I, the prince, only want to be deposed.

Chapter 215: The ruler’s authority comes first, then the father’s authority!

"Hey, don't run!"

Seeing this, Wei Kang was about to step forward and chase after him.

But Liu Ju raised his hand to stop him, took a deep breath, and shouted loudly:
"Zhao Guo, if you run again I will ride my horse into the field to chase you. Not only will you not be able to outrun the horse, but you will also lose the crops that have grown with great difficulty in the field!"

"!!!"

Hearing this, Zhao Guo, who was running away frantically, froze again, stopped instantly, turned around and showed a bitter smile.
"No, no, no, don't ride your horse into the field. Can't I just stop running?"

"Then come over. I have no ill intentions and have nothing to do with your father Zhao Zhou. I just have something to ask you."

Liu Ju said with a smile.

"Weren't you sent by my father to find me?"

Hearing this, Zhao Guo was obviously relieved, "If you had told me earlier, I would definitely not have run away."

As he spoke, Zhao Guo had already taken off the straw hat on his head and was walking briskly across the farmland towards Liu Ju, as if he had put down a heavy burden.

"Your Highness, that move just now was brilliant. You accurately grasped the boy's weak spot."

Wei Kang, who was standing by, was full of praise for Liu Ju upon seeing this. He thought to himself that although his cousin was young, his skills were so powerful. He really had learned a new trick.

"My cousin is not a simple person, otherwise how could I find him?"

"No, no, Your Highness, thank you for your compliment."

"My cousin is too modest. I never praise others easily. If I praise someone, it must be because I truly admire that person."

"Since Your Highness thinks so highly of me, I will definitely continue to work hard!"

Upon hearing this, Wei Kang was so delighted that his back teeth were exposed when he laughed. He then bowed to Liu Ju to express his solemn attitude.

"..."

Guo Zhen, who was standing behind him, saw this scene and could only shake his head helplessly.

Okay, I caught another one with just a few gestures!
The prince is only seventeen this year. What will he become in the future?

……

After a while.

"Your Highness the Crown Prince?!"

Upon learning of Liu Ju's identity, Zhao Guo was immediately surprised and immediately bowed to Liu Ju.
"Greetings, Your Highness. I was rude just now. Please forgive me."

"No need to be polite."

Liu Ju smiled calmly and said,

"I heard from Prime Minister Zhao that you are the most useless and rebellious son in the Zhao family. He wants to teach you a lesson and make you return to the right path, so he never allows you to be a husband."

"If Your Highness also views me in this way, why should I defend myself?"

Hearing this, Zhao Guo bowed slightly again, but his voice became a little colder. It was obvious that he already regarded Liu Ju as the same person as his father and quietly distanced himself from him.

Then Liu Ju laughed and said:

"What's the big deal? I am also a rebellious son in the eyes of my father. You and I are the same people. There is really no need to explain."

"I am me too."

Wei Kang also followed suit.

"?"

Zhao Guo looked up in surprise when he heard this, and looked at Liu Ju first. He wanted to say something but swallowed it back, and could only look at Wei Kang who was standing behind Liu Ju.
"Your Highness, I wonder who this person is..."

"My cousin, Wei Kang, is the eldest son of General Wei Qing."

Liu Ju took the opportunity to introduce the two of them.

Zhao Guo instantly looked at Wei Kang with new eyes, and his eyes widened a little:
"You are Wei Kang, the rebellious son who disobeyed his father's order and refused to join the army in the frontier, and was stripped of his title by the emperor for disobeying his father's order?"

"You even know about this?"

Wei Kang felt a little embarrassed.

This matter of his was indeed of great importance, but the scope of its spread was actually very limited, and it was only circulated among important officials in the court for a while.

After all, Wei Qing was a man who cared about his reputation, and it was really not good for him, a tiger father, to give birth to a dog son.

Naturally, he will try his best to prevent this matter from spreading. General Sima must have enough energy to do this.

“Although it’s not well-known, it can be said to be well-known.”

Zhao Guo nodded twice, showing an unprecedented desire to express himself.
“Brother Wei, you don’t know that whenever my father scolds me, he always uses your deeds as an example. He also often says that your Wei family has the credit of General Wei as a guarantee, so even if you do whatever you want, it won’t affect the Wei family. But it’s different for our Zhao family. If I did something as disobedient as you did, I’m afraid our Zhao family…”

At this point, Zhao Guo finally realized something, and suddenly paused, bowing his head again to apologize to Liu Ju and Wei Kang:
"Your Highness, please forgive me. Master Wei, please forgive me. Did I say too much just now?"

"It's indeed a bit much..."

No matter how good Wei Kang's attitude was, he felt a little depressed at the moment.

Although he had lacked fighting spirit before and could tolerate the criticism from Wei Qing and the elders in his family, he never thought of becoming a negative example in every household, which was somewhat hurtful to his self-esteem.

And this self-esteem hidden in his heart is the driving force that supports his sudden rise.

"Don't worry about it. My cousin is a man as strong as the wind. How could he be so fragile?"

Seeing this, Liu Ju had no choice but to come out and smooth things over, skipping this topic and going straight to the main point of the trip.
"I heard that Mr. Zhao has an unusual interest in and research on farming. I wonder what his research has been like and what results he has achieved?"

"How did Your Highness know about this?"

Zhao Guo was surprised again. Even his father Zhao Zhou didn't know about these things, and he rarely hung out with the young masters in Chang'an, so he shouldn't spread them.

This piece of land and this small farm were also purchased secretly with his own private money.

