Yes, Madam Prime Minister

Page 260

"What? An old man like me who's involved in politics, actually has little girls who like him? Shouldn't they be infatuated with sunny, handsome young men or dashing noblemen?" Ronan asked awkwardly.

To be honest, Ronan didn't really consider himself a very attractive man. Putting aside his looks, power, wealth, and strength—things that most women like—he wasn't very romantic and didn't know how to sweet-talk people. The only sweet thing he ever said to his wife, Ambrina, was probably, "I'll find a way to get you a crown to wear." As for his superior, his beloved and comrade-in-arms, Dinia, he mostly praised and flattered her, but was actually sarcastic and insincere. The most typical example was his phrase, "Yes, Madam Prime Minister."

Pan, Lu, Deng, Xiao, Xian – Ronan only satisfied Pan, Lu, and Deng, barely enough, because he himself had no money and usually spent the country's money. He basically didn't touch Xiao, and he had no Xian at all, as he had to work hard for the country most of the time, and the little free time he had was basically given to Ambrina.

“You are an old man, that’s true, but you don’t look like one,” Ambrina said, then added meaningfully, “You don’t look like one in any way.”

“That’s true, I don’t have any generation gap with young people at all.” Ronan said with a smug look on his face.

Even if there is a generation gap, it's the reversed kind.

Ambrina slapped Ronan's arm. "Don't change the subject. I'm asking you, what are you planning to do?"

Ronan replied, "What can I do? It's still the same old story. She's still a child. Maybe she won't be interested anymore when she gets older."

Ambrina's lips curled into a smile as she teased, "Your old method has never worked."

Ronan treated Elena, Alice, and Grandin the same way at first, but in the end, they all became his women.

"So, Anli, what do you want to do? Should I clearly reject her?" Ronan asked.

Ambrina looked thoughtful. "Actually, I think she's quite good. Anyway, we'll retire in a few years and then head east, won't we?"

"Uh, are you encouraging me to seduce a kid? This..." Ronan didn't know what to say for a moment.

Ambrina scratched her teeth. "She's sixteen. I was about the same age, and you already hooked up with me, didn't you?"

“Anli, to be honest, you were the one who seduced me,” Ronan corrected her seriously.

Ambrina sat up, looking down at Ronan who was lying down. "Ronan, it's not too late for you to correct your erroneous statements."

Ronan shrugged. "To be honest, you were the one who seduced me."

Ambrina kicked and punched Ronan, saying, "I am the king, and everything is decided by me."

Ronan was amused by Ambrina's childish behavior. "Alright, Your Majesty, it was this shameless scoundrel of mine who seduced you."

"Tch, that's more like it." Ambrina gave a smug smile, but the smile quickly disappeared. "Ronan, I'm telling you, Yingqi is actually very lonely. She's a Seresian living in a foreign country. Don't be fooled by how well she gets along with Lily and Ina. Lily doesn't really consider anyone a friend. If I had to say, her only friend is you, her father. And Ina, she'll get married sooner or later."

"Besides, are you really willing to see another man take her away?"

“Uh, am I that kind of person?” Ronan asked back.

“You are,” Ambrina said with certainty. “Over the years, you’ve actually had thoughts about many women: actresses on stage, noblewomen who come to parties, ladies who accompany their husbands, seamstresses who make clothes for me, violinists, female executors of the Ministry of Magic, maids in the palace, and even some girls from noble families in the countryside that you happen to meet when you’re out. As soon as I see the way you look at them, I know that you want to lift up their skirts, lift up their legs in stockings, and make them never, ever forget your thing.”

"But you've never had any deep contact with these women. At most, you've just exchanged a few greetings. That's because you have this problem: you have to have feelings before you can have sex with them. But you have very high standards. You won't develop feelings for women who you think are just troublesome and can't help you, and who can't communicate with you, except for having sex with them."

Ronan smiled. "Anli, you really do know me best."

“I am your only wife, of course,” Ambrina said proudly, then added, “She meets those criteria, doesn’t she?”

Ronan smiled. "Could I say no?"

Ambrina breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, I approve."

"Oh, then I must thank Your Majesty for your great kindness," Ronan said with a grin.

