Professional Ethics of a Concubine

Because of the Wang family's rebellion, almost no nobles in the capital dared to hold any banquets in the past two months, and even the birthday parties or wedding banquets that were originally scheduled were postponed.

Because even if you dare to do it, you definitely won't be able to invite many people.

As Prince Su held a full-month banquet for his two children, it was as if some kind of seal had been lifted, and all kinds of banquets sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

Moreover, the imperial court now encourages people to donate gifts to banquets, and one can receive a medal of honor afterwards.

These gifts can be converted into silver and used for disaster relief, road construction, military pay, etc. They can also accumulate merit for elders and juniors, so everyone will scramble to hold banquets.

When Ye Qingzhi said that she felt numb at the banquet, she was definitely not just saying it casually.

She had already rejected all the invitations she could, but there were still many that she had to go to.

In addition to her elder brother and sister-in-law's wedding banquet, there was another important one for her, which was Feng Niankang's ancestral banquet.

It should have been handled long ago, but due to the incident between Prince Su and the Wang family, it was postponed until now.

Xie Mingli personally organized the banquet at the Pingnan Marquis' Mansion despite his illness. He was willing to do it no matter how tired he was, because he felt that doing these things was making up for his mistakes.

Xie Mingli sent invitations to all the famous dignitaries in the capital and wrote them himself to show how much he valued Feng Niankang.

In addition, he also submitted a memorial to the emperor, requesting the emperor's approval to pass the title to Feng Niankang.

The emperor first suppressed Xie Mingli's memorial, intending to confer a title on Niankang, allow him to recognize his ancestry, change his name, and enter the Xie family's genealogy, and then formally issue an imperial decree to inherit the title.

Everyone who received the invitation, after learning that Feng Niankang, who wanted to return to his ancestral home, was already the companion of Prince Jing's son and was highly praised by the Emperor and loved by Prince Jing, prepared generous gifts to attend the banquet.

Not only Ye Qingzhi attended the banquet, but Prince Jing and the Princess also came. They have an inseparable relationship with the Xie family.

Although the Anle Marquisate forced Xie Mingli to write a divorce letter, severing his marital relationship with Lin Qingwan, Feng Niankang was still Lin Qingwan's son, so the Anle Marquisate naturally attended the banquet to give face and status to their grandson.

The old lady also showed up and personally presided over Feng Niankang's ancestor recognition ceremony.

The people watching the ceremony looked at the old lady's energetic appearance and secretly admired her for being in such good health, truly a centenarian.

I'm jealous!

Because of the old lady's age, even if the person who came to watch the ceremony was the grandmother of the family, she would have to call her aunt or auntie or even grandmother.

In short, they are all a group of young people and grandchildren!

These younger generations naturally care about the old lady's health, and those who are close to her ask her for health secrets.

When asked about the secret of keeping in good health, the old lady smiled and said,

"To be honest, I was almost in poor health last year because I was irritated by the unfilial descendants in my family.

Later, Qingzhi advised me that my children and grandchildren will have their own blessings, and I should not work like a slave for them. Then I really let it go.

Once your mind is open and you stop worrying about this and that, your body will naturally get better.

That's not as good as being in good spirits now, after all, I'm old.

However, ever since I found my little great-grandson, everything I eat tastes delicious, my appetite has improved, and I sleep better than before.

Eat well and sleep well, and your body and spirit will be much better. My little great-great-grandson is my lucky star. "

When everyone heard this, they felt that the old lady really loved this little great-grandson and was very good at giving him honor.

No one took Feng Niankang's good fortune seriously. The idea of ​​being blessed was very mysterious.

You think that the other person brings good luck to you, but that's because you like that person. Anyway, good luck can't come to others and it has nothing to do with them.

After the ancestor recognition ceremony, Feng Niankang officially changed his name to Xie Niankang, and the elders of the Xie family solemnly added his name to the family tree.

Everything went smoothly, and there was no one ignorant enough to stop it or question it.

Soon after, the eunuchs from the palace also came and read out the imperial edict in public, stating that from today on, Xie Niankang would inherit the title of marquis, and from then on he would be the Marquis of Pingnan.

Everyone looked at Xie Mingli, surprised yet not surprised, and then they all smiled and congratulated Xie Niankang.

He suddenly became the youngest marquis in the Great Zhao.

Facing such a scene, Xie Niankang was not at all nervous. He accepted everyone's congratulations with grace and returned the greetings. His words and actions were upright, generous, mature and polite.

Everyone saw it, smiled and praised it.

It is so rare that this boy has grown up to be so outstanding after living in exile for ten years. It must be because of the good teaching by those around him.

Upon further inquiry, it was found that Xie Niankang's adoptive father was Feng Yuxi, the imperial physician who had just been appointed by the emperor.

I heard that she was not only good at gynecology and had excellent medical skills, but she also founded a medical school dedicated to training female doctors.

Look at Feng Yuxi again, he is a handsome man, a handsome young man with a jade-like face. It is said that he has no wife or concubines, so many ladies have thought about marrying him.

However, after everyone found out that Doctor Feng was a homosexual, they gave up the idea. Of course, that’s a story for later.

After Xie Niankang’s ancestral recognition banquet ended, he naturally donated all the gifts he received at the banquet.

Not only the Ye Mansion and the Xie Mansion donated gifts for the banquet, but other mansions that held banquets also donated.

No one thought much of it at first, as it was just a donation of gifts, not direct payment of money.

However, as they donated more and more and counted the money, everyone started to feel the pain.

In the past, although it cost a lot to hold banquets, it was all recovered after receiving a wave of gifts, so it was actually a profit.

However, if we now have to donate the gifts we received, then this banquet will be a pure expense with no income.

