Just when Zhu Qizhen and the concubines were in shock and doubt, Chen Xiang came in and reported: "Your Majesty, Ruan Xi, the eunuch in charge of etiquette, wants to see you."
Zhu Qizhen heard this and summoned him urgently.
After Ruan Xi saluted, Zhu Qizhen asked eagerly: "What will the emperor do with me?"
Ruan Xi did not accept the words, and just said perfunctorily: "The Holy Emperor has an order, and the matter involves the royal relatives, and everything will be decided by the meeting of the relatives."
"Then what are you doing here?"
Ruan Xi replied: "The Holy One has ordered that all the people from Nangong Palace who participated in the rebellion will be imprisoned and await their fate. Previously, the Holy One bought more than a thousand slaves from North Korea, but now he has selected fifty maids and fifty eunuchs and sent them here Serve Your Majesty and all the empresses.
In addition, Xia Shi and other eunuchs forcibly hanged the imperial concubine. The Holy Lord ordered the servants to ask His Majesty how to deal with it. "
Zhu Qizhen waved his hand helplessly: "Kill him with a stick."
Ruan Xi reported again: "The Holy One has ordered that the prince move to Ciqing Palace from now on. Chonghua Palace is temporarily closed, and palace residents are not allowed to come in or out. If your majesty and ladies are short of anything, feel free to ask for it from the palace palace."
The Holy One has ordered Ruan Lang and Ma Liang to return to Beijing. Ruan Lang was relieved of his duties as Chief of Ceremonies and Bingbi and became the general manager of Chonghua Palace. Ma Liang was demoted to the rank of Jinyi Guard Qianhu, guarding Chonghua Palace full-time. "
Zhu Qizhen sighed and said nothing more. This is house arrest, and it is to be expected. My brother let Ruan Lang and Ma Liang live and let them stay in Nangong. It was really a great mercy.
Empress Zhou asked eagerly: "Can't you let the prince stay with me? He is still young, and now he is frightened and ill."
Ruan Xi replied: "The prince wants to go out to study, how can he be imprisoned in Chonghua Palace? Even if the Holy Emperor agrees, the civil and military officials will not agree."
"Then how about letting the prince stay one more night and move to the palace tomorrow?"
Ruan Xi nodded: "I sincerely respect the Queen's decree. I will leave first."
Ruan Xi and Chen Xiang withdrew, commanded the Pure Army to enter, and detained and took away all the palace residents of Chonghua Palace. Then fifty eunuchs and fifty palace ladies entered Chonghua Palace.
Lu Zhong led the Jinyi Guards to seal the siege of Chonghua Palace.
The Chonghua Palace is fifty feet wide from east to west and eighty feet wide from north to south. It is about the same size as Yuquan Lake in front of Zhu Qiyu's Hehuan Palace. A casual stroll will end there.
In addition to several main halls, Chonghua Palace also has side rooms for servants to live in, and a small garden.
From now on, Zhu Qizhen and his ten women will have to suffer in this small world.
Ruan Xi left Nangong and went to the Tenth Prince's Palace and the Prince's Palace to convey the emperor's decree to the vassal kings, and then continued back to busy ransacking the houses.
In the palace of the kings, King Zhu Zhaohui of Lu sat blankly in his room with a sad face and a piece of paper in his hands.
King Lu's six sons and Tang Jie sat beside him.
After sitting blankly for a long time, King Lu sighed to his disciples with an annoyed look on his face: "It's all because of my father's confusion. I didn't want to rebel. There was a lot of noise and I was deceived into going to the Forbidden City."
The eldest son of the concubine, King Zhu Taiyu of Anqiu, advised: "Father, don't blame yourself too much. Originally, the court summoned us just to give us a banquet by the emperor at Fengtianmen on the first day of the seventh lunar month.
We went to Fengtianmen as agreed on the morning of the first day of July. What's wrong with that?
Besides, we didn’t hand over the guards to Shi Heng, so why should we be called rebels? "
King Lu nodded: "That's what I said, but tomorrow the emperor will summon our family, and Tang Jie will be here to see us, I don't know if it will be a blessing or a curse."
After King Lu finished speaking, he slapped the piece of paper in his hand on the table: "Let's take a look. Sun Zhong, the Marquis of Huichang, left a suicide note and committed suicide. The suicide note listed seven major crimes for the Empress Dowager.
Now the emperor has copied many copies of Sun Zhong's suicide note for us to read.