Except for the ten acres of land he used for experiments, the rest of the land was rented to a dozen tenant farmers who had nothing to do with the Zhao family. When he was not at home, this small farm and the fields were taken care of by these tenant farmers.

In order to avoid being discovered by his father, he even used a pseudonym in front of these tenants. No one should know these things, let alone Liu Ju and Wei Kang, who were strangers to him...

Liu Ju and Wei Kang just smiled at each other and continued:
"There is no impenetrable wall in the world. My father wants to promote agriculture recently."

"I have recommended you to the court. If you have achieved some results, you can take this opportunity to vigorously promote it and benefit the country and the people."

"If your research is at the breakthrough stage, you can also take this opportunity to get strong support. In the future, you don't have to hide from Prime Minister Zhao anymore. You can practice your ideals openly. Maybe I can also give you some immature suggestions."

"Well, is this a good thing for you?"

"This……"

Zhao Guo stood there in a daze after hearing this. He took more than ten seconds to react, then blinked several times and picked his ears hard before he was sure that he was not having any hallucinations or auditory hallucinations.

But the next moment.

His mouth suddenly pursed and twitched uncontrollably, and a layer of mist covered his eyes. Even his voice sounded a bit tearful:
"Your Highness, are you serious about this?"

"Your Highness, are you here to play a trick on me?"

"When His Highness recommended me in the court... my father... my father should have been there too, right?"

"What did my father say? Was there a moment when he was proud of me? Did he admit that I was doing something meaningful, rather than being idle?"

"..."

Liu Ju felt a little sympathy for Zhao Guo when he saw this. How much injustice must he have suffered to make him become so hot-blooded and immature.

But then I heard Wei Kang raising his eyebrows and saying lightly:
"Brother Zhao, don't get too excited. His Highness and I just met your father before we came here. Your father said that you are a rebellious son who goes against the will of heaven and is reckless. He is looking for you everywhere and is ready to break your legs so that you can never leave the house."

"!!!"

Zhao Guo's body trembled, and the tears that he had tried hard to control in his eyes accidentally flowed down his cheeks.

However, these tears were not from heartbreak, but were broken in an instant, and the emotions of grievance, excitement, and anticipation that had just appeared were gone.

Raising his hand and wiping his face with his sleeve, Zhao Guo had completely regained his composure, and even curled his lips in disdain and said:

"Haha, how can a pedantic person like my father understand my ambitions and how ambitious my goals are?"

"So what if you don't think highly of me, and so what if you don't recommend me as a prince? Anyway, Your Highness has recommended me."

"From now on, I will serve in the same court as my father. I am also your Majesty's subject. I have the authority of the emperor first and then the authority of my father. If your Majesty wants to use me, even if he wants to break my legs, he must ask your Majesty for permission."

"Just don't blame me for being upright and impartial when we have different political views in the court!"

"..."

Liu Ju and Wei Kang looked at each other.

I always feel that Prime Minister Zhao Zhou's previous efforts to hide Zhao Guo were not completely unreasonable. At least from Zhao Zhou's perspective, it should be considered a relatively correct decision.

……

Soon Liu Ju was completely certain that this Zhao Guo was the Zhao Guo he was looking for!
He bought this piece of land precisely to experiment with improving the Daitian method!

This experiment has actually been going on for four years.

The first year ended in failure. Although there was still some harvest, the yield per mu was lower than the current farming method.

There was finally a slight improvement in the second year, but it was only a slight increase year-on-year, about 10%.

The results in the third year were quite good, increasing by more than 20% year-on-year, so much so that the tenant farmers on this small farm all adopted his method of planting this year.

It is now the fourth year and the autumn harvest season is almost here.

Although we just experienced a severe drought year and the growth of crops is not as good as last year, it is still visibly better than other farmlands in the nearby area, which shows that the replacement field method can indeed resist a certain degree of drought.

In Liu Ju's opinion, this effect was already a success.

Because in history, when Zhao Guo was appointed as the commander of the grain-collecting army and vigorously promoted the Daitian method and advanced agricultural tools, the increase in per-acre yield seemed to be only more than 30%.

However, Zhao Guo insisted that there was still room for further optimization of the Daitian method and that the experiment needed to continue. The only problem was that it was too time-consuming and energy-consuming. After all, in this era, crops could only be grown once a year.

Therefore, each experiment takes a year...

"Just now I heard Your Highness mention that he could give me some advice. Does Your Highness also understand agriculture?"

After telling about his current situation, Zhao Guo immediately looked at Liu Ju eagerly, with five parts of expectation and five parts of doubt in his eyes.

This expression has a bit of the meaning of "try twice whether there is a date or not".

Upon hearing this, Wei Kang also looked at Liu Ju. He simply didn't believe it. After all, Liu Ju usually got up later than him and spent more time lying down than him...

"I only know a little bit, it's not worth mentioning."

Liu Ju smiled and shook his head, but he started to recite a formula for the twenty-four solar terms.

"The spring rain brings spring and clears the valley, the summer is full of grain and the summer heat is connected.

In autumn, there are dews and frosts, and in winter, there are snows and slight or severe cold weather. "

As an important calendar for guiding agricultural activities, the concept of solar terms actually appeared long before the Han Dynasty. However, it has not yet become the mainstream agricultural calendar and is only spread among farmers.

It was not until eight or nine years later, that is, the first year of Taichu (104 BC).

When Emperor Wu of Han promulgated the Taichu Calendar, the 24 solar terms were officially incorporated into the calendar and popularized nationwide. At this time, the concept of the 24 solar terms finally came into everyone's attention and became the highlight of the influence of the agricultural family on the Celestial Empire for more than two thousand years.

(End of this chapter)