Besides, everyone believes in reciprocity.

Just like the gift money at a wedding, I give it to you today, and you give it back next time when I get married.

You may lose money or you may make money, but it will basically break even, unless you don't plan to get married and just give money without collecting it back.

But now, when we hold a banquet, we have to donate the gifts and just pay money.

Where did the money go? It went to the treasury!

Because of these donated gifts, the national treasury, which had been empty for years, was finally filled!

Filled up!

It can be seen that the generosity of these gifts is staggering.

Not to mention that Minister Chen and other people in the Ministry of Revenue who were in charge of this matter were surprised by the number of gifts, the emperor was even more surprised.

This is a good idea.

Maybe you can only pluck the plump wool this time, and you won’t be allowed to pluck the fat sheep this way in the future, but it’s also very delicious once!

Moreover, this is just the beginning. This trend will be popular for some time, and there will be more and more silver in the national treasury.

This can do a lot.

The emperor gave Prince Jing credit for his achievement in his heart, he was truly his good son!

-

As the amount of silver in the national treasury increased, and the person in charge of the silver was his father-in-law, Minister Chen, the prince was tempted.

Because he now had less money coming in, had a lot to do and a lot of expenses, he became very tight on money.

When the Ministry of Justice was under his control, if that dude committed a crime, he could settle the case for him as long as he paid enough silver.

And more than half of this silver will go into the prince's pocket.

Now, not only is the Ministry of Justice gone, but some of his businesses are not being managed well, with profits cut by more than half, so naturally the money he has is getting less and less.

If there is less money, the prince will start to have evil thoughts.

However, when Minister Chen heard the prince's evil thoughts, he told him seriously,

"Your Highness, please do not make a fuss about these donations. Once something goes wrong, it will be very troublesome and cannot be easily resolved. If Your Highness needs money, this old minister can find a way to give it to Your Highness from somewhere else."

The prince saw that he was serious, so he responded impatiently.

"Okay, I know the importance of this matter and will not touch this money recklessly."

"Your Highness, I am sorry to trouble you. I wonder how much silver you are short of?" Minister Chen asked again.

"Give me 100,000 taels first." said the prince.

"……" Minister Chen.

He asked for one hundred thousand taels right away.

His money didn't come from the wind.

"Is one hundred thousand taels a lot? I have so many people under my command. If I don't give them money, how can they work for me?"

The prince saw Minister Chen frowning and said in dissatisfaction,

"What about Qingzhou? The summer harvest is only half a month away, and they should be paying tribute to you. How could they be short of 100,000 taels of silver?!"

Minister Chen frowned and explained,

"Your Highness, Qingzhou is no different this year than in previous years. You should be more cautious. King Jing's people have already set their sights on Qingzhou."

"This doesn't work, and that doesn't work either. So what do you think we should do?" The prince was annoyed.

"…Please calm down, Your Highness. I will send the silver to Your Highness in a few days."

Minister Chen did not say much, but only promised to fulfill the prince's request.

The prince looked at him, suppressed his anger, and reluctantly agreed.

-

The matter of Prince Su has come to an end, and it has been almost a month since the end of the Spring Examination, and the Palace Examination is about to begin.

The emperor was the chief examiner of the palace examination and selected the top three candidates from among the candidates.

The first class refers to the top three, the well-known top scorer, second place and third place, who are awarded the title of Jinshi. A number of people in the second class are awarded the title of Jinshi. A number of people in the third class are awarded the title of Tong Jinshi.

Song Yixuan lived up to everyone's expectations and was chosen by the emperor as the top scholar. Xie Mingqing performed brilliantly, successfully won the third place, and was chosen as the third place.

The second place winner, Zhou Shutian, was a dark horse that no one expected.

In fact, before he was chosen by the emperor as the runner-up, few people knew about him.

Just because he is so inconspicuous.

Not only does he come from a poor family, he is also a 42-year-old old man. It has been more than ten years since he passed the imperial examination and he has been working as a ninth-rank official in a remote county.

His results in the spring imperial examination were also very low. This time, it was entirely the policy essay he wrote that won the emperor's favor and won the emperor's high praise.

After the emperor asked him personally and learned that he had been working at the grassroots level and dealing with the people every day, he became more satisfied with him.

This proved that what he wrote was indeed practical, implementable and a good policy for the benefit of the people, so he was chosen as the second place.

For Zhou Shutian, this was a sudden rise in fame and a turnaround in his life.

After the palace examination, many people wanted to meet Mr. Zhou Shutian.

Because it is obvious that the emperor will use him.

However, Zhou Shutian was just like the stone in the toilet, really smelly and hard, and would not respond to anything soft or hard.

I never saw him smile to anyone.

Prince Jing also wanted to win him over, but was also rejected by this man.

When Prince Jing returned to the palace, he told Ye Qingzhi about Zhou Shutian, saying that he had also suffered a setback.

Ye Qingzhi listened to it for fun at first, but after laughing, of course she wanted to help come up with ideas on how to subdue the person.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Ye Qingzhi was ready to list a bunch of methods. This kind of person didn't value power, but played the emotional card.

But before Ye Qingzhi could finish her story, Xie Niankang came and heard them talking about Zhou Shutian. He asked in surprise,

"The Zhou Shutian you are talking about is the one from Qingyuan County, Fuzhou, who is over 40 years old and has a bad temper?"

"Xiao Kang, do you know him? He is now the second place selected by the emperor. I heard that he is a practical person, so Your Highness wanted to win him over, but he refused."

Ye Qingzhi explained simply.

"I know him, very well. Uncle wants to win over Uncle Zhou? Leave it to me." Xie Niankang said, patting his chest.

King Jing,

The feeling of being chased and fed with gigolo comes back again.