Zhao Shichun, who came out of the government office, followed closely behind Ye Qing, and after Xiao Zhen and the others left, Zhao Shichun pulled Ye Qing's sleeve and signaled to take a step to speak.

Ye Qing looked at Zhao Kai, the king of Qing next to him, today Zhao Shichun is going to hold a banquet in the mansion to catch the wind and wash the dust for King Qing, but he did not agree to Zhao Shichun to go, could it be that this is to force himself to pass?

"Can I discuss something with you?" Zhao Shichun did not prepare King Qing who was waiting on the side, and King Qing originally wanted to avoid it, but he was also stopped by Zhao Shichun and said: "It's okay, you can listen to it too, now that you have arrived in Yangzhou, this matter should be good for you and no harm, be careful after listening." ”

Hearing Zhao Shichun say this, not only Ye Qing's curiosity was aroused, but even King Qing, who was originally planning to avoid it, had to stop, pricking up his ears to listen, what did Zhao Shichun, who was mysterious and secretive, want to say something to the two of them.

"What's the matter with making you so excited, and let King Qing be on guard, what's the matter, Yangzhou wants thieves to be domineering?" Ye Qing asked Zhao Shichun suspiciously.

"I don't dare to say it now, but if it goes on like this for a long time, I will inevitably become a bandit." After Zhao Shichun snorted, he continued to say dissatisfiedly: "Master Ye, after you go back today, discipline and discipline the two young masters of your family ......." ”

"That's it?" Ye Qing and King Qing asked in an incredible voice almost at the same time.

"You think it's a trifle?" Zhao Shichun looked at King Qing and Ye Qing in front of him dissatisfied, and instantly said with sadness: "Lord Ye, even if it is me Zhao Shichun begging you, I ...... My girl is only three years old, she can't always play with your son, it's easy to be spoiled. ”

"No, no, no, you wait a while, what you said is a bit unbelievable, I remember when I returned to Yangzhou from the North, my baby son said that he didn't like to play with your daughter, so why didn't he ......." Ye Qing interrupted Zhao Shichun's words while pondering.

When he returned to Yangzhou from the north, the two little guys who were quite unfamiliar with him at the beginning were already familiar with his father in less than half a day, and from the mouths of the two little guys, he also learned about the existence of Zhao Ling'er, but Ye Gucheng said at that time that he didn't like to play with Zhao Ling'er in Chongguo Mansion, saying that the parents were too ugly.

"Nonsense, is your son ugly? My daughter is ugly, let me tell you Ye Qing, don't listen to your little things full of nonsense, my Ling'er is very smart, tell you, when she grows up, she must be a great beauty! Otherwise, why does your son think about my daughter every day, and ...... A few days ago, he even said that he was going to elope with that little thing in Ye Gucheng, let me tell you Ye Qing, this is nothing, if something happens, you have to be responsible for you! When Zhao Shichun heard Ye Gucheng in Ye Qing's mouth, he even disliked the ugliness of his baby Ling'er, and his nose was almost crooked.

"This ...... It's easy to be responsible, but it's really not good, just let Ye Gucheng marry Ling'er. Ye Qing was stunned for a moment and then said.

"Whew!" Zhao Shichun seemed to have been greatly insulted, his eyes were as wide as copper bells: "You Ye Qing is also shameless, right?" So you want to marry my family Ling'er? You...... You have to be married, right? Besides, maybe my Ling'er still can't look down on your Ye Gucheng! ”

Ye Qing was stunned for a moment again, and then smiled a little in Zhao Shichun's eyes, which looked extremely obscene, rubbed his hands and said: "It doesn't matter, it's really not good, and Ye Wufeng makes up for it, I can't look down on the boss, it's okay to look at the second child, how about it, my two sons let your daughters pick whatever they want, so it's always sincere enough, right?" ”

"I ......." Zhao Shichun obviously didn't expect that the dignified Huainan East Road pacification envoy would be so shameless and ...... was able to say such things: "Dream on you, Ling'er will never marry those two little things in your family." He looked Ye Qing up and down, and then said disdainfully: "No wonder the ancients are crooked on the top of the cloud, no wonder Ye Gucheng's little thing hooks up with my family Ling'er every day when he is so young, and there is a father like you ......." ”

"With a father like me, at least don't worry about not having a daughter-in-law, isn't that good? Since the two of them like to be together, I think it's better to leave it like this, just set a baby kiss, the eldest and the second together, and when you grow up, let your daughter choose, which one you like. Ye Qing's shameless words, the angry Zhao Shichun spun straight in place, this is a typical fertilizer that does not flow into the fields of outsiders.

