Xuande

Chapter 763 At that time, His Majesty was still very young
After Liu Xie left, the ceremony officially came to an end.

The old royal family is about to take a curtain call, and the new royal family is on the stage of history, ready to play their role.

Later, Liu Bei brought his family to their new residence.

The original Great General's Mansion is no longer needed to live in, only the six departments are still working, and Liu Bei has moved to the palace with his family.

The Imperial Palace of the Eastern Han Dynasty was named Beigong.

During the Qin Dynasty, the North Palace already existed, but it was destroyed by wars. Emperor Yongping of the Han Dynasty rebuilt it in the third year of Yongping, and it was completed in the eighth year of Yongping.

There are East Palace, West Palace, Changle Palace and Changxin Palace in the North Palace, which are respectively used as the palace of the emperor, the palace of the empress, and the residence of the empress dowager and empress dowager.

The East Palace serves as the palace courtyard of the imperial court. To the south of the main hall, Chongde Hall, there are Zhangtai Hall and Zhangtai Gate. This is generally the place where state affairs are handled. Most of the official institutions in the palace are also here. The emperor handles government affairs and meets with ministers. here.

The West Palace is the emperor’s dormitory, so its main hall, Deyang Hall, is also called the Yeting of the North Palace. There is a Duanmen in front of it. The government hall and other palaces, and the Yongle Palace, the palace where the empress dowager lived, is in the northwest of the Deyang Palace.

After Liu Bei's family moved in, the West Palace became their residence, and the main hall, Deyang Hall, became the residence of Liu Bei and Han Ningxin. living room.

And Liu Bei's mother lived in Yongle Palace as the empress dowager.

Due to the rush of time, many living places are not well prepared, some are messy and some are dirty.

Liu Bei ordered Zhang Rang to send someone to clean up the Yongle Palace first, so that his mother could live in it comfortably, and then to clean up the Deyang Palace and other palaces. In some places, it was too late, and Liu Bei's concubines were not pretentious. A virtuous look.

Seeing the servants and eunuchs and maids busy rectifying the huge palace, the mother, like Han Ning, felt as if she had been in a trance.

"We're royal now?"

"I just...became a queen?"

The two women looked at the huge palace in a daze, as if they couldn't accept the fact that they had become the two most honorable women in the world for a while.

There is nothing that Liu Bei is not used to. Anyway, he has long been the emperor in essence, but he does not live in the palace.

This palace is larger, more spacious, and requires more roads to walk. Simply speaking, where is it comfortable to live, Liu Bei feels that this palace is not as comfortable as the General's Mansion.

Moreover, the bigger the palace, the more people are needed to take care of it, and it takes more money and thought to maintain it, and the expenditure will be a lot. This is not a small challenge for Liu Bei who is used to a simple life.

While his mother and Han Ning were back to their normal state of mind, Liu Bei led the Tiger Guards and Zhang Rang to wander around the entire palace where the emperor lived, thinking of finding any places that did not need to be used, and sealed them up Thinking about it, there are too many places to save and you have to send people to maintain it, but in the end, you have never set foot on it.

That is pure waste.

After wandering around, Liu Bei found several remote palaces and felt that he would never come again, so he ordered Zhang Rang to seal these places and not allow anyone to come here.

After strolling for half an hour, Liu Bei and his party arrived at the entrance of the West Garden.

Looking at the main entrance of the West Garden, which hadn't changed much, Liu Bei returned to more than ten years ago in a daze, back to the moment when he singled out Zhang Rang Zhao Zhong and Chuang Xiyuan to find Liu Hong at the risk of his life.

Feeling nostalgic, Liu Bei walked to the gate of the West Garden by himself, and turned to look at Zhang Rang.

"Remember here, you tried to cover my mouth, I grabbed your hands, taught you not to move, and then Emperor Xian opened the door, right?"

Zhang Rang looked a little embarrassed.

"At that time, His Majesty was still very young."

"I'm not old now, I can still live for decades."

Liu Bei stepped forward, pushed open the main entrance of the West Garden, stood at the entrance and looked in, only to see a desolate and dilapidated scene, which was completely different from the lush and prosperous scene he saw at the beginning.

He couldn't help but sigh.

That's right, after Liu Hong passed away, he closed the West Garden on the grounds that the West Garden cost a lot, moved out all the money-wasting things, and then held an auction within the elite circle to sell those rare animals, flowers, plants and plants. It was sold for a good price.

