In the capital, in the palace of Prince Wei.
King Wei was dealing with things in the study. At this moment, the sound of Yu Hai saluting Princess Wei came from the door. After hearing this, King Wei frowned slightly and immediately put away the letters on the table.
After a while, Princess Wei's gentle voice sounded at the door.
"Your Highness, can I come in?"
"Come in." Although King Wei was a little impatient, he still let Princess Wei in.
Princess Wei asked the kitchen to stew a tonic soup and specially brought it to King Wei to drink.
King Wei didn't like soup, but he would drink the soup every time Princess Wei sent her. The reason why he drank it was not because Princess Wei sent him this soup, but because Zhao Yao requested this tonic soup.
Zhao Yao originally wanted to ask King Wei for a Shiquan Dabu Pill, but he didn't expect that the Miao Jiang doctor died in an accident. He did not leave behind the prescription for Shiquan Dabu Pill, and his descendants could not refine it. However, even if he left the prescription, his descendants might not be able to refine it. It is said that the process of refining Shiquan Dabu Pill is very complicated and difficult to succeed.
Since he could no longer obtain Shiquan Dabu Pills, Zhao Yao obtained the recipe for medicinal tonic soup from elsewhere and asked King Wei to drink the tonic soup every day.
Zhao Yao gave Princess Wei the recipe for medicinal soup and asked her to supervise King Wei to drink the soup every day.
Although King Wei disliked drinking tonic soup, he had to say that his health had improved a lot since drinking tonic soup. King Wei is prone to illness every winter and spring, but since he drank the tonic soup, he didn't get sick much last winter.
Princess Wei knew that King Wei was busy, so she left after King Wei finished drinking the tonic soup. Before leaving, she did not forget to remind King Wei to take care of himself and rest early.
After Princess Wei left, Yu Hai walked in. He held a letter in his hand, a secret letter sent from Jiangnan.
King Wei took the letter from Yu Hai and immediately opened it to read.
Yu Hai saw that King Wei's face instantly turned cold after reading the letter. He couldn't help but feel nervous, and asked cautiously: "Your Majesty, did something happen over there in Jiangnan?" He immediately thought of His Highness the Tenth Prince in Jiangnan. , his face changed drastically and he asked, "Did something happen to His Highness the Tenth Prince?"
"Nothing happened to the tenth brother, it's just..." At this point, King Wei raised his lips and sneered, "The prince and the acting king actually sent people to keep an eye on the tenth brother."
"The Crown Prince and the Acting King are going to harm His Highness Tenth?" Yu Hai said with panic on his face, "Did His Highness accidentally discover what they were doing and they want to kill His Highness to silence him?"
"That's not true. They were afraid that the imperial army following the eighth brother would find something strange, so they had been secretly monitoring the tenth brother and the others." King Wei thought of what the prince and the king were doing in Jiangnan, and his overly beautiful face was full of disgust. "They will not take action against the tenth brother. Once they do something against the tenth brother, it will be tantamount to exposing themselves."
When Yu Hai heard what King Wei said, his nervous heart immediately returned to where it was before.
"It's fine, His Highness Tenth." His Highness Tenth is fine. Why is the prince so angry? He didn't dare to ask.
"The tenth brother will arrive in Jinling in a few days. Let our people protect him then." Ever since Zhao Yao went to Jiangnan, King Wei was always worried. It was clear that Zhao Yao had been fine all along, but he was always uneasy in his heart. "Jinling is the residence of the Crown Prince and the Duke of Zhenguo. They have done too many dirty things in Jinling. It is inevitable that the tenth brother will be involved for no reason."
"Yes, Your Highness." Seeing that King Wei was very worried about Zhao Yao, Yu Hai quickly comforted him and said, "Your Highness, His Highness Tenth will be fine, and our people will definitely be able to protect His Highness Tenth."
After hearing this, King Wei just nodded lightly.
Yu Hai looked at King Wei, struggled in his heart, and finally decided to remind King Wei.
"Your Majesty, you have never been to the princess's yard since the court started writing. Would you like to take some time to visit the princess?"
When King Wei heard what Yu Hai said, his eyes suddenly became sharp and his tone became cold: "Did the princess ask you to say that?"