"Think about it, my eldest and second child and your family Ling'er can be regarded as growing up together, what childhood sweethearts and two little guesses are perfect for them. How? If you agree, I will immediately proceed to choose a good day and an auspicious day...... Hey, Chongguo Gong, don't go, I haven't finished my words yet, hey, wait for me, I'm going to your house today, just to pick up the wind and wash the dust with you for King Qing, how about it? Ye Qing looked at Zhao Shichun, who turned his head and left with a black face, and hurriedly shouted.

"I don't need you to come to my house, your boss, it's enough of a headache to go to my house every day to make trouble, I don't want you to come to make trouble." How could Zhao Shichun not understand that the goods in front of him who suddenly changed his mind were going for his daughter, this ...... I want to see my daughter-in-law grow with my own eyes...... Phew, what his daughter-in-law, that's my daughter-in-law.

Looking at the angry Zhao Shichun, and then looking at the innocent and sincere Ye Qing, Qingwang Zhao Kai went from not being able to react at the beginning to being impressed by the relationship between Zhao Shichun and Ye Qing.

Obviously, he didn't expect that Zhao Shichun, the Duke of Chongguo, was so familiar with Ye Qing, and even became familiar with Ye Qing's son, so he ran to other people's houses when he had nothing to do, and specially looked for Ling'er to play with him, not to the point of treating himself as an outsider.

"How can it be done, there should always be something with a sense of ritual." Ye Qing said to Zhao Shichun, who was about to get into the carriage.

Hearing Ye Qing's words that he decided to kiss him, Zhao Shichun, who was stepping on the horse stool, almost fell down unsteadily, turned around and glared angrily: "The eight characters have not been skimmed yet, you are less close to you there." ”

"Then it's decided, I'll visit your mansion in a while." Ye Qing looked at Zhao Shichun urging King Qing to get into the car, and then hurriedly asked the coachman to hurry up to catch the car, he really couldn't stand the cheeky Ye Qing.

On the way to the Guogong Mansion, Zhao Shichun in the carriage still looked palpitating, sullen for a while, and suddenly said in front of King Zhao Kai: She is still a child.

Zhao Kai looked at Zhao Shichun, who sighed, looked worried and depressed, smiled and asked, "Guogong and Ye Qing are very familiar?" ”

"Familiar, how can it be unfamiliar, these years ......." Zhao Shichun laughed, his mind turned back to his matter with Ye Qing, and began to explain to Zhao Kai all kinds of things since Ye Qing arrived in Yangzhou, including how he became richer and richer with the help of Ye Qing, and why the two houses were getting closer and closer.

"In this way, isn't it true that the prince of the country has already occupied nearly half of the land?" Zhao Kai estimated in his heart, and after hiding with spare money in his hand, he began to expand the house, and finally made the Zhao and Ye families directly face the back garden diagonally.

"Almost, if you add Ye Qing's mansion now, half of the land will be there." Zhao Shichun sighed, and then said with a hint of happiness in his tone: "When there was money at the beginning, Yangzhou City was not like so many people now, because of the relationship with Jin, few people with a little fame or savings were willing to settle down in Yangzhou. So at that time, the mansion in Yangzhou was also cheap, unlike now, especially after the Beidi Fourth Road was recovered by the imperial court, coupled with the expansion of Yangzhou City, the waterway was busy, and now, if you want to choose a good house in the inner city of Yangzhou, it is a lot of money. ”

Looking at Zhao Kai, who looked a little incredulous, Zhao Shichun smiled and continued to explain: "Yangzhou is not as good as Ningguofu and other places where you were before, because of the Yangtze River, you don't have to be afraid of the Jin people easily crossing the river to invade, so you naturally won't know that Yangzhou at the beginning was sparsely populated...... Take my mansion as an example, before Ye Qing arrived in Yangzhou, it was actually a vacant mansion, and it is said that he was also a high-ranking official back then, and later through the relationship above the court, he was sent to the south, and the mansion was sold for money. After Yu Yunwen was appointed as the pacification envoy, although it was better, it did not attract the people who had fled the war and migrated to return to Yangzhou again, as for Yang Jian as the pacification envoy, he only needed cash and looked down on the houses in Yangzhou, so ah, at that time, this area of Yangzhou was like an empty city, the people without money could not afford to live, and the rich people were unwilling to live for their own safety. ”

