The wind in October is already slightly cold, especially in the vapor-rich Jiangnan area, which brings with it the slightest hint of moisture in the coldness.
Walking in the square of Wuying Palace City, Zhu Yuanzhang's steps were relatively steady, while Li Jinglong behind him was one position behind him, following him half a step away.
"You should be a little more concerned about Pingbo's affairs. If you have any requests, just ask me."
Zhu Yuanzhang said as he walked, and added by the way: "I wanted you to stay in Yunnan, but you also know that if you are too far away, I will not be worried about the northwest."
"Although Yungong has been preparing for the border in the north all year round, he is not as considerate as you after all."
"It's a good idea this time. Let him go out to Yunnan and gain a few years of experience before coming back. I think he will be much calmer."
His words to Li Jinglong are no different from his own grandson, which shows that he really regards Li Jinglong as his grandson.
Li Jinglong has never betrayed his trust. Whether it was the crusade against Naha Chu or the expedition to Beibian in the northwest of the town, he did everything well.
Because of this, Zhu Yuanzhang often assigned him more and more important things to do, while Xu Huizu assisted him like a deputy.
Now that Xu Huizu was out of Yunnan to control the more than 100,000 troops in Yunnan, Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that Li Jinglong would have other thoughts, so he specially explained to him and comforted him.
The north wind was biting. When a civil servant dressed in Changshi costume walked into a forest, he followed a group of colorful people and handed the letter in his hand to a man in his thirties who was studying the trees. man.
Shaking his head, Zhu Rui put the matter about Zhu Youdun behind, and then commented on the letter in Chang Shi's hand:
Yes, if we want to say who is the most accurate judge of people in this world, if he, Zhu Yuanzhang, is number one, no one would dare to be number two.
"That's all, let him go, the old man is still here anyway..."
"I think the Second Highness will be able to return to the north soon, but I can't figure out where specifically."
Li Jinglong did not ask who it was because he knew better than anyone who Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to ask him most right now.
That boy Zhu Yunwen didn't have such courage and means. This situation can only mean that his emperor father helped him.
Regarding Zhu Youdou, he really had no qualifications to educate him. Even if he hadn't won the favor of his father, he might not have returned to Kaifeng from Yunnan so quickly.
Facing the letter delivered by Chang Shi, the man did not take it immediately, but was observing the tree in front of him.
"Then your Highness should pay attention. It's best to put on a show for the grandson to take action easily."
He called on many literati who knew agriculture to study the plants in the yard with them.
"Besides, I am already busy with the matter of peace and Japanese affairs. Why would I want to go out to control Yunnan?"
"It is absolutely impossible to return to Your Highness..." Chang Shi had already read the content of the letter, shook his head and objected:
"Yes!" Young Zhang Fu bowed in agreement, turned around and went to send the message.
After getting the answer, Zhu Di quickly shook his head: "I don't do that kind of thing."
When everyone heard what he said to tease the emperor, they all bowed their heads to express that they didn't hear it. Only Yao Guangxiao changed the subject:
It's a pity that his intelligence disappeared after he returned to Kaifeng. He spent every day in the company of a group of prostitutes and music lovers in the prince's mansion, and he also wrote many songs and plays.
After Li Jinglong finished speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang fell into silence.
At the end of the letter, it was also written that the direct elders of the three prefectures of Qin, Jin, and Yan entered the Wuying Palace to manage the government, and the second prefecture of Susong and Jiangnan used banknotes to offset taxes.
Although he is an emperor, if you look closely, he is just an old man.
"If the grandson notices, based on His Highness's current performance, I am afraid that he will be squeezed out of Nanjing city soon."
"It's good now. Gao Xu has invited Li Jinglong out to quell the Japanese. I believe those Japanese pirates will be wiped out soon."
It's just a pity that, looking at the current situation, I'm afraid his father has already transferred his thoughts to Zhu Gaoxu. As for his son...
"Eh!!!"
Zhu Yuanzhang, who felt something, turned sideways and looked back, only to see Li Jinglong's retreating back.
Zhu Yuanzhang would feel very happy from time to time about his ideas, perhaps because he thought of Zhu Wenzheng back then.
"In this way, there will be no direct contradictions and conflicts between him and the grandson. All that is left is the weight of His Majesty the Second Highness in His Majesty's heart."
He is not a stingy person. If Zhu Yunwen defeated him by his own means, Zhu Fan would not say anything even if he lost. But the problem is that this 'paying taxes with money' was obviously the plan of Zhu Gaoxu, but now it is It was transferred to Zhu Yunwen.