Yu Hai quickly shook his head: "No, the princess has never told the slaves about this, but the people in the palace thought that you were not getting along with the princess when they saw you not going to the princess's yard for a long time." He quickly reminded, "You also I know those people in the Princess’s courtyard were arranged by the Crown Princess.”
King Wei understood what Yu Hai meant, and his cold expression softened a lot.
"Everyone in the capital is busy with the imperial examinations these days. How can I have time to fall in love?" When it came to the imperial examinations, King Wei's heart was full of admiration for the emperor. "My father made it happen." The imperial examination is really an extremely sharp knife that pierces the hearts of wealthy families."
"Your Majesty is so powerful. He actually came up with a trick like the Imperial Examination to deal with a wealthy family." Anyone with a little bit of brains knows how powerful and amazing the Imperial Examination is. "Now, whether they are children from aristocratic families or poor families, as long as they study, they can take the imperial examination. As long as they are talented, they can stand out in the imperial examination and then become officials. This is a good idea to kill two birds with one stone."
"The real power of the imperial examination is that it breaks the aristocratic family's monopoly on officialdom and their influence on the court." King Wei said with a smile, "Of course, it also affects the status of the aristocratic family. As long as the imperial examination continues for a long time, the status of the aristocratic family will be And their influence will become weaker and weaker, and the literati students from the lower class will change their destiny through the imperial examination and become a new force, a force that can fight against the aristocratic families."
"Children of aristocratic families no longer have the privilege to directly serve as officials and take the imperial examinations together with scholars from lower classes. This depends entirely on their own ability." The more Yu Hai said, the more he admired the emperor. "This is for all scholars in the world. It’s a fair and equitable opportunity.”
King Wei said in a deep tone: "It depends on whether there will be any malpractice for personal gain in the imperial examination. If someone cheats, the result will still be unfair."
"Your Majesty, didn't the Emperor decree that if a candidate cheats in the imperial examination, he or she will be disqualified from taking the imperial examination, and will not be able to take it again for the rest of his life, and will not be able to serve as an official for the rest of his life." During this period, the emperor issued decrees one after another. Many decrees were issued, all related to the imperial examination. "If an official commits fraud for personal gain and immediately beheads his family in public, his family will be exiled, and his descendants will never be able to take the imperial examination or serve as officials. I feel that those ministers dare not cheat."
"Those people can't do anything." King Wei thought of the prince's ministers, and his eyes were full of contempt. "They are willing to take risks for the sake of power and glory."
"Don't they want to live?" Yu Hai said in shock, "The emperor is not a soft-hearted person. If those people really dare to practice favoritism and malpractice, the emperor will really kill them."
"Of course, they don't dare to interfere with this year's imperial examination." When King Wei thought of what happened during this period, he felt that the aristocratic families were extremely ridiculous.
Since the emperor announced the imperial examination on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, the aristocratic families certainly could not sit still and wait for death. Although the emperor said that no one could stop or oppose the imperial examination, and if anyone did, he would be punished with treason, the noble families were still not afraid of death and sent some people to test the emperor.
These people are not direct descendants of aristocratic families, but collateral descendants, or they may have been generations apart. They came forward to lead many scholars to oppose and prevent the imperial examination. Some of these scholars came from aristocratic families, some from officials, and some from poor families. of.
The reason why these scholars from poor families participated in the opposition was because they were bribed and threatened.
Jing Zhaoyin immediately arrested these people and interrogated them strictly, asking them who was behind the scenes. These people are very tough-talking and will never admit the mastermind no matter how hard they are tortured.
Those students who were threatened and bribed admitted obediently.
The emperor had previously decreed that if someone dared to prevent and oppose the imperial examination, he must have the courage to bear the consequences.
Except for those students who were threatened to participate in the opposition and were spared from the death penalty, all the students who made trouble were beheaded, and their heads were beheaded in a very "ceremonious" manner at Caishikou.
Neither the aristocratic families nor the troubled students thought that the emperor would behead him for real. The students who made the trouble regretted it before they were beheaded. They wanted to confess, but it was too late.
Even if they confess, they will still be beheaded. Also, whether they admit it or not is not that important. The emperor knew very well who the mastermind behind them was.
The ministers who originally wanted to use this incident to put pressure on the emperor knew that the emperor's attitude was very tough without even blinking when they saw the emperor cutting off the scholar's head.
The emperor once again warned the ministers in the morning court that if any of them dared to prevent the implementation of the imperial examination, it would be as simple as beheading.
