The sky is gloomy today, with thick clouds all around.
Jia Sidao accompanied Shi Kuanzhi back from the street, passing by Yu Street south of Zhong'an Bridge. He noticed that the heavy rain was coming, so he quickly entered a familiar tea house, opened the elegant room upstairs, and just sat down.
, the rain suddenly fell.
The tea house faces Beiwa, the largest building in Lin'an City, so the surrounding area is very lively and crowded. At this time, people on the road are also taking shelter on the eaves of various places. Several storytellers have just had tea and food and are rushing back.
I went to my own fenced yard, but it was blocked by rain.
They happened to be directly below the elegant room, and did not notice that Shi Kuanzhi and others upstairs were dressed in either rich or noble clothes, so there was a conversation mixed with the sound of raindrops.
"Oh, the first game in the afternoon was supposed to be my lucky draw! Now I can't get there, it's all over!"
"It's raining so hard, how can anyone go to the yard? You're in complete trouble even when you arrive."
"You guy!"
"If God doesn't reward us with food, what can we do? Don't be anxious! Don't be anxious!"
"It's not that I'm anxious. My father at home has been suffering from physical pain recently and can't sleep day and night. I planned to scrape together two hundred coins today to buy a dose of Ginseng Baidu Powder from Chen Zhiweng Pharmacy..."
"My father has always been in good health, so it's not a big deal, but...two hundred coins? Are you still selling the Ginseng Baidu Powder from Chen Zhiweng's drug store for two hundred coins?"
"Uh, what's the point?"
"The Ginseng Baidu Powder uses the Heji Bureau prescription, which is nothing more than Bupleurum, licorice, Platycodon, ginseng, and Poria. There was a large amount of licorice and ginseng shipped from the north in the past few days, so Yang
Both General Pharmacy and Renaitang Medicine Store have posted notices that all medicines using licorice and ginseng are cheap! If you go to those two stores, you can buy them for up to 160 Wen at most!"
"That's good, but I still lack fifty coins..."
"I have it here, fifty coins... take it, don't be in a hurry to return it!"
People in the industry rarely have savings, and even if they do, they don't have much. These artists earn more than ordinary people, but in daily life, they have to be filial to the ghosts and ghosts in the Goulan courtyard.
For example, unless you are a famous storyteller, you will not have enough money in your pocket, so you have to be extra frugal if you want to buy medicines and the like.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" The person who spoke before sighed: "The child at home was sick a while ago, and now he is an elderly patient. I now earn money for medicine every day. You said the medicine will be cheaper. That is a good thing.
"
"Since last year, medicinal materials produced in the north have become much cheaper. I just hope that the war in Kaifeng will not affect the trade routes, otherwise..."
"It's bitter. If this war goes on for a long time, I'm afraid it will affect the trade routes. Won't the price of medicinal materials increase? Who can predict what those merchants do? If my Ginseng Baidu Powder is..."
The storyteller, who was planning to buy medicine, jumped up, walked around under the eaves twice, and finally asked the store for a large tarpaulin to cover his head, and rushed into the rain.
The rest of the people watched him leave in a hurry, and someone said: "The pharmacy has a reputation, and it will never act randomly. Besides, Guo Ning is so powerful, how can the Jurchens in Kaifeng stop him? I see this battle, and we will fight again.
Ten days and a half, it’s over.”
"Brother Yin is right!"
The person who borrowed the money greatly agreed:
"We usually make many absurd and exaggerated remarks. For example, it is said that Guo Ning is eight feet tall, has an eight-foot waist, and weighs eight hundred kilograms of iron bones in his hands. This is just to deceive the common people. This person uses a
As a soldier on the frontier, he became Duke of Zhou and Marshal of the Capital in three years. How could he rely solely on the courage of an ordinary man? You see, every time he fought in the war, he launched suddenly and won in one battle. How can this be an exception..."
At this point, someone in the tea house said angrily: "You people of the Song Dynasty, why are you worried about a usurper from the Jin Kingdom? This guy was able to defeat Kaifeng City by deceiving the court and using the Song Dynasty court's secrets.
