Chapter 88: Crying Contest
Erhu almost spat out a mouthful of blood when he heard this. The beating that the young master received today was really unfair...
After Zhu Yunhuan entered the Xian Hall, he wanted to cry miserably in order to gain sympathy from Zhu Yuanzhang and ask him to give him a few days.
However, he only stayed inside for a while before he immediately discovered something more interesting.
In the Xian Hall, the civil and military officials were divided into two groups, and they were actually holding a crying competition!
Sometimes the voices of the civil officials were one decibel higher, and sometimes the voices of the military generals were two decibels higher.
Although the generals were not at an advantage in numbers, this was not a competition of poetry and song, so they still fought on equal terms with the enemy.
After the return of the royal relatives, the number of mourners on the military side was greatly increased, and only then were they able to completely suppress the civil officials in terms of voice and momentum.
Because more than half of the daughters of the Zhu family were married to military generals and nobles, even most of the princes married daughters of founding nobles.
Therefore, the military generals of the Ming Dynasty were basically either royal relatives or relatives of royal relatives.
In short, all these people were gathered together by Zhu Yuanzhang through the network of blood ties. This was also the most common method of maintaining stability used by ancient emperors, and it was very effective.
Of course, there is a prerequisite for achieving this, that is, the emperor must be productive enough.
Zhu Yuanzhang had 26 sons and 16 daughters in his lifetime. Even if we remove a few who died young, there were still nearly 40 people in total. He could definitely be called a prolific emperor, which gave him enough resources for marriage arrangements.
After Lan Yu also joined the mourning group, the military generals not only gained an absolute advantage, but also defeated the civil officials with an overwhelming victory.
The reason why such outstanding results were achieved was thanks to Lan Yu, the leader.
As soon as the civil servant started to sing, Lan Yu shouted "Ah", disrupting the opponent's rhythm.
Then, he applied the drum beats used during marching to the crying.
There were intensive general orders in a while.
"Woooooooooa ...
Then there was a majestic order to march.
“Wooooooooooooo, woooooooo…”
Once these two tactics were used, the civil servants had no choice but to suffer a complete defeat.
Old Zhu also heard that there was something wrong with the crying sound. When he saw the old man Lan Yu kneeling in the front, stretching his neck and crying loudly, he felt a headache.
This guy is hopeless. He wants to win or lose in everything he does!
It's fine if you argue about other things, but you want to argue about something like crying at the funeral. Is there something wrong with your brain?
Although the civil servants have poor voices, they still have a huge advantage, that is, the referee is on the same side as them!
When the Minister of Rites Zhao Mian saw the emperor coming, he hurried over to report Lan Yu's misdeeds.
"Your Majesty, I accuse the Duke of Liang of disturbing the order of the mourning hall and suggest that he be kicked out of the hall!"
Lan Yu was crying hard at this time, and suddenly heard Zhao Mian accusing him of something wrong. He immediately got up from the ground and refuted it.
"Mr. Zhao, you can't afford to cry!"
"What's wrong with me crying loudly for the prince? The prince is our nephew-in-law, so it doesn't matter to you if I, as his uncle, cry a little sadly!"
"Your Majesty, look at this, the Duke of Liang is just being unreasonable!"
"According to the Book of Rites, there are rules for mourning and there are limits. I really cannot preside over this if he keeps torturing me like this..."
When Old Zhu saw that Lan Yu was so angry with Zhao Mian that she was about to quit, he hurried over and kicked Lan Yu.
"Go away and don't disturb our prince's peace here!"
"Sir, this is wrong. How can you take sides? It's obviously Mr. Zhao who doesn't like me..."
"Are you going to leave or not?"
"If you don't get out of here, we'll have the Royal Guards beat you out with sticks!"
When Lan Yu saw that Lao Zhu was angry, he immediately became timid, hung his head and muttered.
"Then I'll go cry at the door..."
When Lan Yu was leaving, he patted Fu Youde on the shoulder when he passed by him. The meaning was obvious: we have been kicked out, and everything from now on depends on you.
Fu Youde understood what Lan Yu meant, and soon took over the position of leader of the mourning procession after Lan Yu left. Then, under his leadership, the crying once again drowned out the civil service group.
