Chapter 567 It’s a big deal
"...Most of the food they eat is meat and bread. The rich and powerful love to hold banquets. During banquets...I have been there...No, I just took a look from the outside. It was all meat and wine."
Bol stole a glance at the young nobleman who was sitting there, seemingly unable to extricate himself from petting the cat. Just when he wanted to brag about himself and say that he had been to the banquet of the nobles, the young nobleman stopped petting the cat.
Is this a coincidence?
Paul thought.
"How is the economy in the country?" Jiang Qingzhi asked casually.
"Very good. The endless flow of gold and silver from the colonies drove those dignitaries crazy. They spent money like water..."
Colony!
This word, which is quite unfamiliar in later generations, is now a powerful symbol of the world.
Whoever has more colonies and richer colonies will be the world leader... Of course, the prerequisite is that you have an armed force that can defend these colonies.
In Jiang Qingzhi's view, World War I and World War II were caused by the uneven distribution of spoils among the colonizers. The emerging forces needed to develop, and the old hegemons tried their best to suppress them... and thus the war was triggered.
Jiang Qingzhi nodded, and Sun Bu Tong came over and motioned for Boll to follow him.
Pol suddenly knelt down.
With a clang, Sun Bu Tong's long knife appeared on Boll's neck.
Pol swore that even the best swordsman in Portugal couldn't draw his sword that fast. The blade prodded his neck, and goose bumps covered his skin.
"Hmm?" Jiang Qingzhi stroked the cat, and Duoduo patted the back of his hand lazily.
"I am willing to serve the honorable Lord... I am willing to be your most loyal servant!" Bol said in a trembling voice.
Jiang Qingzhi glanced at him, and Sun Bu Tong smiled: "There are so many people who want to be the servant of the Lord, they can line up from Xin'an Lane to the outside of the capital. Only you..."
"Go!" Jiang Qingzhi said lightly.
Bol was taken away. After leaving the house, he said cautiously: "I was also a swordsman..."
"Really?" Sun Bu Tong found it interesting. "Why don't you give it a try? If you can defeat me, the uncle will definitely take you in."
Bol thought of Sun Bu Tong's lightning-fast sword-drawing speed and shook his head, "I am a little worse than you."
Sun Bu Tong handed Boll to the waiting prison guard of the Ministry of Justice, who had a bitter face. "Please tell Captain Wilbur that there must be a reason for throwing this person in our prison of the Ministry of Justice. It's hard for us to afford one more person every month."
Last time, Jiang Qingzhi brought back a lot of captives from Burma. Except for the king, he suggested that most of them be thrown into a construction site. Boer was an exception, and he had been squatting in the prison of the Ministry of Justice to play with lice.
"Let me ask." Sun Bu Tong said casually.
But when he heard this, the jailer turned around and ran away.
"Fuck! Stop! I say, you have to take this guy back!"
Sun Bu Tong shouted, but the jailer ran faster and faster and soon disappeared from sight.
Sun Bu Tong looked at Boll and suddenly felt that he had brought back a trouble.
"This is..." Zhang Juzheng happened to come to the Bo's house, and he became interested when he saw Boer.
"Mr. Zhang." Sun Bu Tong smiled bitterly, "This is the prisoner that Master brought back from Burma last time. He said he was a Portuguese."
"Portuguese?" Zhang Juzheng became more and more interested and asked a few questions about the situation in Portugal.
Boll knew that this was a turning point in his destiny, so he used his eloquence to blow Portugal up into the most powerful country on earth.
Jiang Qingzhi heard the news and said, "Throw him in the front yard. If he doesn't behave himself, we'll punish him." He looked at Zhang Juzheng and asked, "Uncle, how come you have time to come here today?"
Zhang Juzheng said: "Prince Jing's teacher has returned home, and there is a lot of discussion in the Hanlin Academy, and they all seem to be united in their hatred of the enemy."
"Don't worry about that." Jiang Qingzhi put Duoduo on the ground.
"Those people said... it's almost the end of the year." Zhang Juzheng was a little curious about where Jiang Qingzhi's confidence came from. "Your Excellency seems to be confident here. I wonder if he has the things that will benefit the country and the people?"
"almost."
Zhang Juzheng then explained his purpose. "After the Suzhou incident, many people in the Hanlin Academy said that the Mohists were fierce and that the Lord was almost a butcher. If we allow the Mohists to grow stronger, the Ming Dynasty will be in danger."
Ha ha!
Jiang Qingzhi couldn't help but want to laugh, and said contemptuously: "What else can those people do besides picking out sentences?"
"Those people..." Zhang Juzheng hesitated to speak.
He was also a proud person. Historically, he was so unwelcome in the Hanlin Academy that he simply took sick leave and went home.
"Being excluded?" Jiang Qingzhi asked.
"After the Suzhou incident, the Hanlin Academy became even more hostile to the Mohists." Zhang Juzheng looked a little entangled, "I wanted to..."
"Want to go home?" Jiang Qingzhi looked at him, and Zhang Juzheng's heart trembled. "How did you know?"
This was his innermost thought, which he never told anyone.
Jiang Qingzhi smiled, "You get upset when you're excluded, laugh out loud and walk out. How can we be ordinary people? It's not wrong to be young and energetic. In fact, in my opinion, you really need to go home and calm down. Don't you understand?"
At this moment, Zhang Juzheng was full of pride and ambition, but he was repeatedly beaten by reality.
"You are full of inappropriate feelings at the moment. You always feel that you are a talented person but are not valued. You blame others and the world, and feel that the world is unfair. This is like muddy water, making you uneasy. If you want to see all this clearly, you need to calm down."
