At the end of the third year of Wanli, Zhu Yijun issued an edict to commend Hou Er and his wife who committed suicide to block water, and renamed Gaojiayan No. 11 Fort Houmen Village. At the same time, the emperor also adopted Hou Er's orphan, named her Zhu Houlin, raised her under the name of Empress Dowager Chen, and granted her the title "Princess Leping".
Ma Shengming, the magistrate of Qinghe County, who almost died in the Gaojiayan embankment burst flood, escorted the princess to Beijing together with the Zhongguan who came to deliver the order.
The girl of Hou Er's family was only eleven years old after the Chinese New Year. According to the people of the Hou family, the old Hou family didn't know what kind of virtue their ancestors had accumulated, but Hou Er, a fool, actually gave birth to a princess.
It turned out that the villagers who shed tears of sympathy for the sacrifice of Hou Er and his wife, in addition to lamenting the impermanence of the world, also had small flames of jealousy burning deep in their hearts. Especially after Badazui returned home after telling this legendary story, he saw his ugly girl screaming that she was hungry - she wished she had been there that day and jumped in after Guan Yong.
.......
In the first month of the fourth year of Wanli, the capital was cold and damp. Since the twelfth lunar month of the third year of Wanli, the snow has almost never stopped.
With Zhili in the capital as the center, half of northern China was covered by heavy white snow like cotton wool.
At the beginning, the courtiers praised "the auspicious snow heralds a good harvest", but the heavy snow that has not stopped during the New Year has already overwhelmed more than 20,000 private houses - Beizhili suffered a heavy snow disaster.
In terms of snow disaster relief, since the autumn harvest has already passed, the problem is not food, but a shortage of cotton-padded clothes and quilts.
Zhu Yijun ordered Zhang Jing to stop all other production, and all the major factories of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with a total of nearly 100,000 people, were devoted to cotton transportation and quilt production.
Due to the implementation of assembly line operations, 600,000 quilts and 1.5 million cotton coats were produced in just one month - all of which Zhu Yijun bought with internal funds and distributed to the disaster areas for free.
This move was praised by all the people. The "Jingshi Daily", which was published in the capital just before the end of the year, praised Zhu Yijun to the point of disgusting. However, in the eyes of the victims who received the warmth of the royal family, the praise in the newspapers was not enough - Zhu Yijun's single move boosted the loyalty of the people at the bottom of the north to more than 90%.
Following the emperor's pace of disaster relief, Queen Mother Chen and Queen Mother Li also showed compassion. The two went out of their way to establish a total of 300 medical clinics in Beijing, Beizhili and other places. The first batch of medical school students, under the leadership of the professor, provided free medical treatment to the poor. Of course, they still had to go to the pharmacy to get the medicine with the prescription. For those who really didn't have the money to get the medicine, the Queen Mother would also give it, but the village chief and the villagers would need to be guarantors.
...
Time entered the end of the first month of the fourth year of Wanli, and the convoy escorting Princess Leping finally arrived in the capital despite the wind and snow.
Hou Daidi, Princess Leping, now named Zhu Houlin, received meticulous care along the way. Along with the official who delivered the decree, there was also an eunuch from the inner study and two palace maids, who taught the princess royal etiquette and took care of her daily life along the way.
During the first half month on the road, the princess had two stomachaches because the food was too oily. Coupled with the death of both parents, I was left alone and felt very depressed. The Zhongguan and the two maids tried their best to make the princess feel better.
Because the princess was born in poverty and had never read a book, the little yellow door in the inner study taught her how to read and write along the way.
After some walking and walking, they finally arrived in the capital. Magistrate Ma was reluctant to leave and wanted to find a residence to live in. At this point, he had to be separated from the princess and her entourage. If the emperor could specially summon him, a seventh-rank sesame official, Ma Shengming felt that the blue on his ancestral grave The smoke is not much less than that on the ancestral graves of the Hou family.
