Promotion Letter for the Chief Executive

Zhao Can so openly traveled with Ping An in the middle of the night in the capital, the news naturally spread quickly.

When he entered the palace the next day, Ping An himself also heard the rumor version 1.0, saying that he and Zhao Can hit it off at Yuanxiao night outside the palace, they swam together and were intimate.

As a person who came from the information age, Ping An is very clear that this rumor 1.0 will soon be upgraded to 2.0, 3.0... Finally, it will become more and more serious, and the person who first spread the rumor will not be able to recognize it. the point.

Neither he nor Zhao Can planned to stop the spread of rumors.Because this is the result they want - there are many rumors, but there is no substantive evidence.Even if everyone knows that the two know each other, so what?Such an aboveboard meeting certainly cannot be something ulterior.

At most, some people suspect and then investigate—this is exactly what they want.

In fact, as Ping An thought, no one really took the rumors seriously. Many people who knew Ping An even took the initiative to ask him what was going on, and finally even Zhang Dongyuan was alarmed.Naturally, Ping An explained generously, but it was just a coincidence that they met and walked for a while together.

Well, that's true, he just withheld some less important information.

It was probably because his attitude was so normal that everyone who had heard it felt that it was just a coincidence. On the contrary, the rumors were so confusing.It stands to reason that such a thing shouldn't be spread so much, it should be somewhat covered up.

Primordial Hall.

The emperor put down the memorial in his hand and asked Zhang Dongyuan, "Is everything clear?"

"Yes." Zhang Dongyuan said, "This rumor seems to have spread from Changhua Palace at first. The little eunuch also left the palace that day, maybe he happened to see it, and told others later."

Hearing this, the emperor showed a bit of impatience on his face, "Idiot!"

Zhang Dongyuan quickly lowered his head.It seems that His Majesty is very dissatisfied with this matter.Changhua Palace is the residence of Concubine Zhang, and she has three princes... As for who the emperor is scolding, Zhang Dongyuan doesn't think deeply about it.When His Majesty needs him to know, he will naturally know.Your Majesty doesn't need it, and it's useless for him to know.

"What do you think of this matter?" After a while, the emperor asked again.

Zhang Dongyuan said, "I asked Ping An, and he said that we just met by chance. Although the capital is big, there is only one Imperial Street. Besides, they met at the entrance of a restaurant, so it was normal. Speaking of which, if Ping An didn't mention it, I would still I don't know, it turned out that the 'five-flavored glutinous rice balls' was something Ping An tossed out, His Highness the Seventh Prince found it interesting after eating it, so it was sent to the palace."

The corner of the emperor's mouth twitched, thinking of the bowl of glutinous rice balls he ate last night, he couldn't laugh or cry.

He felt strange before, Xiao Qi has always been very calm, how could he do such a thing?But it turned out to be Ping An's instigation.

It's like two ignorant children, tossing around!

Strange to say, the more complicated people are, the more they like people with a pure heart.The impression that Ping An gave the emperor before was that although he was smart, he had no selfishness, let alone ambition, and he would use all kinds of whimsical ideas when he thought of them.

At the beginning, the emperor naturally had doubts, but Ping'an was so good at gaining favor, and now five or six years later, he also felt that he had seen through Ping'an.

If such a person said that there was any conspiracy behind it, the emperor would not believe it.

As for Zhao Can, maybe he has thoughts, but Ping An is not so easy to buy.You can tell just by looking at his generous attitude.

The emperor nodded, "What else have you found out?"

"The Second Highness once met Ping An in private, when he was still in the Military Bureau. Afterwards, Ping An introduced several inconspicuous people from the Imperial City Department to the Second Highness. After that, there was no interaction." Zhang Dong a long way.

The emperor snorted, "Bold and bold!" After a while, he asked again, "There was no contact after that? Nothing about the cement factory?"

At that time, I don't know how many people in the court were staring at this matter. Could it be that Zhao Xuan was not tempted?With this access, could he be indifferent?

Zhang Dongyuan thought for a while, and said, "It is true that we have never met each other. But when Ping An went to Qinzhou, he took away a supervisor named Xiaoquan from the Archery Division. Later, this person returned to Beijing with him. He was recommended by Ping An Under the eunuch."

Now that he knew that he would receive a lot of attention when he came back, Ping An would naturally not meet Zhao Xuan again, so as not to cause any misunderstanding.In order to appease Zhao Xuan, he stuffed Xiaoquan into Eunuch Tian's side again.As for how much benefit you can get, it depends on Xiaoquan's ability.

Compared with an ungraspable peace, Zhao Xuan is naturally more willing to trust her cronies.So there was no trouble finding peace.

