Wei Ni

Chapter 16
After the grievances between the monarch and his ministers were resolved, Xiahou Huifu had the grace to travel with his driver.

However, being accompanied by the driver for several days in a row did not give him a chance to remonstrate directly with Yan Yan.

Because in recent days, the emperor Cao Rui has been too diligent!
Either in the east hall to administer the government until sunset, or to go out to inspect various departments, such as listening to prison lawsuits, patrolling military equipment, counting arsenals, and recruiting counties and counties from various states and counties to discuss corvees and ask people about their sufferings, etc., just like a sage king visiting the court.

In this way, Xia Houhui and other close ministers naturally had no chance to persuade them.

The reason why Cao Rui is so diligent is that he was stimulated.

Sima Yi, the hussar general guarding Jingxiang, not long ago went to the temple to report the news of Sun Wu, claiming that Sun Quan became the emperor in the southern suburbs of Wuchang on April [-] (Bingshen).

After all, the world has ushered in a three-legged confrontation.

Moreover, Jiangdong and Bashu still maintain the alliance, and are determined to fight against the dominance of Cao Wei.

Although it is foreseeable that Sun Quan, who ruled Jiangdong, would proclaim himself emperor.

But for Cao Rui, this news is very bad.

It is implicitly accusing the two generations of monarchs of the Wei state for their missteps in Jiangdong's strategy.

Because if Wei Wen and Cao Pi didn't confer Sun Quan as the king of Wu and let him have the qualifications to establish ancestral temples and separate states, Sun Quan's act of proclaiming himself emperor has no legal basis.And if Cao Rui hadn't allowed the late Great Sima Cao Xiu to launch the Battle of Shiting, killing Huainan's elite in one fell swoop, and also destroying the deterrent power hanging three feet above Jiangdong's head, Sun Quan might not dare to proclaim himself emperor—at least , and will not become emperor so quickly!

Therefore, the diligence of the emperor Cao Rui has the taste of knowing shame and then being brave.

Such a state of mind will not last long.

After all, the matter has already happened, no matter how diligent he is, he can't change the fact, and the enthusiasm fades over time.

However, Xia Houhui is not in the mood to persuade her now.

He's also been very upset recently.

One, it was the eldest brother Xia Houheng who used family law against him.

Different from the family law of other martial arts families, who use sticks and sticks, the mild-mannered Xia Houheng only enacted the family law after taking charge of the house, and only restrained feet, and knelt in the ancestral hall after dark to think about his mistakes.

But Xiahou Huining could be punished with a stick.

For no other reason, Xia Houheng was very annoyed by his flattering words in the Chonghua Houdian, and actually made him kneel and think for an hour in the ancestral hall after nightfall every day for a month.

And it was because he needed to enter the palace to accompany him, so he was given a light punishment.

Otherwise, he would have thought about it in the ancestral hall day and night.

But for Xia Houhui, it was also unbearable.

For a period of one month!
Kneeling alone in the dark, deserted ancestral hall, and not talking, not reading, and even yawning is considered disrespectful, it would be better to be beaten!
Even after Xia Houheng was beaten once, he still felt incomprehensible, Xia Houhui could accept a few more beatings
Another matter is about the "favor" of the emperor Cao Rui.

When he was in the Chonghua Houdian earlier, the emperor was very gracious and asked him to keep the good horse in the stable of the imperial palace.

For this, Xia Houhui has everything to do, and he is grateful.

However, when he came back from a trip with his driver one day, when he brought the horse back to the stable, he happened to meet the order of the Weiyang Stable under the eunuch's office in charge of the ride and the horses in the stable.

What Weiyang Stable Order said made him stunned on the spot, and he couldn't believe it.

Because the mounts of other close ministers were not bestowed by the emperor, but still belonged to the Tai Servant Office, there was no need to pay the Tai Servant Office the cost of food for the mounts.

But Xia Houhui's mount is different.

Now that the emperor has bestowed the horse, the eunuch has no obligation to raise horses for Xia Houhui.

Otherwise, it would be unfair to other close ministers, making the emperor suspect that one favors the other and damages the reputation of justice.

To put it bluntly, the meaning of the Tai Servant Office is that Xia Houhui has to pay the money!

As for how much~
The order of the Weiyang Stable did not dare to neglect the steeds from the Western Regions, but put them together with the steeds driven by the emperor to enjoy the same honor.

Therefore, the daily food is extremely extravagant and the cost is huge.

At least, Xia Houhui's current official position as a Sanqi servant, with a salary of only six hundred shi, is far from enough
But the Weiyang Stable Order reassured Xia Houhui.

First, after making a salute to the north, he claimed that the emperor knew that Xia Houhui's current salary was not high enough to afford the daily consumption of the horses, so he only needed to pay his own salary, and the Shaofu would bear the rest.

After all, I don't hesitate to praise the emperor from afar.