The soldiers and horses went to attract the main force of the Jin army in Kaifeng, which is a blood debt!"
The person who spoke was very powerful. He should be a descendant of an official or a scholar in Lin'an City. What he said made sense. This person had several companions traveling with him, and they all said, "That's what the yamen said! This Guo Ning is a fraud."
, he is the one who owes the Song Dynasty a blood debt! The arrogant people in the court did not notice it, so the blood of the soldiers was shed in vain!"
Several people shouted together, and some called him a traitor in the court, which immediately frightened the storyteller. They did not dare to argue with the noble son, so they had to retreat step by step, from the eaves next to the door to under the eaves, and
A group of porters huddled together.
At the same time that the Yameni was speaking, Shi Kuanzhi, who was upstairs in the teahouse, became increasingly ugly.
The situation in the north is constantly changing, and the court has repeatedly discussed this matter, but there is no final conclusion yet.
According to their usual habits, the officials began to pretend to be dead behind closed doors, assuming that everything was decided by the prime minister. However, the prime minister had become more powerful in recent years, and indeed decided everything in the house and the bed, so he continued to
He stayed in the capital hall every day and discussed with civil and military officials in his private residence.
But some matters can be discussed secretly by the important officials of the imperial court. How can they be exposed to the harsh opinions of the outside world?
If everyone feels that it was Guo Ning who deceived the Song Dynasty court and owed a blood debt to the Song Dynasty court, then there will be a series of problems that cannot be circumvented.
Who is responsible for the Song Dynasty being deceived? Who is responsible for the blood debt?
Who is responsible for the endless wars in more than a dozen military states from Huainan to the west of Beijing, and they all ended up being the head of Guo Ning, the Duke of Zhou?
The war has not lasted long, so no one in Lin'an City has felt the losses particularly directly at this time. But sooner or later, some people will find that their relatives and families were lost in the war, and their hometown and countryside were destroyed by the war. When they start to get angry,
Who will come forward to explain and who will be responsible?
Even if someone deliberately investigates, they will find that in the past year, the Song Dynasty sold a lot of materials to the north through the maritime trade route, covertly and covertly, including huge amounts of grain, copper and iron, swim bladder glue, arrow shafts, etc. These are all
It was something that the imperial officials had repeatedly issued strict restrictions over the years, and it was strictly forbidden to disclose it. According to the law, if caught, they would be exiled for three thousand miles.
Then Guo Ning suddenly launched an army and pretended to overthrow the Kaifeng court in one fell swoop. Among them, the maritime merchants of the Song Dynasty actually took credit. So, who allowed those maritime merchants? Who condoned it? Who reaped the benefits?
Who thought that they had reached a tacit agreement with Guo Ning, that they could control Kaifeng with Sui coins, and control Zhongdu with sea trade, and that they could have both sides of it... but were slapped in the face by Guo Ning's military operations?
When all this comes together, it will definitely trigger a wave in Lin'an, and someone will definitely take advantage of the wave and add fuel to the flames, pointing the finger at the ruling Prime Minister Shi Miyuan!
"Mr. Lang, let me check, who is speaking?" Jia Sidao asked.
Shi Kuanzhi sneered twice: "No need. We bumped into one now. There are a hundred, a thousand in Lin'an City. So what if we find out?"
"Mr. Lang, you may not allow them to talk nonsense!"
Jia Sidao stamped on the floor until it made a loud noise. After stamping, he said angrily: "These people keep shouting like this, and the more they speak, the bolder they become. Sooner or later, they will be involved... Oh, Mr. Lang, this matter really cannot be tolerated!"
Shi Kuanzhi was a little moved and patted Jia Sidao on the shoulder.
Jia Sidao seems to be a young man who spends money like water, but in fact he has some means and is able to get things done, and he also has some special channels for dealing with maritime merchants.
Accompanying Xuan Zhen on his previous mission, he was ordered to arrange a fast ship to deliver the news on the way. Therefore, he did not go to Zhongdu together, so he did not suffer the ridicule of oversight like Xuan Zhen did. He arranged for the capable people to carry out the mission in the shortest time several times in a row.
