Chapter 59 Cultivating Pirates

  Yang Ling turned his head to look, and saw a young man standing behind him clapping and laughing loudly. The laughter had not stopped when the person caught sight of Yang Ling's appearance, and suddenly opened his mouth in shock, frozen there for a long time before shouting out loud, excitedly saying: "Is it you? You're my study companion, that...that Yang Ling from Chicken Cry Post?"

  Yang Ling had just seen Hongzhi, and he had already guessed that the young scholar he saw yesterday was indeed Zhengde, so it was not unexpected at all. He smiled bitterly and pointed to his head, saying: "Your Highness, I am Yang Ling, please forgive me for being unable to pay my respects to Your Highness, this......this......".

  Zhu Houzhao chuckled and waved his hand, saying: "No need for formalities, no need for formalities. Seeing them every day is annoying to death."

  At this time, a fat eunuch in the palace led out a big black dog as tall as half a person, and smiled: "Your Highness, just now I was scared to death. This dog hid in the cabinet and wasn't honest at all. I even lost a few pieces of meat bones inside. It kept whimpering and almost got discovered by Li Xue Shi."

  Yang Ling carefully sized up Gu Dajun, who was short and stout with a round face, curved eyebrows and curved eyes, born with a smiling face. If Yang Ling hadn't known about his later actions, he would have thought that this person was as amiable as Yingzi and made people feel very approachable.

  Zhu Houzhao laughed like a pleased child and asked him: "Da Yong, has Li Taifu left?"

  Gu Dazhong accompanied him with a smile: "The prince has been in the toilet for two hours, and Li Daren was already impatient. Although he didn't have to attend the morning court today, he still had to go to the noon court. Just now, he couldn't wait any longer and excused himself first."

  Zhu Houzhao burst out laughing, he tiptoed and swayed his body three times, his neck stretched out, slowly and steadily saying: "A gentleman plans for the Way, not for food; a gentleman worries about the Way, not about poverty. For those who are rulers, it is only benevolence; for those who are ministers, it is only respect; for those who are sons, it is only filial piety; for those who are fathers, it is only kindness; and for those who interact with others, it is only trust..."

  Zhu Houzhao finished his studies with a bitter face and said: "The sage has said that one sentence of propriety, righteousness, benevolence, wisdom, and sincerity, Li University Scholar has been talking about it for seven days, citing classics and quoting canons. I'm getting weird, how did the sage's brain grow? When he said this sentence, did he really think so much and so carefully? If you want to teach me to be a ruler, you might as well talk about his way of governing the world. But every time you say one sentence, you have to relate it to the sages of thousands of years ago, as if it's not enough to convince people otherwise. It's really boring to the extreme, listening to it is killing me."

  He waved his hand and said with a sigh of relief, "It's good that he's gone, it's good that he's gone, now we can go back." Zhu Houzhao said as he snapped his fingers at the monkey squatting on Yang Ling's head, but the monkey just looked around without paying attention to him. Zhu Houzhao smiled and said, "Looks like my monkey quite likes you, let's go, Yang Shiren, let's go in."

  Yang Ling followed behind Zhu Houzhao with a bitter face, the prince's study, said to be a study, but like a large hall, empty and desolate, only two small eunuchs standing by the door waiting on him. Seeing Yang Ling with a little monkey perched on his head, the two small eunuchs couldn't help but cover their mouths and snicker.

  Zhu Houzhao sat casually behind a low table with a glossy finish, looking at Yang Ling with great interest, and chuckled: "Come on, Yang Shilu, please sit down. Later, I'll let Da Yong perform the monkey riding dog for you, as well as the fire hoop, it's very fun."

  Yang Ling sat down carefully behind a low table, and Zhu Houzhao picked up several fruits from the plate and threw them to the ground. The monkey jumped down from Yang Ling's head and squatted on the ground to eat.

  Zhu Houzhao said to Gu Dajun, "I'm hungry, bring me something to eat." Gu Dajun was tying the dog to a pillar beside the hall and gave some orders to a small eunuch by the door. The little eunuch flew away immediately.

  The Crown Prince was reading in a place where only eunuchs were present, and no palace maid was allowed to serve. Before long, eight young eunuchs came in with trays, and Yang Ling, who had been hungry for a while, smelled the aroma of food and his stomach growled loudly.

  The young prince heard it and burst out laughing, pointing at Yang Ling and saying: "Put it there, put it there. If I starve to death in this imperial court, people will laugh at me."

  Zhu Houzhao stood up with a smile and walked to Yang Ling's side, sat down casually, handed him a pair of silver chopsticks and said: "Eat, try the food in my palace."

  Yang Ling saw that the legendary Zhengde Emperor had no airs about him, and his intention to restrain himself was gone. With Yang Ling accompanying him, Zhu Houzhao seemed to be eating even more happily. As he ate, he said to Yang Ling: "You didn't hear Li Taifu's lecture today, and there's nothing for you to interpret for me in the afternoon. Ah yes, what about that bullfighting you mentioned yesterday? Tell me all about it."