Since then, no one has taken the lead in rioting against the imperial examinations in the capital.
Seeing that this trick didn't work, the aristocratic families thought of another trick. They planned to tamper with the implementation of the imperial examination, making it impossible for the imperial examination to proceed smoothly.
The emperor had long expected that they would do this, and soon found out some people who did not do well in the imperial examinations. Most of these people are the prince's people, the acting king's people, and the Han King's people who are far away in the fiefdom.
Of course, these people were all beheaded.
At court this morning, the emperor unceremoniously scolded the prince and the king bloody. He also said that if the prince did not want to be the prince, he could depose him immediately. If the king doesn't want to be a prince, he can demote him to a commoner.
The prince and the acting king did not expect that the emperor was so angry that he wanted to depose them, so they were naturally frightened. In the past, no matter how angry the emperor was, he would never say anything to depose them in court.
Duke Zhenguo and Marquis Xuanping were also scolded by the emperor. When the emperor scolded them, he didn't give them any face at all. He scolded them so bloody that they were so ashamed that they wanted to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.
When the other ministers saw that the prince and the Duke of Zhen were being scolded by the emperor, they dared to raise objections to this matter.
In fact, the ministers knew from the beginning that the emperor was serious about the imperial examination, but they did not expect that the emperor's attitude was so tyrannical. In recent years, the emperor rarely got angry and rarely chopped off the heads of officials, which made the ministers forget that the emperor was a ruthless person.
In the previous dynasty, the status of ministers from aristocratic families was very high. The emperor did not dare to punish the crimes of the aristocratic families immediately, let alone chop off the heads of the ministers from the aristocratic families easily. The emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty was not as cowardly and threatened by ministers from aristocratic families as the previous emperors.
The emperor had long wanted to eliminate a group of officials, and they happened to have given them the leverage. Naturally, the emperor would not miss such a good opportunity and wiped them out in one fell swoop.
The aristocratic families would not give up because of this, and they planned to sabotage the imperial examinations at the local level.
The emperor can control the capital, but he cannot control every place. The mountain is high and the emperor is far away. If the local government tries to do something, the emperor will definitely not know about it.
The aristocratic families wanted to sabotage the imperial examination in the local area, which was also part of the emperor's plan. Therefore, after the imperial examination questions were prepared, the emperor would send imperial envoys to various places to monitor them. In addition to the imperial envoys, other ministers of the imperial court went to various places to preside over examinations, invigilate examinations, and mark examination papers. In addition, the examination papers for the imperial examinations will be escorted to various places by soldiers throughout the process. Then, these soldiers will stay in the local area and be responsible for maintenance and inspection.
Before the court started writing, the emperor and Xiang He discussed not only the content of the imperial examination, but also how to deal with the machinations of the famous families.
They had long expected that once the imperial examinations were implemented, they would inevitably encounter various objections from aristocratic families. In order to make this year's imperial examination go smoothly, they have made all preparations.
In addition to these, the emperor also sent dragon guards to various places to monitor every move of the local yamen.
Except for the emperor, no one else knew about the existence of the Dragon Guard, not even He Xiang and his close ministers knew about it. He Xiang and others thought that the Dragon Guards were the secret guards who followed the emperor. They were only responsible for protecting the emperor's safety and did not do other things. In fact, Dragon Guards do a lot of things. It is their duty to protect the emperor, and they will also inquire for information.
The reason why the emperor knew many things was because the dragon guards could find out a lot of unknown information.
The Dragon Guard existed before the emperor ascended the throne. In the beginning, they were formed by Prince Yong. Back then, when we were trying to conquer the country, because the Zhao family was from a grassroots background, they did not have their own sources of information like the aristocratic families. The aristocratic families have their own exquisite works, but the Zhao family does not.
If the Zhao family wants to win in the war, they must have their own tricks. Therefore, Prince Yiyong decided to form a team belonging to the Zhao family.
Before the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, these craftsmen were just like scouts on the surface, and others did not notice anything unusual about them. After the establishment of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the emperor reorganized this meticulous team and made them the dragon guards who were not known by others.
When you hear the name "Dragon Guards", you know that the only person they protect is the emperor. They do not belong to any department, are not ordered by anyone, and only listen to the emperor's words.
