I turned the cold palace into a paradise

Chapter 18 There are always more solutions than difficulties

early morning

The sky was just getting light, and the summer morning breeze, with a hint of heat, blew gently past the Golden Throne Hall.

The palace was brightly lit. Xiao Yinchen, wearing a gorgeous dragon robe, walked slowly and imposingly towards the dragon throne amid the kneeling ministers.

Sitting high up on the dragon throne and looking at the kneeling ministers, there was a hint of pride in his eyes. He really enjoyed the feeling of being superior.

"When there is something going on, we will start, and when there is nothing going on, we will retreat."

As soon as the chief eunuch Zhang finished speaking, Censor Ouyang stood up.

"I have a report to make, Your Majesty. Since the beginning of spring, there has been a severe drought in Qingzhou, Youzhou and Liangzhou in the north. The land is barren for thousands of miles, the sun is scorching in the sky, and there has not been a drop of rain for half a year. There is no crops for thousands of miles, and the fields are full of starving people! Now, civil unrest has begun to appear in Youzhou Lixian and other places. We must quickly send people to provide disaster relief and to prevent civilian unrest. Now Xixia is eyeing our Tianchen covetously, and Tianchen cannot be in chaos!" Censor Ouyang did not say that now people in Qingzhou and Youzhou are saying that the emperor is not worthy of his position, so there has been no rain since he ascended the throne.

Xiao Yinchen thought of the news brought by the secret guards a few days ago, and his face darkened: "My dear ministers, please tell me how to provide disaster relief? How much can the Ministry of Revenue give?"

"Your Majesty, there was a flood in the south last year, and we have been exempted from tax for two years. Now the treasury is empty, and we only have 500,000 taels available..." Minister Liu of the Ministry of Revenue stepped forward and said.

Xiao Yinchen knew that the late emperor had allocated several million taels for disaster relief when the south was hit by floods the year before last, but he didn't know that the national treasury was so empty now.

"Your Majesty! There were years of severe drought during the reign of the previous emperor, but there was never any civil unrest. This shows that the governor of Youzhou was derelict in his duty. I request that the governors of these two states be replaced first."

"I second the proposal."

"Your Majesty, this is impossible. In the face of a major disaster, no one is more familiar with the local situation than the local officials. If you rashly change people, it will only affect disaster relief."

"That's wrong..."

For a while, there was endless debate in the court, and the issue of how to provide disaster relief gradually turned into a party dispute, which lasted until the end of the morning court without any conclusion.

Xiao Yinchen left the court with a gloomy face and came to the secret room.

Seeing that his good brother seemed to be comfortable in his study, while he was facing so many troubles, he couldn't help but get angry: "It seems that my brother is quite comfortable here."

Xiao Yinmo glanced at him calmly and said, "Thanks to my royal brother."

Xiao Yinchen sneered: "Why not let Concubine Wang and the others enjoy the blessing as well?"

Xiao Yinmo tightened his grip on the book: "Just say whatever you want to say. Why bother threatening me with the imperial concubine?"

"Hmph, there was a severe drought in Qingzhou, Youzhou, and Liangzhou, and civil unrest broke out. Now the national treasury is empty, how can we provide disaster relief?" In fact, Xiao Yinchen was more concerned about the fact that the drought happened to start when he ascended the throne. If he didn't have a good plan, it would affect him.

How could Xiao Yinmo not know what he was thinking? His younger brother had always been a selfish person. He didn't care about the suffering people in those two states, but only about his own throne.

Xiao Yinmo pretended to be helpless and expressed his views and suggestions. After listening to him, Xiao Yinchen smiled and turned away.

Looking at Xiao Yinchen's hurriedly leaving back, Xiao Yinmo's mouth curled up a smile. He didn't want to help Xiao Yinchen, he just couldn't ignore the suffering people. Even if he was not the one sitting on the throne now, the people were still the people of the Xiao family. Besides, even if he helped him through this difficult time, his reputation would not necessarily improve.

On the other side, Yunyue was taking a rare nap when she heard crying outside. Yunyue quickly got up and went out. As soon as she walked out of the yard, she saw Huang Jiaojiao coming towards her crying, followed by other sisters. However, their faces all looked ugly, with anger, helplessness and sadness.

"what happened?"

"Yun Yue, the dog emperor wants us to die!" Huang Jiaojiao was covered with her mouth by Yu Xiyun beside her before she could finish her words.

"Shut up! If anyone hears this, your entire family will be buried with you!" Yu Xiyun said sternly.

Yun Yue's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that the dog emperor wanted everyone to be buried with the old emperor again? He hurriedly asked, "What happened?"

