Chapter 14 Visiting Friends in the Rain (II)
Rain, kept falling, a few umbrellas in the pedestrians in the alley opened like a few poor flowers.
Fan Xian smiled as he glanced at this reckless young man, realizing that the other party had already gotten a large portion of his body wet, so he didn’t say anything; if the other party was truly an outlaw, in that earlier moment, Fan Xian had at least five ways to immediately incapacitate the other party.
Obviously, this was just a poor scholar who had bought a roast chicken to make up a banquet. So Fan Xian did not stop and walked forward with his umbrella raised. The young man who squeezed into the umbrella was also elegant, and without saying a word, he stood on Fan Xian’s right, using his umbrella to block the sky above his head, and followed him forward with a calm demeanor.
As Fan Xian took dozens of steps under the same umbrella, he realized more and more that this young man’s temperament was a bit cute. If he were an ordinary scholar, where would he have ventured under someone else’s umbrella like this, and he took dozens of steps in silence, but he didn’t have a trace of an uncomfortable look on his face. So he slightly inclined his head, carefully measured some, found that this young man looks is ordinary, just a two smear eyebrow is extremely thick, as if someone with a brush thickly painted a line like.
Fujiko Kyoto followed two steps behind.
The two under the umbrella were still walking in silence, not knowing if they were competing for patience or what, but finally, Fan Xian smiled and asked, “Earlier I said it was not right, I wonder where it is wrong.”
Seeing the owner of the umbrella speak, the young scholar smiled politely and said, “If an official is greedy, he naturally won’t put his heart into politics, so if you want a corrupt official to be capable, I’m afraid that’s a ridiculous thing in itself.”
Fan Xian laughed and realized that the umbrella could not accommodate two people, and the right shoulder of the young scholar beside him was already wet, so he quietly moved the umbrella that way and responded, “Even if a corrupt official is negligent in political affairs, it’s still better than someone who can’t do anything after becoming an official and then messing around.”
The young scholar raised an eyebrow, seeming somewhat puzzled, “As long as one is willing to do something, it’s better than neglecting political affairs.”
Fan Xian’s grip on the handle of his umbrella tightened as he shook his head, “A riverbank will probably break every few years if it is not repaired. If a clean official who doesn’t know how to work on the river is fixing the embankment blindly for a while, it might break several times a year, so do you think the people who live along the river are hoping that the county governor will be an incompetent and diligent clean official or an incompetent and lazy corrupt official?”
The young scholar was speechless for a moment, and after a long time, he laughed and said: “This is also a special case, there are always some things that must be done by a parental official, such as measuring fields and distributing food, eliminating disasters to help the people, and deciding lawsuits and prisons. If it is a lazy official, I’m afraid the rule will be in chaos.”
Fan Xian laughed and said, “So the key lies in ability, not yet in cleanliness or greed.”
In fact, this view of his was not necessarily correct, but he was still influenced by those official novels in his previous life, but this kind of argument was quite fresh in the folklore of Qing. The young scholar who shared the umbrella with him could not help but be interested and asked, “If an official is capable but very corrupt, does the court just let him go?”
Somehow, when Fan Xian heard him say this, he remembered his old husband, the famous treacherous minister Lin Ruofu, who was known to the world as a corrupt official, but his majesty knew that he was capable and had been appointed until now, and then he thought about the question asked by this young scholar, and said with a shake of his head, “The governance of the government is a difficult and complicated matter, and there is no simple and effective method. However, if you only ask the court supervision, self-cultivation, the luxury of the officialdom above a clear, unavoidable some whimsical.”
“If the court strengthens its supervision, can’t it combat corruption?” The young scholar frowned, his thick eyebrows like rafters squeezing into a pile, “Let’s say that the Minister of Rites, Guo Youzhi, has already been imprisoned today, if the Supervisory Yuan had also been in general on this occasion in previous years, how could the atmosphere of the imperial court have been corrupted into what it is today.”
Fan Xian actually has no high opinion in politics, but in his bones there is some talk that is not afraid of misleading the country, and with interest, he took the next words: “If the president of the Supervisory Yuan, Mr. Chen, paid a bribe to Guo Youzhi to let his son and nephews be admitted into the first class, who do you think is going to supervise this matter?”
The young scholar said in disbelief, “Naturally, there’s still His Majesty, whose eyes are as sharp as lightning.”
Fan Xian was even more dismissive, saying, “How can it be so easy to rule the world with one person?” In fact, he knew clearly that the emperor must still have secret means to check and balance the sole Supervisory Yuan, and such means might even include his father’s power that had never been revealed, but some youthful political concepts in his previous life had made Fan Xian a bit scornful of this kind of work of the emperor, and he had never thought that the son of heaven, who regarded the whole world as a bowl of fat meat, would have that kind of spirit, and have that kind of leisure to pay attention to all the injustices on the official scene. The
Talking casually, under the umbrella, the two of them came to the outside of an inn, and the young scholar said with a gentle smile, “Thank you for the gift of half an umbrella, I have arrived.”
Fan Xian sidestepped the umbrella and glanced at the name of the store on the inn, realizing what a coincidence that it was actually the same place he was looking for, he smiled and said, “I’ll go in with you, I’m going to look for someone at the inn.”
The name of the inn was very vulgar and blessedly popular – Tong Fu Inn.
When he entered the inn with the young scholar, he learned that the other party was called Shi Yanli, and was also a veteran student who had entered the capital this time. It was just that Fan Xian was not at liberty to give his name at this time, so he just told the other party that his surname was Fan.