  Yang Ling originally thought that being a reader was just accompanying the prince to listen to classes, not letting him be too bored alone. According to Zhu Houzhao's meaning, it seems that the reader also has the responsibility of answering questions during the prince's self-study class. If this crown prince is really diligent and studious, wouldn't he, as a fake reader, be exposed on the spot?

  Yang Ling thought of this and couldn't help but secretly rejoice, as he savored the delicious flavors of the palace's imperial kitchen while telling Zhu Houzhao about Spanish bullfighting. Yang Ling didn't know much about this sport, so he focused on telling jokes about the clumsy matadors being chased by the fierce bulls, running wildly around the arena and getting tossed out of the ring. Yang Ling was already eloquent, and he intentionally added more flair to his storytelling, not only did Zhu Houzhao listen with great interest, but also Gu Dazong and the small eunuchs serving the meal were completely absorbed in the tale.

  Yang Ling saw Gu Dazui laughing loudly on the side, and suddenly felt a wave of shame in his heart. Who were these people? One was a notorious lecher and incompetent ruler of the future, another was a famous treacherous and evil person, while he himself was supposed to be an imperial reader but had become a jester, a clown who amused the crown prince.

  Not bad, he has no ambition, but since he has come to this world, he cannot regard himself as a detached observer. Emotionally, he is no different from the Chinese people of today. The tragic page in Chinese history was originally a past event for him, and he had no choice. But now, all that has not yet occurred, and the current Ming Empire is still the richest country in the world. Since fate has brought him before the ruler of the Ming Empire, can't he do his best?

  The decline of the Ming dynasty was mainly due to their conservative thinking, and the rulers as well as the entire ruling class were blindly arrogant and closed off from the world. At a time when the whole world was undergoing great development and capitalist transformation, if China could have maintained close contact with the world, the ideology of the entire ruling class would inevitably have been influenced by subtle changes, and would inevitably have developed in a more positive direction.

  Who is the person in front of me? Is it the future Emperor of Great Ming?! What does this Great Ming lack at this time? It's a sense of enterprise. If we let the gaze of this person in front of us see further and wider, in this era where imperial power reigns supreme, one thought from him could have an immeasurable impact on the development of history. History... can it really not be changed?!

  Yang Ling thought of this, his heart was excited, he calmed down and said to Zhu Houzhao: "Crown Prince, if you like to listen, I'll tell you another story."

  Zhu Houzhao nodded repeatedly with joy, although he was the crown prince, his spiritual life was far inferior to that of countless modern children, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe it as dull and tasteless. Now, after hearing Yang Ling's strange stories, he knew that there were so many colorful things in this world, such a vast sky, and the young Zhengde was fascinated for a while. Upon hearing this, he hastily ordered Gu Dajiang: "Dajiang, tell people to inform Master Zhiyun that today's Sanskrit will not be learned."

  Yang Ling was greatly surprised, never expecting that Zhu Houzhao would actually be studying a foreign language. Moreover, from the way he casually ordered his eunuchs to stop their lessons, it was clear that this course of study had not been arranged for him by the Emperor. This was far removed from the image of Zhengde as a reckless and idle ruler that Yang Ling had in mind.

  The story of the Spanish pirates is told by Yang Ling, with the red-haired pirate queen and the one-eyed pirate captain. Under Yang Ling's conscious combination, he merged different stories together, keeping the fun while telling the story of European countries competing for maritime supremacy, even fabricating a country similar to the Great Ming Dynasty, located on the other side of the ocean, describing its prosperity, strength, decline, and suffering from bullying.

  The fascinating pirate story made Zhu Houzhao, who loved adventure, listen with rapt attention. Yang Ling told how European countries, in their struggle for maritime supremacy, publicly declared that they would not coexist with pirates, but secretly fostered them to attack the merchant ships of other nations. Meanwhile, Gu Dazhen frowned slightly, looking down on the unscrupulous behavior of these barbarian nations.

  Xiao Zhengde rubbed his fists and palms, and said with a smile: "Great, having the imperial court backing him up from behind, without losing face for the imperial court, this is a good deal, such a pirate, even I want to go and do it too, haha..."

  Yang Ling smiled slightly, in front of him was a child who had not yet formed many notions of right and wrong, a blank sheet of paper that could be written on. Li Xueshi taught him about propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame; Gu Dazhong taught him about music, sex, dogs, and horses, traveling and enjoying life; so let me, Yang Ling, teach him to broaden his horizons, to have ambition and greed that knows no bounds!

  Education starts from childhood...

  PS: To all seniors, I'm sweating profusely to report to you that it's the end of the year, final settlement, audit, and account closure, so busy that I can hardly breathe, so I wrote less this time, please forgive me, seniors! ~~