Open an aircraft carrier to fight against Japan

Lin Yuan suddenly thought: Isn't Weng Tonghe the Minister of the Household Department?If he operated like this, even if he made himself write stereotyped essays in front of everyone, it would be nothing to be afraid of!

Lin Yuan made up his mind and saw that Zhang Shiliang hadn't left yet, so he said, "By the way, ask someone to tell the folks to keep the wheat that is free from blackfoot and use it as seeds in the future. Don't eat it!"

Zhang Shiliang asked, "Why is that?"

Lin Yuan smiled and said, "This is natural selection. You won't understand if you talk too much, so just do it this way."

Zhang Shiliang left suspiciously, and Lin Yuan was thinking about how to find an opportunity to meet Weng Tonghe. At this moment, Liu San came to report that Li Hongzhang returned to Beijing from Tianjin to handle the handover of Zhili governor. Li Hongzhang accepted the news and took this opportunity to entertain all the ministers and let Lin Yuan go too.

Lin Yuan asked the butler Liu San: "Who else did Prince Gong invite?"

Liu San replied: "I heard that there are Mr. Weng from the household department, Dali Temple, and several servants from the Metropolitan Procuratorate."

Lin Yuan didn't think about it at first, but when he heard about Weng Tonghe, he changed his mind instantly, changed his clothes and rushed to Prince Gong's mansion.

This banquet is not as strict as a palace banquet. There are several large tables in the main room. As soon as Lin Yuan entered, he was taken to the main table. Li Hongzhang and Weng Tonghe were both on this table. They had already arrived to take their seats. But far apart, and only talking and laughing with the people around me.

Seeing Weng Tonghe's expression, Lin Yuan was very relaxed. He didn't seem to know that the locust plague at the border of the four provinces was already serious. Lin Yuan thought to himself, "Didn't the people from the Ministry of Household Affairs tell him about this?"

After a while, Prince Gong entered the banquet, and the banquet began. Naturally, the focus of this high-ranking official banquet is not on eating and drinking, but on chatting with each other through wine, so every dish is very delicate, and there is not much portion.

Everyone raised their glasses a few times, and Prince Gong suggested: "Drinking in the middle of the banquet is boring, why don't we make a drinking order, how about it?"

Weng Tonghe said with a smile: "This drinking order must have an ordering officer. Since the prince is the proposer, why not let the prince himself be the ordering officer and come up with a topic."

The drinking order of the ancients is actually writing poems in disguise, but the form and content of the poems need to be restricted by the title of the order, for example, each person composes a poem, and there must be one thing at the banquet in the poem, and so on. enumerate.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, stereotypes were used to select officials. In stereotyped essays, the upper and lower sentences were required to be neatly contrasted. Therefore, ancient literati usually studied poetry, couplets, etc., so they were familiar with drinking orders. How could Lin Yuan know this? He got up quickly He smiled and said, "Let me take my leave, and I will be back in a while."

Lin Yuan found a clean place to hide, thinking about how to punish Weng Tonghe. At this moment, Li Hongzhang came over, saw Lin Yuan, and smiled and said, "Xiao Lin, why did you come here to hide here? Hurry up!" Go back soon, or the officer will punish you with alcohol!"

Lin Yuan suddenly thought of a way, and said to Li Hongzhang: "Master Zhongtang, I don't know how to enforce those drinking orders, you have to do me a favor later."

Li Hongzhang asked, "How do you want me to help you?" Lin Yuan approached Li Hongzhang and said something in a low voice. Li Hongzhang was embarrassed and said, "Why do you want to do this?"

Lin Yuan smiled mysteriously and said, "Lord Zhongtang, can you still trust me? This move is guaranteed to benefit the country and the people!"

Li Hongzhang nodded, agreeing, and the two returned to the table. Everyone had obviously passed a round of drinking orders, and several people's faces were already flushed. Li Hongzhang smiled and said: "Why don't we face the couplet next?" .”

As soon as this remark came out, everyone responded one after another. Li Hongzhang smiled and said, "The next one will come first."

Everyone looked at Li Hongzhang, he touched his stomach, and said: "When I was in the prime of life, I didn't have any fat on my body. Now that I am old, my stomach is full of fat, which is quite as thick as Liu Xuande's back then. The sigh of resurrection, and several years of painstaking efforts for the prosperity of the Qing Dynasty, but the navy was wiped out in one battle!"

After finishing speaking, he sighed softly and said, "My Shanglian is: Prime Minister Hefei Tianxiashou."

This Shanglian is really difficult to correct. Although the Qing Dynasty did not have the position of prime minister, Li Hongzhang held great power, no different from a prime minister, and Li Hongzhang was from Hefei, so the word "Hefei" has a pun!The most difficult part is the following three characters "天下头", implying that the country is not yet strong, which is in contrast to the previous "fat", so when this couplet came out, everyone at the table fell into deep thought.

Lin Yuan waited for a while, and seeing everyone shaking their heads, he said, "I came up with a second line."

Everyone thought: "Does this Lin Yuan still have this talent?" So they all stared at him, and Lin Yuan said: "My next couplet is: Si Nong, Changshu, the world is barren!"

As soon as this remark came out, everyone saw Weng Tonghe one after another. Weng Tonghe was the Secretary of the Household Department at this time. Everyone here still doesn't know about the locust plague, so they don't know where the "world famine" behind this comes from?

When Weng Tonghe saw Lin Yuan talking about himself like this, he couldn't hold back his face, but it seemed too immeasurable to turn his face in front of so many people. Weng Tonghe said with a smile: "I don't know if Master Lin said there is any basis for the famine in the world?"

Lin Yuan hurriedly said: "No, no, I'm not very talented, and I just popped up such a word when I was short of words. I hope you will forgive me." After finishing speaking, Lin Yuan glanced at Weng Tonghe with ulterior motives.

Prince Gong hurriedly said: "It's just a game, don't pay attention to it." For a while, everyone was drinking and drinking, and overturned the conversation.

But Lin Yuan's last look made Weng Tonghe feel that things were far from that simple. Sure enough, as soon as the banquet was over, Weng Tonghe invited Lin Yuan to the yamen of the household department alone.

Weng Tonghe asked: "Master Lin seemed to have something to say at the banquet just now, can you say it now?"

Lin Yuan said: "Master Weng, don't you know? A plague of locusts has occurred at the junction of the four provinces of Zhili, Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan, and the number of people affected has exceeded one million!"

Weng Tonghe stood up, frowned, and called the Minister of the Household Department in from the door, and asked angrily, "Why didn't you report the locust plague in the four provinces!"

The servant of the household department replied: "The subordinates thought that there was still food surplus in the four provinces, and no one would starve to death, so they did not report it."

Weng Tonghe picked up the inkstone on the table and slammed it at the servant, his voice trembling with anger: "I don't know if the wheat in these places got sick in the spring and there was no harvest! I can't die of starvation now, as long as I live a few more days God, people will eat people!"

Weng Tonghe scolded: "What are you still doing in a daze, and you haven't quickly allocated food from various places."

The servant replied hesitantly: "My lord, there is no food to be transported. The grain in the capital has been transported to the front line, and the food in the south of the Yangtze River will not be able to be transported for a while."

Although Weng Tonghe disliked Lin Yuan and despised foreigners and foreign affairs, as a traditional literati, the idea of ​​"the people are the most precious" has long been engraved into his bones. sweat.

Lin Yuan said from the side: "Master Weng, don't worry, I can help you solve the problem of food!"

Weng Tonghe asked: "What can you do, can you conjure food out of thin air?"

Lin Yuan smiled and said, "I have a solution, but you have to agree to one condition."