I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 59: New Play

"I hope Your Majesty can agree to this! Your Majesty has always liked drama, and Your Majesty's new play will surely be favored by Your Majesty." Liu Zhou continued.

Zhu Houxun was quickly calculating the pros and cons in his mind. It seemed that this matter would not do him any harm. It would bring him closer to Emperor Zhengde and would also make the eunuch garrisoning Nanjing owe him a favor. He quickly made a decision in his mind.

"Thanks to Eunuch Liu's recommendation, the new play I wrote can actually reach the emperor's ears. This is my honor. I hereby agree to this matter, and all related matters will be in accordance with Eunuch Liu's wishes." Zhu Houxuan stood up.

"Thank you, Your Highness! I would like to thank You on behalf of Eunuch Liu!" Liu Zhou's face immediately showed joy.

"Then please stay in the mansion for a few days. Once I have gathered enough people, I will follow you to Nanjing." Zhu Houxuan said happily.

Liu Zhou was taken away to rest, but the discussion in the Cunxin Hall had not yet ended.

"Your Highness, your new play is so good that it will surely win the favor of His Majesty. Why don't we just present it to His Majesty ourselves? Why should we let that Eunuch Liu get involved and take away some of the credit for nothing?" Commander Zhao said angrily.

"You, never use your brain more often." Zhu Houxun scolded Commander Zhao with a smile. He was in a good mood now.

"How can we perform a play?" Zhu Houxuan explained.

Zhu Houxuan was not talking nonsense. There were corresponding procedures for the royal palaces in various places to submit memorials and present gifts, but there was no such procedure for presenting plays. On the contrary, the eunuchs in the inner court searched everywhere for new things, including plays, in order to please the emperor, so they were all familiar with this process.

Even if Zhu Houxuan knew the process of the eunuchs' performances, he would not take the initiative to perform, because it was very easy to get into trouble.

How come you are so familiar with the process of performing in the inner court? Are you spying on the palace?
Peeping into the imperial palace was a serious crime in any dynasty, not to mention that he was a prince, which made the crime even more serious.

Therefore, it was the best way to present the play for a eunuch from the inner court to take the initiative to arrange this matter.

This way you can also do someone a favor and build a good relationship.

"Then there's no need to let that eunuch Liu intervene. We can look for other eunuchs to cooperate with us!" Commander Zhao said unconvinced.

Zhu Houxuan was amused by the commander's simple train of thought, "Eunuch Liu already knows about this. If you change someone to cooperate, aren't you afraid that Eunuch Liu will do something bad? It's not easy to accomplish something, but it's much easier to ruin something than to accomplish it."

"Your Highness is meticulous and quick-witted. If the late king could see Your Highness today, he would definitely be very pleased." Zhan Bin smiled while twirling his beard.

Commander Zhao looked embarrassed and quickly changed the subject, "Why didn't I see Shi Changshi today?"

"Your Highness, Shi Changshi is here!" Qin Mingtong said outside the door.

"Let him in!" Zhu Houxuan nodded slightly.

As soon as Shi Lu entered the room, he set his eyes on the business card on Zhu Houxuan's desk and said, "Your Majesty, may I have a look at this business card?"

"Please feel free to do as you please, Mr. Shi." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

Shi Lu picked up the business card and took a look at it before angrily saying, "This is the business card of the eunuch who is in charge of the Nanjing garrison. It must have been sent by his messenger."

"I am the head of the officials in the palace. Why was I not called in on this matter? Are there any laws?" Shi Lu looked at Zhan Bin and Yu Chunlai with dissatisfaction.

"I sent people to look for you, but they didn't find you." Yu Chunlai said lightly.

"I was resting in my room, how come no one found me?"

"Who knows whether Shi Changshi has gone out or is resting in the house?" Zhan Bin said coldly.

"You are the one who did this! You didn't call me on purpose, right?" Shi Lu said aggressively.

