Zhao Defang, who was standing in front of the Purple Mansion Hall's door, had just caught his breath. After he saw Eunuch Wang, the head of the internal attendants rushing to the Wende Hall, disappear at the end of the corridor, he turned around and was about to step forward and enter the Purple Mansion Hall that was close at hand. Just as he raised his front foot and had yet to put it down, he heard an extremely rough and arrogant roar coming from within the hall.
"How can the emperor of your Song Dynasty be so rude? You officials of the Great Song should know that our princess was personally sent by our Great Liao Khan to your Song Dynasty to discuss the northern border. Our princess has been waiting here for nearly an hour, but she hasn't seen your Song Emperor come to meet her. You weak Song officials, what are you doing here? Hurry up and call your Song Emperor.
"Hmph, if you make our princess unhappy, our Great Liao Khan will give the order for our 500,000 Khitan army to march south and occupy all the land north of the Yellow River. Seeing you all still standing here makes me angry.”
After this rude and unreasonable Khitan finished speaking, Zhao Defang also strode into the Purple Mansion Hall with her head held high. The Khitan man who spoke was huge. He stood in the middle of the hall like a big bear. Zhao Defang, who pretended to be nonchalant, turned a blind eye to the big bear and walked alone to the end of the row of Song Dynasty ministers standing on the left side of the hall.
In this hall, other than the Khitan burly man who roared in the court just now, there were also six of his companions standing around him. There were only seven of them, but they actually occupied the middle position of the hall. When Zhao Defang looked at them, all of them had a fierce appearance. None of them were good people.
On the other side, the Khitan man, who was dressed in Khitan armor and had a strong back and strong waist, roared in the court. Moreover, he showed contempt for the Zhao family in his words. The Song officials standing on the left side of the hall were furious. However, due to the Khitan man's overly valiant appearance and fierce face, they could only be angry but did not dare to say anything.
Of course, not all of them were spineless. After the Khitan man said some words that looked down on the Song Dynasty and the Zhao family, Prime Minister Zhao Pu, who was standing below King Jin Zhao Guangyi, looked at the other ministers around him from the corner of his eye. He saw that they had no intention of standing up and arguing with him. They all looked nervous, especially when he saw King Jin Zhao Guangyi, who was resting with his eyes closed and turned a deaf ear. This made him even angrier.
Hence, the ambitious Prime Minister Zhao Pu hesitated for a moment before taking the lead. He raised his head and puffed out his chest as he took a big step forward. He swept a cold glance at the Khitan man with his nose in the air and retorted sarcastically,"You little brat, how dare you look down on the people of Great Song in the court of Great Song, and look down on His Majesty the Emperor. This is outrageous! You are here on the orders of your Khitan Khan to be an envoy to Great Song. You are just a small envoy.
"Our Emperor is busy every day. To be able to take out the time to drink a cup of tea to meet you shows that he thinks highly of your Khagan, and even more so of your small envoys. If His Majesty is unhappy, so what if he doesn't meet you? As the saying goes, the guest should follow the host's will. Even if he asked you to wait for an hour, you would still have to wait for an hour, a day, and a night. There are more than ten thousand imperial guards of our Great Song in this palace. They can be said to be the cream of the crop among our Great Song soldiers, carefully selected. They can't even deal with seven ignorant Khitan thieves like you.
"Hmph, hmph, this old man will say something unpleasant. If the Emperor of Great Song wants you to leave, you will have to crawl out of the borders of Great Song. The Sixteen Prefectures of the Dark Cloud in the north have been the territory of the Central Plains since ancient times. Now that the Great Song has inherited the mantle of the Central Plains, the Khitans should have returned it unconditionally. " Although the Khitans have 500,000 strong cavalry, the Great Song has tens of millions of people. The people of the Great Song are all soldiers. Even if each of them spits, they can drown all of you. If you don't believe me, you can quickly return to Shangjing and ask your Khagan to send troops south.”
After Prime Minister Zhao Pu spoke with righteous indignation, all the officials of the Great Song were excited. Even Prince Jin, Zhao Guangyi, who had been watching from the sidelines, opened his eyes slightly. His originally calm face flashed with a moment of shock that was not easily noticed by others. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared.
Zhao Defang, who was standing at the end of the line of officials of the Great Song Dynasty, was excited when he heard this. Even he, who had won the best debater twice in the debate competition jointly organized by hundreds of universities in the United States in his previous life, was extremely excited after listening to Prime Minister Zhao Pu's reasonable and polite words. Suddenly, an idea arose in his heart. If he had the chance, he really wanted to ask Zhao Pu if he was really like what the later generations said. He had only read half of the Analects of Confucius, but he dominated the Northern Song Dynasty for decades and became a famous prime minister of his generation.
"Well said, well said, well said, Lord Prime Minister!”In his excitement, Zhao Defang seemed to have forgotten that he was currently in the Purple Imperial Hall. He actually stood out as if there was no one else around him and faced Prime Minister Zhao Pu, who was a few seats away. He clapped his hands and praised him, praising him endlessly.
