"Cousin Yunhua, I haven't seen you for a long time, so I'm fine."

When he saw Cui Yunhua again, Zhou Ming greeted her and asked about her situation for several years.

However, when she saw the child she was holding in her arms and married into a wife, she had a round and fat body, and a smile often appeared on the corners of her mouth, and she knew that she had lived a relatively happy life over the years. After asking, she found out that she married Li Da, the legitimate son of the Li family of Zhaojun, one of the eight families in the six surnames.

Li Da, whose courtesy name is Kangming, is a man with a reputation and a dignified appearance. What's even more difficult is that he is loyal to love. After getting married, he respects Cui Yunhua as much as a guest, and soon has a male... They became a famous model couple in a marriage relationship between a large family.

Speaking of which, the couple was able to get together was thanks to Zhou Ming, because Cui Yunhua's husband Li Da is also a die-hard fan of Mr. Zihua. He highly praised Mr. Zihua's articles and poems, especially comics, and he liked them to the point of obsession.

However, Zhongzhou is too far from Qingzhou, and there are too few "Zihua Collection of Essays" and "Comics" circulated. He searched hard and could not find the complete works of Mr. Zihua. There are many missing in the middle, which is extremely regrettable.

Just so happened that after receiving the full collection of works given by Zhou Ming, Cui Yunhua, who brought these works to Zhongzhou, quickly became the hottest figure. These works were not only circulated within the Cui family, but also Li Da, who received the news, also came to Cui family with shamelessness and asked Cui Yunhua to borrow Zihua's collection of works.

After a while, it is natural that the strange feelings that men and women have developed, and their common hobbies, eventually come together.

...

After staying in the Cui family in Qinghe for three days, Ma Dexi, who returned to the imperial capital, sent someone to send a sage edict to express his urgent feelings of His Majesty Ming and Empress Tianhou, who were eager to see him, urging him to stay less and go to Beijing quickly.

Zhou Ming nodded and made a little preparation. He ordered the convoy to set off early the next morning. He posed a plaque "Seeing the Saint with the Order" along the wide and straight official road. He did not stop in the middle, and made a quick move. In the evening of the same day, he arrived at the imperial capital of Zhongzhou, Luojing City.

It is now March, with birds singing and flowers blooming, and thousands of trees competing for prosperity. This giant city in front of you is so beautiful that it makes you feel heart-wrenching.

This giant city standing on a flat plain is like a huge chessboard with a circumference of more than a hundred miles and a city twelve meters high. The moat is surrounded by Qu, Luo and Ershui, with a water surface of twenty meters wide. The permanent population in the city exceeds one million. There are multiple urns and tens of thousands of acres of vegetable gardens and farmland, which can be self-sufficient. Even a million troops are difficult to capture.

At this time, the sun sets, the city is filled with golden light, the peach blossoms on the moat are blooming, the dragon flags are waving on the city gate tower, the gear-like female walls, soldiers are standing at an equal distance, full of energy.

The stone arch bridge deck at the entrance of the city gate is like a dragon, shuttled back and forth, which is very lively.

"The appearance of the imperial capital is just standing in the distance and watching, and you can feel a heavy dragon energy coming to your face. It is said that some foreign envoys from all countries in the Western Regions immediately knelt down after seeing this city and said: This sacred city is not powered by the gods, and this city cannot be built. Those who live in the city must be gods and are not ordinary people!"

Lu Wencai said with a shaking head.

"Luojing, known as Shenjing, is indeed true."

Zhou Ming was also shocked by this city. As long as this city can be kept intact for a thousand years and not destroyed by war, it is absolutely no problem to evaluate a "miracle of world civilization".

There is only one ancient city with a population of one million.

"Mr. Zihua is here!"

"Mr. Zihua has arrived in the imperial capital!"

"Mr. Zihua! Can I stay at my home for a few days?"

There was a noise coming from the stone arch bridge in front of him. What surprised Zhou Ming was that the people of the imperial capital who were standing at the gate of the city were also unexpectedly more.

Tens of thousands of people gathered, including sent by aristocratic families, representatives of merchants, senior officials of the court, and even several princes sent a team of elite warriors to come over, saying that Mr. Zihua was invited to visit and hope to enjoy the whole place.

After Zhou Ming apologized for these invitations, he politely refused and went straight to Deyun Building, the industry founded by his family in the imperial capital.

The reason why he refused these invitations was not that Zhou Ming pretended to be noble and wanted to improve his personality, but because as long as he agreed to any invitation, no matter how noble the owner of the family was, he would immediately offend countless forces that he had rejected and become the target of public criticism.

Many times, face means fame. If you lose face and lose other people's reputation, it would be strange if they don't hate you to the core.