Then, the civil service group used their judicial privileges to coax Fu Youde out, followed by Feng Sheng.
However, after the three military bosses were kicked out one after another, the civilian group was still no match for the military generals.
Because today's group of military generals are like chicken blood, although there are no three dukes to "lead the crying", they listen to drum beats all year round, even without anyone leading them to cry, they can still cry powerfully and with great momentum.
Finally, in the crying competition, the military representatives won an absolute victory.
Not only did they take the top three places in the individual crying events, they also won first place in the group crying competition, leaving the civil servants group, the princes group, and the princes group far behind.
Of course, the crying competition, whether it was the competition items or the award ceremony, was all completed in Zhu Yunhuan's mind, and outsiders had no right to care.
After the mourning was over, the people in the imperial kitchen prepared a simple meal.
Just egg soup and steamed buns.
Normally, they wouldn't even look twice at such inferior food.
But he had already walked for a day, and he had been crying for so long, so everyone who saw Mantou treated him as if he had seen "＊＊＊＊" and pounced on him viciously.
(Asterisks are for your own imagination)
However, the civil service group, which had suffered a disastrous defeat in the mourning competition, also suffered a crushing defeat in the battle for steamed buns.
Before the civil officials had even finished their "guaranteed steamed buns", the military generals had already eaten up all the buns in the basin.
When the civil servant went to restock the supplies, not only were the steamed buns gone, even the soup pot was empty!
The military officers looked at the confused civilian officials and felt secretly proud in their hearts, "If you compete with us in eating speed, you can't catch up even if you die of exhaustion!"
While the military officers were secretly patting their round bellies with pride, the civil servants could only tighten their belts with grievance, and then stare at the leaves along the way with shining eyes on the way back.
If they weren't afraid of being embarrassed by being seen, they would all want to pick up a handful of leaves and stuff them into their mouths.
In fact, the military officers have no shortage of food, they are just suppressed too harshly by the civil service group.
Now seeing Zhu Yunhuan, the perfect "spokesman for nobles", smashing the fire pot and beating the banner, they were just releasing a little bit of the emotions that had been suppressed for a long time.
Old Zhu had already seen that something was wrong with them, but he just didn't bother to pay attention to them because they were just making a fuss.
On the way back, Old Zhu found Zhu Yunhuan and forced a big bad wolf smile on his face.
"Grandson, get on our carriage and go back!"
“Hehehe!”
Zhu Yunhuan snorted at Old Zhu and then jumped onto Zhu Gang's carriage. Before lowering the curtain, he did not forget to make a face at Old Zhu, which made Old Zhu so angry that he blew his beard and glared.
"Hey, you little rebellious grandson, wait till tomorrow morning and see how I punish you!"
After saying these harsh words, Old Zhu angrily lowered the curtain, then leaned back in the carriage and fell asleep.
He was extremely tired today, but he was just trying not to show it. He just beat someone up and was so tired that he fell asleep with his eyes closed.
Zhu Yunhuan sat in Zhu Gang's carriage and reported Zhu's misdeeds to his great enemy, his uncle .
"Uncle, I don't want to stay in the capital anymore. Please help me write a petition and ask your father to quickly confer a throne on me and send me away!"
Zhu Gang was originally very happy to see Zhu Yunhuan getting close to him, but when he suddenly heard his words, his eyebrows immediately raised.
"Why?"
"Grandpa Emperor doesn't like me. He beats me every day and always punishes me by making me do homework that I can never finish. He just bullies me because I'm an orphan. Wow wow wow wow..."
Zhu Yunhuan cried and stole a glance at Zhu Gang. Little did he know that Zhu Gang had already seen his little action and scolded him in his heart.
Humph!
Nephew, these tricks of yours are just left over from what your third uncle did when he was a child!
"How much homework did your grandfather assign you?"
“Three thousand words!”
"Let me finish it in one night and hand it in tomorrow!"
"Uncle San, how can this be finished?"
"hiss……"
When Zhu Gang heard this, he took a deep breath. The homework assigned by his father was indeed too much.