The sound of the teacup breaking made everyone's hearts tighten. Zhu Fan also stood up and walked to them aggressively, glaring at them condescendingly: "He is Zhu Laosi's son, not my son, what do you care about him? Do you want to be served by a prince instead?!"
The sizzling sound of flesh being cooked and the screams of the people resounded throughout the cell. Shi, the head of the Prince of Qin's Palace, couldn't stand it anymore and had to turn around and walk out of the cell.
"Why don't you let him go home?" Zhu Di looked uncomfortable, but he also knew that Zhu Gaoxu was too good at the moment. If Zhu Gaoxu was allowed to follow Zhu Di, it would probably cause the Yan family to lose its tail.
"Those dolls in my family should probably get the news..."
Zhu Fan clenched his fists, and another brother who was hundreds of miles away also clenched his fists.
That person didn't know what mistake he had made, and he had been tortured to a terrible state by Zhu Xi.
He couldn't accept such a life, let alone Zhu Ming's short-sightedness.
In Prince Qin's Mansion in Xi'an, Zhu Ping threw the letter in his hand into the stove nearby. While muttering in his mouth, he picked up a soldering iron in his hand.
In the Han, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, if the county prince dared to disobey the emperor, even his own grandson would probably be demoted to a commoner.
"What the poor monk wants to ask His Highness is... Do you want the Second Highness to come to the north?"
Of course, the reason why he thought he could ascend to the position of crown prince was all because of his most favored son among the three generations of children.
"Zhang Fu, you send someone to send a message to the 17th and 15th brothers, asking them to be careful of the Wuliangha and Jurchens going south to plunder. If they are invaded by this group of barbarians, write to me asking for help. I will lead people to pacify them. Got it!"
"Haha..." Yao Guangxiao covered himself with laughter and said at the same time:
While he was looking at it, the thirty-year-old man also talked to several scholars next to him: "This pomegranate tree has produced forty-six kilograms of fruit this year, which is seven or eight kilograms more than other pomegranate trees. You can take a look at it." , it’s best to understand why it bears so many pomegranates.”
As for Zhu Gaoxu's rescue of Fu Youde and Feng Sheng, Zhu Fan is not a fool. He doesn't believe that Zhu Gaoxu saved these two people for nothing. That kid is obviously a bad guy, just like his father!
Standing in front of him, the Chief of the Jin Palace, Shi Shi, and several subordinate officials also had extremely ugly expressions, because they all knew what the credit of using banknotes to offset taxes represented.
"What would you do with such a person..." Zhu Xi said as he walked up to that person with a red-hot iron and branded him hard in front of his face.
However, Zhu Rui has nothing to say about these. After all, he is also "not doing his job properly" at the moment, so it's hard to say anything about Zhu Youdou.
But at the moment, Zhu Fan was feeling depressed and his whole body was shaking with anger.
When he saw this figure, Zhu Yuanzhang still thought of Zhu Gaoxu. Perhaps the more distance the people around him were from him, the more he missed Zhu Gaoxu, who had no sense of distance from him.
"Talk about your mother's head!" Zhu Fan grabbed the tea cup on the table and wanted to throw it at Chang Shi, but the restraint in his heart made him throw the cup to the ground.
Zhu Yuanzhang no longer thinks about Zhu Gaoxu, and this deliberate avoidance is enough to explain a lot.
Thinking of this, Chang Shi and his officials all looked at Zhu Fan, wondering what Zhu Fan would do.
"Old Duke?" The man was stunned when he heard the words of his family history.
Because of this, after he was allowed to return to Kaifeng two years ago, he had many yards planted with crops in his mansion.
"The fourth child is really in trouble..."
Zhu Ru studied and searched for so many crops in order to let the people know what wild crops can satisfy their hunger during famine years and what kind of crops can fill their stomachs.
"The grounding is not serious enough! It's already been two months, old monk!"
As a result, when we arrived at Lao Zhu's house, the mere grounding was nothing to mention, not to mention that judging from the information obtained by Yao Guangxiao, Zhu Gaoxu himself seemed to be content and content, and His Highness was obviously overly worried.
"The Second Mansion of Su Song used banknotes to deduct taxes, but he didn't get any credit, and he was even grounded for speaking for Duke Ying. This is really..."
