Chapter 37 Chenghua Love Story
Chapter 37 Chenghua Love Story
"My Lord, everything is ready."
Meng Chong carefully placed ten glass bottles filled with sugar in front of Zhu Zaigui and reminded him while suppressing his excitement.
Zhu Zaigui couldn't help but grin with joy when he looked at the ten assembled works of art.
As a time traveler, Zhu Zaigui knows too well the importance of brands and the high-end nature of luxury goods.
A successful brand can sell even an empty bottle for hundreds of dollars, and people will flock to buy it.
Those who managed to grab one think they made a good deal, those who didn’t get it will look forward to the next chance, and those who can’t afford it will say sourly that those who bought it are stupid.
But are those who can get it stupid?
They are not stupid at all. What they need is the feeling of being unique.
If you can't even create this feeling, then there's no point in having luxury goods.
It would be better to do wholesale in the low-end market.
Zhu Zaiqi bared his teeth and said, "Well done! I am very optimistic about you."
After hearing Zhu Zai's compliment, Meng Chong suddenly felt happy, "Thank you for the compliment, Your Majesty."
Then Meng Chong asked with great anticipation: "My Lord, how are we going to sell these treasures?"
Zhu Zaigui said, "Then we must have people come to our door to grab them. If we take the initiative to sell them, wouldn't that be a loss of face?"
Meng Chong was dumbfounded when he heard Zhu Zaigui's arrogant words.
Is there such a business in this world?
Zhu Zaiqi continued, "Go find a clever embroiderer and ask her to make ten small tassel hangtags with numbers. Embroider the words 'Yiranzhitang' on the front and numbers '甲一' to '甲十' on the back. This will be of great use to me!"
When Meng Chong heard that Zhu Zaigui wanted to find an embroiderer to embroider this kind of tassel sign with words on it, his face suddenly became filled with fear.
The work of a good embroiderer is not cheap, costing at least four or five hundred coins, otherwise it cannot be sold.
Now that he hadn't even converted one or two candies into cash, and he had to spend money again, Meng Chong's little heart was really a little overwhelmed.
Meng Chong said anxiously: "Your Majesty, please don't give it up. This kind of embroidered plaque is very expensive."
Seeing Meng Chong's stingy look, Zhu Zaigui couldn't help but feel a little angry. Zhu Zaigui said, "What are our identities? What is my identity? If we want to use something, we must use the best. Otherwise, how can we highlight our uniqueness? Go and get it quickly. If you delay my work, I will starve you for three days!"
When Meng Chong heard this, he immediately stopped trying to stop Zhu Zaigui.
Anyway, if the money in the palace was really gone, the emperor and the court would not just watch a dignified prince of the Ming Dynasty starve to death in Beijing, and would still provide him with some aid.
It was nothing more than that they, the slaves, would be severely punished by their superiors, and other sins would be eliminated. So Meng Chong had come to his senses now. Since his own prince liked to do it, he would let him do it. At most, he would be scolded a few times by the palace. As long as the prince was willing to protect him, it would not be a big deal!
Meng Chong immediately found a skilled embroiderer according to Zhu Zaigui's request, and made ten numbered tassel hangers according to Zhu Zaigui's instructions.
After these tassel hangers were made, Zhu Zaigui hung them on ten glass bottles filled with sugar in turn.
Zhu Zaigui picked out a glass sugar bottle with a pattern of an old pine tree. Zhu Zaigui looked at the painting of the old pine tree and a deity who seemed to be sitting cross-legged and practicing under the old pine tree, and nodded with satisfaction.
Zhu Zaigui said, "This bottle is good. Find a nice box to put it in and send it to Xiyuan. Say that this is a sincere gift from the king to make His Majesty feel better."
When Meng Chong heard that Zhu Zaigui was going to send candy to Emperor Jiajing, he seemed to understand something in his heart. It turned out that the prince was still so filial. No wonder the prince spared no expense.
But in fact, Zhu Zaigui had no fatherly affection for Emperor Jiajing. He just showed the right attitude to him because he was now working for him. After all, from Zhu Zaigui's current body, Emperor Jiajing was Zhu Zaigui's father, no matter in terms of clan law or bloodline.
If you don't show some respect to me, how can you take over my job in the future?
Meng Chong said quickly: "I understand. It turns out that all this is the prince's filial piety."
Zhu Zaigui grinned and did not deny or explain.
Zhu Zaiqi continued to pick out a glass sugar bottle with a painting of plum blossoms, "This is for Eunuch Huang Jin, and I want to thank him for serving Your Majesty wholeheartedly for so many years, regardless of summer or winter, and for being filial to me, an unfilial son who cannot see his father."
After hearing this, Meng Chong was so moved that he almost cried. The prince had a miserable life. Since he moved out of the palace, he had never seen the emperor's face again and grew up alone. But he did not complain or get angry. He still remembered the emperor and asked the people around him to serve him well. What kind of filial piety was this?
Zhu Zaiqi then picked out a glass sugar bottle with a lotus pattern and said, "I'll ask Huang Jin to pass this on to my mother. Although I can't be by her side to show my filial piety, I still hope that her life will be sweeter."
As for the existence of their biological mother, neither the present Zhu Zaigui nor the previous Zhu Zaigui actually had much feeling. It was nothing more than an expression of affection and filial piety due to the constraints of etiquette.
Because the system of raising princes in the Ming Dynasty separated the mother and the child, when the princes reached a certain age, they would be taken away to be raised by wet nurses, and they would only see their biological mothers very rarely.
Therefore, it was precisely because of this system that a touching love story took place in the Ming Dynasty under specific historical conditions.
Emperor Chenghua, who had experienced all kinds of hardships in his childhood, was taken care of carefully by Aunt Wan. The two of them, like Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu, broke through the limitations of age and had a passionate love story.
It’s a pity that such love is destined not to be accepted by the world.
Aunt Wan, the favorite of Emperor Chenghua, became the target of attack by court officials and literati at that time. They all believed that it was Aunt Wan who had misled the emperor and prevented him from having a correct view of love and sense of responsibility.
Such attacks and slander have not stopped until now, even hundreds of years later.
It seems that Aunt Wan is a witch who does not deserve love and has brought disaster to the Ming Dynasty.
But to be honest, Emperor Chenghua seems to be the most capable among them except for Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di.
Not only did he clean up the mess left by his father who studied abroad, but he also restored the fighting spirit of the Ming army, dealt a heavy blow to those ambitious grassland tribes outside the Great Wall, and created the "Chenghua Li Ting" that is still talked about today!
This dealt a severe blow to the power of the Jurchen tribes in Liaodong, and caused them to remain quiet for more than a hundred years, no longer becoming a major threat to the Ming Dynasty.
It’s a pity that his successor was too obedient and well-behaved. Although he also gained a historical evaluation of "rejuvenation", Hetao was lost in his hands. As a result, in the next 100 years, the Ming Dynasty suffered constant troubles in the north, and could never rely on Hetao to penetrate deep into the northern desert and attack Longcheng!
Therefore, the truth of history should not be determined solely by what others say, but by what the parties involved at the time actually did. These things are the ultimate basis for evaluating a historical status!
(End of this chapter)