Xu Ping followed, and saw Lu Yijian stopping, he handed over the letter from his sleeve and said, "Today, the internal lighting of Kaifeng City set off fireworks. In order to prevent accidents, the subordinates ordered their soldiers to go to various fields to prevent fire candles. As a result, in the goods service, he found that there was a collusion between the official in the office of the official in the office who violated the order and exchanged tea for tea. The judge Han Zong wrote a letter here."

Lu Yijian took the letter from Xu Ping's sleeve and directly received it into his sleeve. He did not spread it out to watch it. He just asked casually: "Which minister in the court is involved in that junction shop?"

"Zhongshu Zhang Xianggong, Xuanhuiyuan Yang Taiwei."

After hearing Xu Ping's words, Lu Yijian was stunned for a moment, his expression remained unchanged, and he asked, "Is it so deeply involved?"

Xu Ping sighed: "There are two supervisors in the shop who are the ones in their families. This is nothing, but the owner of the shop directly has them. I'm afraid-"

Lu Yijian nodded and signaled that Xu Ping would not need to continue.

After being in charge of the government for many years, how could Lu Yijian not know how the powerful ministers in the court made money. It was his own family, and there were many people working outside to run business. People at this time had long been accustomed to this kind of thing. It is better to go out to do business and accumulate wealth than to directly embezzle and accept bribes. At least it looks good in appearance. Of course, the premise is that no one is caught.

Not to mention the family of ministers, even ordinary people know that money is easy to depreciate when putting it at home. Those who have some spare money at home will be given out to borrow money to generate interest, or invest in various businesses. This is the social custom at this time. Kaifeng Prefecture is particularly serious. There are many shops opened on the streets outside, and there are also several stocks in it.

But officials are not the people. As long as they have a position related, the business they participate in is almost inseparable from using power for personal gain, but the degree is different. In order to avoid suspicion, they all participate in the name of killing people, and they just share the profits with others. For example, Zhang Shixun and Yang Chongxun, the two families, actually directly participated in it in their own name. The only thing they can blame themselves for being uncautious.

Yang Chongxun was a military minister and had always been known for being greedy for money. Especially when Emperor Zhenzong was critically ill, he reported that Kou Zhun and Zhou Huaizheng conspired to supervise the prince and regard Zhenzong as the emperor. This matter established the position of Empress Dowager Liu to rule the country from behind the curtain and helped her overcome the biggest crisis. Empress Dowager Liu was deeply appreciated when she was in power, and she had no scruples in doing things. She could understand how to do such things.

Zhang Shixun has always been cautious in doing things, and he really doesn’t know what people say when he comes up with such things.

After all, it may be related to Zhang Shixun's personal experience. His family's foundation in the capital is too shallow, and he has neither financial management experience nor many ways. The people in the family acted with Yang Chongxun's family and had such a fatal flaw.

Zhang Shixun's parents died early and were raised by his aunt. After growing up, he became a mother. In his early years, his family was poor and studied at the foot of Wudang Mountain and received teachings from Zhang Shu in Songyang. At the age of 28, he was a Jinshi in the third year of Chunhua, and was in the same year as Ding Wei and Wang Qinruo.

However, the first-class Jinshi in that year were unprecedented, with 313 people reaching the top, and 302 people in the first class, and the other dozen people were all second-class, which could kill other Jinshi.

Zhang Shixun was actually ranked 260. His early career was not smooth. He was in his fifties for more than 20 years before he became a writer, the magistrate of Shaowu. Compared with the officials who were awarded the title of Jinshi of Xu Ping, his official position was only one rank higher than Xu Ping's general and the general was the chief supervisor, and he was not as good as Xu Ping's general. The official position was in vain for more than 20 years.

It was also at that time that Zhang Shixun met his noble man. When Ren Man returned to the court to report his duties, he visited Hanlin scholar Yang Yi, and was interviewed and recommended him as the Censor. From then on, he soared into the sky and took only ten years to be the magistrate.