On the contrary, later on, although Ping'an entered the ceremonial supervisor and became an eunuch in the hall, he chose not to do business, and was busy working on newspapers every day.It was probably useless for Zhao Xuan, so he completely broke contact.

Because the two actions were insignificant and would not cause any harm, Ping An didn't mean to hide it. Now that the emperor knew it, he just laughed and scolded him, and he wouldn't really take the blame for it.

After all, people in Ping An are soft-spoken and obviously cannot refuse the prince's request, but it is extremely rare to know how to handle the matter smoothly.

Of course, this does not mean that the emperor's doubts about Ping'an were all released.Suspiciousness is the nature of emperors, it has nothing to do with whether they believe in a person or not.In other words, they never trust a person because of their sensibility, and always reserve the right to judge by themselves.

So that's the end of the matter.Now that the emperor had made his own judgment, he naturally wouldn't let the rumors continue to spread like this, so soon, the rumors that appeared out of nowhere quickly disappeared without a trace, as if they had never appeared before.

From beginning to end, it only took a few days.

Of course, although the rumors disappeared on the surface, in fact, there may be more people paying attention to them.

So Ping An and Zhao Can have never been in touch since then.

In the blink of an eye, it was the eighth day of February, and Zhao Can moved from the palace to the Prince's Mansion outside the palace—now it should be called Prince Chen's Mansion.At the Great Court Meeting on New Year's Day, the emperor sealed the adult princes.The eldest son Zhao Rong was named King Wei, the second son Zhao Xuan was named King Liang, the third son Zhao Kun was named King Ping, four, five, and six three princes were named King An, King Xu, King Cheng (Cheng), and Zhao Can was named King Chen. The three princes were named county kings.

Because it is the first title, so this time the titles are all small countries, and it will take a few turns in the future to be promoted to big countries one after another.But in fact, unless there is another big battle like this time, it will be basically difficult to be promoted.And when they were still princes, they would almost never be promoted to the ranks of princes and kings.

Usually this kind of favor will be reserved for the new emperor to win people's hearts, so as to avoid the embarrassment of being unsealable at that time.

But everyone knows that the vast majority of adult princes may not wait for that day at all.They either fell on the road to seize the throne, or were liquidated after the new emperor ascended the throne, and there were very few who were able to get the promotion.

After hearing that Zhao Can's title was King Chen, Ping An immediately expressed his disgust.This word is too common, it doesn't have the beauty in the novel at all!However, in the novels, the authors are capricious and randomly choose nice names as their titles.

In fact, this unlucky title only appeared after the Qing Dynasty.Prior to this, Feng Wang referred to princes and kings. As a prince, he naturally had to have a fief, and he could not take words casually.

Previously, Ping An only knew that titles in ancient times were very complicated. Apart from royal family members, ordinary high-ranking ministers would basically also receive titles. At the level of Dukes, they were also like princes. Turn to a big country.But he didn't understand at the time what the point of doing so was to keep the rank of titles out of sight for the non-professional.

For those who don't understand this aspect of knowledge, Wei Guo and Qi Guo sound similar!In fact, Weiguo sounds a little nicer, while Qiguo sounds like a bad street.

After Zhao Can's explanation, he finally understood that there was a reason for the division so finely.The reason for this is - money.

Although due to too many lessons in history, the enfeoffment system has long been abolished, and the princes have the title of princes and kings on the surface, but in fact they have no fiefdom at all.But there is no fiefdom, but there is still a salary.So what is the calculation of salary?Of course it is the title level.

For example, if Zhao Can is granted the title of King Chen, then his salary is the annual tax of Chen land, which is called Shiyi.The bigger and more prosperous the place, the more tax revenue will be.The biggest difference between a big country and a small country is here.

Of course, because the princes are actually unable to have the right to manage the back cover, they are not eligible to collect taxes. Instead, the imperial court allocates an equivalent amount of money and food.

After Ping An listened to it, he couldn't help but think of conspiracy theories. The reason why the battle for the royal family is so cruel, and the winners often liquidate the losers, is probably because the big country has to give too much salary, and the court may not be able to afford it. So I took this opportunity to clean up...

He was just joking and said it casually, but Zhao Can actually affirmed his idea!

Zhao Can asked Ping An, "Do you know how much money the imperial court needs to spend to support the clan every year?"

Ping An naturally shook his head.But when he thought about it, no matter how much the money was, it couldn't be unaffordable, right?

However, the actual situation made Ping An surprised. ——Although he is not wearing this thing at all now.