It can be regarded as an end to Liu Hong's extravagant behavior.

After that, no one lived in the West Garden, only some eunuchs cleaned and repaired it regularly, so it was very clean, but it was hard to hide the dilapidated look.

Liu Bei started to walk in, and while walking, he was thinking about the time when he followed that gorgeously dressed court lady through here more than ten years ago, it seemed that everything at that time could still be reproduced before his eyes.

Standing in front of the main palace gate of the West Garden, he suddenly felt that the man who made him feel very complicated was still in the lobby in front of him, lying in a very dissolute posture, while enjoying the wonderful music, while closing his eyes and resting his mind, completely ignoring the dancers who were She tried her best to dance beautifully, trying to please him.

How comfortable and happy he was at that time.

It is precisely because of this that Liu Bei is unwilling to continue to exist in this expensive palace.

"I remember that it was widely circulated at the time that there was a special swimming pool in the West Garden. The late emperor liked to swim in summer, especially swimming in the water with the maids. Is there such a thing?"

Liu Bei turned to look at Zhang Rang.

"That's true."

Zhang Rang said slowly: "When the heat is unbearable, the late emperor would swim in the Yechi Pool with the court ladies to relieve the heat. It is a beautiful thing. What Your Majesty said, could it be..."

"It's not so much, don't think too much, I don't like swimming."

Liu Bei stood at the entrance of the main hall and looked in, and said slowly: "Old Zhang, do you think that every emperor wants to be extravagant and extravagant, regardless of the world's affairs, as long as he is happy?"

Zhang Rang blinked.

"Some emperors are like this, but an emperor like His Majesty must not be like this."

Liu Bei looked at Zhang Rang with a smile.

"Most of your work is in this mouth, and other aspects are mediocre, but you are not a fool at least, I am sorry for the points I have given you for so many years, Lao Zhang, from now on it will only be the two of us together , don't fall behind."

"According to the order."

Zhang Rang wiped the fine beads of sweat on his forehead, and dared not say a word about anything else.

Liu Bei shook his head, turned around and left the West Garden, and when he stepped out of the gate of the West Garden Palace, he stopped again.

"Anyway, it's such a spacious palace. It's a waste to leave it unused. It has no serious use. It will inevitably be restarted by unscrupulous descendants in the future. It's not a good thing. Old Zhang, what do you think it can be used for? Yes. Is there no proper serious use for it?"

"Serious use?"

Zhang Rang said slowly: "This is the place where the late emperor played, lived and enjoyed the cool air. The palace is well-equipped and spacious, and it can accommodate many people, but if there is any serious use... It seems that there is no shortage of serious things in the palace. It’s the place where children’s eight classics are..."

Zhang Rang frowned and couldn't think of a reason, Liu Bei thought for a while, but suddenly had a special idea.

"You said, how about we transform this place into the central kitchen of the entire palace? It is responsible for the meals of all the people who work in the palace. The previous central kitchen was in a small cramped place. I have heard people complain more than once that the place is too Small, not enough.

Now the West Garden is empty and empty. There are so many palaces and houses, so many open spaces, and even such a large pool. Isn’t it a waste to use it?Simply turn it into a large central kitchen, and ask all the cooks to come over and cook for everyone.

You see, those palaces can be used as kitchens, and many vacant houses can be used for living and storing ingredients. So many open spaces used to be used for planting flowers and plants, but now they have all been opened up to grow vegetables and fruits, and the pools are not allowed to swim. Yes, raise fish to eat, what do you think? "

Zhang Rang was stunned.

"fish culture?"

He couldn't help but think back to how Liu Hong played with the beauties in the palace many years ago, and then imagined the scene of raising fish in this pond...

Seems like a little bit...

Wonderful?

But in the end it was Liu Bei who brought it up. Seeing Liu Bei's excited face, Zhang Rang swallowed the words rationally, changed his rhetoric, and said with a smile: "You are right, if you raise fish, you just raise fish." Fish, fish farming is very good, fish is very delicious!"

"Right? Not only can you raise fish, but you can also raise poultry, pigs and so on. Such a large open space is not too wasteful to use, and raising the ingredients yourself can also save the cost of cooking. It's a little bit less. It’s not easy to make money.”