Lifting the curtain, Zhao Shichun casually pointed to the architectural scenery that flew backwards with the carriage, and continued: "So at the beginning, most of these deep mansion compounds were basically empty, only in the past two years, with the rise of Yangzhou commerce, driven by some businessmen and fame, Yangzhou is finally like a real city, there are more people, the scenery has become beautiful, and everything is full of hope." ”

Qing King Zhao Kai listened to Zhao Shichun's explanation along the way, and said with some emotion in his heart: "But can such a prosperous and lively situation really be as Ye Qing said, can it no longer be violated by the Jin people?" ”

Zhao Shichun glanced at Zhao Kai with a smile, sighed and said: "It seems that you haven't gotten rid of the narrow vision above the court, if you look forward and hesitate, when will my Great Song Dynasty be able to recover the old mountains and rivers?" Before Ye Qing, no one had ever believed that my Great Song Dynasty would be able to defeat the Jin people and regain back the territory that originally belonged to us, but now? It has been a full two years since the beginning of the Northern Expedition, and Jinan Mansion is now the border city of my Great Song Dynasty, and I have not seen the Jin people go south again violently to vow to recapture, and they are still redrawing the boundary line with our Great Song Dynasty and signing a ...... of mutual recurrence. ”

"But anyone can see that this is the Jin people's delaying tactics, sooner or later, the Jin people will come over, what should I do then? Do you really want to watch today's prosperity turn into ruins? Zhao Kai frowned and said worriedly.

But in exchange for Zhao Shichun's sneer and disdain: "Yes, everyone knows that this is the Jin people's delaying tactic, but why not when I am the Great Song Dynasty and Ye Qing's strong soldiers?" Fighting is bound to be fought, but it is difficult to determine who wins and who loses at that time. Since we can recover the Beidi Fourth Road and Jingzhaofu Road, why can't we go further and take more of the territories that my Great Song Dynasty lost back then? Who can tell you that if Song Jin fights again, the losing side must be Ye Qing? ”

Zhao Kai was speechless for a while by Zhao Shichun's refutation, although he himself only arrived in Yangzhou today, but even if it was just from Zhao Shichun's mouth, he still heard it, and when he was in Lin'an, he had a completely different understanding and view of the current situation in Song and Jin.

Compared with Lin'an's somewhat weak and self-dangerous views, it is obvious that the people on the Yangzhou side, or Zhao Shichun, are much more confident than the Lin'an court or the people of Lin'an.

In their opinion, sooner or later, the Jin people will take revenge on the Song Dynasty, and the first to bear the brunt must be the Beidi Fourth Road and Huainan East Road.

But now looking at the prosperity and liveliness of Yangzhou's inner city, which is almost no worse than the prosperity of Lin'an, as well as the self-confidence of Zhao Shichun, Ye Qing and others, he began to wonder again, under the current situation, whose insistence is right?

"Is this your opinion of Guogong, or does the entire Yangzhou people think so?" Zhao Kai still asked a little puzzled.

The smile on Zhao Shichun's face turned into a bitter smile, looking at Zhao Kai and shaking his head, he sighed weakly and said: "If King Qing doesn't believe that Huainan East Road can resist Jin, he can go back to his house immediately, and the Emperor Taishang will never refuse." ”

"Chongguo Gong, I didn't mean ...... that." Zhao Kai obviously didn't expect Zhao Shichun to say such serious words.

"I have long since stopped paying attention to the affairs of the court, and I no longer care about who is the right minister, who is the left minister, who is the privy envoy, who is the six Shangshu, and even, I don't care about how the people of Lin'an City view the four roads in the north and how to define the identity of the people of the four roads. Because...... I only believe in four words now, and that is ....... Zhao Shichun looked at Zhao Kai's somewhat nervous eyes, and said lightly: "Self-improvement and self-reliance." ”

"Self-reliance?" Zhao Kai's mind was a little unturned.

