ying wanted to make money on the one hand, but was unwilling to use his brain on the other?
Early the next morning, after he washed up and had breakfast, when he was about to call Ah Liu to get ready to go out, he heard shouting outside. Then Xiao Huasheng, who came with the message, brought an unexpected but reasonable news.
Zhu Ying directly took the sedan chair specially used by the lady to pick him up and bring him into the palace!
Although it was not the first time for him to ride in the sedan chair, when Zhang Shou hurried out and climbed up the special step ladder to the tall sedan chair, he could not help but joked, "Yingying, you calculated the time just right. If you were a moment earlier, I would still be having breakfast. If you were a moment later, I would have left."
"Of course." Zhu Ying raised her eyebrows proudly. After Zhang Shou entered and sat down, she let go of the royal blue Ruyi-edged curtain that she had just replaced. Then she said with a smile, "I asked them to drive the horses around your Zhang Garden twice!"
This time, the stunned Zhang Shou finally had nothing to say. Along the way, he did not mention the fact that the Queen Mother had asked him and Zhu Ying to be the foils today, and Zhu Ying also tacitly said nothing. Instead, the two of them were discussing with great interest the recliner that the Duke of Chu's Mansion had specifically requested to buy, and the topic became increasingly off-topic.
Zhu Ying even tilted her head and said, "I heard that Wang Datou is in Xuanda. He is killing people in the front, and Duke Chu is exhausted in the back cleaning up the mess. It's like their roles are reversed. Wang Datou is more like a military officer, and Duke Chu is more like a civil official. I heard that Duke Chu can't hold on any longer, so he wrote again and again to ask to come back to retire..."
Well, there is Liu the Headless in front and Wang the Big Head behind, and they all chop off people’s heads. Isn’t that a concern for gods and demons?
Zhang Shou made up a couplet in his mind, but that was just what he was thinking about. Otherwise, although Zhu Ying would be amused to death by reciting it, the people outside might hear it and spread it widely, and he would become even more famous.
So, he simply changed the topic to the Nanyang Marquis who had gone to the front with the Duke of Chu. Hearing that he had won a battle but was impeached for stealing military funds and even killing prisoners to take credit, he remembered that Zhang Jingzhou, the Marquis of Huaiqing, had said confidently that he was greedy for money. He couldn't help but feel that the evaluation of Zhao Guogong Zhu Jing as a rotten piece of meat was not an exaggeration.
As they talked and laughed, the sedan drove straight into Bei'an Gate and finally stopped at Xuanwu Gate. Zhang Shou, who got off the sedan first, couldn't stretch and could only move his hands and feet quietly. But then he saw that there was only a row of nail-like guards in front of Xuanwu Gate, and there were no eunuchs and palace maids who he had seen in Jingshan. Instead, there were two sedan chairs waiting there.
At this time, Zhu Ying, who came down a step later, couldn't help but shout, "It's so close from Xuanwu Gate to Qingning Palace, why take a sedan chair!"
If it was someone else who was so overjoyed, Miss Zhu would avoid it as much as possible. If she hadn't wanted to avoid being seen and talk with Zhang Shou in the sedan chair today, she wouldn't have been happy to stay in it.
Seeing that she was unhappy, the four sturdy eunuchs carrying the sedan chair looked at each other. Yuquan, who had been standing quietly behind them, had no choice but to step forward. Before she could say anything, Zhu Ying covered her eyes when she saw her.
"The Queen Mother even sent Aunt Yuquan here, how can I refuse? Fine, fine, I'll take the sedan chair, is that not okay? Really, only in the palace can you see the sedan chair and the warm sedan chair... Isn't it just to avoid being seen? What's there to avoid!"
Zhu Ying had already yielded, and it was just a trivial matter of riding in a sedan chair, so Zhang Shou certainly would not argue. When he sat in the blue cloth sedan chair, it was lifted up and set off in a moment. Feeling the swaying feeling without support on all sides, he gradually felt a little dizzy.
This feeling of dizziness... is much worse than carrying a sedan chair!
Emperor Taizu banned most people from riding in sedan chairs. Besides the fact that it was extravagant and a waste of manpower...was it also because of sedan chair sickness?
The sedan chair entered Qingning Gate and then stopped in front of Qingning Palace. Zhu Ying got off the sedan chair in a depressed mood and yawned very ungracefully. Seeing that Zhang Shou was obviously tired, she walked straight up to him, pulled him and walked inside, completely ignoring the gazes of the people around her.
When she entered the main hall of Qingning Palace, she said directly: "Empress Dowager, when will Hong come? Ah Shou is very busy, and I have a lot of things to do. I don't have time to wait for her here."
Seeing Zhu Ying holding onto him and not letting go, Zhang Shou had no choice but to let it go. When the Queen Mother looked at him, he smiled and said, "I have arranged all the morning classes at Jiuzhang Hall, but Yingying is just anxious."
Seeing Zhu Ying glaring at Zhang Shou in anger, with an expression that said, "Why are you trying to sabotage us?" the Queen Mother said with a smile, "According to the time, she has already entered through the Donghua Gate. It's her first time in the palace, so let her take a look around first."
Zhang Shou was speechless. Is this called... a show of power? If that's the case, why do they need him and Zhu Ying as foils?