Therefore, it is better not to cater to one person or offend one person or not to offend one person.

...

March 18, 26th year of Tiansheng.

The imperial capital, the Daming Palace, and the Tai Chi Hall.

After the headache was relieved, Emperor Li Zhi, who had been to court several times recently, appeared on the dragon-mounted phoenix chariot with the queen Wu Mei again today.

After discussing daily national affairs, the ministers in the hall calmed down together, especially after hearing the eunuch's sharp voice shouting: "Mr. Zihua, a famous scholar in Xuanqingzhou, came to the palace to meet him!" He was even more energetic and couldn't help twisting his neck. From the corner of his eyes, he glanced at the entrance of the hall.

"Tread, step, step."

A sound of footsteps that were not too fast came from far to near, gradually becoming clearer.

When a young man with sword eyebrows, starry eyes, tall crown and jade belt, white clothes, fluttering sleeves, not very white in skin, but seemed full of heroic spirit, and extremely handsome young man stepped into the Tai Chi Hall.

What a handsome and elegant man!

He is Mr. Zihua, who is famous all over the world?

Young, so young!

As countless spotlighted eyes were staring, the man in white walked to the end of the hall, stood among the ministers, shook his sleeves, bowed deeply, and said aloud: "Caomin Tian Jian, pay homage to His Majesty Ming Emperor, pay homage to the Empress of the Heavenly Queen!"

"Bold! Why don't you kneel when you see Your Majesty and the Queen?"

The eunuch in charge of the rituals in front of the palace was furious and pointed at him and scolded him.

The ministers were also slightly surprised and looked at him together.

Zhou Ming raised his head and said, "Caomin came here according to the imperial edict. It was the guest invited by Your Majesty. Since he was a guest, he would not be able to kneel down to the host as soon as he met. This is unreasonable."

Eunuch Si Li was stunned for a moment, then pointed at him and cursed: "Bold and unruly people! I'm the true dragon emperor, the queen of the Nine Heavens Phoenix, how can I be an ordinary person? If I don't kneel down, I will punish you..."

"Okay, Mr. Zihua's words are reasonable. He was the one I specially sent to see with the imperial edict. It was my guest. It was really unreasonable to ask him to kneel down. It would be better to be exempted from courtesy!"

Emperor Li knew.

"Thank you Your Majesty Ming!"

Zhou Ming bowed deeply again. As he guessed, Emperor Li Zhi was indeed a generous and generous emperor, and he could understand some truths.

If the person sitting in the head is Wu Mei alone, he will not be able to escape the kneeling and knocking three times.

At this time, Zhou Ming did not look closely at the expression on the face of the queen Wu Mei. She seemed to have kept the smile without any fluctuations. Others could not guess the true thoughts in her heart.

After a small episode, the hall was a little cold for a while, but Emperor Li Zhi took the initiative to start talking and asked some questions he was interested in.

Where is Mr. Zihua? Who are his parents? How many brothers are there in the family? Who are the teachers? And what he traveled around the world some time ago, what he saw and heard along the way, what he encountered and interesting stories, etc.

Zhou Ming answered these questions in a slight manner, without any frightening moment. He also told more than a dozen fascinating short stories in a humorous tone, which made the court laugh from time to time. The atmosphere in the Tai Chi Hall soon became warm.

Even the queen Wu Mei was amused several times, like a girl, covering her mouth and laughing with her branches.

"Tian Zihua, you have been to the Western Regions, participated in the Battle of Stone City, and defeated Tufanlun Zanqin. I wonder what you think about the Western Regions?"

A gray-haired old civil servant suddenly asked him.

Zhou Ming pondered for a moment and said sixteen words: "The Western Regions are in hand, and the country is prosperous and the people are safe. The Western Regions are lost, and the wars are endless!"

"All nonsense!"

The old civil servant refuted: "In order to manage the Western Regions, the imperial court dispatched more than 300,000 troops every year, requisitioned millions of civilians, and spent tens of millions of yuan on money and grain! The loss is so huge that the people are already exhausted, and the world is already boiling... It is better to end the action of managing the Western Regions quickly, but that barren land is not enough!"

Obviously, this civil servant had a lot of opinions on the court's vigorous management of the Western Regions, especially after reading Zhou Ming's article "The Battle of Stone City", he could not get up at all, and he could only feel disgust from the bottom of his heart.

There is no need to fight the battle in Stone City. It is meaningless to pay such a huge price and casualties to compete for a barren land. The huge investment of the court is better to use it to improve people's livelihood, relieve people's pressure, and rest with the people.

As for the threats of alien races... As long as everyone understands the principles of sages and influences them with morality, there is no need to use weapons, and the threat will disappear.

