Chapter 1: Just a Thief
Everyone looked at Zhao Bing and felt a bad feeling. They were worried that he would say something inappropriate. But without waiting for them to advise, they saw the emperor picking up the wine glass and drinking another glass, and humming with chopsticks, "Everyone said it's good to be an emperor, but the emperor was also worried. The prime minister couldn't sleep well, and it was even more difficult to choose officials. If the officials were not selected well, corruption would not be cured. The most fear of local rebellion, the wealth and life would be difficult to protect..."
The emperor's singing was humorous and full of misery. Everyone was stunned when they heard it. Wang De wanted to pour wine for His Majesty, but he pushed it away. He grabbed the wine pot and drank it all. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of the robe, and then sang:
"Wearing this dragon robe and sitting on this imperial sedan chair, I can't finish reading the endless memorials. I want to pay my respects to the imperial court. I have to report everything, and I have to report it in everything. Is it too complicated and polite and humble. The beacon outside the palace is burning, the palace is messed up, and the court affairs are busy and uneasy. All loyalty and treacherous are justified. Who is reliable? How to tell the truth or falsehood, right or wrong?"
"No one knows my troubles. There are three thousand beauties, but no one is in love with them; civil and military officials are intriguing and fighting. They only envy the people and laugh when they want to! My troubles are endless. It is better to wander around the world and beauties. It is not important to be a common man. It is as proud as being a common man..."
Listening to Your Majesty's slang tunes, the few were frightened, but they didn't know how to persuade each other. After the singing stopped, Zhao Mengjin, Chen Renweng, and Chen Shishi, Ni Liang and the two concubines all hurriedly stood up to tribute, "Your Majesty, I am incompetent, and I cannot share your worries!" Wang De quickly waved his hand to let the eunuch in the hall retreat.
"You are also tired of the statement, and you are not much better than me!" Zhao Bing stood up and laughed.
"Your Majesty is drunk!" Wang De quickly supported the emperor and said.
"I am drunk. I have forgotten where I come from and have forgotten where I am back. I don't know where I will go?" Zhao Bing put his arm around Wang De's neck and threw the wine pot into the tunnel.
"Your Majesty..." Wu Xi frowned slightly, trying to persuade him.
"Empress, if I abandon this throne and give up this country, would you be willing to follow me?" Zhao Bing turned his face to look at Wu Xi. Seeing that he was hesitant, he smiled and said, "You can't bear to leave, you can't bear to leave this lofty throne, you can't abandon this vast wealth, you can't let go of the rich clothes and food!"
"If Your Majesty is the emperor, I would like to follow Your Majesty to retreat to the people, wander around the world, and see the vast world!" Chen Shu said politely.
"Okay, I will go out to sea with you in the future and travel around the world to see the extreme of that world!" Zhao Bing patted her hand and nodded and smiled.
"Please be careful with your words, Empress!" Chen Renweng bowed to his daughter, but his eyes became sharp.
"Your Majesty, we have not yet recovered the Central Plains, and we will chase the Tartars away!" Ni Liang said with a muffled voice beside him.
"Do you know what we thought about when we first met?" Zhao Bing patted Ni Liang's shoulder, shook his head and said, "At that time, I had just fled from Quanzhou and was separated from the gang of people on the way. But I was chased by the iron cavalry of Sodu again. The little yellow gates that were accompanying him were shot to death one by one, and the sedan chair was knocked over by the enemy's war horses. Then I thought about it that I would die here today!"
"But God has eyes. You and the brave men of the country came to protect the enemy, but they were outnumbered. Ni Wuju led the people to fight to the death. You carried me to kill the enemy group and escaped from the sky. What I thought was that it was great to live!" Zhao Bing poured a glass of wine for Ni Liang, and he drank it all in one go. "Two days later, I met the large group of people I found and fled from Quanzhou by boat. But when the docking supply was made, I met the bastard Chen Yizhong. He took private revenge and tricked you into the epidemic ship, trying to kill you!"
"If Your Majesty hadn't been on the plague ship to look for me regardless of life and death, I might have thrown my body into the vast sea!" Ni Liang said with a simple smile.
"After getting on the epidemic boat, I had food and drink. I just wanted to drift like this. Finally, I avoided the pursuit of the Tartars. If I float overseas, I could at least save my life!" Zhao Bing chuckled.
"Your Majesty was so small at that time that he couldn't even climb up a chair, so he had to carry it up. But Your Majesty not only cured Liu Xiang and the brave men of the ship, but also introduced the enemy ships chasing us into the reef, stranded them and saved everyone's lives. I thought Your Majesty must be a god in the sky, otherwise how could he predict the storm and wipe out the Tartars without taking a single arrow!" Ni Liang scratched his scalp and laughed.
"Your Majesty killed the Tartars with his mouth and saved thousands of people. At that time, I and everyone thought that Your Majesty must be the true dragon emperor, and could control ghosts and gods to call the wind and rain, and then gave the seized gold and silver rewards to the army, so I made up my mind to follow Your Majesty!" Zhao Mengjin interrupted at this time.
"Haha, I saw so much gold and silver at that time. I thought that with this money, I could find a place to be a rich man. If I took it myself, I was afraid that you would be greedy for gold and silver to kill me, so I felt so distressed when I was sharing the money!" Zhao Bing said with a dry smile.
"How dare I, but I don't know that I was scaring His Majesty at that time!" Zhao Mengjin also smiled.
