74

Gu Yuanbai knew what Xue Yuan meant.

Because he was physically sick and weak, and because Xue Yuan liked him, whenever he was sick and he was hard, Xue Yuan would be hard with him.

He called it "bullying him."

How it sounds, how it sounds like a phrase with deep meaning and a confessional meaning.

Xue Yuan was showing weakness and trying to escape, how could Gu Yuanbai not see that.

Gu Yuanbai was annoyed, just annoyed at Xue Yuan's deliberate attempt to test the waters.

Every word and every mannerism was testing, testing him over and over again, trying to test him for what? What did he want to see in his attitude?

Gu Yuanbai coughed so much that he could not speak. When he could speak out and had the strength to stand up straight, Xue Yuan let go of his hand and didn't need him to say that he already knew how to back off.

Gu Yuanbai took the handkerchief and looked at him coldly, thinking, Here we go again, pretending to test him again.

"Let's go," Gu Yuanbai held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose and coughed a few more times, "Back to the palace."

Xue Yuan waited for His Holiness to leave in a disciplined manner. Only after His Holiness and his party had disappeared did he turn around and leisurely carry the birdcage back to his journey.

The sparrow in the birdcage suddenly bumped up against the cage, Xue Yuan looked down and laughed, "What are you bumping into, do you want to die so badly?"

He glanced at the plaque of the Chu Mansion not far away and came to a realization, "Or do you have eyes for someone else, Lord Chu?"

The sparrow screamed louder and louder, Xue Yuan opened the cage, and the sparrow flew into the sky.

Xue Yuan withdrew his eyes from the Chu Fu plaque, humming the ditty of the poem Chang Yuyan had written for him, in a happy mood.

After a few more days, Kong Yilin and his group finally entered the western part of the capital.

The army stayed outside the western part of the capital, and Kong Yilin, as well as the inspection officials who came back from Lizhou, rushed quickly to meet the Emperor at the summer palace in Hebei.

Gu Yuanbai has already received the news in advance, Qin Sheng with the Dong Ling Wei crowd stayed in place to watch over the prisoners, the holy Dong Ling Weis beat their heads against the wall, ten thousand can't let these prisoners get out of hand in front of their own house.

By the time these officials who had traveled a long distance arrived, baths and meals had already been prepared in the palace.

Kong Yilin and the officials were led to the bath. After coming out from the bath, all of them changed into a clean and tidy robe, and when they looked at each other, the tiredness and weariness on each other's faces were gone.

Lord Mi, the imperial inspector of the Academy, looked around for a moment, and his stern and solemn face took on a smile, "All of you lords are finally in some spirits now that you take a look at them."

Another lord laughed out loud and said, "With the generous love of His Holiness, the bath soup is comfortable, and there should be something added inside to clear the mind, and even the clothes fit perfectly. A body's fatigue is washed away, and my humble servant only feels comfortable now."

Someone coldly picked up, "Just hungry."

The crowd laughed out loud.

The eunuch stepped forward in time and led them to the place where the meal was served.

Lord Mi and Kong Yilin were chatting idly, "Lord Kong, the beard on your chin has grown out."

Kong Yilin smiled bitterly, "I was born tall, and once my beard grows out it will be even more barbaric, I just hope that I don't startle the eyes of His Holiness later."

"Why does His Holiness care about this?" Lord Mi smiled and stroked his beard, "Our saint, ah, is the most lenient of all."

Kong Yilin smiled without saying anything, and there was a look of recognition in his expression.

Gu Yuanbai's heart ached for this group of officials, and specially had the Imperial Catering Room put in a lot of effort, so while the officials were bathing, the dishes were already set out, and there was all kinds of alcohol.

All the courtiers look at this colorful and flavorful feast, all the belly roar, mouth fluid suddenly born, the eunuch who led the way on the side of the smiling: "The saint has said, first let all the adults first meal, to be full of wine and rice, and then invite all the adults to go forward together to discuss the matter."

"The little ones will be waiting outside the door, and if you lords are short of wine and tea, just call out."

The eunuchs retreated as much as they could, waiting at the door for orders. Without these palace guards in the room, many people couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Lord Mi took the lead to take his seat, and said with rare ease, "All the adults do not need to be formal, this is a piece of mind that His Holiness treats us with, all of you raise your cups and chopsticks, and fill your stomachs to your heart's content."

After the bath there was food, and when the officials had had their fill of wine and food, they were all red-faced, and the fatigue of the fast horse ride had dissipated.

Only then did Gu Yuanbai summon them.

The officials were in high spirits as they bowed towards Gu Yuanbai, and the imperial historian of the Academy, Lord Mi, bowed down in a loud voice: "I pay my respects to Your Majesty!"

"Rise quickly," Gu Yuanbai smiled and said a few good words in a row, "I am doubly pleased that all of you have traveled so hard to find out so many corrupt officials and assholes who prey on the people. It is because of all of you that my Daheng can prosper more and more, and the people can live and work in peace and happiness."

The officials hastened to humbly excuse themselves, and Lord Mi stepped forward, telling Gu Yuanbai one by one some of the things worth reporting on this trip.

