Chapter 695 Audience (Part 1)
When Taizu was in power, civil and military officials entering and leaving the palace would go through the Donghua Gate and meet the emperor at the Wenhua Hall.
Later, it was the turn of the retired emperor to rule the country. Because he preferred the Wuying Hall located in the southwest of the imperial palace, the place where civil and military officials entered and exited was changed to Xihua Gate.
After Emperor Guangde ascended the throne, he had been following the rules of the retired emperor until the summer of the year before last, when he restored the 'ancestral system' of passing through Donghua Gate.
However, he did not move the office where he received ministers back to the original Wenhua Hall, but changed it to the Imperial Study in the Qianqing Palace.
Of course, this is only in name only.
In fact, because Emperor Guangde had been "struggling" in Jingren Palace for many years, this was the place where he received the most foreign ministers.
Last spring, a new warm room was even built in Jingren Palace specifically for this purpose.
Stop talking nonsense.
But Sun Shaozong left the Dali Temple and walked around the imperial city for a long time before arriving outside the Donghua Gate.
After handing over the private identification badge of the Shaoqing of Dali Temple, he was soon led to the vicinity of Fengxian Gate by the guards on duty.
After handing the prepared memorial to the eunuch for presentation, Sun Shaozong followed the eunuch's signal and went to an unnamed hall nearby to wait for the meeting.
This hall is very long and narrow, with four-meter-long official hat chairs lined up on both sides. There is no obvious boundary inside, but at a glance, it is clearly divided.
Green, indigo, and vermilion, from the outside to the inside, there is almost no trace of mixing.
The reason why the word "almost" was added was because there really was someone who "transcended" the hierarchy of official positions, and the person was an acquaintance of Sun Shaozong.
"Ji Lang!"
As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he saw a blue-robed official at the top of the group coming out to greet him with a look of joy, which attracted the attention of officials on both sides.
Following closely behind him was a round-faced boy in casual clothes.
"Brother Lian? Brother Bao?"
Sun Shaozong was surprised and asked, "Why are you still waiting here?"
Expressing gratitude is not like submitting a name card for an audience with the emperor, which has strict time regulations - what's more, this is not an ordinary expression of gratitude. Logically, everyone in the Jia family should have entered the palace early in the morning, so why did they delay until now?
"this……"
When Jia Lian heard Sun Shaozong ask this question, his powdered face immediately showed some embarrassment. However, Jia Baoyu, who was standing beside him, responded appropriately. He smiled and bowed to the north, saying, "The emperor is selfless. Your Majesty should first deal with state affairs."
It seems that the emperor was not too happy about having a son in his old age.
"That's what I was thinking."
Sun Shaozong nodded, walked past the crowd and came to Jia She, who was sitting at the top, and bowed and said, "Greetings, uncle."
"Um."
In recent years, Jia She has received a lot of "respect" from his daughter and son-in-law, and has always been very cordial to the Sun family. However , today he was acting out of character. In response to Sun Shaozong's greeting, he just said "hmm" and didn't even nod his head.
Tsk~
This villain's smug face.
Fortunately, Jia Yuanchun was not his daughter, but his niece, otherwise she would have become extremely arrogant.
Seeing this, Sun Shaozong naturally didn't bother to pay attention to him anymore. He chose a chair in the fourth row and sat down. He glanced at the officials present while chatting casually with Jia Lian and Jia Baoyu.
Jia Lian saw that he was sitting neither arrogant nor humble, and his aura was so dignified without even getting angry. He was completely different from his father who pouted his nose and acted like a big shot.
His heart suddenly became weak and he wished he could be reborn as a beast and cling to Sun Shaozong's official robe.
He managed to hold back from revealing his whereabouts, but he couldn't help but remind her: "Erlang, you must not forget what your brother discussed with you last night."
This is still persistent!
Sun Shaozong was speechless. Seeing Jia Baoyu's curious expression, as if he wanted to ask what was going on, he hurriedly reminded him, "After all, we are in the palace. We'd better be careful with our words and actions so as not to disturb others."
After he said that, the two brothers stopped talking and just sat back in their original seats, thinking about their own things.
Not long after, a young eunuch came hurriedly. Many officials in the hall could not help but straighten up and look over expectantly.
The young eunuch glanced around and finally set his sights on Sun Shaozong. He said in a shrill voice, "Your Majesty has ordered that Sun Shaozong, the Left Junior Secretary of the Dali Temple, be summoned to see you~!"
Under the envious gazes of the crowd, Sun Shaozong calmly stood up, apologized to the sullen Jia She, and then left the table with the young eunuch.
No conversation along the way.
As he approached the Jingren Palace, he bumped into a familiar face - it was Li Shuncheng, the former eunuch of Jingren Palace and current chief purchasing eunuch of the imperial palace.
"Hey~ Isn't this Lord Sun?"
Before Sun Shaozong could do anything, Li Shuncheng started shouting exaggeratedly.
Then he walked a few steps closer, patted Sun Shaozong's arm, and said with a smile: "We haven't seen each other for a long time since you were ordered to go to war. Now you are so proud and successful, I'm afraid you have forgotten all about our old friends, right?"
In fact, to be honest, he looked very smug.
Sun Shaozong also smiled, but he was unwilling to get too close to him in the palace, so he just lowered his voice and said, "You are making fun of me. Not to mention that I am only a junior official now, even if I become a court official, how can I compare to you, the chief steward Li, who can always listen to your majesty's teachings?"
Li Shuncheng laughed, and seemed to realize that this was not the place to make friends, so he lowered his voice and said, "I'll treat you tonight, let's go and have some fun."
As he said this, he made way for the other party: "Please come in, Lord Sun."
In fact, Sun Shaozong didn't want to get too close to these eunuchs.
However, he had already promised to mediate on Xia Jingui's behalf, and now that the opportunity had come, he could not refuse.
So he nodded and followed the eunuch who led the way into Jingren Palace.
After waiting for a while outside the warm room door, Sun Shaozong finally met Emperor Guangde.
"Your humble servant Sun Shaozong pays respect to Your Majesty."
"Get up."
Emperor Guangde put the teacup back on the imperial desk, but was not in a hurry to ask about the purpose of the visit. Instead, he commented slowly, "The victory report your brother made a few days ago has been verified by local officials."
"Speaking of which, although it was only the defeat of a few hundred stragglers, it is far from the merits you have achieved in Huguang."
"But the battles you fought in the south were too risky and too dependent on personal bravery."
"If it's just to suppress bandits, ten Sun Shaozu may not be able to match you, but if the two countries are fighting a battle, you are far less stable than your brother."
He risked his life to suppress the rebellion, but ended up in trouble.
Sun Shaozong secretly complained in his heart, but he also knew that in the battles in Wuxi Prefecture, he relied on bravery and taking risks to achieve extraordinary feats with a small force.
Besides, the one being praised is my own brother, so what is there to argue about?
So he immediately bowed and said, "Your Majesty, what I am teaching you is that I am just showing off my courage. In terms of the ability to lead troops in battle, I am not even a fraction as good as my brother."
"It's good that you can be sober."
Emperor Guangde nodded, then added: "However, your strategy for dealing with the barbarians afterwards was quite appropriate, and you can barely be called a capable minister."
"I am ashamed to accept this!"
"Whether it is worthy or not depends on what the people of Huguang say."
Emperor Guangde said this, picked up a memorial from the table and shook it at Sun Shaozong: "You said in your memorial that you want to make Zhang An, who killed his uncle, a role model for the people. What's the logic behind this?"
Finally, we are getting to the point!
