Li Xingzhou turned around and said, "Check Fang's letter to talk about the affairs of Xia State."

As he said that, he handed the letter in his hand to the poem behind him.

Shiyu looked at it for a while and asked in a low voice: "Is Sister Gillian sleeping?"

Li Xingzhou nodded and said with a wicked smile: "Gillian has agreed. Let's sleep together next time. It's so troublesome to run both ends."

This time the poem did not refute him for the first time. Li Xingzhou was overjoyed and thought that the matter was done, but found that she was actually absent-minded and didn't pay attention to what she had just said.

"What's wrong?" Li Xingzhou lay on the bed and gently pulled her to the edge of the bed.

Shiyu turned around and asked him, "Am I very mean?"

"How could it be?"

"Is that true? I'm much luckier than her..."

"who?"

"Qifang, I don't like her the most, a charming bitch, and a ignorant woman..." He said he deliberately looked at him.

"I'm just a matter of my bad things..." Li Xingzhou said loudly with guilt.

"Hmph, you know what it has to do with you." Shiyu snorted, and then continued, "Learn, I think it's not easy for her... It's harder than me along the way.

The best destination for a daughter's family is to find a good family to marry, take care of her husband and children, and the husband is not bad, and the young and old in the family will not dislike her, even if everything is fine.

It is best to hide what you think and want to do. If you miss it, you will be ridiculed, despised, and restless; if you miss it, you will be sour and helpless, and you will be filled with bitterness."

Li Xingzhou hugged her and gently stroked her back.

Shiyu responded with a rare opportunity and held his big hand tightly: "Fortunately, I don't have those scruples and those tragedies now, because... because I met you."

"Hehe... I know my husband now." Li Xingzhou smiled proudly.

"You, don't be proud... you also have a bad habit." Shiyu said quickly.

“If she wasn’t so aggressive, I wouldn’t look at her coldly.

She walked along the way, strangely pitiful, and her daughter... She had fought a war in the south, and her brother died tragically. She only had a father left in the family. The river ran everywhere, and now she went to such a place in the northwest. She still didn't change at all, and was still so sarcastic..." Shiyu said softly.

"She has such a personality, is strong and has the desire to be powerful. She has also found the hardships she suffered by herself, and she can't stop her even if she wants to." Li Xingzhou sighed helplessly.

"Hmph, you really know her..." Shiyu let go of him and said with her face away

Li Xingzhou was speechless. Didn’t you talk about this topic first? It’s really hard for women to deal with.

.........

As April comes, more than 200 craftsmen who come to the royal palace from all over the country have challenged the boring knife polishing. Some of them are almost polishing the boring knife. Li Xingzhou is overjoyed.

The building complex of the royal mansion continues to expand into the back mountain, and the living area of ​​the craftsmen is like a town, even larger than the royal mansion.

How to properly place these craftsmen?

Li Xingzhou suddenly thought of the model of employee communities in the future. If you want to retain talents, you must respect them.

In such an era, it is difficult to have a place to live. If a stable place can be provided, it will inevitably win over a large number of talents.

So Li Xingzhou was preparing to launch a large construction plan. It happened to be half a year since the new industrial zone was completed, and there was no major project in the Wangfu. It was to build a large residential area on the back mountain of the Wangfu, northwest of the new industrial zone, similar to the community planning of later generations, which can not only consume the redundant output value of cement, but also accommodate more craftsmen to live in.

At this time, the royal palace also had spare money, providing craftsmen with abundant accommodation conditions, which could attract and retain talents, and solve the housing problems of so many foreign craftsmen.

The reward of 10,000 taels is just an introduction, just like buying horse bones for a thousand gold coins, attracting craftsmen from all over the world. Many of them have real skills. He is going to keep them and stay in the royal palace.

After discussion by the government officials, most of the project agreed, but a few people opposed it, such as Gu Feng. He believed that it was good for the prince to respect craftsmen, but it didn't need to be so. If he had been treated with courtesy, he would have the risk of being arrogant because of favor.

This matter was finally passed, and Zhurong was responsible for the construction of the entire project. This was a challenge. Although Zhurong had used cement to build a new industrial area in the royal palace before, this time it was obviously different. What was to be built was a building that could live in.

According to the plan, it is a five-story building. Although the adhesion of cement is far greater than any building material today, and this height is obviously not the limit of cement, the first time is always the most difficult.

Zhu Rong did not dare to neglect his work, so he began to ask some masters for advice and discuss it, preparing to officially start construction in mid-April.

......

In the Imperial Garden, the emperor was reading a book while asking Li Xingzhou who was standing next to him: "Are you familiar with the affairs of the Privy Council?"

Lee Sing-cheung nodded: "I'm familiar with it."

"That's good. If you don't understand, ask Wen Daoli more. If you have anything, just talk. Don't neglect the major events of the Northern Expedition."

"I understand." Li Xingzhou bowed his hand. He actually didn't want to come, but the emperor recently made a rule for him that he would go to the palace to report the latest situation to him every three days.

The emperor frowned slightly: "I heard that you are busy with the northwest affairs recently, from the Xia Kingdom."

Li Xingzhou nodded. He didn't know who told the emperor, but at least it could show that there must be an emperor's eyewitness in the Privy Council. This is not surprising. No one can be a chaste woman who can reach the emperor.

"Yes." He had already told the emperor about his intention to mess up Xia Kingdom, but he didn't say the specific plan. He could not explain many things and knowledge clearly.

The emperor just nodded, not too much emotion.

"You are still young, have ideas and want to do things, I promise you." The emperor spoke as plainly as ever: "You won't understand some things just by saying them.

But I also want to warn you to distinguish between the primary and secondary, and not to be small or mess with the big ones. It is good to have ideas, but it is a mistake to think about it. It is good to try it out for the Xia Kingdom. But you can’t waste too much energy on it until you click.”