Each of them on the folding, together with the handing over of the folding of the local officials, also this is to prevent the anti-corruption too much, the capital inspectors on the strength of the power of the people, but instead of supervising the theft.

Gu Yuanbai looked at the folded document while listening to Lord Mi's words. In fact, these words were all written into the folding, but Lord Mi was afraid that the folding was not detailed enough, so he said more.

When he had finished, Tian Fusheng personally offered a cup of tea, and Lord Mi was busy thanking him, "Thank you, Eunuch."

"Lord Mi handled it well," Gu Yuanbai nodded in approval, "Whether it's the disposition of the bandits in Lizhou or the corrupt officials, it's all to my liking."

"I'm ashamed," Lord Mi said, "His Holiness had already laid down the statutes before the anti-corruption campaign, that the amount of money embezzled would result in the type of crime, and we are only working according to the rules laid down by His Holiness."

Gu Yuanbai smiled, and after saying a few more words to them in a warm voice, he let them go and rest first.

Kong Yilin, however, stayed alone.

He was tall, and his spine, which used to be somewhat stooped after this long as much as two months of experience, was completely straightened out at this moment, the more calm and heavy he was, the deeper his wit, "Your Holiness, I have another copy of the zhengzuo here."

Tian Fusheng took his zhang folders, Gu Yuanbai flipped them open and smiled, "Kong Qing did a good job."

After determining Kong Yilin's abilities along the way, Gu Yuanbai had someone from the Inspection Division go ahead and contact him. After some trial and error, Kong Yilin was initially surprised, but quickly calmed down and respectfully accepted the task Gu Yuanbai had specially added to him.

Kong Yilin bowed deeply, "I will fulfill my mission."

Gu Yuanbai asked him to do two things. One was to go and explore the people's customs along the way, looking for valuable local resources that could be developed. The second was to find out how the people in various places were hiding their accounts and how well they were being indoctrinated.

In ancient times, among a million people, literacy is only a few tens of thousands. Kong Yilin this check, found some remote places, decades even from the out of what readers.

Whenever the imperial court issued any decrees or good policies, these remote places could never receive the message from the court because of the different roads and news blockage.

And the number of people, moreover, found a lot of concealment and omission of households.

After Jinghu South and Jiangnan were held in Gu Yuanbai's hands, he immediately issued an order for all provinces, counties and townships to organize their household registers and services. Some places had suffered from military disasters and looting by rebel armies, and Gu Yuanbai also exempted two years of taxes from places that had suffered serious losses.

To organize the household registers, officials had to go door-to-door, counting the number of people and checking their appearance and age to see if they could match the information recorded in the official records.

This is a huge project, and progress is advancing slowly, but once the approximate number of people missing from these two areas is tallied, the country is roughly known.

Gu Yuanbai also wanted to take advantage of the anti-corruption fervor after to bring up the matter of counting the household registers and assignments.

The saint slowly turned over the zhang folders, his mouth casually said, "Kong Qing should have known that I still have a Ministry of Supervision presence in the dark."

Kong Yilin's spirit was revitalized, he restrained his voice and screened his breath, and made a deep bow, "I do know."

Kong Yilin looked calm and steady, but by nature, his sword went out of the way, and he almost sighed at Gu Yuanbai after learning of the existence of the Ministry of Supervision.

At a time when power was falling away and treacherous ministers were in power, it was still possible to build such an organization, and the emperor's heart and temperament were so powerful.

So when he understood the role and significance of the Office of Supervision, Kong Yilin accepted the secret decree of the Emperor almost without giving it much thought. The Office of Supervision was a sword in the darkness, and this feeling of being hidden in the darkness had a great attraction for Kong Yilin.

Gu Yuanbai smiled, placed the folds he had finished reading on the table, picked up his teacup, said nothing, and leisurely drank his tea.

After a long time, Kong Yilin smiled bitterly, he was the first to lose, and made another salute, "I don't know if I have the ability to enter Your Majesty's Ministry of Supervision?"

"Does Kong Qing really want to go in?" Gu Yuanbai's face suddenly became serious, he sat up straight and looked at Kong Yilin with his eyes, "Kong Qing has a great talent, and is quite opinionated on how to rule the country. If you enter the Supervision Office, even if you make a merit for me, these things will not be known by others."

Kong Yilin smiled, "I have an official position and would like to share the worries of His Majesty."

Gu Yuanbai laughed and said lightly again, "Then what if I want to attack Western Xia?"

Kong Yilin stared, he carefully thought about it, after playing a good draft, off and out is actually the terrain of Western Xia.

Which side of the water and swamp, which side of the forest miasma deep, where the trestle is in disrepair. Kong Yilin will now travel to the Western Xia what he saw and heard one by one, and finally said dry mouth before stopping, "Your Majesty, I have shallow knowledge, only know these."

Gu Yuanbai pondered for a moment, "Give tea."