He also persuaded Xia Houhui to be grateful and work diligently to repay the emperor's favor.

For this, Xia Houhui was filled with indignation and "grateful" from the bottom of his heart!
Don't dare to take a rest and bathe, and drive around every day until the evening before returning home, but even the salary is deducted?

And also claimed that I have enjoyed the grace of the emperor, remember to be grateful?

The so-called knocking the bones and sucking the marrow is nothing more than that, right?
That's why, after Xia Houhui listened to Weiyang's Stable Order, he almost couldn't help blurting out King Qi Wei's famous saying of "Sigh, your mother and maidservant"!
cough! cough!
Just wanted to say it, but didn't say it.

And what he wanted to scold was the Taifu Department, not the emperor.

Of course, no matter how unwilling he was, Xia Houhui could only be forced to accept the facts, and left after thanking Weiyang's order with grief and indignation.

Because he knew that this matter must have been deliberately planned by the emperor Cao Rui!

In order to get rid of the tone of his analogy with Qin II!

Don't think that the emperor who is aloof will not hold grudges, and cannot do this kind of private revenge.

Wei Wen and Cao Pi once tied the skull to the saddle of Wang Zhong, who had eaten human flesh because of hunger, for fun!
Although the current Emperor Cao Rui is not that miserable, he can definitely do such innocuous things as deducting Xiahou Hui's salary through the eunuch's office.

Anyway, the Son of Heaven was like a mirror in his heart, knowing that none of the sons, nephews and nephews of Xiahou's family, the father of the State of Wei, would rely on this little salary to make ends meet.

He simply withheld it, and let Xia Houhui understand that the king's prestige cannot be violated!

However, what the emperor didn't know was that Xia Houhui was really worried about this salary.

It's not that he is stingy, but that he is short of money
Although, the regular money allocated to him by Xia Houheng, who is in charge of the house, is enough to make him feel at ease.

But he secretly raised a lot of people!
When he left Luoyang in his early years and returned to his hometown of Qiao County to live in seclusion, he studied calligraphy and biography in spring and summer, and hunted in autumn and winter for pleasure.

And this hunting and self-entertainment is just a cover.

In fact, every year in autumn and winter, he would hide himself as a ranger accompanied by the old man at home. He traveled all over Henan, Yang, Yanzhou and Xuzhou, and even went north to Qingzhou.

Traveling thousands of miles is worse than reading thousands of books~
At first, his intention was to see how the people's livelihood was under Wei's rule, so as to benefit him from becoming an official in the future.

But every time he saw Li common people selling their sons and daughters because of natural disasters, corvees, poor harvests or other reasons, or encountering lonely beggars on the road, he couldn't bear to buy them or bring them back.

This kind of thing is very common in the powerful or powerful family, just treat it as if there are many servants in the family.

However, Xia Houhui brought back a lot.

In just three years, he brought back three or forty people.

And he didn't treat these children as slaves, he not only paid for a Mr. Tong Wenmo to teach them how to read, but also let his family teach them martial arts.

Gein suddenly remembered that Sima Shi once raised [-] dead soldiers in history!
It was also these three thousand dead men that allowed Sima Yi to launch the Gaoping Mausoleum Change and lay the foundation for the change of surnames in Sheji.

Therefore, he also wanted to imitate it.

It is planned to train these children as confidantes, so that they have the opportunity to study and learn art. If they have talents that can be used in the future, they will be quietly sent to the army or serve in the Sima family under the hands of others. It works wonders.

Naturally, all the children have different aptitudes, so it may not be possible for a few to become talents.

But as long as there is one person, it is enough for Xia Houhui to reap a lot.

After all, there is no need to worry about their loyalty under the grace of survival and under orders from childhood.

This is also the reason why Xia Houhui is in a difficult situation now.

All the money Xia Houheng gave every month was used to support the children!
Originally, after becoming an official, he thought that his life would be easier, at least he would have enough money to sell a pot of bad wine in the wine shop.

How could he have expected that the emperor would deduct his salary?
In this way, how can he not feel angry in his chest!

Ugh.
What is urgent now is to find a way to make money.

Although it is said that a man should have a feudal marquis and should not covet ease and become a rich man, but it is difficult to move even if he is penniless~
And as those children grow up day by day, the consumption also increases sharply, and I can't afford it.

Therefore, every night when he was thinking about his past in the ancestral hall, he was thinking about how to find a way to continue to make money without getting the smell of copper.

This is not because he is conceited.

Instead, he is a servant of Sanqi, and as a close minister of the emperor, if he spends his time seeking money, he will be impeached by the censor or criticized by others, and he will also leave an impression in the heart of the emperor that he cannot be reused.

However, before he could figure out a solution, his elder brother Xia Houheng lifted his punishment.

The reason was that he had found a marriage for Xia Houhui, and the two parties had almost reached an agreement, but he didn't want the other party to go back on his word, and there was a lot of contempt in his words.

(End of this chapter)