At midnight, Wang Xu was reading in his room, and the sound of birds flapping their wings came from outside the window.
Put down the book and open the window.
Before he could say hello, a golden light shot in from outside and flew to his desk.
Phew!!
Yuanbao fell on the table, lowering his head and arranging his feathers.
Wang Xu looked at it with a smile, while stroking its wings with his hands, he took off the reply letter from the anklet.
"I will continue it"
What follows is Wang Xu's greeting. When he opens the letter, it begins with Xue Mushan's greetings, followed by the content of the conversation.
Xue Mushan first encouraged Wang Xu in the letter, and then talked about matters in the capital.
Wang Xu read ten lines at a glance and quickly read it.
After reading it, he closed his eyes gently and finally understood what happened.
The teacher was disliked by the emperor. In the final analysis, it was just an unnecessary disaster, and the root cause was the New Deal.
The current Holy Emperor ascended the throne at the age of sixteen. As soon as he came to power, he promoted young people from poor families on a large scale and took advantage of the poor families in an attempt to break the monopoly of the gentry class.
Yan Song's New Deal was a knife that struck at the gentry class. The Zhu Party defeated the Cold Party and overthrew the New Deal. On the surface, it was just a competition between the two parties, but in fact it was a manifestation of the power of the gentry class overpowering the imperial power.
Ever since the New Deal was abolished and Yan Song resigned and returned to his hometown, the emperor has been holding back his anger in his heart over the years.
This time for the Queen Mother's 60th birthday, the cabinet handed over the task of organizing a birthday banquet to Xue Mushan. As the third-in-command teacher of the cabinet, when he heard that hosting a birthday banquet for the Queen Mother would cost one billion taels of silver, he immediately wrote this
It is a waste of people and money, so it is recommended to reduce the expenditure to one-tenth.
The emperor agreed on the spot, but only warned the teacher that the birthday banquet should be held decently and in style.
Looking back, rumors spread in the palace that the teacher prevented the Holy Father from fulfilling his filial piety, did not respect the King's orders, did not respect the Holy Heart, and was not a minister to others.
Thinking about it, the emperor wanted to make use of the topic, to scare the monkeys, and to vent his anger.
After all, Xue Mushan was the vanguard of the Zhu Party and took the lead in attacking the Cold Party. This is how he came to be chosen as the assistant in the cabinet. If the emperor had to choose the person he hated the most, his teacher would probably be in the top three.
If this birthday banquet goes well, there will still be some chance of maneuvering, but if it doesn't go well, I won't even think about getting out.
Then again, the Ministry of Internal Affairs asked for 1 billion taels of silver. This cost included the maintenance of Cining Palace, the renovation of the imperial garden, the construction of Jingmu Temple, as well as the rewards given by the Queen Mother to foreign ladies, and the relationship with clan relatives and feudal kings.
, courtiers, drinks and banquets in the palace.
Of course, the expenditure of 1 billion taels must be very expensive.
But if we reduce it to 100 million taels, and we have to do it in a dignified, beautiful and elegant way, we know without thinking that it will definitely not be enough.
If the money is not enough, the project must be reduced. If the Queen Mother is unhappy, the matter will be considered a failure.
Inside and out, this is a hard job. If it is done well, it is a duty, and if it is not done well, it is a sin.
If you can't get through it, the teacher's boat has sunk. Likewise, everyone inside and outside the court is waiting to see the joke. Even people in Zhu's party are waiting for the teacher to move, which shows that this job is not easy to handle.
"No wonder the teacher is in trouble. Jingmu Temple alone can't be built without 300 million taels of silver. This project can only be cut off. The emperor is waiting for the teacher to make a mistake to take advantage of it. As long as the Queen Mother is a little dissatisfied, the emperor's excuse will be ignored
Yes. I don't want to spend money, and I have to make the Queen Mother happy. How can there be such a good thing in the world?"
Wang Xu burned the letter, feeling full of irritation.
At the moment, the most important question on the teacher's side is how to use 100 million taels of silver to throw a birthday banquet that is more decent than one billion taels of silver.
The Jingmu Temple cannot be built, nor can the Royal Garden be repaired. With 100 million taels of silver, the most we can do is build the Cining Palace.
Fifty million taels should be enough to repair Cining Palace. The remaining fifty million taels are another problem if the clan members, courtiers, and vassal kings who want to be accustomed to eating delicacies will be satisfied.
These people have never tasted any delicacies, but if you let them eat well, a thousand taels of silver for a table is probably the least.
Calculating, there are at least tens of thousands of courtiers staying in the capital, and there are even more people on the clan side. Thirty thousand tables may not be able to block it, so this is thirty million taels.
In addition, the Queen Mother is celebrating her birthday, so she must buy some new clothes for the concubines below.
Noble ladies outside the palace came to pay their respects to the Queen Mother. If they met a random lady, they would be rewarded with a few pairs of jade Ruyi, jade bracelets, silk and satin, which was also the most basic etiquette.
If you don’t build a garden or a temple, just eating horse chews will cost 100 million taels of flowers.
It would be good to be able to maintain capital by then. If he wanted to be dignified and dignified, Wang Xu even thought it was mysterious.