Kong Yilin took the tea, but did not rush to drink it, but smiled slightly and said sincerely: ''Your Holiness, what brought me up was the soil and water of Daheng. What allowed me to gain merit is Daheng's learning. And the one who gave me everything I have today is you, Your Holiness."

He paused and added, "If I would one day favor the Western Xia in the midst of a war between Daheng and the Western Xia," Kong Yilin's eyes were slightly lost in thought, "it would surely be that there would no longer be a place for my minister in Daheng."

Because the Emperor of Daheng had an extremely enlightened and generous heart, Kong Yilin dared to say these words.

It is just that accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger, and his sentence also carries an element of gambling, and Kong Yilin even gambled stoically, and he gambled and won.

Gu Yuanbai let him retreat to rest well, before going down, he did not forget to urge, "Kong Qing just said that about the Western Xia's words, ten days later to me to hand over a strategy to."

Kong Yilin answered yes and quietly retreated.

Early the next morning, during the court, Gu Yuanbai announced what was to come next in terms of recounting the household registers and organizing the assignments.

The tedious and detailed degree of this matter can be said to let a person's head, the early morning court on the whole two hours, and so on all the ministers are hungry, before roughly discussing a specific process.

After the court, the majestic saint was still in his court dress, but his face was already white.

The head of the guards carried the saint to the table, where the meal had just been presented and was still steaming. The palace maids and eunuchs came forward and methodically removed the accessories and clothing worn by the saint.

After everything was removed, Gu Yuanbai propped himself up and took a dozen deep breaths before his eyes weren't blackened.

The imperial doctors came in a hurry, five or six of them stood aside, Gu Yuanbai inclined his head to look at them, his head was already full of sweat, and he weakly stretched out his hand, placing it on the table to leave them to take his pulse.

Among these imperial doctors, each one of them is familiar with the physical condition of the saint twisted in the heart, they carefully observed the saint's face, and let the saint stick out the tip of the tongue, and carefully asked Tian Fusheng saint today's symptoms, not daring to let go of a trace of the cause of the cause of the cause.

Tired, hungry, hot.

There are no more than these.

Gu Yuanbai cooperated every step of the way, even when there were five or six imperial physicians who needed to come up one by one to re-diagnose and treat him, he cooperated perfectly.

The imperial doctors came together to discuss, Gu Yuanbai's breathing was a bit ragged, Tian Fusheng gave His Holiness a bowl of white porridge, "Your Holiness, do you still need to add some small ingredients?"

"No," Gu Yuanbai, "that's it."

After barely finishing the bowl of porridge, his stomach finally felt a bit more comfortable. The imperial doctors also discussed the method, and after giving the prescription to Tian Fusheng, they worriedly said, "Your Holiness, the prescription you are taking needs to be replaced with a few tonic medicines."

Gu Yuanbai lifted a spoonful of porridge and said without changing his face, "Change it."

"It's still the same as before, pass the prescription to the Imperial Hospital and let each imperial physician sign his name after reading it," Gu Yuanbai said, "If more than ninety percent of them agree with it, then it will be changed, and there's no need to come and inform me about it."

The imperial physicians wanted to speak, "...... Yes. Please also ask Your Holiness to take care of your dragon body, do not tire yourself out, do not tire yourself out."

"Go." Gu Yuanbai said.

After the imperial doctors left, Gu Yuanbai was silent and continued to drink his white porridge.

The palace was silent.

"How is Mrs. Wan's body?" Gu Yuanbai broke the silence and suddenly asked.

Tian Fusheng carefully said, "Back to Your Majesty, because the weather has turned cold in the past few days, Consort Wan has not left the palace for many days. But the palace attendant beside the dowager consort said that the dowager consort's appetite is still good these days."

Gu Yuanbai sighed in relief, "If it's good, then it's good."

He was a little out of it.

His holiness is slender, but a little thin. Layers of clothes, but also like to show a little health.

It's just that this health is all showing in the end.

Tian Fusheng momentarily had some nasal soreness, "Your Holiness, you must take care of your health."

Gu Yuanbai smiled, "That's natural."

After having breakfast, Gu Yuanbai didn't have the energy to deal with political affairs anymore, he laid back on the bed to rest. Outside the people guarding outside the hall, Squire Zhang was worried, "Chief Tian, His Holiness this body ......"

Tian Fusheng sighed, and the Squire stopped talking.

"The presence of the saint is a mountain that shocks everyone," after a while, Tian Fusheng whispered, "As long as the saint is here, no one in the Daheng dynasty will dare to do anything out of the ordinary."

The head guard said, "Yes."

"More than that," Tian Fusheng grinned, "those small countries and small places outside, as long as His Holiness is still there, they no longer have the guts to step over a step. The people outside the Great Wall think about our food and goodies every day, and if they are stopped by the Great Wall, they will have to be stopped by our saint. Didn't our General Xue go to fight the nomads? They'll only know how powerful they are when General Xue hits them back hard."

The Squire couldn't help but laugh, but those words went without saying, they all knew.

For them, as long as His Holiness was still around, Daheng was the day when the sea was calm and the river was clear.

But because of this, His Holiness's health is doubly worrisome to them.