Previous
Fiction Page
Next
Font Size:
A eunuch was beaten to death outside the gate of Xuanzheng Hall, which was enough to be discussed for a long time in the official circles of the capital.
Naturally, the words reached the ears of the Second Prince. The dead eunuch had just brought him oranges and was beaten to death when he returned. If he had not been sensitive, the Second Prince’s voice and the party he supported would not have accounted for the majority.
”Prince.”
Prince Kang stared at a small piece of paper for a long time, his face gloomy and his eyes cold. He personally handed the note to the lit candle and watched it being licked clean by the flame. Even though it burned his fingertips, his expression did not change.
”My good eighth brother.”
”Prince, what should we do next?”
The young eunuch handed over a handkerchief, and Prince Kang took it, wiped his hands, and threw it on the table. He leaned lazily on the chair and said, “Send a message to the Fifth Prince’s Mansion, saying that I am not feeling well, and that the Fifth Brother needs to pay more attention to the matter of fertilizing the fields in the future.”
”Yes.” The young eunuch responded and went down.
The staff didn’t understand. The prince had been following for so long, but now it was time for him to quit. Wouldn’t that mean the Fifth Prince would just take all the spoils?
But Prince Kang did not explain. He just waved his hand and asked them to leave, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to rest.
After everyone had left, Prince Kang opened his eyes, which had been closed. In his eyes was an unconcealable anger and coldness. Well, well, this time his good eighth brother was more powerful than ever.
After being angry, the Second Prince looked tired. Li Xu had used such a simple method and it had succeeded… The older my father gets, the more suspicious he becomes.
If a word today can provoke him, then Li Xu will gain a good reputation as a civil official and Confucian scholar all over the world – thinking of this, the second prince smiled sarcastically, Li Xu, what should you do?
After a few autumn rains, the leaves of the osmanthus tree planted in the Li family’s courtyard were beaten to pieces.
The days suddenly became much shorter.
Mother Lan came in from the second door, holding a lantern in one hand and a food box in the other. It was raining heavily, but fortunately the Li family’s courtyard had a corridor, so it was not affected by the rain at all. She went straight to the main house, and the door to the main hall was already open.
”Master and Madam, breakfast is ready.”
”Mama Lan, come in.” Li Zhouzhou responded.
Mother Lan came in with the food box. She had just delivered the hot water for washing. She quickly arranged the food, including hot porridge, meat patties, and pickles. These were for the master. The old master, the mistress, and the young master would eat them later.
Gu Zhao saw that it was porridge and said, “Starting tomorrow, prepare something simple for me in the morning, just a pancake with vegetables or a meat bun. I’ll drink some hot water to warm myself up. Porridge makes it easier to go to the toilet.” The latter explained this to Zhou Zhou.
As soon as the Eighth Prince arrived, everyone in the Hanlin Academy became much more busy. In the past, they just asked you to go to the toilet as many times as you wanted, but now that the Eighth Prince is here, it would be very indecent for you to go to the toilet again and again. If the Eighth Prince asks about it, you can’t just say, “Master Gu is in the toilet, Eighth Prince, are you waiting?”
That’s nonsense. There are plenty of people who could take his place.
Although Gu Zhao did not want to be in the limelight, what he said before at the Yan family was not a joke. He wanted to gain experience in the capital for a few years and be promoted to the sixth or fifth rank when Fubao was seven or eight years old, or at the latest before he was twelve years old. This would make it easier for him to be transferred to other places, and he could become a local official in the future.
If it is any later, it won’t work. People nowadays match their children with marriage partners too early, especially those from wealthy and powerful families. They start looking for people at the age of thirteen or fourteen, looking at their family background and family tradition, offering betrothal gifts and exchanging invitations. Some of them have to mourn for three years due to the death of their elders, so this delay means that they have to arrange the marriage early.
Therefore, girls and boys generally start looking for a husband when they are 13 or 14 years old. After going through this series of engagement ceremonies, they may actually get married when they are 16 or 17 years old. If they have to mourn for three years, then they may be 19 years old. In this era, they are already old girls and old boys.
Gu Zhao: …
He still wanted to go to other places as soon as possible, as the rules and regulations in Beijing would easily affect him.
As for my brother marrying a wife——
Why did everyone laugh and not believe it at that time? In the previous dynasty, boys could marry, but they had no way to make their wives pregnant, or the probability was very low. Compared to marrying a man and having children, if a boy married a woman, he would have to prepare for a 98% chance of infertility and no offspring.
For the ancients who had a strong concept of passing on the family line, this was a way to end their lineage and extinction.
Later, Dali fought a war with the previous dynasty and the population was scarce. There was once an express decree prohibiting boys from marrying. After the population prospered, this rule was submerged and no one mentioned it. However, if people did secretly do it, no one would care or report it to the authorities.