"But when you swear to follow me, I think that although we are scattered soldiers, there are people on the boat. If you can't find the brigade, you can do the pirates that have no capital transactions!" Zhao Bing sighed, "It's a pity that we met the Xingchao fleet again and were searched by them!"
"With Your Majesty's great talent and strategy, even if you become a pirate for less than a few years, you will be able to travel all over the world. We will make a fortune as well!" Zhao Mengjin smiled and poured his Majesty a glass of wine.
"Yes, I think so too. In less than a few years, we can become the biggest pirates, grab money, grab goods, and grab women. We lived a free and easy life that day, which was the life of a god!" Zhao Bing and Zhao Mengjin clashed with him, drank a glass of wine and said.
"No, you went to the sea to live that free life and refused to regain Guangzhou. How could I meet Your Majesty?" Chen Shu was unwilling to accept it and grabbed the emperor's clothes and said, as if he would abandon himself immediately.
"Haha, fighting Guangzhou is actually helpless. It has nothing to do with regaining lost land and saving the people. I am really too poor to survive. I heard that Guangzhou's wealthy people had to pluck up the courage to scratch the ground so that they could support their ten thousand men!" Zhao Bing said with helpless eyes.
"This..." His Majesty's statement was very different from the rumors outside, which was enough to shock people. Wu Xi couldn't believe it.
"The Empress Dowager doesn't know that when His Majesty arrived in Jiazi Town, the court only allocated some old grain and some waste paper banknotes. We could only use moldy rice and dried fish to fill our hunger every day, and this could only last for a few days." Wang De couldn't help but sigh when he recalled the first time he arrived at His Majesty, "There is food that is the king. If there is no food, it will run away in a blink of an eye. His Majesty has to worry about the food every day. Later, His Majesty handed over the Empress Dowager's reward and all the savings in the mansion to the owner of the mansion to go to Guangzhou to raise grain, so that everyone can eat a full meal!"
"Even so, Zhang Shijie wanted to steal our food at that time. He was powerful at that time and did not take His Majesty seriously at all. But in the end, His Majesty personally led his troops to protect the food and did not let him take it away. However, since then, he became accused of his Majesty and made things difficult for the incident." Zhao Mengjin said with hatred, "But His Majesty endured it for the sake of the overall situation and appointed him as the Grand Marshal and the Supreme Minister!"
"Oh, it's all because of the money!" Zhao Bing shook his head and smiled bitterly, turning his face to Ni Liang and Wang Dedao, "Do you still remember the night visit we visited in Guangzhou?"
"Of course, we found thousands of taels of gold and silver from Zhao Ruogang's mansion and secretly transported it to the imperial ship. Ying Xiang and others found that Your Majesty had secretly left the mansion. If Your Majesty had not hidden it, they would have seen it!" Ni Liang did not say anything, obviously still keeping the secret of that year, so Wang De could only respond.
"Where did Your Majesty hide the gold and silver, so that he was not discovered by the respondent?" Chen Shu asked curiously.
"Impossible? I personally led my troops to search Zhao Ruogang's mansion back then. He had already escaped before the city was broken, but he dug three feet into the ground. Even the water in the pond was dry, and only a few hundred taels of scattered silver were found. How could there be so much!" Zhao Mengjin said incredibly.
"Your Highness Xiu is also fortunate that you didn't find it, otherwise we wouldn't have made that fortune!" Wang De laughed, "Zhao Ruogang's dog thief was also extremely cunning. He cast the plundered gold into four-piece lotus jars, and the outside was plated with copper; and the silver was built in the screen wall, and was discovered by His Majesty. Then he remolded the gold and silver into gold bricks and silver bricks overnight, and then spread it under the bed of the imperial boat's bedroom!"
"Empress, when we go back to the palace, we must first check His Majesty's bed to see if there is still gold and silver hidden!" Chen Shu listened and teased Wu Xi.
"That money has been spent long ago. It is precisely because of the money stolen from Guangzhou that the General's Mansion has gained a foothold in Qiongzhou!" Zhao Bing chuckled, "In fact, I am still doing robbers as the emperor. In order to stabilize the court and support more than 100,000 people, I rob Quanzhou, confiscated Pu Shougen's family, destroyed his entire family, and killed thousands of people!"
"At that time, I still thought that as long as I stabilized the dynasty and had my own territory, I could collect taxes and support officials and troops. However, Qiongzhou was too poor and I could not fill my family's foundation. I could only fight back to Jiangnan. I also thought that the territory was large and the resources were extremely rich. I no longer had to worry about money. Who would have thought that it would be a bottomless pit. I saved money to throw it in tens of millions of taels of silver every year, and I couldn't even hear a sound."
"This is Your Majesty's holy virtue. He is considering the people and the country, but he has only made himself suffer!" Chen Renweng said sincerely.
"Although the court's finances have improved at present, they are still not enough to spend. They can only rob the Central Plains again. Speaking of which, I am just the biggest robber on this land, you two are thieves!" Zhao Bing sighed and pointed at his two wives and smiled.
"Your Majesty, you are drunk, I will help you rest!" Wu Xi said in a daze when she heard this.
"No, I just think this emperor is too tired, too frustrated, and a little annoyed. I don't want to do it anymore. I want to go back, and I just stay on the boat for the rest of my life and never do this boring and laborious emperor!" Zhao Bing said.
"Your Majesty, it's the Mid-Autumn Festival. Don't discourage everyone's interest!" Wu Xi advised helplessly.
Chapter completed!