Ambrina kicked Ronan but didn't pull her leg back. With her chin held high, she said condescendingly, "Your Majesty is itchy."

“Understood, Your Majesty.” Ronan said, getting up and spreading Ambrina’s legs apart. He then probed Ambrina’s vagina with his tongue and began to stir, relieving the itch for his good wife and good emperor.

In no time, Ambrina pressed her hands down on Ronan's head, clamping her fair and plump thighs tightly together, placing her feet on Ronan's back, her insteps straight, and her round toes inside her white stockings digging inwards as if she wanted to pry through the thick toe area of ​​the pink and white stockings.

While Ronan diligently licked, stirred, and sucked, he grabbed Ambrina's soft thighs, which were encased in white stockings, with both hands and squeezed and kneaded them forcefully.

Chapter 588 The Third Dynasty: Past and Present, the Practice Test for the Princess Consort Candidates

The Golden Eagle Dynasty has existed for over three hundred years, and the royal family has always been the Freigo family. However, in reality, two dynasties have already passed, and now, it is transitioning into the third dynasty.

More than three hundred years ago, when Oranus founded his dynasty, he relied on his overwhelming power and the group of exceptionally skilled magicians who followed him. After the dynasty was established, Oranus distributed fiefdoms.

Soon after, a great war broke out that affected the entire western continent, resulting in heavy casualties among the magicians. This led to the "Oak Tree Pact," which only stipulated that high-ranking magicians would no longer participate in wars. However, in reality, it was more than that. After the war, many magicians wanted to retire behind the scenes and no longer participate in direct rule. This laid the foundation for Orans's subsequent order for lords to "report to the capital" every other year.

Later, the lords simply settled down in the capital, and local government affairs were handled by the secretaries appointed by the king.

However, during this period, the lords still had land and soldiers. Although the central government had begun to have many bureaucrats, major national affairs were mainly decided by the king and the lords of the capital. Of course, given Oranz's authority, no one dared to really consult with him.

In reality, he had already established a dictatorship by then.

For the next hundred years or so, the central and local bureaucrats of the Golden Eagle Dynasty worked together to continuously weaken the lords' control over the localities and centralize power.

However, the subsequent kings, regardless of their personal abilities or governance skills, were far less energetic than the founding monarch, Oran. One person simply could not handle the affairs of a country. It should be noted that the Kingdom of Fas at that time was still an agricultural country practicing a manor economy.

Even a king who grew up in the palace and rose from crown prince to monarch couldn't handle this.

Lawrence's father was the epitome of the opposite: obsessed with art, living a life of unbridled extravagance, with hundreds of lovers and multiple divorces and marriages, yet he neglected state affairs. The entire capital was immersed in an atmosphere of hedonism, and housing prices were frighteningly high, even magicians couldn't afford a house.

They even believed that the country had become very prosperous under their leadership.

But in reality, the finances were already strained, and the military was in dire need of support.

Later, the capital was besieged by a coalition of several countries. He fled in panic but died by the river.

After Lawrence, the king's second son, turned the tide, he changed the country's system. He re-granted fiefdoms, granting many people real fiefdoms, but most of them had very small fiefdoms. Meanwhile, he stripped the major noble lords of their military power.

Lawrence didn't actually like governing; he preferred academic research. So he established the position of Prime Minister, along with a secretariat to assist the Prime Minister.

The current bureaucratic system was basically established by Lawrence back then.

He himself disliked authoritarianism and did not believe that his descendants would be able to wield it effectively.

Under the system established by Lawrence, the secretaries of the Secretariat received various documents from different departments and localities. After processing them, they divided them into important and unimportant documents and handed them over to the Prime Minister. For unimportant documents, the Prime Minister would write down his opinions and give them to the King for his instructions. For important documents, the Prime Minister would bring together the ministers and ministers from the relevant departments to discuss them with the King at a royal council meeting.

Once the agreement is reached, let the relevant departments and localities implement it.

That's basically how the whole country operates.

Now that Ambrina is in power, Ronan has implemented some reforms, including creating an inner court secretariat.