Li Xingzhou nodded, and the emperor regarded his affairs with Xixia as a joke...

He was not surprised that there was always a bit of loss, but there was no question of frustration. Who would believe such a thing? He could only deal with saying a few words and then slowly withdraw from the harem. In fact, he had a lot of things in his heart, wanting to tell the emperor that this was not a joke, but who would believe it?

.........

After leaving the Meridian Gate, Yan Gu was already waiting outside the door with a carriage.

Li Xingzhou got on the carriage and was drowsy in the bumps...

The deeper he goes into the vortex of power, the more he needs to be careful, discover more and think of more things.

Every time he talks to the emperor, he is actually very tired. Maybe it is a habit or a sequelae left by psychology. When he arrives at a critical occasion, he will focus on paying attention to people's micro-expressions to infer the inner state of people at that time.

But this trick doesn't work for the emperor.

Generally speaking, a person's micro-expression is like instinct, which cannot be detected by itself and is always revealed inadvertently.

Only when people themselves notice, know this knowledge and deliberately control it can they be effective after long-term training. Agents, professional scam masters, etc. in later generations will undergo such arduous training so that they will not expose their instincts to themselves.

The emperor must not know this systematic knowledge. How he concealed his micro-expression? Li Xingzhou didn't know it, probably related to his life experience.

The emperor's life was a topic that everyone avoided, and even Degong deliberately avoided it and did not talk to him.

Wei Chaoren once told him carefully that the emperor had killed his son because he suspected that he had rebelled.

Only two brothers of the same generation as the emperor now survived, and he himself had Prince Kang. According to his age, many of the emperor's brothers could not have died naturally, of course, there were King Wu who died in the chaos ten years ago.

Speaking of King Wu... Li Xingzhou was actually slowly untied and thought of more.

He had never heard of the title of King Wu, but the single-character king was basically the prince.

Jingguo is almost the same as the Song Dynasty. In this era, with countless historical lessons, the emperor was very concerned about the power of the royal brothers.

It is difficult for royal children to be crowned with kings, and the requirements are very strict, let alone interfere with the government. Unlike in the Han and Tang dynasties, any prince and grandson have a high probability of being crowned with kings.

Those who can be granted the title of Prince are either Prince Kang, who has enough qualifications and is old, so they can give him a title to enjoy his old age.

Or like King Lin, who was the eldest son at the beginning, was preparing to be the crown prince, so it would be reasonable to be appointed as the king and increase his status. Unfortunately, King Lin died of illness early.

Then it was King Xiao like this. With his great military achievements and the emperor's favor, he was named King Xiao.

But whether it is "Kang", "Lin", or even "Xiao", are very conservative, and there is no such noble title, which shows the conservative and uneasy attitude of the imperial power towards the prince's power.

The best titles of the prince are "Qin, Jin, Qi, and Chu".

Among them, "Jin" is the most. Throughout history, the most people have become emperors from the King of Jin, because Jin was the first overlord in the Spring and Autumn Period, and the end of the Spring and Autumn Period was also ended with the division of Jin by Han, Zhao and Wei.

Emperor Wu of Jin, Sima Yan, Emperor Yang of Sui Yang, Emperor Gaozong of Tang Li Zhi, Emperor Zhuang of Later Tang Li Cunxu, Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou Chai Rong, Emperor Gaozong of Later Jin, Emperor Gaozong of Later Jin, Emperor Zhongzong of Southern Han, Emperor Taizong of Song Zhao Guangyi and others were all titled "King of Jin" before becoming emperors.

"Qin, Qi, and Chu" was also the overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period, and they were all first-class titles like "Jin".

If someone is named one of the four, King of Jin, King of Qin, King of Qi, and King of Chu, then he is the highest honorable favor. If he is a prince, he will basically have a high probability of entering the East Palace.

Although King Wu is lower than these four, he also uses the title of the Spring and Autumn Period, which is much higher than titles such as King Lin, King Xiao, and King Kang.

Why did the emperor give such honor and favor to King Wu?

After thinking about it, Li Xingzhou had only one possibility, that is, at first, the King of Wu actually had a good relationship with the emperor, and there was a high probability that the King of Wu would still stand firmly on the emperor's side, or even on the right hand.

Therefore, after ascending the throne, he was named Prince Wu, which was the highest title in Jing State except for the emperor and empress, far higher than Prince Lin, Prince Xiao, and Prince Kang.

But unexpectedly, the King of Wu betrayed him. This may be one of the reasons why he angrily killed so many rebels.

He killed his brother, his son, and fought with local tribes. As a result, his favorite son died tragically and his trusted brother betrayed... This is the life summary of the current emperor.

In the end, he became ruthless and cruel. He first agreed to the surrender of tens of thousands of rebels, and then slaughtered all the unarmed rebels. Before, Zhu Yue's family was executed, Yu Cheng'an was exiled in winter and froze to death on the road...

Such a life experience has created such an emperor. Li Xingzhou is not surprised why he can't see through it anymore, maybe he is numb.

.........

Zhang Jie spread out many dark iron sheets, and the table covered them with this thing, with more than 40 pieces. He planned to spend most of his savings, but he did not regret it at all.

Because it's still rising!

The price of the Xuan Iron Order is still rising, from the initial ten taels, now it has risen to more than nine hundred taels per piece! It’s only been ten days!

There have been rumors in the neighborhood that a city inspector had a city inspector who started to sell the company as a seller to buy the Xuan Iron Order. But after only two or three days, he sold several thousand taels at one time! From then on, he lived a comfortable life. There was also a beggar who exchanged the Xuan Iron Order he picked up for more than 800 taels of silver and bought land, and suddenly became a gentry and rich man.
To be continued...