"Haha, short-sighted, extremely stupid!"

Zhou Ming sneered, and then explained the importance of the Western Regions to the Great Zhou from many aspects such as military, economy, and culture. He even asserted that without the Western Regions, the Great Zhou, which lost the northwest barrier, would face the Turks year by year, and the military threat initiated by Tufan would be more expensive; without the Western Regions, the Great Zhou, which lost an important source of gold, silver and currency, economic development would be stagnant; without the Western Regions, the grand occasion of all countries coming to dynasty will never be seen again, and diplomatic ties with other countries will be forced to be suspended. The Great Zhou will be unknown to foreign countries, and cultural exchanges will be stagnant.

All the arguments were clearly organized and fully argued, which was convincing. The old civil servant who refuted was speechless and could not deal with it.

Of course, the Western Regions are remote and supply transport is not easy, which has indeed brought great burden and pressure to the country. Zhou Ming also proposed a good strategy of "merchants transport grain and military business" in a timely manner, saying that merchants value profit. As long as they have 30% of the profit, commercial activities will become active; if there is 100% of the profit, they will not be afraid of any obstacles on the road and dare to go anywhere; if there is 300% of the profit, they will despise all the laws in the world and sell the rope that hangs him.

Recruiting merchants to transport grain, even if they make them profit up to 50%, they can save countless people's efforts.

When doing business, soldiers actually let the army directly participate in the sales of silk, improve the security and silk sales of the Silk Road. By joining the silk business, even if the troops in the Western Regions only earn hundreds of thousands of taels of gold and silver every year, the pressure on the people will be greatly reduced, and the national economy will also develop healthily.

Of course, everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Encouraging trade can bring many benefits on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will definitely bring many disadvantages.

However, Zhou Ming didn't want to talk too deeply about how to try his best to explore the benefits and avoid the disadvantages... He couldn't finish it for three days and three nights, and he just proposed these two more feasible plans. He didn't care whether others adopted it or not.

"Feable! Feasible! These two strategies are good strategies to soothe the strength of our Great Zhou people, and should be adopted quickly!"

Emperor Li Zhi was very excited and felt that these two strategies were very feasible. He adopted them without much thought. Several officials were about to object, but they were immediately suppressed by him, and the proposal was passed.

"Mr. Zihua is a talented person. I wonder if he has the idea of ​​being admitted to the government, becoming an official in the court, and benefiting the people of Dazhou?"

Wu Mei, the queen who hadn't said anything, stared at Zhou Ming with a bright look. It was obvious that she had the intention of recruiting talents and using it for herself.

Hearing this, Zhou Ming shook his head and bowed, "Your Highness, Caomin is just a literati of a prosperous era. He has no idea of ​​becoming an official. It is okay to write articles with his mouth. If Caomin is asked to be an official and do things, it is really not possible."

Don't want to be an official?

Everyone in the hall was stunned, including Emperor Li Zhi, who was sitting on the dragon throne and phoenix chariot, and the queen Wu Mei, who was very surprised.

Nowadays, there are still people who don’t want to be officials, but just want to be a genius who is a prosperous literati.

So, many officials began to persuade him, saying a lot of words, "I am very talented and should ask for the people", "I know extraordinary talents and benefit the Great Zhou more", "I rely on my talents and have no responsibility to serve the country and the people", etc., from persuasion to criticism.

The meaning of expression is basically the view that "the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility".

Emperor Li Zhi also said kindly: "Tian Zihua, are you afraid of failing the exam? Don't worry, I can be promoted to you at an exception and reward you with a seventh rank official. How about you being the magistrate of a county first?"

Zhou Ming shook his head again and said something that caused an uproar among the people in the hall. He said, "It's not that the grass people are afraid of the imperial examination. If the grass people are asked to take the exam, they will be the top scorer, which is like taking things out. The grass people just don't want to be an official, and they can't be an official! Because, if the grass people are an official, they will be ordered to be a slut, stop corruption, and abide by the law. If the officials are not in trouble, they will attract endless resentment, and even kill themselves... Rather than doing this, it's better to be a free and free person!"

"Arrogant! Too arrogant!"

"This boy doesn't know the world is high!"

"I am disappointed. Tian Zihua dared to make such a rude statement without even being an official for a day. We have been an official for decades, so why would it be better to say something about him?"

"There is nothing wrong with this person. If he becomes an official, he will definitely attract the disaster of death!"

His Highness and ministers burst into a burst of laughter and talked a lot.

Emperor Li Zhi and Empress Wu Mei, who were sitting in the hall, had no choice but to look at each other, making them feel a little amused and crying.
Chapter completed!