As for the matter of Nanjing City, although he still had ideas, he knew that as long as his father was still alive, his ideas could not be exposed, so he disguised himself.
It's just that no matter how powerful he is as the king of Sai, he can't interfere with his son's future...
"Your Highness, it's snowing..."
Upon seeing this, Chang Shi looked curiously and realized that it was a pomegranate tree.
As he had guessed, the recent news from Jiangnan was indeed being sent to the vassals in the north one by one.
Not only him, but almost everyone on the arrow tower looked at Zhu Di, and Zhu Di also put away his playful smile and became calm.
However, Li Jinglong didn't care about this: "Yungong went to Yunnan. I think His Majesty made the decision under great pressure."
"Come on, come on... Zhu Neng, Zhang Yu, you two, tell me, is it possible that there are gold and silver mines in Yanshan to the north of us..."
"..." After hearing what his son had done, veins popped up on Zhu Zhu's forehead, but he calmed down after a moment.
At this moment, he was in a cell in Prince Qin's Mansion, and in the dark corner of the cell, a Ban man who was tied to a shelf became the third living person in the prison besides Zhu Ping and the civil servants beside him.
"What do you think of him..."
Zhang Yu, who has been on the battlefield for a long time, looked at the flying snow falling in the sky. His heart tightened and he also looked at Zhu Di.
"Zhu...Second Highness?" Chang Shi almost called him by his first name. He quickly changed his words and couldn't help but ask Zhu Fan. Obviously he thought Zhu Fan said the wrong name, but how could a person like Zhu Fan say the wrong thing.
Zhu Rui sneered, smiled and shook his head: "If the fourth brother knew that Gao Xu actually helped Zhu Fan, I don't know what his expression would be."
Yao Guangxiao and Zhu Neng looked at each other, lowering their heads and snickering. Only Zhu Di was still thinking enthusiastically about asking Zhu Gaoxu to find some gold and silver mines for himself, as if this arrow tower had become a big stage for him to make a fortune in the future.
At the same time that he left the prison, Zhu Fan of Taiyuan also received news from Jiangnan.
"His Highness wants the Second Highness to return to the north?" Yao Guangxiao asked knowingly, and Zhu Di also put away the discomfort on his face: "You are fooling me again. With Gao Xu acting like that, no one will trust him to come back. My father probably won't agree either. It is right to keep him in Nanjing as a pledge."
Unlike Zhu Fang, when Zhu Fan saw the content of the letter, his face immediately became extremely ugly.
Seeing this, the man had read the content of the letter, and after reading it, he handed the letter to Chang Shi, and said while walking through the bare fruit trees with his hands behind his back:
"The portion size?" Zhu Di turned to look at Yao Guangxiao like a tiger that had lost its fur: "Old monk, are you confused? My father has grounded Gao Xu for almost two months."
"It's just a grounding..." Yao Guangxiao reminded helplessly. Perhaps Zhu Yuanzhang was so good to his descendants that Zhu Di and others felt that a grounding was a very serious punishment.
At this point, the man's identity is also very obvious.
"Your Highness... it's still easy to understand." Yao Guangxiao did not expect Zhu Di to react so quickly this time, but he also admitted his thoughts and did not sell out.
"But now the prince has just entered the Wuying Palace..." Chang Shi reminded carefully, but Zhu Fan turned around and said coldly: "Build momentum for Zhu Gaoxu!"
Zhu Di looked back at the snowflakes that had fallen outside the city. At this moment, he once again became the King of Sai who guarded the north for the Ming Dynasty.
However, in the content here, the use of banknotes to offset taxes by Su Song's second house was the merit of Zhu Yunwen, the grandson of the East Palace, while Zhu Gaoxu was banned from the emperor because of Fu Youde's matter. Two months have passed.
Yao Guangxiao's black robe was blown by the biting cold wind, and his kind-hearted face looked a bit strange.
"I don't dare..." Chang Shi and many subordinate officials lowered their heads and bowed. Zhu Fan looked at their appearance and turned away angrily to cover up his ferocious expression.
Seeing his appearance, Shi, the Chief of the Prince of Qin's Palace next to him, couldn't bear to say: "Your Highness, these people have been in Xi'an for more than ten years. It is normal not to know where the Fan tribe in the west will move. Why do you..."
Anyway, everyone gets what they need, so you don't have to feel guilty about attacking him.
For the vassal kings who are not legitimate sons, all they need to do is to keep their peace and obey the orders of the court.
