Liu Jing exited the hall and saw a boy servant wearing a green scarf and holding a delicate food box waiting at the door. It turned out that it was already time to have breakfast unknowingly.
In the Han Dynasty, when breakfast was at work, officials with average family backgrounds had to prepare their own pots of food, while those with wealthy families had their servants deliver meals.
This person was the servant boy in Huang Qiu's house. He bowed politely to Liu Jing, then knocked on the door and entered.
Liu Jing returned to the second floor and met Xie Liang. The latter said, "Did Liu Jun bring breakfast? There is a stove on the first floor where you can heat porridge." He soon realized something and hurriedly said, "Liu Jun is of high birth. Door, there should be a house slave delivering meals, I'm too talkative."
Liu Jing looked at the overnight rice porridge mixed with vegetable leaves and solidified into lumps in Xie Liang's hand. He shook his head and said, "Thank you for letting me know. I already had breakfast before going out this morning."
Xie Liang nodded and went downstairs alone.
Liu Jing returned to the room and stood in front of the window, looking out at the market. Huang Qiu and Xie Liang's figures flashed through his mind one by one.
Huang Qiu rejects everything in the market from the bottom of his heart, and ignores secular affairs on weekdays. He can best be described as eating and waiting to die. Xie Liang is the actual manager of the market, but due to his poor background, it is basically difficult to get promoted.
Whether it is Huang Qiu or Xie Liang, they are both ordinary people and pose no threat to him.
When he first arrived, he was not in a hurry to grab power. He wanted to get familiar with the environment first.
After the meal, all the officials came to see Liu Jing one after another. Among them were the clerks in charge of documents, the city clerk in charge of rent collection, the pavilion chiefs and column chiefs in charge of security, and as for those at the bottom, such as Xiaoshi and city soldiers. He is a humble official, but he is not even qualified to meet him.
Time flew by and it was midday. The deer breast porridge he had eaten in the morning had long been digested. Liu Jing decided to go to the market to buy some food to fill his stomach and take a look around.
He came to the market twice by riding a bullock cart, and he didn't feel anything wrong.
But this time when walking through the city, he found that the roads were muddy, sewage flowed across the road, flies were flying around, and the smell was offensive. It really refreshed his senses every moment. No wonder the market is regarded as an unclean place by gentlemen, isn't it? It doesn't make sense.
There were limited ready-made foods in the market, and even less that suited his taste. The last time he came to the market, he tasted Hu cakes and thought they tasted pretty good, so he went straight to the cake stall.
The cake seller is a dwarf who is less than five feet tall. No one knows his real name, so everyone calls him "Dwarf".
It was not meal time, and there were only three or two people buying cakes. When they saw Liu Jing wearing official uniform, their faces showed some fear and some flattery, and they spontaneously gave way to him.
Liu Jing shook his head and said: "You don't have to do this, just follow the order."
Several people were amazed that such polite officials were extremely rare.
What do officials look like in the eyes of the people?
You only need to know that officials and knights, and stealing are considered the three evils of the market, and you can see this.
In order not to keep Liu Jing waiting for a long time, the dwarf slave obviously accelerated the speed of picking up the cakes. The people in front did not dare to delay, and soon it was Liu Jing's turn.
The dwarf slave held his huge head and asked: "How much do you want to buy?"
"Four," Liu Jing replied casually. "A total of eight coins, right?"
The dwarf slave wrapped the four Hu cakes tightly with reed leaves and handed them to Liu Jing. He nodded carefully: "Yes."
Officials don't eat much of the Overlord's meal, but there are often shortages. He neither dares to get angry nor speak out, so he can only suffer the consequences of being dumb.
Liu Jing said "thank you" and happily paid for the cake.
When the dwarf slave heard the other party thanking him, he couldn't help but be startled and thought to himself: "This gentleman is really different."
"Hey, brother, isn't that Liu Jun?"
Liu Jing turned around after hearing the words, and two young figures came into view. The older one was fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing a white silk scarf, and the younger one was twelve or thirteen years old, also wearing a boy's scarf. Both of them were wearing blue robes and silk shoes, and they had outstanding demeanor.
It was the brother from Qilu who had met him once in front of the book store.
It's just that he didn't tell them his name at the time. I don't know how the other party knew his surname was Liu. Could it be that the owner of the bookstore told them?
His elder brother pulled his younger brother's sleeves, clasped his fists at Liu Jing and said, "I and my brother once had the opportunity to look at Liu Jun's handwriting at a bookstore in the city, and we were filled with admiration. Today we happened to meet each other in the city, so we stepped forward rashly.