There is no need to worry too much about the future. What Gu Zhao can do now is to get promoted first, so that Fubao will have more choices in the future.
Sitting on the mule cart, I became more awake. When I arrived at the Hanlin Academy, the sky was still dim and it had just rained. There was rain and fog, and nothing was clear, as if a veil was covering my eyes.
Gu Zhao got off the mule cart and looked at his second brother behind him.
”This gate is especially new today.”
That’s right, it’s been painted.
Yan Jinxin said nothing, knowing that Zhaodi was not the kind of person who would seek death by talking too much, so he did not even advise him to be quiet. The two of them walked straight into the yard. As expected, Gu Zhao straightened up as soon as he stepped through the gate.
Everyone from the Hanlin Academy has arrived.
Everyone started to get busy. It couldn’t be that the Eighth Prince had arrived and everyone was still scattered around drinking tea and slacking off. Now everyone was writing articles and discussing academic matters. Gu Zhao joined in while he was in a daze.
If you don’t seize the time to learn from your colleagues now, what are you waiting for? !
Those who can enter the Hanlin Academy are all of high standard, especially Lord Liang, who has stayed there for more than ten years without moving, and has failed two or three major examinations. On weekdays, he eats, drinks, gossips, reads articles, and drinks tea, but now he is in high spirits and talks about articles and knowledge, which makes Gu Zhao look at him with new eyes. Lord Liang doesn’t talk much, and when he says a few words, they are all enlightening.
The light shone through the hibiscus flowers in the yard, and a servant came to the door to report.
”Master Shi, please move to the front of the courtyard. The Eighth Prince will arrive in a quarter.”
Everyone straightened their appearance, smoothed the folds of their official robes, and went out to the front yard one by one. All the hundreds of people from the Hanlin Academy had arrived, and Lord Shi stood in the middle and front. About a moment later, the eighth prince’s carriage arrived.
Gu Zhao stood at the edge of the second row. This was the first time he saw the prince.
The eighth prince was very young, and looked to be in his early twenties. I had heard before that Emperor Kang Jing was very dedicated to governing the country and rarely visited the harem, especially the Empress Yuan. In the years when the eldest prince was born, Concubine Duan was the only one who was favored in the harem and gave birth to the second prince.
The third prince was born to Empress Yuan, but unfortunately he died when he was less than two years old. Empress Yuan was seriously ill since then. Emperor Kang Jing loved his wife very much and often accompanied her. Several years later, he got drunk and accidentally had sex with a maid in Concubine Duan’s palace. The maid gave birth to the fourth prince. The mother was made a noble lady because of her son, but unfortunately the fourth prince did not live long.
He died of drowning and fever at the age of eight.
From then on, Emperor Kang Jing became much colder towards Concubine Duan and no longer loved her as much as before.
…
For example, at this moment, officials performed a salute—no kneeling and bowing. In the Dali Dynasty, officials performed a salute to the emperor and empress, and bowing to others was sufficient in ordinary occasions. For important occasions, such as the royal sacrifice to the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the emperor’s birthday celebration, and grand court meetings, they would perform a three-kneeling and nine-kowtow ceremony.
The concubines in the harem cannot see it.
If you think about it, you can understand that officials serve the emperor, so they only kneel to the emperor. If these sons want officials to kneel, they should wait until they sit on the throne.
There was no need to kneel, and there was no rule that one could not look directly into the emperor’s face when meeting him, so Gu Zhao could see it very clearly from the front row. The Eighth Prince was about 1.80 meters tall, and his appearance was okay. He was not particularly handsome, but not ugly either. His temperament was okay, and he was quite gentle and refined.
Now he smiled and said, “You’re welcome, gentlemen.”
He looks like a friendly and easy-going prince.
Gu Zhao was among them, and all matters such as how to revise the book and how to revise the book were discussed in detail by Lord Shi and the Eighth Prince. Only after they had worked out a set of rules could those who were responsible for compiling, editing, and reviewing the books start to work.
Lord Shi opened the locked library.
Gu Zhao was quite excited.
As the name suggests, book repair means to sort out and repair books. Books and ancient scrolls left by our ancestors are taken out on a good day to dry in the sun, and checked for insect bites and missing ink marks. If some books are seriously damaged, they are taken apart and re-copied to repair them.
This is the most common revision of the book.
There is another way, which is more complicated. It is to compile a collection, which is a bit similar to the real questions of the modern five-year college entrance examination and three-year simulation. Nowadays, there are many books with similar contents. When Gu Zhao was studying, the most exaggerated time was when he read two books, and the overlap rate was about 70%.
For a poor scholar preparing for the imperial examination, buying these two books would make him vomit blood.
Previous
Fiction Page
Next
R. S.[Translator]
https://ko-fi.com/rs0081 https://discord.gg/334RrgAUrw https://www.youtube.com/@RS_BLWriter https://www.paypal.me/YashSharma212101