"The Second Highness of the Yan Mansion not only passed the test of Wei Guogong and Cao Guogong, but also studied with the old Guogong and Ying Guogong for several months. The old Guogong praised him highly."
But the biting north wind blew away his words, and he himself stopped talking and turned to look north.
He was clearly the one who gave birth to him, so why should he help a concubine...
He did not discuss other topics with Li Jinglong, but walked around Wuying Square and returned to Wuying Hall.
Zhu Di yelled, but Yao Guangxiao knew his temper and was not angry. Instead, he continued with a smile:
Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes became a little cloudy, he turned around and walked towards the side hall, murmuring incessantly.
When he saw the articles and their contents, he immediately frowned, especially when he saw the names of the owners of the last articles, his brows almost formed the character "Sichuan".
Listening to the increasingly louder sounds behind him, Prince Palace Chief Shi clenched his fists as he walked out of the prison. It seemed that he could no longer bear such a life.
"For the Liaodong Zhongzuo Institute, Gao Xu has found a good helper for me."
"But what surprised me the most was this guy's ability to look at Shandian mines. Not only did he find Yungong a job out of Yunnan, but he also found so many gold and silver mines for my father."
Li Jinglong is very open-minded. After all, he is now a highly respected minister, and no matter how great his achievements are, it will not have much effect.
Zhu Gaoxu is a good target, after all, he is the most eye-catching person at the moment.
"His Second Highness did a good job in using banknotes to offset taxes in Jiangnan. He took the initiative to hand over the credit to His Majesty, who then distributed it to the grandson, and he also accepted the gold and silver gifts from the grandson."
"I saw it..." Zhu Di responded in a deep voice, but also knew what the heavy snow represented. He turned to look at Zhang Fu:
In the Cunxin Hall of Prince Jin's Mansion, Zhu Fan held the letter in one hand and held the armrest of the chair tightly with the other.
Zhu Xi looked at Chang Shi and asked in a calm tone: "Is the prince studying?"
His face was calm and his eyes were a bit cold: "Zhu Yunzhen has little energy. I don't believe there is no gap between him and Zhu Gaoxu. It's best for him to focus on Yan Mansion at the moment and stop staring at me."
But……
With the support of the wealthy gentry households in these two houses, it meant that Zhu Yunwen received 10% of the world's taxes.
Zhu Xi, on the other hand, watched the people howling intently, and couldn't help but increase the strength of his hands, making the people scream louder.
At this moment, the sky was a little gray, with thick gray clouds gathering, and soon a piece of snow began to fall.
"Yes..." The scholars around him bowed in agreement after hearing what the man said, and then stepped forward to study the pomegranate tree.
He moved out Xu Huizu and Guo Ying, which made Li Jinglong feel at ease.
"Although I want Gao Xu to come back, I won't bet the lives of the people on the frontier. If Gao Xu can come back, he will come back. If he doesn't come back, it's okay..."
Zhu Di expressed his opinion frankly, but Yao Guangxiao looked at him deeply: "Your Highness, there are many things in the world that you cannot make the decision for yourself."
Zhu Di didn't agree with him because he guessed what Yao Guangxiao was thinking: "Old monk, you don't want me to respect the bandits and put Gao Xu next to the bandits..."
"I've met this kid Gao Xu before, but he used to like to wield swords and guns, and ride horses to cause trouble. Now he actually writes articles like this. Are you sure this wasn't written by someone ghostwritten by my fourth brother?"
"Get that boy Zhu Gaoxu away from me!"
"Your Highness, there is news from Nanjing, I'm afraid you have to take a look."
He knew very well that not everyone could like his father-in-law. If Zhu Gaoxu hired someone to write for him, or had no skills, then his father-in-law would not praise him.
"Old Shififteen asked me to help him fight the Japanese pirates, but I can't leave Peiping and Daning too far to help him."
He was already very interested in medicine, especially after he was moved to Yunnan due to the idea of fighting for the throne, he personally saw many scenes of people's suffering.
"Of course!" Zhu Di frowned. He hadn't seen Zhu Gaoxu in almost two years, and he missed him very much.
At the same time as he was thinking about it, news came to Prince Qin's Mansion and Prince Jin's Mansion hundreds of miles away.
Zhu Di's words were scattered around by the wind. Everyone looked at the talkative Zhu Di and smiled bitterly and shook his head. It was difficult to associate him with the man who had traveled thousands of miles and crash-landed on the famous Beibei general Nai'er Buhua.