The Inner Secretariat receives and condenses the various official documents, such as letters, reports, applications, and opinions, collected from various departments and localities by the secretaries of the Prime Minister's Office Secretariat.

Ronan's requirement was that no matter how many words a document contained, the key points of the document must be summarized in no more than thirty words.

In today's country, there are easily more than a hundred official documents to process every day. If the number isn't reduced, how can the king handle them all by himself?

After these "essentials" were written down, they were sent directly to the king.

The king centralized power. He could be unaware of the specifics of the matters that needed to be dealt with openly, but he had to know them all. The matters that needed to be handled behind the scenes were taken care of by the intelligence department.

Getting the details straight and developing a plan is the job of the entire Prime Minister's Office, led by the Prime Minister and the First Secretary, which consists of hundreds of people.

The candidates for princess, who are studying while interning in the inner court secretariat, are now tasked with writing "summaries".

This was necessary training, and it also allowed them to begin to understand how the entire national system operated, as well as the situation in various departments and localities. After all, one of them would eventually succeed Ronan as the king's consort and chief secretary.

Ronan doesn't expect his successor to be like him, but at least he should understand the rules, the game, and be up to par.

It takes considerable skill and comprehension to clearly articulate the main points of a matter within thirty words.

As for writing well or brilliantly, don't expect that. A teenage girl can't possibly have that level of skill.

Ronan read some of what these girls had written in recent months.

At first, almost everyone was terrible; probably only they could understand what they had written. Recently, a few have reached a passable level. This progress is due to their own learning ability and the training they received from good teachers.

Most of these girls came from commoner backgrounds, but none of them were ordinary commoners. Even the worst of them came from middle-class intellectual families, like Alice and Grandin's family back then.

"We can make it a bit more difficult for them."

Ronan instructed Madame Antari, who was now in charge of the inner court secretariat.

Mrs. Antari understood and asked, "Does that mean they should handle applications from local governments seeking funds from the central government, or reports from state-owned enterprises?"

Local requests for funds are all elaborate schemes of playing the victim. When you submit a report to the king, you can't just write a sentence like "So-and-so department in such-and-such place needs so-and-so amount of money," can you? But apart from that, everything else is just the hypocritical rhetoric of those cunning and shrewd local officials. It's difficult to distinguish the truth from the falsehood.

The reports from state-owned enterprises were even more elaborate, containing both truth and falsehood. At this point, you had to write a summary. What the state-owned enterprises said was completely irrelevant; what mattered was what the "king" wanted to see. You had to be able to decipher the king's intentions.

"Come on, let's show them what level those cunning local bureaucrats and those scoundrels in our country who are in charge of production are at."

Ronan replied.

"Wouldn't that be too difficult?" Mrs. Antari asked with some concern.

“It doesn’t matter. Anyway, what they wrote is just for practice. The real essentials are written by you guys,” Ronan said.

The drafts written by these trainee candidates for the title of princess were not adopted. The outlines that were actually shown to Queen Ambrina were written by the truly qualified court secretaries, such as Lady Antari.

Mrs. Antari laughed, "Then their little bit of confidence is going to be dealt another good blow."

“That’s a good thing,” Ronan said.

After saying this, Ronan left the Inner Court Secretariat.

Before even leaving the palace, Ronan encountered Zhao Yingqi.

Chapter 589 Growing Up, Revealing His True Colors, *Animal Farm*

Ronan hadn't seen Zhao Yingqi for almost two years, and now, the sixteen-year-old girl had blossomed into a beautiful young woman.

It felt slightly unfamiliar.

Her long, black hair was styled in a popular way among noble young ladies in the kingdom, with a few wispy bangs on either side of her forehead and a loose, casually styled bun at the back of her head, exuding a ladylike charm.

She has an oval face, slightly thick but not bushy eyebrows, almond-shaped double eyelids with bright black eyes, a nose that isn't small and delicate, and slightly upturned lips. She has a small dimple when she smiles. She's pretty, but not quite a beauty, nor is she the pure and lovely type. She's just naturally cute, with a girl-next-door charm when she smiles.

He's about 1.63 meters tall, neither tall nor short.

