old grace

Pi Yu is entertaining guests at home.

The autumn flowers in front of the court are just right, the maiko has long sleeves fluttering, and the brisk and festive music can be faintly heard.

The beauty of dancing and music is just for entertaining guests. Pi Yu sits cross-legged on the mat relaxedly, holding half a pomegranate in his hand, picks and eats the seeds one by one, as if he is watching a maiko performing in front of the court. He slanted half of his peripheral vision to the guests around him.

The guest he entertained was Xu Kuan, Wang Yun's confidant and his fellow General of the Forbidden Army.

"Xiang You has approached me three times. Asking for money, food, and a title from the Eastern Palace." Xu Kuan had no interest in dance music, and stared at the wine table without squinting, holding the wine glass in his left hand and picking meat with his right. After eating and drinking, he was busy talking to Pi Yu, "He is a lion, saying that he has [-] people under his command, and he can't be hungry with one mouth - if there is trouble, he will mutiny."

"Who the hell doesn't know? The Sixth Battalion of the Forbidden Army belongs to him and the Hu Benying camp. Kang Li is so poor that he leads his troops out of the city to mow grass and hunt as savages. He sings and dances to you, and he is a beautiful and kind man in Qingzhou." Buying and selling medicinal materials!" Xu Kuan scolded aggressively.

Pi Yu gnawed on the pomegranate and hummed, caught the winking eyes from the maiko, and cheerfully spit out the pomegranate seeds.

Xu Kuan consciously made a slip of the tongue, and choked hypocritically: "Brother Pi, I'm not talking about you. Although your place is full of romance, dancing and music, I know that you don't pay empty money, and you don't have the intention of secretly cooperating with Qingzhou .”

Pi Yu burst out laughing, put down the unfinished pomegranate, and wiped his hands.

The pomegranate had a faint bright red color, and a little trace remained on his fingertips, making his fingers unexpectedly white.

"You've misunderstood me. I'm also on empty pay." Pi Yu said.

Xu Kuan didn't expect him to play cards so unreasonably, you just did it, and you still talk about it?

"Who doesn't know about the forbidden army's empty salary? You know it, I know it, everyone in the world knows it. The East Palace knows it, and the emperor knows it. You, Xu Boren, are the generals of the forbidden army like me. What kind of life have the brothers lived these years?" Don't you know? Two years ago, there were still Chen Gu rotten beans, but in the past two years, even Chen Gu rotten beans have not been distributed... The children are so hungry that they can't even climb up. Don't eat empty pay, call them up and down Can they all starve to death?" Pi Yu sneered again and again.

The biggest problem with the royal capital is that it is isolated by the whole world and has become a lonely city.

King Du is the head of a hundred cities, bringing together top craftsmen from all walks of life from all over the world. Even if he is left alone, it is not difficult to be self-sufficient.

The only trouble is that it has a serious shortage of arable land.As early as the period of Emperor Yan, there was a risk of food shortage in the capital.The fields in the outer suburbs were abandoned due to the war long ago, and the food gap in the royal capital has always been filled by trading in nearby cities.Afterwards, the imperial court prevented wealthy family members from escaping, and issued a very strict ban, only entering and not exiting, resulting in the barrenness of a large number of fields in the suburbs.

Most of the cultivated land inside and outside the capital is Huangzhuang. The royal family holds the most cultivated land and is also the actual owner of the granary.

When Emperor Yushi was in power, he also knew that he had to allocate food to feed the imperial army.As a result, most of the low-level people who starved to death in the past few years were the bottom-level people, and many bottom-level people couldn't bear it anymore and fled one after another.There are fewer people, many industries are short of people, the world is depressed, and a vicious circle.

It's just that the emperor of the Yan family controls the imperial army with one hand and the Huangzhuang with the other, and he can barely maintain the rule of the king's capital.

After Wang Hu killed the king and became self-reliant, he also wanted to rely on his prestige in charge of the imperial guards for many years to successfully take over everything that the Yan family had left in the capital.

However, his method of killing the little emperor was too ruthless, and he was notorious for being improper. This self-proclaimed emperor was secretly despised in every way, and the kings of the Yan family bribed and colluded with the inside of Huangzhuang, and the kings of the capital The family of high-ranking officials also wanted a piece of the pie, and Huangzhuang, which was once tightly controlled by the Yan family, is long gone.

Wang Hu was also very helpless about this.Huangzhuang occupies a vast area and needs enough manpower to manage it. If there are too many people spread out, all kinds of mistakes will naturally occur.It's a little bit worse in the east and a little bit worse in the west, so it's not even 01:30.

