Sometimes the palace is sunny

Chapter 64 Rewards
The empress often sneaked out of the palace recently, and had eaten some roasted sheep from Zuixianlou and steamed fish from Xinghualou. It's not as indifferent as before. For a while, I feel that the mutton soup served is not refreshing enough, and for a while, I feel that the milk cakes eaten as snacks are not soft enough.

It's as if a person has come back to life and knows what emotions are.

Today she called "Zhao Surui" to come, and it was also carefully prepared in advance. A chicken stewed with hazel mushrooms used the hazel mushrooms that her brother brought back from Liaodong, and her mother brought them to the palace last month. Ten catties, it is very fragrant to use for stewed chicken and stewed meat. If it weren't for the hard work of watching "Zhao Surui" these days, she would still be reluctant to take it out for her to eat.

Now, the hot chicken was brought to the table by a court lady in a dark blue cross-collared shirt. She stared at it blankly, and suddenly sighed:

"It's fine, I can't agree to this."

Sitting across the table, Shen Shiqing saw Lin Miaozhen lowering her eyes, holding the autumn ginkgo-colored embroidered satin in her hand.

"I know you are angry with those civil servants in the court." Lin Miaozhen changed her tone before speaking again, "It's really not possible, my brother has been doing business everywhere, and I asked him to get some shop stewards to settle accounts for you. Who wouldn't want to be Officials, if you just reward them with a ninth-rank crown and a background, they can check the account clearly for you. But the court ladies can't do it. They are already hard-fated people with no way out, and they will never see their parents for the rest of their lives. Forget it, don't push them out when you come and go in the court like this."

Fearing that "Zhao Surui" would be angry, Lin Miaozhen looked up at "him", and then at the confidant palace ladies standing on both sides of the door:
"It's not that you don't know the virtues of those civil servants. They are the most capable of weighing people's knives. I have a book, and you are right. I am the empress who handles palace affairs and promotes virtuous government. You are His Majesty's use of this group of court ladies. What about these court ladies? After this gust of wind passes, even if they can read a few words in the inner study with my protection, in the end there is still no hope, but they can be seen by those officials. Civil officials bear grudges, if I make any mistakes in the future, those civil officials will definitely not let these maids go when they write this book, what will they do then? The men were fighting in the previous court, and all they saw was Qian Quan Fame and wealth are all about climbing up. Even if a eunuch is short of a part, he can still have power. What can a court lady get? They have neither future nor future, as long as they are not lucky by you, they are indispensable. When a white-headed palace lady dies in the palace, don't bother these poor people."

After finishing speaking, Lin Miaozhen looked at "Zhao Surui" again, she thought she could see a younger brother who was humming and coaxing, but she didn't expect to see a smiling face.

Holding up the chopsticks, Shen Shiqing smiled and picked up a piece of chicken thigh and put it in Lin Miaozhen's bowl:
"My sister can't just talk without eating. This hazel mushroom stewed chicken is too fragrant, don't let it down."

"Aren't you angry that I violated your will? If you want to quarrel or hit you, don't play tricks like hiding a knife in front of me."

"What you said is right, why should I be angry?" Shen Shiqing still had a smile on her face. In this deep palace, there is a queen like Lin Miaozhen who is willing to "defy the emperor's order" for the sake of the maids. She is too late to be happy.

She picked up a piece of hazel mushrooms soaked in chicken soup and ate it with rice, Shen Shiqing said slowly:
"Then what if I give them a future?"

Lin Miaozhen raised her head abruptly with the chicken leg meat in her mouth, but she missed the chopsticks in her hand, and fell to the plate and then to the ground with a "pop".

future?What is the future?

Being promoted to an official position is an extremely worthy minister, collecting wealth can rival the country, building a shrine for the ancestors forward, and blessing generations backward.

This is the future.

It's a future that makes people blush and risk their lives for it.

A woman can't be an official if she has talent, and she can't stand if she has money. Once she lands, she is destined to be a wife of another family. She gave up half her life to give birth to a child but does not leave her name on the family tree of another family.

Naturally, there is no future.

Lin Miaozhen was still in astonishment, but Shen Shiqing had already sat up straight:

"Today's chicken dish is pretty good, but is it made by Shangshi Bureau?"

The maid guarding the door quickly said: "Your Majesty, this dish should be made by a surnamed Wu from the Food Department of the Shangshi Bureau. She was born in Daning Mansion and is good at treating these mountain products from Liaodong."

Soon, a middle-aged woman wearing an elegant blue silk jacket with a round collar knelt down in front of Shen Shiqing. She was wearing a black gauze hat with a pair of pink and yellow velvet hairpins on her head, and a gold-plated bouquet around her waist. Wearing a belt and wearing soap boots, it is exactly the appearance of a female official in the palace.

