I’m the Farmgirl You Can’t Mess With
Chapter 959 - Chapter 959 Gaining Sympathy

Chapter 959: Gaining Sympathy Chapter 959: Gaining Sympathy Editor: Atlas Studios Seeing that there were no grudges between his sons, Qi Xiuyuan relaxed and focused on handling the state affairs.

Interested in the stories Mu Yangling told the children, he would take a letter from Little Treasure and read it every once in a while.

Seeing that he was reading his fourth aunt’s letter and not Little Bear’s, Little Treasure was very happy to show it to him.

In order to protect his privacy, he even found another box to store their letters separately.

Qi Xiuyuan realized his son’s thoughts.

Although he was very curious about what he and Little Bear would write, he was considerate of the fact that children all had secrets and didn’t secretly read it.

Just like that, Qi Xiuyuan missed the two children’s plan to escape from the capital.

With Little Bear as a comparison, Little Treasure was ultimately unwilling to stay in the capital for the rest of his life.

Hence, he asked Little Bear if there was any other way to let him leave the capital.

The two little buddies considered countless ways but felt that none of them was feasible.

Little Bear could only ask his younger brothers for a plan.

Oblivious to the fact that these brats were hatching up a scheme for his son, at this moment, Qi Xiuyuan was summoning a few professors and student representatives from the Imperial Academy.

For the time being, the books were jointly published by the royal publishing house and the Prince’s estate.

He only needed to provide some paper and ink.

There was no need to mention the labor fees, for labor fees in this era were negligible.

The original copies of the books to be printed were taken from the palace library.

The library was located in the residence of the previous dynasty’s Left Assistant Minister of the Ministry of War.

After the defeat of the previous dynasty, these officials who worked for the former Second Prince also had their assets confiscated.

Naturally, that included their houses.

The house wasn’t very big and only had three entrances, but it was more than enough to store the books they printed.

Thinking about it, a house with three entrances and a small garden was equivalent to a small park in the modern era.

Qi Xiuyuan had gotten someone to connect a few rooms facing the sun.

There were a total of three courtyards used for this purpose, and the rest were locked up.

After the walls were knocked down to connect the rooms, some simple painting was done.

Refusing to even pay for new bookshelves, he’d directly asked the guards and emissaries to carry the bookshelves from the houses of the offenders.

When the assets of those officials were confiscated, only the books and other precious items were seized to go into the national treasury and inner treasury.

However, nobody had touched the bookshelves.

Hence, bookshelves were easily found in their homes.

The bookshelves of the officials were all the same height, and even the grids were similar.

However, the type of wood and color varied.

When placed together, it was really unsightly.

This was because ancient people, especially scholars, were obsessed with uniformity.

The guards tried their best to place those with similar colors in one courtyard.

In any case, there were three courtyards.

In the end, although some bookshelves still looked out of place, it was somewhat acceptable.

It was not that there were no guards or emissaries who tried to persuade the Emperor tactfully, but Qi Xiuyuan stopped them with a sentence.

“My national treasury is out of money, and so is my inner treasury.” In short, he had no money!

Although his anger last time had made the officials restrain themselves, there were still many people secretly eyeing his inner treasury.

Qi Xiuyuan’s actions were to tell the entire world, especially scholars, that he had no money.

But as the Emperor, he still did his best to seek benefits for the people.

Where could they find such a good Emperor?

Of course, since he managed to save money in other areas, there was even less reason to spend more money on manpower.

What was best about being the Emperor?

It was that he had countless people he could use.

Among them, there were people he had to pay, and people who didn’t need to be paid.

For example, the students in the Imperial Academy and even the students in the academies outside the capital were studying in hopes to serve the Emperor one day.

As such, they would definitely be overjoyed to be able to serve the Emperor.

Qi Xiuyuan was right.

The student representatives standing in front of him were so happy that they almost fainted.