Zhang Shixun's experience fully demonstrates that in this era, even if he was a Jinshi, there were people in the court who were easy to become officials. Otherwise, they might have been promoted to serve as officials in prefectures and counties for the rest of their lives, and they would have been promoted to serve as officials of sixties and seventh ranks for the rest of their lives. Zhang Shixun's status today was of course due to his good abilities, and then he was blessed and lived long enough. Not everyone could survive until he was in his fifties and had enough life to change his destiny. Even officials, many people would not live to this age.

It is precisely because of such a rough experience that although Zhang Shixun had been in the prime minister several times, his family still had no foundation in the capital, so he made such a joke.

Lu Yijian took Xu Ping's letter and was about to go back. Before leaving, he suddenly had an idea and turned around and asked Xu Ping: "The minister's family is involved in such illegal affairs. The court cannot ignore it. What do you think should be dealt with?"

Xu Ping said respectfully: "What kind of identity is the Xiaguan? How dare you talk about such things! However, in the Xiaguan's opinion, although the two families of Xianggong Zhang and Taiwei Yang have the same affairs, their feelings are different, so they should still be treated separately."

Lu Yijian nodded, said nothing, and returned to his seat.

Xu Ping breathed out a sigh of relief. This hot potato was thrown out. How Lu Yijian decided had nothing to do with him and Sansi. Sansi was just doing his responsibilities, at least from the surface, he didn't think about slandering anyone.

Besides, Han Zong, who was doing the job this time, was not an ordinary identity. When the court handled it, he could ignore Kou Yu, the three envoys, but he could not ignore him.

Han Zong's father Han Yi was the chief censor at this time and was in charge of Taixian, which was not comparable to ordinary ministers. What's more important is that Han Zong's mother was the eldest daughter of Wang Dan, the prime minister of the former dynasty. Although the Wang family was not as good as the Lu family of Lu Yijian at this time, it was not far from that of Lu Yijian.

Like Zhang Shixun, Han Yi was a pauper before he passed the Jinshi. He went to Beijing with Li Ruogu to take the Jinshi exam. Their assets combined were only one mat and one covered felt, which was cut half of each person and barely spent the night at night. During the day, he went out to visit relatives and friends, and went to the people Han Yi knew. Li Ruogu pretended to be a servant, and went to the people Li Ruogu knew, and then the other way around.

After passing the Jinshi, Wang Dan appreciated Han Yi and despite his family's opposition, he married his eldest daughter who had never been married because of the strict standards for choosing a spouse. Han Yi was widowed and remarried, and his ex-wife already had a son. Therefore, although Han Zong was not Han Yi's eldest son, he was Wang Dan's first grandson and his identity was no better than that of ordinary people.

In the officialdom, there are relatives and relatives. Sometimes they are useless, but sometimes they are very useful.

Seeing Lu Yijian leaving, Xu Ping saw that the order of the ministers who were at the banquet was already in chaos, so he prepared to return to his seat.

At this moment, Zhao Yuanyan, the eight kings in the forefront, saw Xu Ping and shouted loudly: "Marquis Yongning, come close, I have something to say to you!"

Zhao Yuanyan had a noble status at this time and was extremely favorable. Even the two powerful ministers of the previous dynasty were equipped with the most standard equipment of the two former dynasties. However, he only had etiquette and famous family members and did not participate in political affairs.

In this kind of occasion, Xu Ping was unwilling to cause trouble, but now he was named but had no choice but to step forward. He arrived at the seat and gave a deep bow: "The lower-ranking official Xu Ping has met King Jing."

Zhao Yuanyan said: "I heard that you have good wine hidden in your house, and people outside don't sell it to them at any time, right?"

Xu Ping said: "It's all outsiders who are chewing around. My family has been opening a winery for many years, and there are some good wines. But that's just that the old ones are older, and it's not much different from the wine sold in the store."