Li Wanhua was so angry that she said angrily, "Today we went to get food, but the eunuch who delivered the food only brought soup. He said that there was a severe drought in Qingzhou and Youzhou, and the palace had to reduce the rations. Everyone in the harem had to fast and pray for blessings. Our meals from now on will be soup. If you want to eat dry food, you have to pay for it yourself!"

"Guard Zhang and the others just said that the emperor has issued an order that no one is allowed to bring anything out of the palace. Everyone in the palace must pray together." They had earned a lot of money recently and could have lived a comfortable life, but who knew that the dog emperor's actions would send everyone back to hell.

Queen Dowager Wang kept silent with a stern face, and in her heart she despised Xiao Yinchen even more.

Ouyang Shu smiled grimly.

Liu Lu was even more worried about her daughter, fearing that her life would become increasingly difficult.

When Yunyue heard that he just had no food, she felt relieved.

"I thought it was a big deal, isn't it just food? There are always more solutions than problems." Not to mention that he had many solutions, the food that could be automatically refreshed in his space would not starve everyone to death. But that was his biggest trump card, and he would not reveal it until it was absolutely necessary.

Li Wanhua's eyes lit up: "Yunyue, do you have a solution?"

Yun Yue raised her eyebrows and smiled: "If he doesn't send it to us anymore, can't we just grow it ourselves?"

"But we don't know how to grow vegetables. Even if we did, we would have starved to death by the time they grew to be edible."

"Who said there's nothing to eat in this cold palace?"

"Bring your basins here in the afternoon and I'll take you to find something to eat." Seeing Yunyue's confident look and thinking that she could even make ice, everyone's panicked hearts calmed down a little.

Yun Yue sent a few people away, took the silver she had earned recently and came to the door of the cold palace. She whispered a few words to Chu Ren who was on duty, and left only after seeing Chu Ren nod.

In the afternoon, everyone who had been hungry for most of the day came to Yunyue's yard with basins. Yunyue carried a basket of grass roots that Li Wanhua had dug and walked towards the pond. Then she crushed the grass roots and collected half a basin of grass root liquid.

Then he scattered the bait into the water. Gradually, more and more fish came. Seeing this, Yunyue poured the grass root liquid in the basin into the water. After a while, the fish turned up their bellies and floated up from the bottom of the water.

A pair of beautiful eyes looked at Yunyue in disbelief.

"What are you standing there for? Get out of here!"

The beauties didn't care whether these were valuable royal ornamental fish. The dog emperor was starving them to death, so why would he care about this? Besides, who would take care of the pond in the cold palace? So they started to fish in a hurry.

The happiest person among them was Li Wanhua. Last time, she secretly grilled fish but hadn't eaten it yet when Yunyue suddenly appeared and forced her to throw the fish away reluctantly. This time, she must eat a few more.

Seeing that the fish were almost caught, Yunyue asked everyone to stop and began to instruct everyone to kill and clean the fish. However, this step stumped everyone.

"Ahhhhhh!!! I can't!"

"Yunyue, I don't dare!"

"This... I can't do it..."

Yunyue held her forehead with her hand. They couldn't even wash vegetables properly, so it would be really difficult for them to kill fish.

Fortunately, Li Wanhua, a super helper, volunteered to deal with all the fish. For a time, Li Wanhua received unprecedented praise, and she vowed to kill all the fish in the pond.

Afterwards, Yunyue brought the seasonings from the kitchen to teach everyone how to grill fish. Of course, these seasonings were basically from her own space.

After dinner, in order to give the sisters hope of survival, she took them for a walk in the cold palace.

"In addition to the fish in the pond, the lotus roots and lotus pods in the pond in autumn are also delicious."

"Look, the vegetables that Wanhua and I planted are growing well now."

"Don't think these are weeds. They are delicious wild vegetables. I'll cook them for you to try tomorrow."

"But if we want to live happily in the cold palace, we need everyone to work together..."

"It's not a good idea to eat fish and lotus roots every day. It's not good to bring food into the palace recently. Besides, the eunuch who sent the food this time is to force everyone to pay money. If you pay too much, it will be a bottomless pit. If you don't pay money, it's not good either. You can take some small change and things that can be exchanged for money and ask them to send some food. Even if we don't eat it, we can use it to feed chickens and fish.

Starting tomorrow, in the mornings and evenings when it’s not too hot, we’re going to plant the vegetable seeds ourselves. Are you willing to do that?”

"We will live here forever. If you have any ideas, please bring them up now."

At this point, everyone had already regarded Yunyue as their backbone, and they all expressed their agreement and had no objections.