"I'm a little nervous, but I can barely maintain it. The biggest problem is that without a garden or temple to support the scene, how can I win face for the Queen Mother? You have to have this face, and you have to spend a lot of money to do it. This is the most important thing.
The hard part.”
Wang Xu racked his brains, what can be done that doesn't cost a lot of money and still looks huge?
After a second thought, I decided to write a congratulatory message.
A piece of red paper is worthless, and two taels of ink are worthless. You can organize the scholars in the Imperial College and ask them to contribute.
Those lazy guys in the Imperial College all relied on their fathers' influence to enroll in school. They didn't come to the Imperial College to study. They were clearly here to get gold.
Send them all out, set up a stall in each street, and write congratulations to the Queen Mother.
The written congratulatory messages were hung all over the palace and inside and outside the palace. One or two may not be conspicuous, but hundreds of thousands or millions of them would cause a sensation that was unprecedented in history.
Moreover, this is the first time in history that ordinary people are allowed to write messages to wish the Queen Mother a birthday, and there must be many people who want to participate.
A piece of red paper costs only ten cents, and a million pieces of paper only cost ten thousand taels. It doesn't cost much, and it can create a huge publicity and make the Queen Mother leave her name in history. This should be a good thing.
As for the style, this is a bit difficult. How can we express the royal style? We can't just rely on congratulations to fill the scene.
Although the congratulatory speech is good, it is dead. When the freshness wears off, it will inevitably make people feel monotonous.
How to show his magnificence, Wang Xu once again encountered difficulties.
From the third watch to the fifth watch, it was almost dawn outside, but Wang Xu was still at a loss.
"The weather is dry and everything is dry, prevent fire and theft!"
Just as I was thinking about it, the old voice of the watchman came from the street outside.
Wang Xu opened the window and took a look, only to see the watchman, who was over sixty years old and hunched over, shouting the watch whistle in a hoarse, low tone.
Whose father is he, and whose grandfather is he? Why is he still working outside when he is over 60 years old?
Wang Xu didn't know, he only knew that he had found a way to make the Queen Mother's birthday party look more grand.
In the last years of Kangxi, the old Kangxi felt more and more that his life was not easy.
Emperor Kangxi, who was already sixty years old and looking very old, was admiring the empire outside the Forbidden City. He was delighted and at the same time extremely frightened.
Everyone is afraid of death, and no one is not afraid of death.
In order to prove that he was still young, Emperor Kangxi held the first Thousand Old Man Banquet in history.
Those who are over sixty years old, or elders over sixty years old, regardless of officials or civilians, or Manchu or Han Dynasties, can go to Changchun Garden to have a banquet with the emperor.
At that time, there were more than 1,300 elderly people attending the banquet, and they were highly respected people from various prefectures and counties.
From a Confucian perspective, the Thousand Old Man's Banquet represents the correctness and rationality of Confucianism in governing the country with filial piety.
From the emperor's point of view, it is undoubtedly a good way to improve local cohesion that thousands of elders from local counties and counties gathered together to have a banquet with the emperor.
This is also true. What goes up works and what goes down works. The people followed the trend of respecting and respecting the elderly. For a time, the world was at peace. It is said that even bandits no longer attack the old and the weak.
During the Qianlong period, Emperor Qianlong lived longer and lived to be eighty-nine years old.
In his later years, Emperor Qianlong imitated his grandfather and held a banquet for the Thousands of Old Men. At that time, more than 6,000 people came from all over the country. Emperor Qianlong asked the prince to pour wine while his relatives accompanied him. This was the most glorious period of the feudal dynasty, like the scorching sun at noon, and then
It's sunset.
If 100,000 elderly people from all over Kyushu were invited to attend the Queen Mother's 60th birthday and celebrate it with the people, it wouldn't cost much and they would have both dignity and respect. Who would dare to say that the birthday banquet would not be successful?
style.
This is the Confucian world, and respecting the elderly is politically correct. If the teacher holds a banquet to celebrate the birthday of the Queen Mother, the emperor can no longer say that his teacher does not respect the Sacred Heart.
If the emperor still dared to say that, the following Yan Guan Yushi should have said: "That's not right. Xue Daru held a longevity banquet for the Queen Mother. He respected the elderly and respected the elderly indescribably. How could the emperor say that Xue Daru did not respect the sacred heart?"
, to prevent His Majesty from fulfilling his filial piety?"
On the other hand, the Wansou Banquet is said to be for officials and civilians, and anyone can come. In fact, those who can come and have money cannot be real common people.
It's definitely not the case. People still have to live their lives. How can they have the spare money and time to attend the Wansou Banquet during the autumn harvest?
Needless to say, those who can come, the worst are local squires, people like the three elders of Jiuquan Town.
Only these people have the time, energy, and money to go to the capital and have a banquet with the emperor.
As the initiator of the Wansou Banquet, it goes without saying that Xue Mushan will also win the support of these people. Not only will the emperor be unable to hold him accountable, but the position of the assistant can be further improved.
In this way, you kill two birds with one stone and the crisis can be solved.