When he was studying in the palace, he could only write a hundred characters a day. How come when he came to his eldest nephew, he could write thirty times more?
Even if God is going to give a man a great responsibility, it shouldn't be such a way to make him suffer mentally and physically, right?
"Nephew, did you make your grandfather angry?"
Zhu Yunhuan became even more angry when this matter was mentioned. He had done everything that he should and shouldn't have done, but he hadn't made any mistakes.
If we have to say there is something, it would be the matter of persuading Lu, but that was done in accordance with the emperor's orders, so it can't be blamed on him, right?
"Uncle San, your father is just looking for trouble to beat me up!"
"If you are still my father's biological brother, you should help your nephew and give him a chance to survive, wuwuwu..."
Zhu Gang glanced at Zhu Yunhuan unhappily.
"Be respectful to your grandfather, don't be disrespectful!"
"snort!"
"I don't have a grandfather. What grandfather always beats his grandchildren for no reason?"
"Hey!"
When Zhu Gang heard his grandson say this, his temper flared up. He pressed Zhu Yunhuan on his thigh and beat him up, making him scream and wail like a ghost. Then he grabbed him by the collar and threw him into Zhu's carriage.
"Father, I have brought your precious grandson here. Please discipline him strictly!"
Old Zhu was in a daze when he saw his little rebellious grandson crying, and he was so happy that he almost breathed a sigh of relief.
This rebellious grandson must have gone to his third uncle to complain about us, thinking that his third uncle would be on his side. Unexpectedly, he was beaten up by his third uncle again. Hahaha!
"Did your uncle beat you?"
Zhu Yunhuan raised his head stubbornly.
"No!"
"My third uncle is so nice to me. He even said he would take me to his kingdom to play. Woo woo woo..."
"Then why did you get on our carriage? Go find your uncle!"
"I……"
Zhu Yunhuan was speechless after being confronted by Old Zhu and was so angry that he burst into tears.
"You all bully me, bully me because I have no father..."
As soon as Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he quickly took out the willow branch from behind him and slapped it on the carriage.
"If you don't want to get beaten, shut up!"
"If you disturb my sleep, I'll beat you up!"
Seeing this, Zhu Yunhuan could only pout and wipe his tears silently. Although he cried miserably along the way, he didn't even dare to breathe, for fear of angering this old man.
The return to the city was much faster than the coming. In less than half an hour, the royal team entered the city first.
As for the low-ranking officials and soldiers who accompanied the funeral, they could only travel slowly on foot.
But no matter how slow it is, we can always get back by the evening.
After all, it was only twenty miles in total, and you could climb back in an afternoon.
When Zhu Yuanzhang entered the palace, he deliberately went through the Donghua Gate, and did not forget to scare Zhu Yunhuan when he threw him at the gate of the Prince's Mansion.
"Don't forget to do your homework. If you find that you're missing a word when we check it tomorrow, hehe..."
Old Zhu's original intention was to scare his rebellious grandson. He planned to scare him with homework so that he could get over the sadness of losing his father as soon as possible. He didn't expect him to write much at all.
Even if he didn't write a single word tomorrow, he would just continue to scare people.
However, Zhu Yunhuan took it seriously and thought he would be dead if he failed to complete it.
After writing dozens of words, Zhu Yunhuan immediately realized that he would never be able to complete it if he continued like this.
So he thought of a brilliant idea, which was to tie five brushes to a wooden stick at a certain distance.
Then you can use this special brush to write five lines of characters at a time.
After testing the effect, Zhu Yunhuan couldn't help but applaud his own cleverness. In this way, he only needed to write 600 words to complete 3,000 words!
"I am such a genius that I can even think of such a method!"
"Old Zhu, you would never have thought that I could actually accomplish this, hahahaha..."
While Zhu Yunhuan was laughing triumphantly, a certain Erhu, who did not want to reveal his name, jumped down from the wall of Jinshenyuan with ease.
"Should I tell the Emperor about this?"
"As long as the emperor doesn't ask, we'll just pretend we didn't see anything!"
"But we have to forget about 'Old Zhu', lest he upset the emperor..."
"right!"
"We are doing this for the Emperor's good, not hiding it on purpose!"