Among the ten student representatives, some came from noble families, some from civil servants’ families, and most came from ordinary farming and scholarly farmer families.

There were also two poor students who relied on their own abilities to enter the Imperial Academy.

It could be said that students of every class were included.

Other than the young masters of the noble families and third-grade civil servants who were lucky enough to meet the Emperor when they accompanied their father to the palace banquet, this was the first time the others had seen the Emperor.

In the past, when they attended banquets, they could only steal glances from afar.

They could only get a blurry view of the Emperor due to the distance, unlike now, when they could stand in the hall and meet with him face-to-face.

Only then did everyone realize that the Emperor was actually so majestic and handsome.

That was true.

Before becoming the Emperor, Qi Xiuyuan was a general on horseback, so he was naturally majestic.

In his early thirties, the man was at his most charming, so naturally, he was extraordinarily handsome.

The student representatives were so giddy with excitement that their faces turned red.

When they heard that the Emperor was going to set up a royal library near the Imperial Academy for the commoners to borrow and copy, they knelt on the ground to thank the Emperor on behalf of the scholars of the world.

Now, they were assuming that this library would only be open to scholars.

But in fact, it would be open to all the commoners in the world.

After saying the reason why he summoned them, Qi Xiuyuan began to complain that he was broke.

He told the student representatives that because Great Qi was in the early stages of nation building, they had to arrange for refugees to settle down and let the citizens catch a breather by only levying light taxes.

They also had to build and repair water conservancy facilities and guard against West Xia, Great Jin, and other neighboring countries that were eyeing them covetously.

Money was needed for various things.

Therefore, the national treasury was out of money, and his inner treasury had been propping up the national treasury.

However, he also knew that education was a top priority of a country, so he could not neglect it.

But because he did not have the ability to do more now, he could only open a library first to provide a path for the people in the world who wanted to study.

“You are all outstanding students of the Imperial Academy and the role models of scholars in the world.

Therefore, I’ll leave this matter to you first.

Help me manage this library well.

You must make sure that everyone who wants to read and borrow books get to read the books they want to read.

You also have to protect and manage the books in the library well.” Not expecting the Emperor to be so amiable, the student representatives knelt on the ground and expressed their willingness to do their utmost for the Emperor.

The Emperor personally came down to help them up and sighed as he talked about the misunderstandings that the students and scholars of the Imperial Academy had about himaEUR”regarding the reduction of troops.

The Emperor expressed that he did not like war.

He was an Emperor who loved peace.

Having suffered from war since he was young, his greatest wish was for his subjects to live in a stable and peaceful country.

Most of the soldiers in the army were like him, especially the soldiers in the army.

No one liked wars.

Because to scholars, war only meant depleting the national treasury.

To them, they might lose their lives in a war.

Their parents, wives, and children would lose their pillars and have no one to depend on.

But why couldn’t he reduce the number of troops now?

One could understand just by looking at the situation of the previous Great Zhou Dynasty.

The previous dynasty had retreated again and again, so much so that they had lost half of their territory and could only rely on Jiangnan.

Now, the relationship between the three countries had eased a little, but still their lost land had yet to be completely recovered.

In the north and west, there were still many Han brothers and sisters who were being enslaved by Great Jin and West Xia and suffering.

He could not ignore them, nor could he follow the old path of Great Zhou.

Therefore, he could not reduce the number of troops.

Only when Great Qi recovered their homeland and the country became so powerful that Great Jin and West Xia did not dare to attack, could he let the soldiers return to their hometown and reunite with their families.

In short, Qi Xiuyuan changed Qi Haoran’s angry words into words of sorrow and sympathy.

Coupled with his teary eyes, the ten student representatives and the three Imperial Academy professors wished they could offer their lives in sacrifice immediately.

Not only the ten student representatives, but the three professors who were nearing the end of their lives also expressed that they would refute the rumors for the Emperor among scholars and not let them be affected by the one-sided argument.

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