Qian Long, the deaf old dog, felt his worldview collapse.
Even setting aside intelligence organizations like the Sticky Pole Bureau and Ladakh, Qian Long had always considered himself wise and powerful, capable of manipulating his ministers at will.
Yet, reality had delivered him a resounding slap in the face.
Eggs cost three wen apiece in the world, but his own cost ten taels of silver each.
Qian Long remembered clearly that when Grand Secretary Wang Yutun had an audience, he had asked Wang Yutun what he ate daily. Wang Yutun had said his family was poor and he ate four eggs every morning. Qian Long had been curious then, and Wang Yutun had explained that he ate good eggs, so ten taels each was normal, while he ate rotten eggs, which was why they only cost three wen.
Recalling that moment, Qian Long turned his gaze to Zhang Dequan and roared, "It must have been you dog slaves from the Eastern Depot who deliberately withheld the reports from the Sticky Pole Bureau!"
Zhang Dequan chuckled and replied, "Then you are truly mistaken. Those who withheld these reports were Agui, Fuheng, Ertai, Mingrui, Zhaohui, and Hailancha. It was these men, and it has nothing to do with us in the Eastern Depot."
Qian Long was instantly plunged into despair.
Every single name Zhang Dequan mentioned was a Grand Minister of the Imperial Guard during Qian Long's reign, and all had led the Sticky Pole Bureau.
This meant that precisely these men, whom he trusted the most, had colluded to fool him on the price of eggs.
So, he had been played by the ministers of the Great Qing?
Zhu Jinsong took the opportunity to add another blow to Qian Long: "You know Emperor Longqing, right? He wanted to eat fruit tarts, and the Guanglu Temple quoted fifty taels of silver. But he knew you could buy a large box for five wen. How come you didn't know an egg cost three wen?"
Old Man Zhao chimed in with another jab: "Your Majesty, we all used to think the emperor farmed with a golden hoe and the empress could make scallion pancakes every day. That's ignorance. I suppose Qian Long is the same."
Speaking of which, Old Man Zhao scratched his head. "But it shouldn't be. If we are ignorant, it's because we haven't seen the emperor and empress, and don't know how they live. But Qian Long went south six times, how could he not have seen chickens and eggs?"
Zhu Jinsong nodded with a smile and then had Zhang Dequan get an egg for Qian Long. "Give it to him as a reward. Remember to put it on my account. I'm not so stingy as to begrudge three wen for an egg."
Old Man Zhao also unceremoniously added another remark: "Your Majesty, however many eggs you, the Empress, and the Noble Consort eat, that's all on me. But if you're giving an egg to Qian Long, that should be your expense."
And Zhang Dequan, the head of the Eastern Depot and the predetermined next Director, was indeed no good fellow.
Upon receiving Zhu Jinsong's order, Zhang Dequan picked out a smaller egg from the table and casually tossed it at Qian Long's feet, calling out, "Here! Eat!"
After tossing it, Zhang Dequan held Zhao Laohan's young grandson and said with a smile, "Remember this, a true man has dignity. Even if he starves to death, he shouldn't eat thrown food. If someone throws something at you like this, you beat him!"
Qian Long's face grew even gloomier, looking three parts worse than dog feces.
He had a mind to eat the egg, but felt a bit too proud to stoop so low.
Especially with Zhang Dequan, that dog slave, constantly talking about "thrown food."
He had a mind to not eat the egg, yet his mouth watered with desire.
He had been eating like a pig lately and had long forgotten the taste of eggs!
Qian Long finally crouched down in humiliation, picked up the egg with great effort, peeled it, and stuffed it into his mouth.
Zhang Dequan seized the opportunity to lecture Zhao Laohan's grandson: "See how he's like a dog? Actually, when he bullied us Han people, he was even more excessive than this.
"You must remember, if you don't want your descendants to be like him, you must study hard, practice martial arts diligently, serve His Majesty, serve the Great Ming, and make our Great Ming stronger so that we don't get bullied. Do you understand?"
Zhao Laohan's grandson was only ten or so, and he only half-understood what Zhang Dequan was saying, nodding his head.
Qian Long, after swallowing the egg, glared at Zhu Jinsong and shouted, "Killing is just beheading; if you want to kill me, just kill me. Why do you have to humiliate me like this? How do you know that your today won't be my tomorrow?"
Zhu Jinsong let out a cold laugh and looked at Qian Long, saying, "Humiliate you? You are worthy?"
"You don't need to feel humiliated. Since your Jurchen people entered the pass, Yangzhou, Jiangyin, Datong, Jinan, Guangdong – the people massacred by your kind, and the people who died because Emperor Kangxi moved the boundaries and banned the sea, those who starved because your Jurchen people enclosed land for horse grazing – they didn't even have the chance to eat such thrown food.
"As for whether your today will become my tomorrow? Let me tell you, I never worry about that. Although I dare not say that no one will rebel against me, as long as I don't cling to life like you, no one can humiliate me."
Qian Long snorted again and then ignored Zhu Jinsong. Zhu Jinsong also stopped paying attention to Qian Long and continued to eat, drink, and shoot the breeze with Zhao Laohan and others.
How fragrant were the free-range roosters and hens raised for two years on the farm? The meat had a good chew. For such chicken, not much seasoning was needed; just enough salt, and one bite would be dripping with oil.
Soon, other villagers brought food as well – some pork, some chicken, some fish, a large assortment of poultry, fish, and meat, but no vegetables.