Shen Shiqing looked at her, and asked in a gentle tone: "Most of the female officials in the palace are selected from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but Wu Zhangshan is from Daning in the north. It's really rare, no wonder he can make this dish very delicious .”

Wu Zhangshan knelt on the ground, but his voice was a little trembling, but it was still calm: "Returning to your majesty, the minister of the first year of Mingkang entered Beijing with his parents and was selected as a court lady. Since then, he has been taught by his aunts in the Shangshi Bureau. On the Empress Dowager's birthday in 16 years, the queen mother liked the three dishes, so she promoted the minister to be a female official, and was lucky to be promoted to the sixth-rank palm meal the year before last."

After hearing her background, Shen Shiqing nodded: "It's even more rare that she is a promoted female official."

Dayong's female officials are different from the court ladies. Almost all of them selected literate civilian women from all over the south of the Yangtze River to enter the palace. They are between 35 and 70 years old. They stay in the palace until they are [-] years old. .

At that time, Taizu Dayong set up female officials to prevent eunuchs from taking power, and even made eunuchs in the palace illiterate, let alone interfere in government affairs.All affairs in the palace are decided by female officials. Unfortunately, when Suzong came, Suzong set up an inner study in the palace because he didn't like the queen who was appointed by Zhongzong to marry him, and he didn't like the female officials under the queen's rule. Let the eunuchs be literate to handle the palace affairs for him, because the eunuchs can communicate internally and externally, and they are more close to the emperor than the older female officials. Soon, the departments where the female officials belonged lost their importance everywhere. The authority has been reduced to a subordinate yamen who has to act according to the face of the supervisor of ceremonies.

During the reign of Shenzong, the power of eunuchs became even more considerable, and they were even sent to supervise the army everywhere. The defeat that made Dayong lose face was also the end of Shenzong's reuse of eunuchs.

It's a pity that even such a disaster didn't stop the eunuchs from being the most beloved slaves of the emperors. After that, the emperors of all dynasties also had powerful eunuchs around them, such as Wang Wan and Wang Gui who were around Mingzong, and Zhang Wan who was around the first emperor. .Although the eunuch has no heirs, he can rely on the mutual recognition of "grandfather and grandson" to support his party members to complete the transition of power, and firmly suppress the female officials in the depths of the harem.

Nowadays, although the palace still selects female officials to enter the palace every three years, and they are still respectfully called "aunt" by the eunuchs, everyone knows that they are just another kind of palace maids, wearing different clothes and shouting differently. The same name, but the same will be trampled underfoot by eunuchs.

Like Wu Zhangshan, who was promoted from a court lady to a female official because of accidental success in an errand, it can be called a legend in the huge imperial city.

Wu Zhangshan buried his head between his arms, and all he said were respectful words like thanking His Majesty and the Queen Mother for their kindness.

But she heard His Majesty ask her: "Who else is in your family?"

The female officer in her thirties replied cautiously: "Go back to Your Majesty, there is still an old mother and a younger brother in the minister's house, and the younger brother should be married."

"What does it mean to be married? Don't you even know your brother is married?"

Wu Zhangshan quickly said: "The last time I communicated with my family was the year when I was appointed as a female official. At that time, my father's filial piety had just passed, and my mother said that she was showing my younger brother."

It has been seven or eight years since Mingde was 16 years old, but she has no news contact with her family.

Shen Shiqing nodded, raised her eyes, and looked out the window, she said:

"Entered the palace in the first year of Mingde, and it has been 23 years since you have served the king with sincerity. You have won the praise of the queen mother and queen. I want to reward you. Xu Gongling, you drafted an order for me and the queen. Wu Zhangshan has abided by his duties for 23 years. For his meritorious service, he was rewarded by the two palaces many times. Thinking of his mother's merits in nurturing him, he was awarded the fifth-rank pleasant person, a hundred acres of fertile land, a hundred taels of official silver, and ten pieces of tribute satin."

Wu Zhangshan knelt down, listening to His Majesty's will, he couldn't even thank him.

She raised her head in disbelief, only to see His Majesty with lowered eyes and a slight smile on his face.

Knowing that her actions were inappropriate, she quickly lowered her head again, unable to speak, she could only kowtow desperately: "Thank you Your Majesty, thank you for your kindness, thank you for your kindness..."

Xu Gongling was a woman in her forties or fifties, and when she was ordered to write such a shocking imperial decree, she did not show any strangeness on her face, and she was about to complete the decree immediately.

Commandment, Tian Mu...

