"What?"
Ye Yongjia stood up in an instant, opened his eyes wide, stared straight ahead, and was speechless for a long time.
Cai Xianqing was also stunned for a moment, but he reacted in time, and said to everyone with a calm face: "You all go down first." The officials looked at each other in confusion, saluted, and then Weiwei withdrew.
When the subordinate who reported the news saw that everyone had gone, he pretended to be sad and said with sobs: "When I was ordered by you to get the documents, I saw Cui Shilang hanging from the old locust tree in the yard. I don’t know where he found the hemp rope... I saved him with a little effort, but it was too late and he was already dead."
"Is there a suicide note?" Cai Xianqing leaned forward and asked anxiously.
"Yes," the clerk pulled out a piece of paper from his arms. The ink was not completely dry yet, "Here it is."
"Let me take a look first." Cai Xianqing took the paper and leaned on the armchair to look at it carefully. After looking at it for a while, he let out a chuckle and put it down on the table.
"What...did he say?" Ye Yongjia was a little curious and glanced over.
"It was very elegantly written," Cai Xianqing picked up the suicide note again and waved it in front of his eyes. "Actually, to put it simply, it probably means this: He said that he had read the books of sages all his life, so he did two things. He had a big spring and autumn dream, one was an official career of promotion and wealth, and the other was the idea of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism; he repeatedly made choices between these two conflicting dreams, and struggled for so long that he accomplished nothing."
"This group of scholars are all like this," Ye Yongjia couldn't help but hug his knees and sighed after hearing this, "I have the saint's principles in my heart, but I see that everything doesn't make sense, so I can only violate everything when I do things; After having done so many evil things, he still indulges in his ideals and ambitions. How pitiful and hateful! Ye was not like this at the beginning..."
Cai Xianqing smiled and said: "Looking at it from this point of view, I feel at ease. What I do in primary school is the business of the market. I don't understand what the sages said or what they asked for. I am surprised, why do I always do it? What about returning to dreams? It’s time to wake up and see where we are lying, right?”
"That's right, that's right..." Ye Yongjia muttered to himself as if talking in his sleep, his eyes were serious, but he didn't know what he was looking at.
"What about Mr. Cui..." The young official raised his head and glanced at the two of them.
"Oh, send someone to restrain Mr. Cui's body," Ye Yongjia came back to his senses, looked at him and said, "I will help pay more than twenty taels of silver to build him a good coffin and send it to his home... I just wonder how his family is doing?"
The clerk kowtowed again: "To answer your question, Mr. Cui lost his old wife and eldest son a few years ago, leaving only one son and one daughter. Her daughter Cui Shi's husband died and she is a widow at home. Only her brother Cui Yi earns something. Qian, it’s a pity that he is just a scholar, running a school outside the city and teaching children.”
Ye Yongjia sighed slightly: "After all, Cui Shilang has been your commander for many years. If he dies today, his family will lose their livelihood. How can it be done? Let's do this. I will give them an extra fifteen taels of silver and order them to take care of their business. Let you go. Do this."
"You are so benevolent and righteous, I admire you so much!" The subordinate thanked him with tears in his eyes, "I must tell my colleagues about your great kindness so that they will be extremely loyal to you!"
"Okay, okay," Ye Yongjia waved his hand, "loyalty is to the emperor, not to me. Go quickly."
The subordinate got up and took a few steps outside, but then turned back in panic: "There is another question, who will take his place?"
"Minghuiguang." Ye Yongjia said the name word for word, just in case he didn't hear it clearly.
In the past few days, the Qingliu people, today's Chen Party, did not launch a general liquidation as outsiders had speculated. Instead, they took over the government situation in a relatively peaceful manner, and everything was progressing steadily.
The eunuch Lu Xinzhong, who had been imprisoned on the day of the mutiny, was of course released. Fortunately, he was not injured at all in the tent, but was a little painful from being tied up, and finally returned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs safely. According to the original plan, the first thing he did when he came back was to kneel in front of the house of Manager Shen Jing, denounced his sin of interfering in politics, and with tears streaming down his face, begged Eunuch Shen for forgiveness.
As a confidant of the Liu Party, Shen Jing was not expelled after Qingliu came to power, but remained as the eunuch in charge. In fact, he had already made up his mind to behead his head, but he was saved by the emperor and escaped death in the catastrophe. Although he has always been loyal and grateful to Liu Zhennian, this person has fallen after all, and there is no point in forcing him, so he lowers his head wisely and is willing to play the role of an honest and obedient person, so as not to be in panic all day long. Therefore, he did not dare to speak out against Eunuch Lu who Qingliu had forgiven, so he had to calmly forgive him for all his crimes.
Eunuch Lu put on his official uniform again and took over the power. He found that one of the conditions originally given by Cun Zhao had been lost, which was that "foreign ministers were not allowed to enter the house with memorials". Fortunately, he could still make progress on the other two conditions, so he passed the agreement with With this sworn alliance, Cun Zhao transported the documents of the Liu Mansion to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in large quantities, claiming that he would strictly investigate the 'people of the Afu Liu Party'. This move frightened many ministers. They bribed the two eunuchs Shen and Lu one after another, so that they made enough silver, almost a lot of money. Seeing Manager Shen counting the money happily, Eunuch Lu felt a little proud. All these were obtained by relying on him. Even if he wanted to control everything in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, what was wrong with him? But he still retains respect for Manager Shen and does not allow himself to be too presumptuous.
Not only in the palace, but also in and outside the capital, there were indispensable sounds of celebration. It was a universal celebration. Every house hung up colorful silks, one street connected to another, people looked at each other, and the fireworks went off for three or four days without a break. Cui Yi, who teaches in the village, also felt happy and gave the children a few days off to go to the city to visit the market and watch the fireworks. We had so much fun that day that we returned home in the evening. After asking my sister how she was doing, she put on a pair of coarse clothes and walked alone in the yard.
"Brother Cui, open the door!" The subordinate official, dressed in black, knocked on Cui's door.
"Is it Brother Zhou?" Cui Yi heard the voice very familiar, stepped forward and pushed the door open. When he saw his sad face, he stared, took half a step back, and was stunned.
"Brother Zhou... why are you dressed like this?" He staggered and almost stopped, looking at him and asking.
The subordinate held his hand tightly: "Brother, I know this and I feel very sad about it. Please look away... To tell you the truth, Cui Shilang hanged himself in the Yamen yesterday!"