Liu Bei smiled and said, "Grow some vegetables and fruits, raise some chickens, ducks, fish and pigs, and then turn this place into a large central kitchen, and transform the main hall into a big canteen, so that everyone can eat here. If you are busy, you can also come here to eat, don't you think it is very good?"

"That... that's really... really good."

Zhang Rang squeezed out a smile: "As long as you think it's okay, then it's okay, then do it like this..."

Liu Bei nodded.

"Well, Lao Zhang, I leave this matter to you. You go to Zhen Yan and spend a sum of money from the Shaofu to rebuild the West Garden. You are familiar with the West Garden, so I can rest assured that you will handle the matter."

Seeing that he had another job, Zhang Rang didn't know whether to be happy or to be speechless.

The luxurious place that the first emperor used to enjoy the cool and enjoy the fun, turned it into a central kitchen for Liu Bei, and also raised pigs...

That's enough.

Zhang Rang didn't say anything more, who made Liu Bei the owner of this place now?
After going around in a circle and returning to Deyang Hall, it was time for dinner. This was the first dinner for the Liu family after they entered the palace. The whole family was here, and they were waiting for Liu Bei to come back and greet them for dinner.

In addition to Han Ning being named queen, Liu Bei's other concubines were also named nobles by him.

During Wang Mang's period, he reformed the system on behalf of the ancients, and produced three wives, nine concubines, 27 concubines, and 81 royal wives. The entire harem is huge in scale and has many establishments, with a total of 120 people.

In the period of Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu, in order to live a simple life, the concubine system of the Western Han and Xinmang periods was changed to only the fourth class.

Nobles, beauties, court ladies, ladies.

Nobles, gold seals and purple ribbons, salary no more than tens of hu, beauties, palace ladies, and maids are third-class, no rank of nobility, only some rewards for living at the age of age.

On the whole, the number of concubines of the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty was not large, especially there were so many emperors who died before reaching adulthood.

Because they are all people who accompany him, and Liu Bei also wants to maintain the harmony in the backyard, so he named everyone noble, and did not seal other levels.

Not to mention whether there will be new people entering the palace in the future, anyway, only their family lives in this huge palace right now, and more than 90.00% of the serving eunuchs and court ladies have been abolished in a wave of cleaning and careful selection. So the whole palace seemed empty.

According to Zhang Rang's statistics, the total number of eunuchs and court ladies serving in the palace is only four hundred.

At the dinner table, Liu Bei talked about this matter and decided to hand over this matter to Han Ning.

"It is true that some popularity is needed in the palace. Whether it is eunuchs or women, you can recruit some. If you want to recruit hard-working and quick-witted people, come in and do more work and less gossip. This matter will be left to you. The queen is here to supervise."

Liu Bei looked at Han Ning with a smile and winked at her.

"Queen, can this be done?"

"The task entrusted by His Majesty, dare not complete it?"

At this time, Han Ning also regained some energy and lost some confusion. He began to carefully uphold his identity as a queen, and began to be the harem master in a decent manner.

"That's great. This time, we can recruit more people. Seven or eight hundred people are fine. In short, we need to have more people in the palace. Such a big place needs someone to clean it."

Liu Bei patted Han Ning's hand: "My emperor was busy with government affairs in the previous dynasty, and the palace and courtyard behind here are all managed by the queen."

"Ah."

Han Ning nodded.

So Liu Bei looked at the rest of the nobles.

"You are all people who have been with me for several years. I trust you enough, and I don't ask too much. Apart from respecting the empress dowager and queen, it is no different from the past. I used to live in a small courtyard. Now Living in the big courtyard, the status is different, but the essence has not changed.

Of course, you should also pay attention to the changes in your identities. Some things you could do in the past are inconvenient now. , cannot interfere in the government affairs of the previous dynasty. "

When he said this, Liu Bei was very serious, without any appearance of joking.

The concubines also understand this truth very well.

Since Empress Lu proclaimed the system, the emperors of the Han Dynasty were more sensitive to the interference of the harem. They had restrictions on the queen and the queen's family, and there were many restrictions on the contacts between the concubine and the outside world.

Even so, due to the prevalence of marriages, the lack of legal regulations, and the worrying life expectancy of the young emperors, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, harem politics still caused a lot of trouble for the previous dynasty.

Therefore, Liu Bei intends to rectify from the source, establish the fact that the harem should not be involved in politics as political correctness, and resolutely put an end to the confusion of family affairs and state affairs.

(End of this chapter)