543 Su Zhes Choice (1/2)
Gaia 2nd year, 12th month, 2nd day, Tianjing City.
This was Ouyang Shuo's third day here, and the atmosphere within the city had changed entirely.
The site of the king's palace was bustling with activity. The precious materials that were torn down were stacked up on the square in front of the palace like mountains.
On the square, batch after batch of procurators appeared.
Even merchants from Xunzhou Prefecture and Zhen An Prefecture had rushed over to Tianjing City to take part in this auction.
When Ouyang Shuo heard this news, he immediately ordered the Business Division to choose some of Hong Xiuquan's personal items from the ten carriages of precious items for the auction.
”Remember, purposely choose all those secretive but not too valuable products for the auction.”
Ouyang Shuo reminded the official from the Business Division.
”Yes, my Lord!”
”Also, make the starting bids higher and advertise more.”
”Yes, my Lord!”
The Business Division official carefully accepted the task, while wiping off some cold sweat. He had a completely new understanding of the Lord’s meticulous planning and great schemes.
Of course, Cui Yingyu would just call him greedy and black-hearted. However, this person was just a basic level official from the Business Division. Naturally, he would not dare to voice such words.
On the other side, the barracks situated at the west of the city was also exceedingly busy. One hundred thousand Taiping Army troops were using the time to pack up for their journey tomorrow to their respective areas.
As for the hidden currents in the military, after Ouyang Shuo threw out the bait, the situation calmed down.
The only exception would be last night when the city protection force general Lin Qirong actually got dead drunk in a restaurant. After which, he even went to a brothel.
As he was drunk, he ‘accidentally’ fell into a river and died. Only during the next morning did the road cleaner find his body floating on the river. The road cleaner immediately reported the matter.
The government office ascertained that he had died from drowning and excluded the possibility of him murder.
This matter was left just like that.
When Ceng Tianyang heard the news, he felt that something was suspicious, but there was no way he could confirm his doubts. After all, Lin Qirong did like drinking and based on his subordinates’ words, they did drink together with him last night.
After they left, Lin Qirong had separated from his subordinates and left alone. The next they heard of him, they learned that he had drowned.
In the end, Ceng Tianyang could only say that this matter was a total coincidence.
”Preposterous!”
Ceng Tianyang was furious at Lin Qirong’s uselessness.
Seeing a huge matter ahead of them, losing a valuable ally would obviously leave Ceng Tianyang angry. What made matters worse was that last night, he had once again tried to probe Shi Zhenji's position.
This time, Shi Zhenji had actually rejected him outright, catching Ceng Tianyang utterly off guard.
”Ungrateful idiot!”
From Ceng Tianyang's point of view, Shi Zhenji's refusal was a betrayal toward the old king.
As Ceng Tianyang cursed out at Shi Zhenji, he also started to feel an added layer of worry about the Lord. Just a simple meeting had changed the viewpoint of Shi Zhenji.
”Unfortunately, I have no way out, and I need to repay the king for his kindness.”
Ceng Tianyang was alone in the room, sighing out loud. He looked unusually lonely.
Probably every bad person had a past that no one knew about. Thinking about it, from another viewpoint, wasn’t Ceng Tianyang the most loyal minister of Hong Xiuquan?
One's evaluation of others would often reach an extreme for people standing on different sides.
Lin Fengxiang Residence, Ouyang Shuo's reading room.
After dealing with the two problems regarding the king's palace and the Taiping Army, Ouyang Shuo finally had time to meet the officials in the city.
Amongst which, the one he paid the most attention to was Su Zhe.
Compared to his bold brother Su Shi, Su Zhe was more calm and composed. This personality trait allowed him to walk further than his brother.
Of course, at the core, the two of them were similar.
Su Shi had once commented on his brother like this.
”Zi You is a really humble servant. If one does not know him, they would think that he has no ability. His skills are so good, but he does not want others to know about it. He is a simple person that does not like to show off.”
From this, one could see Su Zhe’s low profile nature.
Su Zhe's education and thinking were greatly influenced by his brother and father, and he was exceedingly good at political and history theory. It was because of this specialty that the then prime minister Wang An Shi chose him. At that time, Wang An Shi was hell-bent on pushing through reforms and moved to the division of regulations.
Su Zhe absolutely opposed the reforms that Wang An Shi suggested. Unfortunately, the ambitious Wang An Shi did not agree with his words, so they ended up on opposite ends of the revolution.
Not long after, because of his differing opinions, he was chased out of the city, and his career was affected.
After Song Shenzong fell, Song Zhezong inherited the throne. However, he was too young, so his queen mother Xuanren made the political decisions for him and removed the new reforms Wang An Shi had pushed out. Only then did Su Zhe start to be favored. In the end, he became prime minister.