Hearing that even the King of Qin, Zhao Defang, who was only sixteen years old, was clapping for Prime Minister Zhao Pu, the generals Cao Bin, Pan Mei, and the others who were originally on good terms with him also followed Zhao Defang and cheered for him.
Seeing the ministers standing in the hall clapping and applauding Prime Minister Zhao Pu's generous speech just now, Prince Jin Zhao Guangyi, who was initially disapproving, also reached out his hand and lightly clapped a few times, as a show of support for his sworn enemy's political enemy.
When the other members of the Khitan diplomatic corps standing in the Zichen Palace saw a Song Dynasty official who was in his forties and ranked near the front fighting back against one of their fierce generals, the leading woman who was dressed in Song Dynasty clothing and had an elegant temperament raised her eyebrows and glared at him with her almond-shaped eyes. She was about to fight back against this aggressive Song Dynasty official again.
However, just as she was about to speak, she suddenly heard a voice that sounded familiar and unfamiliar not far behind her. It said that the Song Dynasty minister who humiliated them just now was the famous Prime Minister Zhao Pu. She swallowed the more vicious words that were about to come out of her mouth.
In just a moment, the Khitan woman's cold face was filled with smiles in the blink of an eye. She stood up and walked in front of Prime Minister Zhao Pu. She bent down and cupped her hands in a salute. She smiled and expressed her apology,"So, this is the Prime Minister of the Song Dynasty, Lord Zhao. Just now, the warrior of the Liao Kingdom spoke nonsense and angered the Prime Minister in some ways.
"Lord Zhao, your Prime Minister's stomach can hold a boat. Don't lower yourself to the level of a mere Khitan warrior of my Great Liao. It's all because I didn't manage my subordinates strictly and didn't teach them well that he spoke bluntly and didn't understand how the other party felt after listening. Here, this little girl represents the entire diplomatic corps of the Liao Dynasty to apologize to Lord Zhao.”
After saying this, the Khitan woman raised her head slightly. From the corner of her eye, she saw Prime Minister Zhao Pu standing in front of her with an indifferent expression. It seemed that he was very disdainful of her humble words just now. Immediately, this extremely competitive Khitan woman was secretly angry, but she did not show it on the surface.
"Big Brother Ye Lui Xiu, hurry over and apologize to the Song Dynasty's Prime Minister, Lord Zhao. If Lord Zhao doesn't accept your apology, you can die in this Purple Mansion Hall to atone for your sins. None of the men in my Khitan are cowards. Don't disappoint me.”After standing up, the Khitan woman turned her head and gave a look to the Khitan warrior who was standing rooted to the ground and burning with anger. Then, her expression changed. Her face darkened and her almond-shaped eyes glared at him as she spoke in an almost commanding tone.
When Ye Lui Xiuge heard the harsh words his princess had said to him, he was initially stunned. He did not know why the princess, who had always treated him with courtesy, would be so fierce to him in the Great Song Imperial Court. As for the look that the Khitan Princess gave him, he was careless enough to ignore it.
However, even though Ye Lui Xiu Ge was extremely unwilling, he did not dare to disobey the words of his princess. After hesitating for a moment, he walked up to Zhao Pu unwillingly. He bent down slightly and casually cupped his hands. He said in a routine manner,"Prime Minister of the Song Dynasty, my princess has sent me to apologize to you. Please accept it quickly. If you don't accept it, then I, Brother Ye Lui Xiu, will have to die in your Great Song Palace to atone for my sins.”
As soon as Ye Lui Xiuge finished his words, he heard the endless laughter of the Great Song ministers at the end of the line."Hahaha…"
Needless to say, the person who was laughing was undoubtedly Zhao Defang. In his opinion, since he was apologizing to someone, there was no reason to force others to accept it. For someone who lived in both the modern and ancient worlds, this was the first time he had heard someone apologize in such a strange way.
Everyone standing in the hall looked towards the source of the voice and focused their gazes on the overjoyed Zhao Defang. Amongst the pairs of swollen eyes, there was a pair of red phoenix eyes that stared at Zhao Defang without blinking. It made her feel as if she had seen this young man in a yellow python robe standing in the hall somewhere before.
After thinking for a moment, she was sure that this person was the lecher from the Great Song who had saved her life a few days ago but had taken advantage of her. She was instantly embarrassed and angry. She bit her red lips and blushed. In her panic, she quickly turned her head away and did not look at the young man who was laughing non-stop. She was afraid that if she looked at him again, she would recall the unbearable scene of him taking advantage of her when she opened her eyes by the Bian River.
When the officials of the Great Song saw Zhao Defang laughing heartily, they finally could not hold back their laughter after holding it in for a long time. It was like a flood that could not be endured. Therefore, they could not help but laugh at the least, and at the most, they laughed out loud with Zhao Defang.
Even though Zhao Pu was amused by Ye Lui Xiuge's words of forcing him to forgive him. After all, he was an important official of the Great Song. Even if he had a smile on his face, he could not laugh like Zhao Defang and the other officials.
Before Zhao Pu could reply, he heard a voice that sounded full of Yang Qi from outside the Purple Imperial Palace,""Official, you have arrived!"
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