The news sent back, regardless of whether it was true or false, at least bought everyone in the history party time to deal with it.
Therefore, when Shi Kuanzhi went out for business in the past few days, he always asked Jia Sidao to accompany him as a special show of affection. In fact, there was no need for him to show special affection. One of the two young men had his back leaning against the prime minister, and the other spent money like water. Naturally,
The land matched them so well, and over the past few months, the two of them had become close friends.
Seeing that he is anxious at the moment, he is probably not only worried about Shi Dang's struggle for power in the court, but also worried that his father Jia She, as the envoy of the Huaidong system, will be pushed out as a sacrifice, right?
After all, Guo Ning set out from Haizhou, Shandong, and marched directly to Xuzhou. Haizhou was a few feet away from Chuzhou in Huaidong, but the Huaidong government officials were completely unaware of this. Guo Ning suddenly joined forces with the rest of the Red Coat Army, and
In the past two years, Huaidong also invested a lot of money and food in recruiting the remnants of the Red Coat Army, and even asked the court for the title of the "Loyal and Righteous Army", but Guo Ning took the lead.
These two incidents cannot be justified by the Huaidong side. As the new envoy of the Huaidong system, Jia She naturally has to bear the responsibility.
Jia Sidao is so worried, which shows that the relationship between father and son seems to be distant. In fact, after all, they care by blood, and they are somewhat similar to Shi Miyuan and Shi Kuanzhi's father and son.
Shi Kuanzhi smiled and said: "It won't be involved in the system of Xianggong... I am here!"
Jia She was the one who appointed the Prime Minister. With his status as Shi Kuanzhi, he could guarantee this, which shows his sincerity.
But Jia Sidao's face didn't look relaxed at all.
He and Shi Kuanzhi were not thinking about the same thing at all, because he did not have a deep friendship with Jia She. Even if Jia She was cut into pieces, it would not be able to affect Li Yun, the chief minister of Tianjin Prefecture.
He raised his head and stared at Shi Kuanzhi for a while, then suddenly said: "Lang Jun, are you safe?"
What does this guy mean?
Shi Kuanzhi was stunned, his mind racing.
As the eldest son of Shi Miyuan, Shi Kuanzhi was instructed by his father to prepare a new army in Huainan to consolidate the power of the prime minister. Outsiders did not know its importance, but no one in the court knew that Shi Kuanzhi was the prime minister who made the real decision in Huainan.
When the situation has developed to this point, whether Jia She was negligent or whether Cui Yu, Li Dadong and others were held accountable for their crimes, can Shi Kuanzhi be bypassed?
He is the eldest son of Shi Xiang, and is gradually entering the official career and taking control of power. This alone is enough to attract criticism from the government and the public, using him as a breakthrough point against the entire Shi Party. So, isn't there anything special about this from Shi Xiang's side?
arrange?
While he was thinking about it, Jia Sidao said another sentence next to him: "Over the years, the government and the public have not talked about each other, and Shi Xianggong has increasingly concentrated the decision-making circle around his cronies. But in the past few days, he has not
When Mr. Zhaolang was discussing matters, he met some yellow-mouthed children..."
"Shut up!" Shi Kuanzhi shouted, stood up abruptly, and walked back and forth in the quiet room.
After just a few steps, his forehead was already covered with sweat and his temples were soaked with sweat. Lin'an City was extremely hot and humid in summer, and even if there were showers, it didn't seem pleasant. Shi Kuanzhi was used to being well-dressed, so it was easy for him to do so.
When I'm sweating or extremely nervous, my whole body looks like I've been fished out of the water.
"Is the story about the Huangkou child... real?"
"Mr. Lang, if I, Jia Shixian, claim to be the second largest sponsor of Goulan House in Lin'an City, no one would dare to claim that I am the first. Even if I was on business in Qingyuan Mansion a few days ago, this Lin'an City
The city foxes and rats here will still find out information for me. What they say will never be false."