Chapter 1: Founding a country and becoming emperor

On the sixth day of the seventh year of Anyuan, Song Dynasty...

At the foot of Zhuti Mountain, forty miles southwest of Zhuti County, Yizhou Jian is a small mountain village called Xiaozhai Village.

At this time, something ridiculous happened in Xiaozhai Village, that is, the villager Zhang Rui wanted to establish a country and become emperor.

What's going on? We have to start from scratch. Three days ago, an old Taoist priest wearing a tattered Taoist robe and a dirty body came to Xiaozhai Village.

The old Taoist priest's surname is Luo, and the person who knows him is Luo Taoist. Taoist Luo has no worries, but he relies on his mouth to eat and wait for death.

On the third day of the junior high school, Taoist Luo came to Xiaozhai Village alone. He originally wanted to enter the village to have some food, but he hadn't eaten for five or six days and fainted from hunger outside the village.

When he woke up, he found himself lying on a straw mat with a bowl of clear millet porridge next to it.

The hungry Taoist Luo picked up the millet porridge and ate it in big mouthfuls. After a while, a bowl of millet porridge was at its bottom.

After eating, Taoist Luo stuck out his tongue and licked the edge of his mouth, with endless aftertaste.

Then Taoist Luo put down the bowl, supported his body with his hands and walked out the door. When he saw dilapidated thatched huts and scattered villagers.

"woke up!"

Taoist Luo heard someone talking, and looked in the sound and saw a middle-aged man wearing ragged robes and an ordinary-looking face carrying a wooden hoe on his shoulder.

The middle-aged man was Zhang Rui. He also saw that Taoist Luo fainted, so he asked his second son to carry it back, and asked him to prepare a bowl of corn porridge next to Taoist Luo.

Speaking of Zhang Rui, both his parents died since childhood. If it weren’t for the villagers in the village, he would have starved to death long ago.

After growing up, under the arrangement of the village chief, he married Eryatou, an orphan from the same village. Soon, he gave birth to three eldest sons for him. Unfortunately, Eryatou's life was not good and died early.

After the three sons lost their mother, Zhang Rui became both father and mother, and he worked hard to raise his three sons to adulthood.

“…”

"What are you looking at?" Zhang Rui felt unhappy when he saw him looking at him and retorted on the spot.

Taoist Luo reacted, quickly bowed, pointed to the thatched hut behind him and asked, "May I ask, are you the owner of this house?"

"Well, what's wrong?"

Zhang Rui put the hoe on the wall and then entered the thatched hut.

When Taoist Luo saw him admitting, he was overjoyed and hurried into the thatched hut and bowed respectfully, "I have thanked you for saving my life!"

Zhang Rui held a bowl of cold water in his right hand, smiled and said with malicious intentions: "Since it is a life-saving grace, how can you repay me?"

Taoist Luo's heart skipped a beat, swallowed nervously, and tentatively said: "Benefactor, how can you repay the old Taoist?"

"It's okay, just do the farm work for me for a year, which is a reward for saving my life." Zhang Rui said with a smile.

"Ah!" Despite his mental preparation, he still made a sound.

Taoist Luo never expected that he would take a year to dizzy.

Thinking of this, I wish I could slap myself a few times.

"How is it? Or not?"

When Zhang Rui saw that Taoist Luo did not respond, he urged him.

Taoist Luo glanced at the two tall and big young men at the door. If he dared to say no, he would be fistless.

Thinking of this, Taoist Luo's eyes darkened, he lowered his head and said, "Answer, agree!"

"Second, find him a place to live, and you will take him to do farm work tomorrow."

"Also, don't let him run away secretly."

After saying that, Zhang Rui asked them to go out, while he lay on the straw mat to take a nap.

Taoist Luo secretly complained while hoeing the ground.

"I've only been working for two days and my back hurts. If I have worked for a year, I'm afraid I won't even lose my life."

Taoist Luo had thought about running these two days, but Zhang Rui's two sons stared at him day and night, and he really had no chance to run.

Alas! Taoist Luo looked up at the comforting blue sky and sighed in despair.

"Old guy, what are you doing? If there is a grass on this land today, I won't beat you to death."

The second son Zhang Zhong saw Taoist Luo be lazy, picked up a piece of earth and threw it over, and warned.

Hearing that he was about to beat himself, Taoist Luo reflexively held a hoe and worked hard to weed.

Taoist Luo knew that Zhang Zhong was not joking, and he really beat him to death. Just yesterday afternoon, he saw an old man beaten by him.

"No, if you continue like this, you will either be exhausted or beaten to death. You must find a way to escape from the sea of ​​suffering, at least you won't have to suffer anymore."

Taoist Luo worked hard to weed while secretly planning.

As night fell, Zhang Rui and his family were having dinner in the thatched hut.

At this time, Taoist Luo, who was squatting at the door, suddenly stood up and took a step to kneel in front of Zhang Rui.

"Greetings, Your Majesty!"

His Majesty made the father and son almost fall into a bowl with his mouth.

It is because the word Your Majesty is exclusive to the Emperor. Once ordinary people use it, the whole family will be killed.

Then, Zhang Zhong kicked Taoist Luo in the chest and cursed angrily: "You old killer, you are deliberately trying to die for us father and son!"

Zhang Zhong's kick was very heavy, which almost made Taoist Luo feel relieved. He only explained when he was a little better.

"I'm unfair. The old Taoist watched the star constellation at night and found that the Emperor's star was in the sky. Combined with His Majesty's face, it was the emperor's appearance, so he called His Majesty."

"How do you know that my father is an emperor? Is there any evidence?"

The third brother Zhang Ji was half-believing and half-doubting.

"It's done!" Taoist Luo said secretly happily when he saw someone hooking him.

As long as someone is willing to ask themselves, Taoist Luo can fool them.

"Everyone, come out and see that star. It is the Emperor Star and His Majesty's natal star."

Taoist Luo casually pointed at a shiny star and said serious nonsense.

Zhang Rui and his son walked out the door and looked up at the starry sky. Sure enough, they saw that one was brighter than other stars.

"Dad, this old guy is right. You are indeed the emperor's face." Zhang Zhong had completely believed it.

Not to mention it, after listening to his words, Zhang Ruiyue felt that he was an emperor.

Alas! It’s so sad! Zhang Rui, who has lived in a small countryside for decades, has never seen the world, but has been fooled by a half-baked Taoist priest.

On the contrary, this is also the Xinyun of Taoist Luo. If he hadn't discovered that the villagers were afraid of the Zhang family's father and son, he would have thought of this method.

Speaking of this, I have to talk about Zhang Rui, the ungrateful ungrateful wolf.

This guy relied on his two sons to be tall and strong, bullied the villagers, robbed the land, etc. In short, he did everything he wanted.

So much so that the villagers who raised Zhang Rui's intestines were all dark and they regretted that they could not slap themselves in the face every day.

Let’s not talk about it, this ungrateful guy is discussing with his family and Taoist Luo’s preparations for becoming emperor.

On the sixth day of the sixth month, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the whole village was 70 people, and Zhang Zhong and his second-rate men forced them to go outside the village to pay homage to Zhang Rui.

On that day, Zhang Rui faced seventy people and announced that he had become emperor.

According to the country and year names chosen by Taoist Luo, they were Wei and Jianwu.

(End of this chapter)
Chapter completed!