Only when a man is an official can he earn the imperial order for his mother, and only then can a man buy the land property under his own name.

It was only at this time that Lin Miaozhen finally believed that "Zhao Surui" really wanted to give a "future" to all the maids in the palace. She suppressed the turbulent heat in her heart and said with a smile:
"If you have obtained the five-rank imperial order, you can hand in your son to enter the palace, so I will give another 100 taels of silver from this palace, and also give... Wu Zhangshan, I don't know what your mother calls you?"

"Chen, minister, minister's mother, minister's mother's surname is Wang."

"Okay, give Wang Yiren a hundred taels of silver as road money. I want to see this Wang Yiren who gave birth to a good daughter with my own eyes."

After finishing speaking, Lin Miaozhen looked at the other maids and officials standing beside her: "Your Majesty bestowed orders on Wu Zhangshan's mother because of His Majesty's benevolence and filial piety. I am grateful for Wu Zhangshan's loyalty for decades. You should take Wu Zhangshan as a role model." , as long as you are dedicated to your loyalty, I am also willing that the maids and officials in the palace around me will work hard to earn an imperial order for the mother of the family."

The maids and officials inside and outside the palace suddenly knelt down and responded in unison. Even the magpies flying out of the eaves heard their different momentum from the usual, and waved their wings from the deep palace to the south palace wall. After flying for a long time, it finally landed on the high gate of Qianqing.

The magpie looked around with its small chest upright, and saw bright lights one after another lit up in the dark palace city.

It was already the second watch when he came out of Changchun Palace, the cold wind of early winter was howling in the alleyway, Shen Shiqing was sitting in the warm sedan chair, and her heart was hard to calm down for a long time.

Maybe when the decree is issued tomorrow, the officials will only think that there is a very lucky female official in the palace, or that she, the emperor, is acting willfully again.

Only a woman, only a woman who has been silent for a long time in the long night, knows the meaning of what she did today.

Lin Miaozhen knew it, Xu Gongling knew it, and she, Shen Shiqing, knew it too.

The next step is to let the maids in the inner school be able to study.

What Lin Miaozhen said was right, she did have the intention of mocking all the officials of the court with a court lady. Those officials were talking about pleading for the people and thinking about business transactions in their hearts. Since they are not willing to send officials who are good at accounting Jing, she will naturally find someone to come from elsewhere.

Adding math classes to the inner study, if there are hundreds of maids who can write and count in the palace after a year or two, Zhao Surui may not be willing to abolish this class according to Zhao Surui's temperament.

"Don't worry."

She said to herself in her heart.

Her fingers seemed to be slowly grinding something with the ceramic pestle in mid-air, and the churning in Shen Shiqing's heart finally calmed down.

"My lord, the Qianqing Palace has arrived."

Hearing the sound of a chicken, Shen Shiqing raised her head, the dumplings stopped, and she came out from under the dragon pattern brocade door that was opened.

"A chicken."

"The servant is here."

"Go and tell the cabinet tomorrow that I don't have much time left for those people. Since I haven't been able to find enough people to settle the accounts, I don't need to look for them. From tomorrow onwards, the accounts of the Taipu Temple will be piled up in the Qianqing Palace. , I open a book at random, and as soon as I see the expenditure account, I will strip off the official skin of the embezzler and throw it into Beizhen Fusi."

Zhao Surui's moodiness is not used at this time, when will she use it?
Thinking of this, Shen Shiqing walked into the Qianqing Palace, and she planned to read another hundred memorials before going to bed.

On the Zhuangzi outside Beijing, Zhao Surui sneezed violently, then his expression changed suddenly, and he moved his buttocks slowly while hugging the small quilt wrapped around his stomach.

That's right, Emperor Zhaode, the wise and powerful Emperor Zhaode, who has won many victories in all battles, is having menstruation again.

　Siri Zhao: People sneeze when they leak, it's not good, it's not good.

　　Shen Shiqing: Gradually get used to using one mind as eight hundred.

　　Today’s chapter involves some content about female officials and the edict system. In order to be more authentic, I compared a lot of information. As a result, I asked friends who studied related content today and found out that the information I collected before was basically wrong.For example, I always thought that the maids of the Ming Dynasty could leave the palace at a certain age, but it turned out that it was not possible. There were only a few times in the records of the Ming Dynasty, and they were all separated by many years. It was also the minister who wrote: Your Majesty Let's let some maids out of the palace to show our benevolence.

　　So most of my content was overturned and rewritten, and the information was not updated until now.

　　The exact number of working years for maids of honor was in the Qing Dynasty. Of course, it was also because they were all born in a noble family with a stable class.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)