Zhu Fan thought very well. He knew that Zhu Yunwen would definitely hit him hard if he gained power, so he had to attract Zhu Yunwen's attention elsewhere in advance.
Taking a deep breath, Chang Shi quickened his pace to leave.
"Using cash to deduct taxes...he really made it happen."
After Zhu Yuanzhang entered the palace, Li Jinglong bowed to his back again and again, turned around and left the highest power center of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Fan raised his head with red eyes and looked at Chang Shi and his subordinate officials, but his request made everyone difficult.
Thinking of this, Zhu Xi couldn't help but wonder what Zhu Fan and Zhu Di looked like when they got the news from the south.
"Gao Xu shows off his talent and doesn't know how to restrain himself. I'm afraid he has been regarded as a thorn in Taisun's side. If he hadn't had the ability to look at Shandian Mine, he might have been targeted by Taisun long ago."
"Don't know?" Zhu Ping smiled contemptuously: "I think he knows, but he doesn't want to tell us. He doesn't regard himself as a citizen of the Ming Dynasty at all."
Shi, the chief minister of the Jin Dynasty, bowed first and then said with difficulty: "Zi Xu, the second son of Yan, helped the old prince to speak for him just a few years ago. If we do this now, are we adding insult to injury..."
As he spoke, Zhu Di smiled naively: "Old monk, do you think I should ask Gao Xu to find some gold and silver mines for me after he returns to Peking? Don't worry, I will definitely not treat you badly if I have gold and silver mines. It’s time to give you some salary increases.”
Zhu Yuanzhang thought of the figure in his memory, but that figure gradually merged with another person, and it was Zhu Gaoxu's face that finally appeared in his mind.
The biting north wind can easily make people blush, but this is nothing to the dark-faced Zhu Di. Compared with the biting north wind, what his father did to his son made him uncomfortable.
Even if Zhu Yunwen now stops promoting the use of banknotes to offset taxes, he only needs to maintain the use of banknotes to offset taxes in the Susong Second Prefecture, and then he can gain the support of the wealthy gentry households in the Susong Second Prefecture.
"This..." Chang Shi hesitated, and finally, under Zhu Zhu's gaze, he had no choice but to explain: "As in the past, the prince summoned some prostitutes and music households to compose music and drama in the prince's mansion..."
Under the light of the fire, Zhu Xi put the soldering iron into the stove with a cruel look on his face.
Li Jinglong didn't know how to comment specifically on this young man he had only met twice, but in order to satisfy Zhu Yuanzhang, he still gave a generally good answer: "I can't see through him."
"Okay, I won't do that anyway." Zhu Di interrupted Yao Guangxiao and said while holding the letter in his hand:
"My father is so cruel, he is so cruel to his grandson..."
Before Chang Shi could react, the man took the envelope in his hand, opened it and read through it.
"Old monk, why don't you speak?"
He said this, but Li Jinglong didn't react at all. Instead, he said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Actually... you can see better than us what about that person. You already have the answer in your heart."
At this moment, he was standing on an arrow tower in Beiping City, accompanied by Zhu Neng, Zhang Yu, Yao Guangxiao and young Zhang Fu.
Zhu Yuanzhang dismissed the images in his mind, stood there with his back to Li Jinglong, and asked him.
For a moment, Zhu Gaoxu's face appeared in his mind.
If he could have explained to his nephew in time and comforted him, maybe his nephew would not have died suddenly in his prime.
"Can't see through..." Zhu Yuanzhang pondered, and then his body started to move again. While walking forward, he said: "You are not the first person to say this, Yungong and Guo Si also said so."
"Isn't it just that I want to cut down the vassalage in the future? Just let that boy Zhu Yunwen do it. Anyway, I don't have any ideas."
But for the direct vassal kings who hold heavy troops and are in dangerous positions, their minds are very active...
"The poor monk said that the Second Highness may already have weight in His Majesty's heart."
But before he could feel reassured, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed again: "It's just that I don't know, whether you really can't see through it, or whether you can see through it and dare not tell me..."
So far, they have found 138 remaining crops in the herbal books of the past dynasties, and recorded and saved 156 new crops, and this number is still increasing.
As the fifth son of Queen Ma, Zhou King Zhu Ju can be said to be one of the few kings who has experienced ups and downs.
With his back to everyone, he tried his best to suppress his voice and temper: "Let those people in Nanjing build momentum for me, don't let that kid Zhu Yunwen gain momentum!"