Historically, it was during those years at home that Zhang Juzheng began to reflect on himself and look at the current situation of the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of an observer.
"But this is close to running away." Jiang Qingzhi said, "I can get you out of the Imperial Academy, but with your current state of mind, even if you go to the six ministries or go somewhere else, you will still be restless and uneasy." Zhang Juzheng thought for a moment, "What I need is to calm down."
"Yes." Jiang Qingzhi nodded, "Calm down, put aside those thoughts, look at yourself and the Ming Dynasty calmly."
"Uncle!"
As soon as Zhang Juzheng left, Jiang Qingzhi received bad news.
"Mr. Xu was knocked unconscious, his head is covered in blood!"
Xu Wei was pulled back by a horse-drawn carriage. His bloody head frightened many people. Hu Zongxian's face turned pale and he asked, "Who did it?"
Wang Tingxiang was also there. Wang Tingxiang said, "I went outside the city to prepare for a class, and I met the son of an old friend. He tried to stop me when he saw me going in. After a discussion, he started to speak rudely... Mr. Xu happened to come, and we had a conflict and got hit with a brick."
Wang Tingxiang pointed to his forehead, feeling somewhat ashamed, and said, "I was too late to stop it..."
"Uncle!"
Jiang Qingzhi came and saw Xu Wei's appearance. His heart sank. "How is it?"
"He's fine, but he's unconscious." The accompanying guard explained the situation. "When I passed a pharmacy on the way, I asked a doctor to take a look. The doctor said that the brain..."
The guard pointed to his head and said, "Mr. Xu was hit by a brick here. He might have been made stupid."
Beaten silly?
Hu Zongxian was struck by lightning, and Jiang Qingzhi was also stunned.
The extremely smart Xu Wei was hit with a stick and became stupid?
Jiang Qingzhi looked at the wound carefully. There was a big swelling on his forehead, and the gap looked like a child's mouth, bloody and mangled.
"Go to the Huben Zuowei to invite the doctor."
Jiang Qingzhi asked about the whole process and finally asked, "Where is the murderer?"
"Murderer..." The guard glanced at Wang Tingxiang. The doorman at the construction site didn't know Wang Tingxiang, so he wouldn't intervene when he saw an old man clashing with someone else. The conflict between Xu Wei and the man was brief, and when the guards heard the news and rushed over...
"The murderer ran away."
The guard knelt down and pleaded guilty.
Jiang Qingzhi said angrily: "The construction site outside the city has been peaceful for a while, and you guys have become lazy! Turn around... Mo Zhan!"
"Uncle." Mo Zhan came over, and Jiang Qingzhi said, "Starting tomorrow, the construction site guards will double their training."
"Yes." The training of Jiang family's guards is already hard, and if it is doubled, most of these guards will probably be exhausted.
The guard bowed his head and said, "Yes."
Jiang Qingzhi then asked Wang Tingxiang about the man's origins.
Wang Tingxiang hesitated for a moment, obviously worried that Butcher Jiang would take ruthless action.
"I just want to talk reason with him." Jiang Qingzhi said with a smile.
"That man is called Yang Zhiyuan, and his uncle is Yang Qing. Yang Qing is a famous scholar in the capital, with a wide range of friends..."
"Yang Qing?" Hu Zongxian's eyes turned cold. "My Lord, this person is in charge of suppressing the Mohist school in the capital."
Jiang Qingzhi remembered that he had met Yang Qing last time.
……
"I met my uncle."
Yang Zhiyuan met his uncle at Fengyuan Building.
Fengyuan Tower was originally the property of the Yang family. Yang Qing didn't like staying at home, so he would hang out here when he had nothing to do, entertain friends, or hold a poetry reading or something.
"Erlang is here." Yang Qing said with a smile, "I am very happy to learn that you have passed the provincial examination. Are you coming to the capital to prepare for the examination?"
"Yes." Yang Zhiyuan looked gentle and elegant at the moment, "Your Majesty has suspended the Spring Examination for a year, but my family said that it is not good to bury oneself in books all day. As the saying goes, reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles. So let me come to the capital to have a look, and I can also gain experience."
"That's right." Yang Qing held the chess manual in his hand and said with satisfaction: "You can't just read books blindly. You have to see the things in the book with your own eyes and verify them yourself..."
After a few words, Yang Qing saw that his nephew was hesitant to speak, so he smiled and said, "If you have any difficulties, I have some connections in the capital, just tell me."
Yang Zhiyuan said: "I met Wang Tingxiang outside the city earlier."
"Prime Minister Wang Ting?" Yang Qing knew this person.
"Yes, I met him at a poetry meeting when I came to the capital that year. So I went up to greet him and learned that the land next to it belonged to the Mohist school, and Wang Tingxiang actually wanted to teach Mohist disciples there. I couldn't help but argue with him..."
"Wait!" Yang Qing stopped his nephew, "You said Wang Tingxiang is going to teach Mohist disciples?"
"He said it himself." Yang Zhiyuan sneered, "I was arguing with Wang Ting, and a sloppy scholar came over and started to speak rudely and started fighting. I couldn't help but hit him with a brick."
"Prime Minister Wang Ting..." Yang Qing's face turned pale. "Prime Minister Wang Ting is a great scholar in the capital. If he switches to Mohism, the scholars in the capital will lose face. Go and invite Lord Han to come."
Yang Zhiyuan didn't expect that the relationship between Confucianism and Mohism had reached such a state, "Uncle, I knocked that man unconscious..."
"You don't need to worry about this matter." Yang Qing didn't care about a down-and-out scholar.
"When I left, I heard Wang Tingxiang calling that man... Mr. Xu."
"Who?"
"Mr. Xu."
(End of this chapter)