The official who delivered the order saw what he was thinking, and he had a good impression of this somewhat upright local official, so he said: "Master Ma, don't leave in a hurry. Let's go to the palace to deliver the order and see how the emperor treats the princess." We’ll decide on an arrangement later.”
Ma Shengming was eager for this sound, so he quickly thanked him and said that he was waiting for him.
——————
The group waited outside the palace gate for an hour before the decree came out. Since Princess Leping had never been to the capital before, the emperor was afraid that she would not be able to come out after entering the palace, so he asked the Zhongguan to lead him to live outside the palace for two days. The day after tomorrow, he and Ma The county magistrate went to the palace to see him.
The Zhongguan said with emotion: "The emperor really didn't say anything to the princess, and even gave the slave twenty taels of gold - let us accompany the princess to visit Beijing and buy some things."
Magistrate Ma's mouth was filled with displeasure. He followed the lieutenant to a large house and escorted a group of people to move in. The two palace maids were also full of joy, and they both felt that they had taken advantage of the princess. Princess Leping felt happy after hearing this.
As a foreign minister, Magistrate Ma had the opportunity to be accompanied by internal officials and greet the princess on the road, but at this time, he could not be together and had to find another place to live. But he was overjoyed to be summoned by the emperor and left with a smile.
The next day was the first day of February. In the morning, the Zhongguan asked the princess to get up and have breakfast. Because the palace maids were not allowed to leave the palace, they dressed up in folk girl clothes just like the princesses. The group hired two carriages, escorted by a small group of officers and soldiers in uniforms, and went shopping according to the order.
The palace maid surnamed Sun who accompanied the princess along the way was riding in a carriage with Princess Leping. On the way, she said to the princess: "I think that the emperor may want the princess to buy something for the queen mother. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it is more or less out of his heart - I wonder what the princess thinks?"
After hearing this, Princess Leping's big eyes flashed on her red face, and she said with a smile: "It's all up to Sister Sun's arrangement."
After hearing this, Palace Maid Sun said with a smile: "I don't dare to call you sister when you are a princess. You should never call me like that when you enter the palace. In this case, let's go to Rishenglong first. I have long wanted to see her."
He opened the carriage curtain and ordered out, and the group headed straight for Rishenglong.
When the sun rose, the two maids and the princess covered their faces with gauze bamboo hats, got off the car and went directly into the store.
Unlike the Sunrise in the north, there is no lobby to divert guests. After entering the lobby, there was a circle of glass display cabinets with different heights, filled with rare treasures - which made Princess Leping dizzy.
The two palace maids had not even left the palace before, let alone went shopping, and they were in a daze at this time. The internal officer who delivered the order was stunned when he saw several people, and he was sweating on his forehead. He waved to the shopkeeper in the lobby to come over.
When the shopkeeper saw that the lieutenant was accompanied by his female relatives, he didn't know what to make of it. He looked at them and saw that they were all dressed up as girls, and they didn't look like the lieutenant's wife. Judging from the clothes, the lieutenant's rank didn't look like her. As if he could afford a wife.
He approached and asked in a low voice: "What orders do you have, father-in-law?" The lieutenant said in a low voice: "This is a noble person in the palace. Please arrange for a maid to look after him and give him some advice."
After hearing this, the shopkeeper looked at Zhongguan up and down and suspected that this was a group of liars. The lieutenant had no choice but to take out two pieces of gold cake and put them in the palm of the shopkeeper's hand and said: "Just use these flowers, no more than - well, it would be better to have some left."
The shopkeeper glanced at the golden pancake, squeezed it with his hands, and said with a smile on his face: "Father, what are you doing? What else can you do to shorten the shop?" He said polite words, but turned around and The gold was handed over to the cashier and a girl was called out.
The girl had received professional training and knew immediately that this was a group of local leopards. First, he led them to observe in the lobby, and then asked them what they wanted to buy.
