Ding Chengwei muttered unhappily: "Dad, that is my son's lifelong happiness. How can you throw it away so casually?"
"What? Is your love so superficial? Didn't you not marry anyone who was not Miss Zhou before?" Ding Anhe glared at him dissatisfied.
"But things are different now. Miss Zhou has become a ruined woman!"
Ding Anhe patted Ding Chengwei on the shoulder with a look of familiarity.
"Isn't this better? In the future, she won't be able to stop you from taking as many concubines as you want. She will have to stay humble in front of you for the rest of her life."
After listening to his father's advice, Ding Chengwei was moved.
After thinking about it seriously, he said, "Okay, I'll marry her."
"Well, marrying her is the right thing. You should have long-term plans in everything you do." Ding Anhe nodded with satisfaction.
After convincing his son, Ding Anhe told his wife to prepare a gift list, and then brought Ding Chengwei to the Prime Minister's Mansion again.
In the study room of the Prime Minister's Mansion, Zhou Qian came in after Roy Yi left. Seeing that Huangfu Xuanyuan's face was rosy and seemed to be in a good mood, he went up to him and poured him a cup of tea and sat down opposite him.
"Master, have you joined forces with the Empress Dowager again?"
"That's right." Huangfu Xuanyuan narrowed his eyes, "Let's join forces to recruit troops and defeat the Night King first."
Zhou Qian nodded in agreement, "That's right. We don't need to engage in internal strife. Getting rid of the Night King is the first priority."
"Yeah." Huangfu Xuanyuan took a sip of tea, slowly tapped his right index finger on the table, and narrowed his eyes slightly, "Tomorrow, a law will be issued to compulsory conscription, and all men under the age of thirty will enlist.'
"Yes, my subordinates know." Zhou Qian nodded.
Huangfu Xuanyuan continued, "We will impose an additional 20% tax and call on wealthy businessmen to donate money and materials. Didn't many officials resign before? Are those official titles still vacant? Whoever gets more money will be given it.'
Zhou Qian couldn't help but frown, "This~~levying excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes to buy and sell officials, I'm afraid this will lose the support of the people."
Huangfu Xuanyuan narrowed his eyes and smiled, "So what? After all, it's not my reputation that is bad, but the current Queen Mother and the new emperor's!"
"That's right." Zhou Qian nodded, "Then my subordinate will make arrangements in the next few days."
Huangfu Xuanyuan hummed, and the two of them were talking when a subordinate came in to report.
"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, Master Ding and Mr. Ding are outside asking for an audience.'
"Invite them to pass Nuan Pavilion, I will go immediately." Zhou Qian ordered.
"Yes, sir." The subordinate responded and left.
Zhou Qian said respectfully to Huangfu Xuanyuan, "Master, I'm going to handle some matters. Please do as you please."
"Go." Huangfu Xuanyuan leaned back in his chair and waved his hand to Zhou Qian.
He didn't bother to interfere with the affairs of the officials in the court, leaving all the power to Zhou Qian.
Zhou Qian did not bother Huangfu Xuanyuan with these matters, and left the study to go to Nuan Pavilion.
As soon as he entered Nuange, Ding Anhe stood up with a smile, cupped his fists and saluted, "Your Majesty, Prime Minister, you are polite."
"Master Ding is here just in time. I just have something to discuss with you." Zhou Qian sat down opposite Ding Anhe and saw that Ding Chengwei was there, so he said to him, "Master Ding, why don't you go out first?"
Ding Anhe smiled and said, "Your Majesty Prime Minister, I brought Quanzi here specifically to ask for his hand in marriage. Of course he must be present."
"Proposing to marry? Who do you want to marry?" Zhou Qian was stunned and looked at Ding Anhe in surprise.
"Who else could it be? Of course it's Ling Qianjin." Ding Anhe looked guilty, "Quinzi made a mistake in Merlin outside the city, and this is the only way to make up for it."
Zhou Qian's face couldn't help but darken, and he thought to himself that this matter is really annoying, are both of them so rich?
One insisted on losing money, and the other actually asked to marry Zhou Lenghui in order not to lose money?
It’s really a troublesome thing. Zhou Qian is not really ‘Prime Minister Zhou’, nor is he his own son or daughter. How can he bother with this? He doesn’t want to deal with these troubles at all.
After thinking about it for a moment, he said angrily, "I was just about to talk to you about this matter. This mistake made by Young Master Ling is easy to deal with. You can take 50,000 taels of silver to compensate Young Master Song and pretend that this incident never happened.
'
Ding Anhe hurriedly said, "Oh, Prime Minister, how can we treat it as if it didn't happen? My Ding family is not such an irresponsible person."
"Well, this matter was originally Quanzi's fault. Our Ding family is willing to pay 50,000 taels of silver as damages to the Song family, so that the Song family can cancel the engagement and make the eldest lady and Quanzi happy.'
Zhou Qian only thought that Ding Anhe wanted to get a high position in the Prime Minister's Palace, and he also thought that Miss Zhou's innocence had been tainted by Ding Chengwei, and she would not have much status if she married into the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty might even think that they had suffered.
Wronged.
Anyway, there is more than just Zhou Lenghui, a young lady from the prime minister's house. Wouldn't it be better to choose another innocent lady to marry?
Thinking of this, Zhou Qian said to Ding Anhe, "I can't make a decision on this matter. I have to talk to Lord Song first."
"Then we have your Excellency, Mr. Prime Minister." Ding Anhe stood up with a smile and cupped his hands towards Zhou Qian, "I'm waiting for your news." After saying that, he took Ding Chengwei away.
The next day Zhou Qian persuaded Song Shangshu to cancel the marriage and re-betrothed Zhou Lenghui to Ding Chengwei, and they got married half a month later.
Zhou Lenghui also got an unexpected surprise and got her wish.
What followed was that the imperial court promulgated new regulations, increased taxes, and forced conscription, which caused people to complain.
At this time in Jinzhou, Zhu Xiangyu led more than 300,000 defeated troops to retreat here and set up camp here.
Zhu Xiangyu did not dare to be careless. As soon as he arrived in Jinzhou, he went to check the ice breaking situation on the river.
"The ice is really thin, and it will break if you hit it casually." Zhu Xiangyu said with satisfaction as he looked at several large ships moving in the center of the river.
"Really." Zeng Zongbing laughed and squatted down by the river and pointed at the ice floes floating downstream. "Have you seen the general? All these ice floes have drifted downstream. In this way, we only need to send troops every day."
Once the boat sails on the river, it will never freeze again.'
Zhu Xiangyu nodded, picked up a piece of ice floe from the river and looked at it, "I didn't expect that the weather would be reversed this year. There was a heavy snowstorm in the south, but the snow in the north was thinner than in previous years."
"Isn't it? So as long as we guard the Jinzhou Bridge, the Night King will not be able to move north."
"That's true~~" Zhu Xiangyu's face was full of smiles, "But how is the ice breaking situation on this river? Has it all been dredged?"
"It has been dredged. The entire river is now navigable."
"That's good." Zhu Xiangyu stood up with ease, "But don't be careless. Guard the bridge well to make sure nothing goes wrong again."
The commander-in-chief suggested with a smile and narrowed his eyes.
"How about General, let's just destroy that bridge too. Then wouldn't we be able to sit back and relax?"
Zhu Xiangyu was stunned for a moment and then laughed.
"You old man, your ideas are the best."
"Destroy it and destroy it. Then we can barbecue and drink in peace, hahaha."