Zhao Shichun smiled again, but this time his smile was quite complicated, and he continued to sit in the carriage that had arrived at the door of the mansion, and said heavily: "Since Ye Qing came to Huainan East Road, especially with the recovery of Beidi Fourth Road, I, Zhao Shichun, have begun to think about a problem: dignity. I'm wondering whether the dignity of the court or individuals can only be obtained by fighting for themselves, or whether it can be obtained by relying on the alms of the golden people. Then I figured out that I had to fight for it on my own. Just like with the beginning of the Northern Expedition, the attitude of the Jin envoys when they went to Lin'an to talk about the armistice through Yangzhou can be said to have changed too much compared to when the imperial court had not yet gone to the Northern Expedition. The original arrogance and domineering arrogance is no longer visible, but has become amiable and polite, not at all as rampant and arrogant as it was after we first negotiated peace with us. And with the deepening of the war, when Ye Qing recovered one city after another in the north, the attitude of the Jin people did not become stronger, but became more polite and courteous. ”

"With the full recovery of the four roads in the north, I thought that the Jin people would be angry and go south immediately after the beginning of spring, but while we were waiting for it, what were we waiting for? When the Holy Zen throne and the crown prince ascended the throne above my Great Song Dynasty, the Jin people actually sent King Wei Shao of their clan to Anhe. If this was before, do you dare to imagine? Do you dare to imagine that when you go all the way from the north to the south, when you pass through Yangzhou, you will have a pleasant face, and you don't have the arrogance and domineering appearance of the suzerain? And I, as my Great Song Clan, naturally want to set up a banquet when King Wei Shao passes through Yangzhou, this is my Zhao Shichun, the first time I feel what dignity is from the Jin people. Compared with the previous situation when the Jin envoys passed through Yangzhou and entered Lin'an, it was like bandits entering the city to bully the people and rape women, none of the people brought by King Wei Shao dared to make trouble in Yangzhou. Do you dare to imagine? ”

Zhao Shichun's words made Zhao Kai feel a little empathetic at this time, of course he knew how big the gap was in this comparison.

I still remember when I was young, whether it was when Emperor Zhao Gou was in power, or after my father Emperor Zhao Yan succeeded to the throne, whenever a Jin envoy came to Lin'an, there would always be a killing and plundering in Lin'an City, and even every time the Jin envoy announced the will of the Emperor of Jin in the Daqing Palace, whether it was the Emperor Taishang or the father, they would kneel in the hall to meet the will of the Emperor of Jin.

And such a scene never happened in the recent time when the envoy of the Jin State, or the prince of the Jin State, King Wei Shao, came to Lin'an.

Even, the treatment of King Jin in the Daqing Hall that night, compared with the envoys of other countries, did not get any special preferential treatment, but that's it, that King Weishao Wanyan Yongji actually chose to accept all this silently, without even a word of complaint.

"Chongguo Gong thinks that all this is because of Ye Qing?" After a long time, Zhao Kai in the carriage sighed heavily and asked.

The carriage had been at the door of the Chongguo Mansion for a long time, and the people who greeted him stood quietly in the distance, patiently waiting for the Chongguo Gong in the carriage to get off.

"Ye Qing has killed many people and done a lot of bad things. Including Zhao Shixiong, who is afraid that you are extremely curious in your heart now, but ...... No one is perfect, Ye Qing has such and such shortcomings, but it cannot be denied that since the beginning of his Northern Expedition, the dignity of my Great Song Dynasty has returned. There is no need to grovel to please the golden man like he did back then. Zhao Shichun didn't seem to be in a hurry to get out of the car at all, and sighed again: "So...... The longer you stay with Ye Qing, the more you feel that you have to be self-reliant, because only in this way can you win the respect of others. As small as a common people, as big as a prince like me, and even bigger, it is like the people of Huainan East Road, or the people of Beidi Fourth Road. The people of all walks of life south of the Yangtze River look down on the people who are reformers, but why can't we be self-reliant, don't care about those things, and rely on our strength and hard work to win the respect of others? I don't know what people you saw and heard when you came to Yangzhou, but no matter what, I Zhao Shichun hopes that King Qing, since you have arrived in Yangzhou, you might as well feel the changes of the people around Huainan East Road, especially the changes in Yangzhou, so you will find that this is the real Yangzhou, is the real Chinese orthodoxy, self-improvement and self-reliance! ”