The outfit was also started by Ina, the mischievous monkey, and was a popular style among aristocratic girls in recent years: a white shirt with a floral collar and sleeves, a black fitted woolen vest with carved gold buttons, loose and draped, a deep red silk-cotton blend skirt, medium-thickness matte black pantyhose, elegant, yet not hindering the wearing of burgundy chunky heels with buckles.

Zhao Yingqi was indignant, but she was still a ways off from being well-endowed. Her waist was slender, but not very prominent. Her buttocks were not saggy, but not perky either. Underneath her skirt, the exposed part of her calves looked very long and slender in the black stockings, especially her ankles, which were very delicate but not bony.

"Is something the matter?" Ronan asked.

“Uh…” Zhao Yingqi’s words caught in his throat.

"Alone?" Ronan asked again.

"Mm," Zhao Yingqi replied.

Ronan took a half step closer. "I happen to have some free time. How about I take you to see a play?"

"Okay," Zhao Yingqi replied.

"It's still early, let me take you somewhere to get something to eat first." After saying that, Ronan walked straight towards the palace gate.

Instead of using the carriages provided by the palace, they went to a nearby carriage shop and called a carriage.

The two rode together in a carriage to the riverside tavern where Ronan and his former prime minister Alexander used to meet in private.

The dishes were all very home-style: pickled cucumbers, oxtail stew with tomatoes, shrimp with garlic sauce, mushroom soup with white sauce, boneless chicken thighs pan-fried in butter, toasted bread slices as the main course, inexpensive sparkling wine, and the dessert was also ordinary, just a waterless honey sponge cake.

Neither of them spoke during dinner.

Leaving the tavern, the two strolled along the river. Ronan broke the awkward atmosphere first, saying, "That place was pretty good, wasn't it?"

“It’s fine,” Zhao Yingqi replied. “I’ve been here for almost ten years now, and my tastes have changed, but I still can’t get used to those super sour or saccharine desserts.”

“Haha, that’s true. I can’t stand banquets where you eat a lot of greasy meat followed by a bunch of desserts.” Ronan laughed.

Zhao Yingqi started talking, no longer answering questions one by one, "Actually, when I first came here, I felt that Mr. Ronan was very kind to me."

"Why do you think that?" Ronan asked.

When I first met Zhao Yingqi, he had already lived here for many years, and many of his habits and even his way of thinking had changed.

Zhao Yingqi thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled. "It's probably the accent. Actually, I've met quite a few foreigners when I was little, some of whom spoke Chinese, but they all had southern accents, which I couldn't understand. But I can understand you." She was born in the north, and her father was a typical northerner.

"I thought it was because I looked friendly," Ronan joked.

“Mr. Ronan, you don’t look friendly at all.” Zhao Yingqi paused for a moment, then continued, “You’re so handsome that it makes people a little afraid to get close to you.”

"Haha, you scared me! I thought you were saying I look like a monster," Ronan said. "After all, to people from your area, my appearance should be quite monstrous."

“The ugly ones are all monsters, and the good-looking ones aren’t,” Zhao Yingqi said. “You have quite a few ugly people around here.” Zhao Yingqi seemed to have completely relaxed and spoke much more casually. This was the kind of cheerful girl who had spent a lot of time with Ina and Astrid.

“That makes sense, absolutely makes sense,” Ronan said with a smile.

Zhao Yingqi suddenly lowered his voice, "But some are very special, very beautiful, the kind of beauty that's almost bewitching."

"Who?" Ronan asked curiously.

“It’s Ms. Dinia. You don’t know, I was really scared when I first saw her. She’s as beautiful as a fairy.” Zhao Yingqi said, gesturing as he spoke. His movements were somewhat deliberate. He exaggeratedly gestured Dinia’s large breasts in front of his chest, and then gestured Dinia’s pert buttocks behind his back.

"Hahahaha." Ronan burst into laughter.

Zhao Yingqi's face fell, revealing a hint of worry and nervousness. Even her voice became timid. "Mr. Ronan, do you think I'm being rude and unladylike?"

“No, I don’t think girls need to be so proper,” Ronan said, then added, “By the way, there’s no need to call me Mr. Ronan, it makes me sound like an old man.”