The tax revenue that the treasury can receive each year is 5000 to 2000 million taels, which is basically a fixed number with little fluctuation.Among them, the biggest expenditure is not the military expenditure that Pingan thought, but the salary of the royal family members who he thought was inconspicuous!For this reason, the annual expenditure may exceed [-] million, accounting for almost half of the tax revenue!

"Why are there so many?!" Ping An was taken aback.

Zhao Can sighed, "Why not? The royal clan members are restricted from doing many things, and they have nothing to do except eat, drink, have fun and have children. If things go on like this, more and more children will be born. It’s hard to afford. Now the annual expenditure is nearly 2000 million, but it’s because some of the clans who are too far away from the imperial court no longer support them, otherwise there will only be more!"

Ping An still didn't believe it, grabbed a pen and paper and began to calculate.

"Even if your royal family can have more children, each family has an average of twenty children. From the founding of the country to the present, there are four generations... 20*20*20*20 equals... 16? How come there are so many!" Ping An He took a deep breath and didn't dare to count any more.Assuming that each of these 16 people spends 100 taels of silver per year, that is... 600 million!

The actual number could only be higher than this.Because Ping An only counted males, and did not include female relatives.Moreover, the royal family members always have to keep some domestic servants, and the number of them is even more immeasurable.

Ping An was stunned by this astronomical figure.

Especially thinking of becoming Zhao Can's burden this time in the future, he couldn't help but start to feel worried.The national treasury can only earn so little money a year, and more than half of it is used to fill this black hole. It makes people feel distressed to think about it.

Not even military spending is that much!If all the money is used to manufacture weapons, conscript soldiers and pay for food, why worry about Dachu not being able to prosper and beat the surrounding barbarians so hard that they can't take care of themselves? !

Get angry just thinking about it!

"I've decided." Ping An said, "We can't raise so many burdens in the future, we have to find some jobs for these people." other words to describe.

Don’t you see the banner people in the late Qing Dynasty, because they really had nothing to do, they even developed the so-called teahouse culture. ——As for why not play other games?I don’t have any money... I can sit there for a day by ordering a pot of tea and a plate of peanuts for a few copper coins in a teahouse. Is it possible to go elsewhere?

Well, it is quite similar to the chair-gnawing clan of later generations.

Zhao Can agrees very much with this, knowing that all these people will spend his money in the future.Even if Ping An can make money, it can't resist such a trick. "I'll leave this matter to you, how about it?"

"Okay!" Ping An was gearing up, "By the way, I heard that many clan children actually like to study. It's a pity that they can neither do scientific research nor be an official, so many people like to delve into some strange and obscene things. ?”

Future physicists, chemists, biologists... You are welcome to various research positions!

"Could it be that Ping'an already has plans?" Zhao Can asked.He would be surprised by this before, but now he is used to it.

Pingan said, "I have a little idea." He cited a few examples in classical physics, what friction generates heat, relative motion... These things have been discovered by the ancients, and some people have even begun to explore the principles, but there is no such thing as yet. It is also very simple and clear to get the result and use it as an example.

"What's the use of studying these things?" Zhao Can, a pragmatist, asked.

It can promote the development of the world... Ping An answered in his heart, but it is not necessary to throw out too advanced things all at once, and it will make Zhao Can find it difficult to understand, so he can only start from the benefits he can see so far, "The research on these things After a thorough study, you may be able to create some interesting things. When you sell them to merchants, you will be able to make a profit and be self-sufficient. It will not only allow them to do things, but will not pose a threat, and spreading the word will also enhance the royal family's reputation among the people. reputation."

The social status of scientific researchers is very high, and they are admired and adored by others.But there is no force value - military-related research, of course, will not let the royal family members intervene.

But that should be a long time later.Pingan said, "All these things must be done slowly. But after a while, I plan to invite some people to the capital to study books. Do you have anyone you can recommend?"

"I'll ask someone to inquire about it." Zhao Can said, "As long as you like reading, it's fine?"

Ping An nodded, he didn't know how many people could use it, so let's get all of them here and have a look.

So the matter was settled.

During the period when Zhao Can was preparing to move, Ping An also devoted himself to preparing for this matter, so although the two of them could not meet each other during this period, they felt very at ease with each other.Because they know that they are all working hard for the days when they can be together in the future.

Unexpectedly, on the eighth day of February, Ping An was suddenly called to the Primordial Hall.

"The newspaper is on the right track. What are you doing these days, Ping An? You haven't been seen all day long." the emperor asked.

Ping An said, "Return to Your Majesty, I am writing the regulations for the government-run newspaper." Ping An had already prepared, and immediately took out a plan, "Now the time is almost ripe, and it is time to start this work."