Palace Maid Sun said: "We want to buy something for the elders in the family." After hearing this, the girl joked: "But we want to buy a gift for this girl's mother-in-law whom we have not met?"
When the palace maid heard this, her expression changed in anger, and she stretched out her hand to give her an ear scrape. The Zhongguan who was following him had quick eyes and quick hands and stopped him. He scolded the girl sternly: "You are a merchant servant, what a dirty thing, you dare to insult a noble person with words! Are you seeking death?!"
Princess Leping was so frightened that she hid behind the palace maid Sun. The palace maid was stopped by the Zhongguan. She felt frightened and said nothing, but stared at the girl with a knife-like gaze.
After hearing the lieutenant's scolding, the girl's face turned pale with anger, her mouth moved slightly, and she was about to retort. Soon after she finished speaking, a fat little hand stretched out from behind her head and blocked what she wanted to say.
The shopkeeper pulled the girl hard and scolded her: "Go to the back, you won't have to do the work here from now on!" He turned around and said with an apologetic smile on his face: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's the little girl. It's my fault. - This is my niece. She just came here the day before and was not sensible. You guys, please give her a little face and spare her once."
Princess Sun didn't want to make a fuss, so she stopped talking when she saw his sincere attitude. The shopkeeper bent down to apologize and waved a female clerk over.
Unexpectedly, someone next to me interjected: "The eunuch is disgusting! It's just a joke, how can you dare to be arrogant? Under the emperor's feet, there is still room for you to show your authority?!"
The shopkeeper secretly complained when he heard this, thinking that I had to be unlucky to do such a job. But he didn't dare to show anything on his face. When he looked up, his eyes lit up and he said, "It turns out to be Mr. Tao - why do you have so much time to spare today?"
The person who interrupted was Tao Dalin, the president of the Hanlin Academy. Because he was not feeling well today, he took a day off and came to Rishenglong to buy some things. He saw the scene of the lieutenant scolding the clerk.
Seeing his dignified demeanor and being able to tell that he was a civil servant without wearing official uniform, the lieutenant official did not dare to reply after hearing his scolding. He lowered his head and motioned for the princess and his entourage to follow him and go away.
The shopkeeper was busy and asked another female clerk to follow the group. He wiped the sweat in his heart and vowed for the thousandth time not to resign tomorrow, but his body walked towards Tao Dalin honestly.
Seeing that Tao Dalin's lips were purple and his face was pale, he quickly asked: "Master Tao, is he suffering from heart palpitations again?"
Tao Dalin nodded in agreement, and the shopkeeper said: "It just so happened that the store just received a batch of 'Quick-acting Jiuxin Pills', I'll get some for you."
Tao Dalin frowned and asked, "The price hasn't been reduced yet?"
The shopkeeper said: "It's been reduced! It's been reduced! It's been reduced - this time it's two taels of silver and ten pills. This medicine is for life-saving purposes, you can't look at the price."
"I also have some newly developed prescriptions from the medical school, including Styraxiang Pills and Jiuxin Pills. I'll give you a copy later. The professor at the medical school said - forget it, I don't understand. Just look at this."
When Tao Dalin saw him, he ran to rummage in a wooden cabinet under the counter, not knowing why. The shopkeeper rummaged around for a long time and suddenly took out a large heart model, which shocked Tao Dalin.
The shopkeeper raised the big heart with his left hand, and said to Tao Dalin with a smile on his face: "This is a model of the human heart. Only the sun rises in the capital." Tao Dalin saw the heart model with dilated blood vessels, and the corners of his mouth twitched. It's disgusting.
Unaware, the shopkeeper pointed his right hand at the big heart above his left hand and said, "Have you seen this blood vessel? The medical school has figured out that your disease is called coronary heart disease, and it is this blood vessel that is blocked - hey, hey, Master Tao, Master Tao? Get the quick-acting heart-saving pills, quickly!"
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