Qian Long looked down on the food brought by these country bumpkins – all rich meats. Who could consume so much continuously?
Zhu Jinsong, however, was only touched.
For these common people, chicken, duck, fish, and meat were good things. If you told them that eating too much meat would make them feel greasy, they would spit in your face.
Looking at the small mountain of poultry, fish, and meat piled on the table, Zhu Jinsong couldn't help but feel a bit troubled.
After thinking for a moment, Zhu Jinsong said to Old Man Zhao, "Old sir, why don't we eat at home? Let's move all the dishes outside, and everyone bring out their tables, and we can all eat together?"
The result was that a meal turned into a grand banquet, and all the food, tables, benches, bowls, and chopsticks for this banquet were from the villagers' homes. Zhu Jinsong, the initiator, only provided a few mouths to eat.
Qian Long, on the other hand, was extremely tempted.
At such a grand banquet, there were all sorts of dishes. The mixed aromas of various dishes did not seem chaotic, but instead wove into a particularly enticing fragrance.
Even Qian Long, who was accustomed to delicacies, was enticed by this aroma, his appetite whetted.
Of course, Qian Long could only watch this grand banquet and drool. No one would invite Qian Long to sit at the table – these villagers who had migrated from Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi to Zhili were mostly the same people who had been driven out of Zhili before. How many of them didn't hate Qian Long?
Zhu Jinsong didn't care whether Qian Long was hungry or not. Anyway, the leftover scraps after eating would be enough to fill Qian Long's stomach.
What Zhu Jinsong cared about was the food on the table.
Besides the rich meats, the vegetables brought out by the villagers were also seasoned with salt and oil. This was what Zhu Jinsong valued most.
Rich meats could be faked, but these vegetables that the villagers originally prepared for themselves could not be faked. Enough oil and salt meant enough oil and salt, which best reflected the actual living standards of the people.
This was precisely why Zhu Jinsong traveled slowly, stopping from time to time to pass through cities and villages.
Besides deliberately punishing Qian Long, Zhu Jinsong also wanted to personally witness the lives of the people of the Great Ming.
Even with the cross-supervision of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Eastern Depot, the Heaven and Earth Society, the Censorate, and the Supervision Office, Zhu Jinsong would not completely trust paper data.
The officials of the Great Ming were absolutely no better than the officials of the Great Qing. They were all unmanageable rascals, and Zhu Jinsong never expected the officials of the Great Ming to have high awareness.
Fortunately, Zhu Jinsong's never-relenting attitude had somewhat deterred some of the restless officials. Although corruption had not been completely eradicated, the blatant misappropriation had decreased significantly. At the very least, they dared not reach out openly anymore.
As for whether the journey was all an act...
If anyone could trick all the people in the world into acting together and still keep it from Zhu Jinsong, then Zhu Jinsong, as the Emperor of the Great Ming, might as well abdicate and give way to Qian Long.
Zhu Jinsong even made a special trip to Tianjin, intending to take a train from Tianjin Station to Shuntian Prefecture.
Tianjin Station was definitely a major station. Six steam locomotives passed through Tianjin Station every day. Among them were trains transporting vegetables and fruits from the Central Plains to the grasslands, trains transporting cattle and sheep from the grasslands to the Central Plains, and trains carrying a large amount of goods that needed to be transferred through Tianjin Port.
The "Son of Heaven" special train that Zhu Jinsong was to take was the Great Ming's first steam locomotive specifically for carrying passengers.
The speed of the "Son of Heaven" was not very fast, barely reaching thirty kilometers per hour, and the ride experience was not very good. Let alone comparing it to high-speed rail where a coin could stand upright, it was even far behind the old green-skinned trains of the 1980s. The journey from Tianjin to Shuntian Prefecture took several hours, and Zhu Jinsong swayed all the way, listening to the clatter between the wheels and the rails.
Qian Long mocked this greatly: "Is this the steam locomotive you boasted about? Isn't the imperial carriage more stable than this thing? As expected, a wild boar can't eat fine grains!"
Zhu Jinsong was amused and angry.
Not stable? Noisy?
Without steam locomotives, where would later internal combustion engines and electric locomotives come from? Without steam locomotives, which were as slow as old oxen, where would high-speed rail at four hundred kilometers per hour come from?
Zhu Jinsong said with a cold smile, "Although the current steam locomotives are not fast, nor stable, and are noisy, as long as I am willing to wait, these things can always be improved, and there will be a day when they are stable, quiet, and fast.
"I'm afraid it's like your Jurchen people in everything – hoarding all good things. In the 'Illustrated Treatise on Military Weapons' written by Bi Maokang in the eighth year of Chongzhen, it says that what the barbarians and foreigners fear most about us is firearms. But your Jurchen people, despite picking up such a big bargain and taking control of the Central Plains, then rejected firearms and reverted to archery and horsemanship for fear of the Han.
"Can't you, a simpleton, think properly? If your Jurchen people had valued firearms, how much would firearms have advanced in these 150 years? Even if I had wanted to raise a rebellion, would it have been so easy?
"You simpleton, you have the audacity to say I'm a wild boar that can't eat fine grains? In my opinion, you Jurchen people are like Koreans, wild boars who can never eat fine grains in this life!"
Qian Long was rendered speechless by Zhu Jinsong's scolding, while Zhu Jinsong lost any desire to play with Qian Long anymore.
He had been amusing himself all the way, and they had reached Shuntian Prefecture. Qian Long was of no use anymore.
No, it couldn't be said that he was of absolutely no use.