Entering Donghua Gate, the further inside they went, the more frightened King Xiang and Sun Zhong became.
The three main halls were burned down. The Renshou Palace and the Yangxin Palace were burned down.
Cining Palace and Qianqing Palace were burned down. Xian'an Palace and Yongshou Palace were also burned down.
In other words, more than half of the entire Forbidden City was burned down.
King Xiang sighed with worry: "With so many palaces, how much money will it cost to rebuild them? The Ming Dynasty was already in a troubled period, and if we continue to make such troubles, it will waste people and money, and the national strength will be even weaker."
Sun Zhong sneered: "His Royal Highness King Xiang is really worried. Your Majesty will not rebuild these palaces at all. How can we waste people, money and national power?"
King Xiang had only been in the capital for twenty days and did not know the emperor well enough. He still instinctively believed that all emperors should love the Forbidden City extremely. As for Zhu Qiyu's behavior of running to the western suburbs, in King Xiang's mind it was a pure trick of retreating in order to deceive the world.
But Sun Zhong saw very clearly that the emperor sincerely had no interest in the Forbidden City, and the emperor was also extremely determined to cut expenses so that the people of the world could recuperate.
The emperor would never do anything like overhauling the palace and wasting money and people.
Although his positions were different, Sun Zhong still very much agreed with the emperor's actions in military and political affairs.
The most distressing thing about Sun Zhong is that his daughter, Queen Mother Sun, and eldest son Sun Jizong have completely different ideas from his own. These two men refused to admit defeat and insisted on a fight with the emperor.
Sun Zhong thought of this and sighed heavily: Let's fight, let's fight, if we fight, the entire Sun family will be destroyed.
Neither King Xiang nor Sun Zhong could convince anyone, so they stayed silent all the way and went straight to Yinghua Hall.
Empress Dowager Sun and Empress Qian are also extremely aggrieved now.
The majestic Queen Mother actually lived in the small Yinghua Palace in the northwest corner of the Forbidden City.
Queen Qian is even worse, she has no place to live. All the better palaces were burned down, two were burned down in the West Sixth Palace, and four were left. Only the East Sixth Palace was intact.
But the problem is that the West Sixth Palace and the East Sixth Palace are for the emperor's concubines. Isn't it embarrassing for the empress to live in the West Sixth Palace and the East Sixth Palace? Especially when another queen, Zhou, occupies the Kunning Palace, once she moves into the East and West Sixth Palace, it means admitting that she will be inferior to others from now on.
Although Queen Qian is not as stubborn as Wang, she can't stand this anger.
In the end, Queen Qian had no choice but to live in the side hall of the Yinghua Palace of the Queen Mother Sun.
As a result, both of them were bedridden in the Yinghua Palace, which saved the imperial doctors trouble and did not have to run around.
Sun Zhong and Prince Xiang sat outside, talking to Queen Mother Sun across the screen.
Since Empress Dowager Sun was bedridden, in order to avoid suspicion, there was no way to evacuate people from the palace.
So Empress Dowager Sun made some changes, leaving behind two confidant maids and four young eunuchs headed by Gao Ping who had loyally rescued her before. The rest of the palace people rushed to the side hall to wait on Queen Qian.
At this time, King Xiang took out the copy of the Sinji Edict and started talking to the Queen Mother Sun.
King Xiang had no shortage of powerful staff. In half a day, he dismantled the emperor's imperial edict and analyzed the emperor's intentions to the letter.
I heard Prince Xiang say to Empress Dowager Sun: "Imperial sister-in-law, you see, the emperor came up and said that he was the only son of Empress Zhen. This is obviously because he wants to compete for the legitimate throne.
If the emperor is really allowed to establish his identity as the eldest son, then changing the crown prince and transferring the lineage will all be a matter of course. "
When Sun Zhong heard this, he nodded involuntarily. This analysis was completely correct.
Queen Mother Sun also fell silent when she heard this. The emperor's entry point was really too cunning and vicious.
If the emperor only starts from the position of crown prince and forcibly promotes the change of crown prince, then from a moral and ethical perspective, the emperor will inevitably fall into extreme passivity, and will lose the hearts of his subjects.