The emperor took the plan, but he didn't read it busy, but said, "I know that you are dedicated to work, but you can't have no time to rest. If people know, won't they think that I have treated you harshly?"

"Everyone knows that His Majesty is kind, and I'm afraid no one would think so." Ping An said, "Besides, I like doing these things myself, and I don't feel tired."

The emperor was very satisfied with his statement, but he still said, "I have an errand here for you to handle. After you finish it, let's talk about it again."

"Your Majesty, what's the matter?"

"You don't know what day it is today?" The emperor looked at Pingan meaningfully.

Ping An was taken aback, then shook his head, "I don't know."

In fact, he already had something in mind.There was nothing going on inside or outside the court today, the only thing worthy of attention was Zhao Can's move.The emperor's question was obviously to test his relationship with Zhao Can.

Sure enough, the emperor said, "King Chen moved out of the palace today, and he came to kowtow to me just now. He said that he had set up a few tables in the palace. Please appreciate me. I still have some things here, it is not convenient to go, you Just go for me."

Of course, the emperor was not unable to go because of something. In fact, it was impossible for him to go.Although it is normal for the emperor to go to his son's house, it cannot be today.After all, the previous sons moved out, but he never visited.Now it is natural to treat everyone equally.

It is reasonable to send someone to go through the motions.But Ping An felt that he had specially called him to send him on this errand, and there was no need to ask the meaning behind it.

However, he was worrying about not being able to congratulate him on such an important day, and felt very regretful, but the emperor gave him such an errand. Isn't this just sleepy and sent a pillow?

So Pingan accepted the order happily, and soon left the palace with the oral order and the emperor's reward.

Because Ping'an came with an oracle, Zhao Can brought everyone out to greet him.When the decree was handed in, everyone happened to be visiting the garden, so Ping An was lucky to join it.

Although Zhao Can's palace is very close to Ping'an's residence, he has never been there.The main reason is that it has been repaired during this period of time, and there are too many people watching. If they see themselves, it will inevitably spread.He had only heard that Zhao Can's palace was not the smallest compared to the other brothers, but the scale was indeed not large.But the location is better, close to the imperial city, which can be regarded as a means of balance for the emperor.

But he didn't know until after he visited the field in person that the so-called "small place" also depends on the control group.

Ping An University was studied in the south.Because the south is densely populated, a school often has several campuses—the older the school, the more so.Zhao Can's palace is almost as big as a campus of Ping An's alma mater.

The five-entry large courtyard also includes cross courtyards, side courtyards, gardens, warehouses, pavilions... There are mountains and waters, and there is even a special stage.The newly renovated mansion looks quite imposing, and the scenery is also very good, which is dizzying.

Just like this, there are still people who think it's too small, and fight for Zhao Can's injustice?Ping An expressed 12 curiosity about Wei Wang Zhao Rong's mansion, which is said to occupy a large area, is beautifully built, and has collected many rare treasures.

Zhao Can gave a very detailed introduction along the way, and Ping An knew that he was telling her intentionally.

When Ping An was about to leave, Zhao Can sent him out alone, raised his hand to support him as he went out, and said in a low voice, "Come over at night, I will leave the back door for you."

Ping An glared at him, but made no statement.But back in the palace, when the emperor dragged him to discuss the official newspaper, Ping An couldn't help being distracted several times.Fortunately, the emperor didn't find out, but Ping An also realized that it couldn't go on like this.

He took the initiative to say, "Your Majesty, this matter is of great importance, and I can only give suggestions. Your Majesty might as well call all the ministers into the palace to discuss this matter. After all, it is still up to them to handle it."

"Leave it to them?" The emperor frowned, obviously not very satisfied.

Since the emergence of Ping An, it has brought many benefits. The emperor did not want to see the courtiers get these benefits. He thought that Ping An would preside over this matter himself.

Pingan said, "Your Majesty, I'm a soft-spoken person, so I'm afraid I can't take on this matter. However, it is said that there are several highly respected veterans in the Imperial Academy. They have been immersed in poetry and books for many years. When it comes to this matter of dancing and writing, it is more appropriate to leave it to them."

"Isn't that wronging you?" the emperor said.

Ping An had already made this preparation long ago, but in front of the emperor, if he behaved too indifferently, it might make him dissatisfied.So Ping An pretended to be aggrieved, and then said, "If your Majesty thinks something is wrong, why don't you give me some compensation?"

"Oh? What compensation do you want?"

"I have been thinking about another matter recently, but there is no charter yet, so I don't know when it will be done. At that time, no matter how many people are fighting for this matter, His Majesty will leave it to the minister to preside over it." Ping An said with a smile.