Zhao Yuanyan glared at his eyes and said, "You are true and false, but not so honest. My child often visits your house. Every time he comes back, he says he invites his wine to be extremely mellow. He brings a few bottles home during the New Year. It tastes extraordinary. I drank all those bottles and went out to buy them, but I can never buy such mellow ones. When I asked, I realized that you had good wine hidden in your house and didn't sell it, but I enjoyed it myself."

What can Xu Ping say? If you don’t order non-selling items, your style will not be improved. The so-called good wine that you can’t buy outside has been saved little by little over the years. In addition, the blending technology has become more and more mature recently, and the taste and aroma are becoming more and more outstanding. However, you cannot admit this kind of thing openly, otherwise what should you do if you come to your house to ask for wine?

Zhao Yuanyan has long been a mature person, so how could he not know this truth? But he still had to drink wine and said to Xu Ping: "No matter what good wine you hide in your house, it is the kind that my child took home before the New Year. I will sell me dozens of bottles tomorrow!"

Xu Ping said: "Since the king likes it, I will go home tomorrow to check it. If the amount stored is enough, I will just send it to the mansion. However, the wine has been aged for many years, and the quantity is really not large."

"Your father and son don't like to drink, what's the point of storing it? How can you wait for good wine to entertain guests? Just take it for me to drink, and your house is inseparable from the price!"

Xu Ping could only agree vaguely.

In his previous life, Xu Ping heard a lot of stories about the Eight Virtue Kings based on the Eight Virtue Kings, but when he really came into contact with it, he found that the real Eight Virtue Kings is far less cute than the Eight Virtue Kings.

Zhao Yuanyan's fame and status are naturally unexplained. Even in the Khitan, he could stop children from crying at night. But unlike the Eight Virtues in the play, who often holds a golden mace and beats treacherous ministers, Zhao Yuanyan basically doesn't care about political affairs, and it is precisely because he doesn't care about political affairs that he has his current fame and status. If he really cares about everything like the Eight Virtues in the play, he probably has been punished with the title of king and sent to a remote Xiaozhou editor to be in charge.

The Song Dynasty was very concerned about the emperor's position. The closer they were to the monarch, the more they could not manage things. If they accidentally violated this taboo, they might lose all their lives.

Zhao Yuanyan was very smart, the most obvious thing was when Empress Dowager Liu was in power. He knew that the Empress Dowager was not the emperor's biological mother, so he pretended to be crazy and did not go to the palace, and deliberately alienated his relationship. As soon as Empress Dowager Liu passed away, Zhao Yuanyan immediately entered the palace to tell the emperor Zhao Zhen that who his biological mother was, and that he died inexplicably, almost causing the Liu family to let Zhao Zhen take it all.

The son Zhao Yunchu got closer to Xu Ping's father Xu Zheng. Zhao Yuanyan not only did not stop him, but also specially promoted this relationship. First, he took advantage of this opportunity to get closer to Li Yonghe's family, and second, he was optimistic about Xu Ping's future.

Today, he called Xu Ping over and spoke, and naturally he had such a little thought, which showed that the relationship between the two families was not ordinary. Of course, he really wanted to drink the wine that the Xu family had hidden and not sold. As a prince, his talent could not be used in state affairs, and eating, drinking, having fun was the only choice. If you can't drink good wine, you can't bear it. He had to drink good wine in the palace.

The annual expenses of the King Jing Mansion were amazing. The huge salary and ministerial money were not enough. They borrowed loans from the court treasury every year. They had to pay back or not. They saved a few years and the amount was large, so the emperor was directly exempted. For the sake of the King Jing Mansion's loan, the three officials didn't know how much they had to do with Zhao Yuanyan, but in the end the emperor paid the money from the inner treasury to pay it back on his behalf.

For such Eight Kings, Xu Ping could only maintain a close relationship.
Chapter completed!