“Who is Mr. Fan looking for?” Shi Hanyanli realized that the other party must be the son of a powerful nobleman from the clothes on this gentleman, so he didn’t speak as unconstrained as he did under the umbrella earlier, but was more reserved, “I’m here to visit a friend, so it’s inconvenient to talk too much, so we’ll see each other again in the future if we have the chance.”
After he finished saying this, he bowed to Fan Xian and headed to the corner of the front hall of the inn. There was a wine table there, beside the table there were two student-like people fighting over wine, next to them there was a person who was already drunk and didn’t know what he was doing, sleeping on the table, looking at the table these people didn’t have any dishes on top of the table, it seemed that they were waiting for Shi Elanli’s roasted chicken.
Fan Xian’s eyes narrowed, and he saw clearly that the drunken man on the table was Yang Wanli, whom he was going to visit, and with a slight smile, he followed Shi Hanyan to the table.
Shi Hanyan Li did not know that he was still following him, put the oil paper wrapped roasted chicken on the table, and laughed and scolded at the two people who had stopped the wine fight: “Good you Hou Jichang, shouting at me to send food, but not to leave some wine for me.”
Hou Jichang laughed: “I this wine is also only earlier in the alleyway to call the bad wine, although the taste is not good, but the amount is sufficient, to introduce you, this is the Shandong Road, the talented Cheng Jialin.” He just put his hand in the direction of Cheng Jialin, but he was shocked to find that Shi Yanli’s back stood a smiling, clean-cut gentleman, but this gentleman also seems to look a little familiar.
“Brother Shi, who is this?” Hou Jichang asked suspiciously.
Shi Yanli was stunned and turned around only to realize that Fan Xian had actually followed him to this wine table, and said with a bitter smile, “Mr. Fan, just borrowing half a piece of umbrella, it’s not so bad that you have to charge money for hiding from the rain.”
Fan Xian could see that the other party seemed a bit scornful of himself, thinking that he had guessed that he came from a wealthy family and didn’t dare to get too close. So he smiled and said, “I don’t dare to collect money, but I just have a craving for the roasted chicken brought by Mr. Shi.”
Shi Yanli said hopelessly, “Isn’t Mr. Fan here to look for someone?”
“I’ve been looking for him, but I’ve found him with no effort at all.” Fan Xian smiled and said, when he first met the holy face on the banks of the Liujing River, he had put down these two words, and the result was no reaction at all, but today, when he used them on these readers, as expected, Hou Jichang and the others immediately understood what it meant, and were greatly amused, and asked, “Is Mr. Fan actually here to look for us?”
Fan Xian pointed to the drunken Yang Wanli and said, “I have an old relationship with Mr. Yang, so I came to pay a special visit today.”
Hou Jichang laughed, “I’ve never heard that Wanli has such a magnificent friend in the capital, come, come, come, Duke Fan, please sit down, light wine and roasted chicken, if you don’t mind.” Shi Yanli originally had some like Fan Xian talk, at this time to see him since he is a friend of a friend, also no longer hold a frame, smile and let out the seat.
Over there, Cheng Jialin pushed Yang Wanli for half a day without waking him up, and smiled at Fan Xian. Fan Xian was curious about another matter, and bowed to Hou Jichang and said, “I wonder what this brother’s name is.”
“Hou Jichang.”
“Why does Mr. Hou assume that I am a magnificent gentleman?” Fan Xian couldn’t help but laugh at the word Ji Chang, and asked, “I think I was not born with a fat head and ears, and I see that I am a man who has nothing to do all day long.”
Hou Ji Chang smiled and apologized, said: “Prince of this clothing is worth a lot of silver, where is the average scholar can afford to wear. As for the word “luxurious”, it’s just that we’ve always been accustomed to joking around, please don’t mind.” At this time, he always felt that this gentleman looked familiar, but after drinking, he was a little blurry-eyed, so he couldn’t think of him.
“Where where.” Fan Xian smiled gently and sat down at the table. The readers were all free-spirited, so they didn’t care too much about having an unexpected guest, and Yang Wanli wouldn’t be able to wake up for a while anyway, so apart from Cheng Jialin who advised Fan Xian to drink a few cups, Hou Jichang and Shi Hanyanli spelled out the wine as if there was no one else around. When the wine was not enough and the intention was full, they began to sit down and discuss the Tao.
This was not an esoteric and mysterious way, but the way of the national economy and people’s livelihood. Fan Xian took a chicken leg on the side and slowly nibbled on it, while listening to the debate between the two with ears open, and found that Hou Jichang’s idea was a bit biased towards legalism, with a strong emphasis on the law, while Shi Hanyanli was a sensual character, with a strong emphasis on indoctrination.
But after all is said and done, the partial legalist does not insist on harshness, and the educationist does not insist on persuasion, but really two readers who see things very clearly. Occasionally, when they talked about the political affairs of the counties, they also analyzed them in detail and did not talk about them in general, and they did not put their eyes on the word “world” as the general scholars did, but they did not know that the word “world” was wider than the eyes of the majority of the people in the world.
The more Fan Xian listened, the more pleased he was. This Hou Jichang’s name was one of the objects of his own name, so it seemed that his own vision was really good, just that this Shi Yanli was gentle and spontaneous, so how come he didn’t have much of an impression in the examination center?
While he was feeling pleased with himself, he suddenly heard the mild-mannered Shi Yanli slapping the wine table and angrily rebuking, “All said and done, it’s all the fault of that little Lord Fan!”
Fan Xian was shocked.