"Excuse me, please don't blame Mr. Liu." After saying that, he took out the famous thorn from his arms and presented it with both hands.
Liu Jing smiled and nodded, showing a good demeanor, but when he lowered his head and saw the writing on the wooden board: "Langya Zhuge Liang pays his respects again and asks about his daily life, the courtesy name is Kongming." He was stunned for a moment, and then he looked up and saw that the face in front of him was slightly different.
The young but graceful young man lost his voice for a moment.
Since time travel, Liu Jing has also met Du Xi and Huan Jie, famous figures recorded in history. During his interactions with them, he has always maintained a good attitude, but today he was a little out of sorts.
Thinking about it, although Du Xi and Huan Jie were relatively outstanding figures during the Three Kingdoms period, their influence on later generations was almost nonexistent.
Needless to say, Zhuge Liang has become synonymous with "loyalty" and "wisdom" for thousands of years, and is one of the most familiar historical figures for Chinese people.
In the entire Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, except for a few people, compared with Zhuge Liang, the difference was like a firefly and a bright moon.
Zhuge Liang also introduced his younger brother Zhuge Jun to Liu Jing. The latter was only twelve years old and had no cousin.
Liu Jing calmed down a little, and realized that he had not returned the assassination, which was really rude. He hurriedly made up for it and said:
"The surnames of brothers are quite rare. I know that there was a Zhuge Shaoji in the former Han Dynasty, who was promoted to the rank of Sili Xiaowei. He was very upright and did everything he could. Later, he was demoted to a commoner because of the impeachment of a powerful official. He eventually died at home.
It’s a pity. I don’t know what the relationship between my brothers is with this king?”
"It's our ancestor." Zhuge Liang's eyes were bright and he nodded.
His younger brother Zhuge Jun was even more emotional, with a look of pride on his face.
Of course they have reason to be proud. Zhuge Feng is a legendary figure in the "Book of Han". Benefiting from the widespread dissemination of the "Book of Han", Zhuge Feng's deeds are widely known.
"It turns out that I am disrespectful to a famous minister." Liu Jing pretended not to know, and then suggested: "This place is noisy and is not a place to talk. If you don't mind, you can follow me to the market building to sit for a while."
"I have my wish, but I don't dare to ask for my ear." Zhuge Liang was interested in getting acquainted with Liu Jing, so naturally he would not refuse.
On the way to the market, the two of them walked side by side. Although Zhuge Liang was only fifteen years old, he was already over seven feet tall, just like an adult and not much shorter than Liu Jing.
"When did Liu Jun become an official?" Zhuge Liang asked curiously.
"I just took office today. Kong Ming is about the same age as me, so just call me 'Zhongda'." Speaking of his nickname, Liu Jing's face showed something strange.
"This..." Zhuge Liang looked hesitant. The two had just met, so it seemed inappropriate to call him by his first name. However, Liu Jing was so enthusiastic that he couldn't refuse, so he had to reluctantly agree.
Arriving at the market building, Liu Jing invited the two of them into the room.
Brothers Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jun deserve to be from a prominent family in Qilu. They sat on a straw mat with their buttocks touching their ankles, their hands placed neatly on their knees, their bodies straight and their eyes not squinting, showing good tutoring.
As soon as Liu Jinggang sat down, he couldn't help but ask the doubts hidden in his heart: "Kong Ming, your brothers are from Qilu, and for some reason they lived in Changsha."
Liu Jing admired Zhuge Liang very much in his previous life and was quite familiar with his deeds, but the history books did not say that he had ever been to Changsha.
"Two years ago, Cao Cao raised troops in Xuzhou and used cruel methods to kill hundreds of thousands of men and women. There were no chickens or dogs left, the Surabaya River stopped flowing, and there were no more people walking in the ruins..." Recalling the tragic situation in his hometown, Zhuge Liang couldn't help but feel sad in his voice.
and resentment.
"My brothers and I lost our parents when we were young and were raised by our uncle. Forced by Cao Cao's power, our uncle led our family to flee the chaos in Huainan. At the beginning of this year, my uncle was appointed as the prefect of Yuzhang County (Yangzhou). But not long after, the Chang'an court appointed another
Zhu Hao and Zhu Wenming of Kuaiji are the governor of Yuzhang."
"As the saying goes, 'There are no two days in the sky and no two masters in the earth.' My uncle was defeated in a battle with Zhu Hao. He wanted to defect to Liu Jingzhou, but Zhu Hao led his troops to cut off the way north. The uncle had to lead the whole family across the mountains to come.