He also wanted to follow the emperor's example to feed the imperial army, but there was not enough food, so he could only arrange with his confidants.

At first, Wang Hu ordered that only [-]% of the food rations be distributed, and if the food was not enough, the food would be reduced by half... The people below couldn't get enough to eat, and deserters began to appear.There is no food in the city, so going out to be a savage will not starve to death, right?When the deserters were discovered, the imperial guards also went to arrest them with great fanfare. Later, when the people found out that others had escaped, they had more rations. Wouldn’t they be able to eat themselves?It might as well let others run out smoothly.

This is not of the same nature as eating empty pay in the usual sense.In today's situation, people like Pi Yu, Xiang You, Kang Li, and even Xu Kuan who can hold the position of general of the imperial army are usually very good to the people below.

The general is greedy for wealth, and the soldier is dying of hunger. Who will listen to your order and work for you?

Wang Hu killed the emperor and became self-reliant, so who is afraid of Wang Fa?

"How many people are there in my hussars battalion, how many people have been reported in the military register, and how much empty pay I have received. When I met the emperor last year, I reported them all to the emperor. This is not new." Pi Yu He sneered, "Which government office did the Son of Heaven come from? Don't you know, Mr. Bo?"

Wang Hu has reached the pinnacle of power step by step with the imperial army in his hands, so how could he not understand the little tricks in the military camp?

Xu Kuan raised his head and drank a glass of wine, and skipped the passage without embarrassment: "Brother Pi loves soldiers like sons, who doesn't know? Xiang You trades medicinal materials with Qingzhou, but he transports the military rations he earned from empty pay to Qingzhou. The hemostatic medicine in Qingzhou is a magic medicine, who wouldn’t want to keep two boxes privately? I also want to keep two boxes. The medicine he got back in exchange for military rations was not kept in the Huben camp, but was sold to high-ranking officials in the city—this is What did people do?"

Pi Yu laughed when he heard the words, left the table suddenly and entered the door, when he came out he was holding a delicate brocade box in his hand.

"It just so happens that I have a box here too. Qingzhou's secret medicine, the hemostatic medicine." Pi Yu opened the brocade box, and there was a porcelain buckle that was only two fingers wide embedded in it. The capacity is touching, "It's not opened yet, so I'll give it to Mr. Bo."

Pi Yu answered irrelevant questions two times in a row, he was completely unaccustomed to Xu Kuan's intention to answer the words, so ignorant, it means he doesn't want to be "sensible".

Xu Kuan was obviously a little angry, looking at the Qingzhou secret medicine worth a thousand gold in front of him, he really didn't want to leave in a hurry.He only struggled for a moment, then reached out to take the brocade box and said, "Then I am very grateful to Brother Pi!"

"It's rare for Brother Bo Ren to come here. I don't want to coax you well, I'm afraid you will go back to Donggong to complain." Pi Yu seemed to be joking.

Xu Kuan also pretended not to understand, and followed Haha: "This is so fresh. I am a frequent visitor to the East Palace. Don't you, brother Pi, see the emperor every now and then? Oh, what's the matter? Could it be that this medicine was bought from Xiang You? here?"

Pi Yu picked up the pomegranates on the table again, took two pomegranates and chewed them, and said with a smirk: "If you want to criticize Xiang You, don't care about selfish desires, anyway, don't pull me." Xu Kuan asked Persuading, Pi Yu raised a finger, "There is no other reason, just one, my butt is not clean. If you want to touch him, you can do it. I will not follow the trend, and I will not reach out to pull him. Don't bring me in Just do it."

Xu Kuan did not give up and insisted on persuading him: "What kind of person are you? Do you want to be compared with Xiang You? I wait for empty pay to strengthen the morale of the army. What is he eating empty pay for? To make money, to plan a way out, this While doing business with Qingzhou, the people who took Qingzhou's magic medicine and changed hands to please are all aristocratic families with connections in other states. Isn't it just to 'wait for the future'? ——Who can be the same as Xiang You ?”

Pi Yu just shook his head and refused: "Drink, drink, come, I'll pour it for Brother Bo."

Xu Kuan clutched his glass to prevent him from pouring the wine, and persuaded desperately: "Brother Pi, it's not that someone is going to drag you into the water. The current situation is difficult, and we should fight together. If the imperial army can't be monolithic, how can we talk about the future?"

At this moment, Fu Chuan jumped down from the wall, approached swaggeringly, and asked, "How about the future? Defeat Chen Jun and help the country?"