"Shi Changshi is wrong! Today is not a day off, and Shi Changshi was resting in the side room when he was on duty, which caused delays. How can Shi Changshi blame me and Zhan Changshi for this?" Yu Chunlai added slowly. "Yes, you are right because you delayed the work by sleeping?" Commander Zhao didn't understand what was going on, but he had disliked Shi Lu for a long time, so he also excitedly chimed in.

"You guys." Shi Changshi was so angry that he couldn't say a word. Today was indeed not a day off, and he did sleep while on duty, but wasn't it always like this?

With the amount of business in the palace, isn't it normal to sleep while on duty? And you three usually don't sleep much? Now each of you looks sanctimonious.

This is the situation, but this reason is not convincing enough. Shi Lu struggled for a long time but couldn't find any reason to refute it.

Zhu Houxuan felt quite happy when he saw Shi Changshi being humiliated.

"Let's not talk about this matter for now. What is the purpose of the eunuch garrisoning Nanjing sending the business card?" Shi Lu continued to ask.

"Let's discuss how to send gifts to the capital for the Emperor's Birthday. Should we go by land or via the Grand Canal?" Zhu Houxuan made up the lie without blinking.

He didn't want to hide it from Shi Changshi at first, but Shi Lu's attitude made him unhappy, which prompted him to make this decision. He wanted to see if there was anyone else in the mansion who tipped off Shi Lu.

Commander Zhao opened his mouth to say something, but Zhan Bin, who had been looking at him, tugged at the corner of his clothes, so he knew what to do and said nothing.

Shi Lu was deceived in this way.

Three days later, when Liu Zhou took the troupe to Nanjing, Shi Changshi still knew nothing about this matter.

The strategy of isolating Shi Lu began to take effect.

However, Qin Yuelan and Liu Hao were not in the troupe that Liu Zhou took away, so Liu Zhou went to find Zhu Houxuan to inquire about this matter.

Zhu Houxuan’s reply was that Qin Yuelan would stay by his side to help him write a new play.

Liu Hao had lost a lot of weight and felt a little dizzy when he walked because he had been exploited too much in recent times.

Fortunately, backup actors for both of them have already been trained.

After this matter was settled, Zhu Houxuan devoted all his energy to forging Damascus, because there was really not much time left.

"Bang!" Zhu Houxun, with his upper body exposed, swung a hammer down, hitting the red-hot steel block heavily.

His muscles are very graceful, and his abdominal muscles are faintly visible, which can be described as a tiger back, wasp waist, and mantis legs. This is the result of his persistence in exercise and scientific nutrition intake for more than half a year. The iron-making career in the past month has made his temperament more profound.

Although September was already autumn, the weather was still very hot, especially in front of the iron forge at Gongzheng Institute.

He looked like he had just been pulled out of the water, exuding a strong smell of hormones.

He has already decided on the high-grade Damascus pattern he wants to create in the end - the feather pattern.

The final weapon form is a one-handed sword.

After forging, the forging pattern will spread out in one direction to both sides. Its natural and flexible feeling will give people a strong visual effect, just like the barbs on a feather, growing toward both sides along the feather shaft.

The reason for choosing the feather pattern is that it has a symmetrical visual effect, which is very consistent with the aesthetic taste of the ancients.

He led a dozen blacksmiths to forge for more than a month. These masters were all masters of forging and had mastered the method of forging fusion early on. Even so, after wasting countless steels, they only now saw the dawn of victory.

Three inconspicuous steel blocks were placed on the table. Inside these inconspicuous steel blocks, two types of steel were stacked and fused together in hundreds of layers, just waiting for Zhu Houxuan to carry out the final forging to release breathtaking beauty.

At the same time, in the far north, on a slowly moving carriage, Zhou Shan climbed onto the top of the carriage by stepping on the head of Zheng Banzhu, and with his hands on the awning, he looked towards the huge city in the distance.
(End of this chapter)