Everyone in the Dragon Guard has special skills, and these skills are unknown to outsiders. The secret guards sent to protect Zhao Yao were also dragon guards. They are the best secret guards among the dragon guards. Even if the King of Chu and the King of Wei don't protect Zhao Yao secretly, with these four secret guards alone, they can protect Zhao Yao from failure.
Sun Doudou, who was guarding Dongnuan Pavilion, was shocked when he saw the mysterious guard A appeared. He murmured in his heart, who is this person? He appears inexplicably every time. Moreover, this person never needs to be notified when entering or leaving Chengguang Hall. Another thing that was very strange was that he had only seen this person in Chengguang Hall, never anywhere else.
When Sun Kui saw the hidden guard appear, he immediately woke up from his nap. Every time the Dark Guard appears, it must mean something big has happened.
The secret guard A sent a secret letter to Sun Kui. Sun Kui took it and brought it to the emperor with both hands.
The emperor took the letter and read it, then chuckled: "This brat is quite alert." The letter stated that Zhao Yao discovered that the prince and the people acting for the king were causing trouble in Jiangnan. "As expected of my son."
When Sun Kui saw the emperor saying this with a proud and proud face, he was very curious about what His Highness the Tenth Prince was doing in Jiangnan.
The secret guard asked respectfully: "Your Majesty, what should we do next?"
"Don't interfere in the affairs in Jiangnan. Continue to let them keep an eye on it." The emperor ordered, "As for that brat Xiao Shi, let them follow him carefully."
The secret guard thought for a moment and asked, "What should we do if His Highness the Tenth Prince interferes in Jiangnan's affairs?"
"That brat Xiao Shi is very smart. Unless he is forced to get involved, he will never interfere in other people's business." The emperor still understood his younger son's temperament better. "If the brat is unlucky and gets involved, Go in, then let him make trouble and see how far he can make trouble."
The dark guard was stunned for a moment by the emperor's words. Although his expression didn't change at all, there was a strange emotion in his heart.
"Your Majesty, didn't you say before that you should not alert the enemy? If His Highness the Tenth Prince is involved, he will definitely alert the enemy."
"The prince and the second son don't take Xiao Shi seriously. No matter how troublesome Xiao Shi is, they won't alert others."
"But if this happens, His Highness will be in danger." With the methods of the Crown Prince and King Dai, they will never let His Highness go and let His Highness come back from Jiangnan alive.
"This brat's life has always been too comfortable. It's time to let him know what danger is." The emperor held a memorial in his hand and gently tapped the palm of his left hand. "Tell them, don't wait until that brat Xiao Shi is in danger." When they save themselves, they take action to save Xiao Shi.”
The dark guard responded respectfully: "Yes."
"You should also pay close attention to the imperial examinations in Jiangnan." The emperor's tone suddenly became very serious, "I will never allow officials in Jiangnan to sabotage the imperial examinations."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The emperor had nothing else to say, so he waved his hand to the secret guard, beckoning him to retreat.
After the secret guards retreated, that night, the four secret guards guarding Zhao Yao received the emperor's order.
"The Emperor said that he would not save His Highness until he was in danger and could not save himself. What would happen if His Highness was injured?" He said this in a lively tone. However, because his face was covered, he couldn't see his expression, but it could be seen from his tone and smart eyes that he was not a dull and rigid person.
"If His Highness is seriously injured, but his life is not in danger for the time being, can we save him?" He said this in a low tone, and his exposed eyes were calm.
Ask these two questions to the leader among them. He was silent for a long time and said: "We still follow the emperor's will."
"Boss, do you mean that we have to wait until His Highness has only one breath left to save him?"
"Boss, what should we do if His Highness has only one breath left, but something suddenly happens while we are rescuing him?"
"Brother, let's wait until His Highness is injured and save him." The secret guard with a lively voice said, "I can't bear to leave His Highness with only one breath left."
Zhao Yao suddenly felt a chill in his sleep. It was so cold that he shivered unconsciously. He subconsciously stretched out his hands and hugged himself tightly.
When I was typing yesterday, I suddenly felt too sleepy, so I leaned on the table and talked for a while. I originally planned to sleep for half an hour, but unexpectedly I fell asleep directly on the table. I didn't wake up until about two o'clock in the middle of the night, so there was no update yesterday.
Finally, I still ask for a monthly ticket!
(End of chapter)