He was dressed inconspicuously, and his ability to jump over the wall seemed light, which was not particularly surprising.

Pi Yu and Xu Kuan are both generals who have seen big scenes, they sat firmly on the seats, looking at Fu Chuan's figure with some surprise, but not panic.

Even the maiko and gukuki performing arts continued to dance and music without any disturbance.Only the guards standing on the side surrounded him, and they didn't think about holding Fu Chuan down and dragging him down, but planned to keep Fu Chuan at the periphery to prevent him from getting too close to the general and waiting for an opportunity to assassinate him.

However, Fu Chuan was always one step faster than the guards, and easily walked in front of Pi Yu and Xu Kuan.

This made the guards who had been left behind inexplicably anxious, and rushed to take down the mysterious boy who suddenly appeared.

Fu Chuan didn't rush, pinched the formula with his fingertips, and drew a line on the ground with his bare hands, and an invisible barrier was erected.The guards who caught up didn't know anything, and they all bumped into foreheads with bumps and nosebleeds, as if they had hit an invisible solid wall.

"Dare you dare!" the guard roared.

Pi Yu raised his hand to appease his subordinates, looked Fu Chuan up and down, and asked, "Who is your Excellency?"

Xu Kuan also looked at Fu Chuan curiously, as if guessing his identity.

Both of these two have contacted the spies sent by Yan Hong to the capital, no matter whether they are sincere or not, at present neither of them are worried about the assassins of the Chen family, so Fu Chuan suddenly fell from the sky, Pi Yu and Xu Kuan are both confident and very stable .

Fu Chuan dipped his hands in wine and wrote the word "Jun" on the food table.

There was a hint of surprise in Pi Yu's eyes, and Xu Kuan also stared at him in surprise, both of them were stunned.

When Fu Chuan passed Pi Yu, he picked up the futon beside him, spread it on the food table, and sat down cross-legged.Pi Yu and Xu Kuan were originally sitting opposite each other, but now they have a situation where they each occupy one side and see each other.However, no one dared to ignore Fu Chuan, both of them turned sideways silently, and took the initiative to look at Fu Chuan.

Fu Chuan had been busy all day and hadn't eaten well. Seeing that there was a plate of honey-roasted poultry still on the table, he signaled to Xu Kuan.

Xu Kuan didn't come up in one breath.

Pi Yu silently removed the wine pot in front of Fu Chuan, and moved the plate of roast goose over.There were no extra bowls and chopsticks on the table, Pi Yu put his used chopsticks into the wine, rinsed them clean, wiped them with a towel, put them at Fu Chuan's hand, and made a "please use" gesture.

Fu Chuan untied the dagger hanging from his waist, rubbed it on his sleeve, and began to untie the goose to eat.

Xu Kuan was about to lose his temper: "This is the capital of the king! Er... you... Xiao... An dare to be so presumptuous?"

"You are so brave and unparalleled, why don't you dare to call out my name in person? Are you illiterate? Or did you not read clearly? I'll write it for you again?" Moved, it was too unpalatable.

Pi Yu hurriedly cut off the empty roast leg of lamb, and moved the remaining half intact to Fu Chuan.

Fu Chuan lowered his head and untied a piece of mutton, took a bite, then asked Pi Yu, "Salt?"

Pi Yu put salt grains on a porcelain dish and delivered it to him.

"The porcelain dish just came out of the kiln last month." Fu Chuan looked at the color of the porcelain dish. The picture was drawn by Fu Chuan himself, and it was reproduced from Xie Qinghe's old work. It was originally intended for use in Qingzhou other palaces. I don't know how this thing is sold in the capital, and the shipping speed is so fast.

He praised Pi Yu: "You have a good vision."

Xu Kuan was still in luck, so Fu Chuan directly used the meat-removing short knife to engrave the word "Jun" on the case.

"I really don't know how to read?" Fu Chuan looked at his face, moved the tip of the knife to the front, and wrote a "Chen" character, "I know this character, right? It's on my flag."

Xu Kuan's lips moved, and it took him a long time to hold back a sentence: "What are you doing here?! What can you... what can you do?"

"Oh, are you worried that I brought troops here?" Fu Chuan asked.

Not only Xu Kuan was concerned about this issue, Pi Yu was also secretly startled.I haven't heard anything from Chen Jun. Could it be that he really called?

"Are you still planning to take me down while I'm here alone, anyway, it's still a bargaining chip?" Fu Chuan asked without worrying at all, "Why don't you give it a try?"