If the emperor starts from the fault of the Supreme Emperor's personal expedition and forcibly denies the Supreme Emperor's legal authority, it will be difficult to convince the public. The government and the public do not actually care much about how many soldiers died in Tumubao.
Now that Wala has been defeated and severely injured, there is no need to dwell on the past.
But starting from the battle between concubines and concubines, the situation is completely different.
It is an ironclad fact that the Queen Mother Sun killed her wife with her concubine, and it is also a weakness that the Queen Mother Sun cannot get around no matter what.
Therefore, Zhu Qiyu was determined to fight to the death with the emperor's faction in the dispute between his concubines and concubines.
Although it is very difficult to win.
But once the outcome is determined in the battle between concubines and concubines, it is a winner-takes-all battle.
Moreover, in this aspect, Queen Hu occupies a righteous position and is deeply sympathized by the people of the world.
Even ministers such as Liao Zhuang, Zhang Lun, and Zhong Tong who firmly agreed with the Supreme Emperor did not dare to stand up and confidently deny the identity of Queen Hu's legitimate wife.
As long as they dare to stand up and say nothing about Queen Hu, Zhu Qiyu will immediately send them to Caishikou.
This is the power of Confucian etiquette. A legitimate wife is a legitimate wife, and a concubine is a concubine. If you dare to deny your legitimate wife, I will kill you openly.
Zhu Qiyu's difficulty lies in how to make the world generally recognize his identity as the legitimate son of Queen Hu.
As long as this pass is won, you can push flatly to crush all opponents later.
Now Zhu Qiyu's strategy has become a conspiracy. Empress Dowager Sun knows it, King Xiang knows it, and all the civil and military officials, the government and the public will understand it one after another.
But this is not important. What is important is who can win the hearts of the people in the world.
This is what is called, those who win the hearts of the people win the world.
King Xiang and Queen Mother Sun analyzed the emperor's intention to avoid the western suburbs and made it clear that after the emperor returned to Beijing, he would retire as a prince and welcome the restoration of the emperor.
Sun Zhong was more dissatisfied, and once again persuaded the Queen Mother Sun, hoping to completely give up the fight for the throne and just seek glory and wealth as a family.
From Sun Zhong's perspective, it really doesn't make sense. When the emperor is on the throne, the Sun family is still marquis; when the emperor is restored, the Sun family is still marquis. There is not much difference between going back and forth.
If I must say it, I was promoted to Marquis by the current emperor. When the Supreme Emperor was on the throne, he was only an earl.
The three of them broke up unhappy like this. Not long after King Xiang and Sun Zhong left, Shu Liang and Zhang Yong came to Yinghua Palace together to pay their respects to Queen Mother Sun.
Empress Dowager Sun patiently dealt with it for a few words before sending the two of them away.
Unexpectedly, Shu Liang replied: "To report to the Queen Mother, the Holy One has decreed that all the palace residents in the burned palaces will be killed with sticks."
When Queen Mother Sun heard this, her heart skipped a beat and she immediately sat up from the bed.
This is the advantage of the righteousness. The emperor is determined to kill these palace people, and not even the empress dowager can stop him.
Empress Dowager Sun knew that the emperor had made up his mind and there was no need to discuss it. He could only sigh and asked Shu Liang: "Gao Ping and the other three young eunuchs risked their own lives and rescued me from the sea of fire. I wonder if the emperor would take them for saving my life. Spare them life?"
Shu Liang replied: "To the Queen Mother, we can leave these four young eunuchs alone for the time being. I will report them to His Majesty for judgment."
Queen Mother Sun nodded, lay back on the bed, and closed her eyes helplessly.
Upon seeing this, Shu Liang commanded dozens of young and strong eunuchs to come in and pull out all the palace attendants around the Queen Mother and Queen.
Immediately afterwards, another group of new palace attendants came in, taking the places of the old ones and becoming the personal attendants of Empress Dowager Sun and Empress Qian.
On the morning of the next day, the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, Zhu Qiyu's edict was sent to the Yinghua Hall: Gaoping had made a contribution to the rescue and was promoted to the eunuch of the ceremonial department and the general manager of the Yinghua Hall.
In order to change the situation where the inner court's defense was full of loopholes, the inner court was established. Zhang Yong was appointed as the eunuch of the inner court, responsible for supervising the palace people in the entire imperial city.
(End of chapter)