A few days later, the royal relatives designated by Taizu will hold a meeting to decide how to deal with these matters. "
Zhu Taihu replied: "It's nothing. According to his son, the emperor was quite weak. He actually ordered the three concubines of Huichanghou to send Huichanghou's coffin back to his hometown for burial.
I thought none of the Sun family would survive. "
King Lu asked Tang Jie: "Jie'er, what do you think?"
Tang Jie replied: "My grandnephew thinks that my uncle's words are wrong. The Marquis of Huichang has accused the Empress Dowager of adopting the son of a concubine. Next, as long as Dingxiang Bo Guo Deng agrees with the Marquis of Huichang and admits that his sister Guo Ai, the concubine, is indeed If she gave birth to the prince secretly and raised him for the empress dowager, then this crime was completely fulfilled.
Dingxiang Bo's only son Guo Song was a member of the Jinyi Guard Qianhu, responsible for guarding Nangong, and was also suspected of rebellion. For the sake of his beloved son's life, Uncle Dingxiang might have to admit his guilt.
The emperor left the lives of the three concubines and grandchildren of the Marquis of Huichang, and even the lives of the great-grandsons of the Marquis of Huichang can be discussed. After the Queen Mother's charges were "conclusively proven", as long as someone gave the slightest hint, it was very possible that the Queen Mother would take the initiative to plead guilty to all the charges in order to save the lives of the four children and grandchildren of the Sun family.
In this way, the emperor's benefits would be too great: the empress dowager would definitely be deposed, and the legitimacy of the emperor's throne would be greatly shaken. The status of the crown prince was fundamentally shaken.
Moreover, there is another point in Huichang Hou's suicide note. He publicly admitted that the emperor was the legitimate son of Queen Hu.
This was a good deal. Compared with the price of letting go of the four descendants of the Sun family, the emperor made a profit hundreds or thousands of times.
Besides, the four descendants of the Sun family are not free. Fengyang's Zhongdu is so big that the emperor will not leave it empty. "
At this time, King Lu's second son, Zhu Taikan, who was also the legitimate son, retorted: "That's true, but most of the vassal kings have rebelled, but the emperor does not dare to kill us. We still have good food and drink." Serve. How can you say that the emperor is not weak and can be bullied?"
Tang Jie was directly amused by Zhu Taikan's words: "Uncle, are you thinking too much? Look at the nobles and civil servants present at that time, are all dead?
As for the fact that most of the vassal kings survived, that was just something the emperor let go on purpose.
If you don’t believe me, count from the beginning. Didn’t the most famous feudal princes go to the Forbidden City? Did the feudal princes with the worst reputation all die in the rebellion? Is the person who survived the rebellion a vassal king whose reputation is not too bad? "
Zhu Taikan asked curiously: "You are saying that the emperor was killing people in a planned way? Then why didn't he kill all the vassal kings who entered the Forbidden City? And why did he kill all the civil servants and nobles?"
Tang Jie smiled and said: "Uncle, think about it, those civil servants and nobles are dead when they die, and they have no influence on the emperor at all.
But at the local level, the emperor needed vassals, civil servants, gentry, and powerful men to check each other and maintain balance.
It would be a pleasure to kill all the feudal kings now, but without the restraint of the feudal king at the local level, and the civil servants, gentry, and powerful men colluding with each other, it would soon be impossible to defeat them.
And the emperor now only has two sons, both of whom are still babies, so there is no hope for them at all.
Therefore, the emperor was not weak, but had no choice but to leave some of the vassal princes with passable conduct to continue to guard the place for the Ming Dynasty. "
King Anqiu echoed: "This is true, think about the scene in the square in front of Fengtian Palace, fighting to the end.
Brothers Cao Jixiang and Cao Qin had almost killed the noble servants and the feudal king's guards, and the Tiance Guards also rushed in at the right time.
At that time, Hao Yi, the eunuch in charge of the Royal Horse Supervisor, was not far away from me. I saw him respectfully helping King Huai who fell to the ground, and politely ordered his own soldiers to protect King Huai and leave.
Then Hao Yi turned his head and waved his hand gently, and the Tiance Guards immediately rushed forward and cut their throats and beheaded all the remaining Huai King guards.
In the end, there were more than 10,000 people on the spot, all of whom were killed and killed by Tiance Guards. Except for the vassal king, no one was left alive.
But brothers Cao Jixiang and Cao Qin should have been captured alive, then tried by the judicial department and executed in Lingchi. But what is very strange is that the Cao Qin brothers asked Hao Yi to let their concubine live. Hao Yi nodded and said: Don't worry and go on your way.
Then Hao Yi actually ordered the soldiers of Tiance Guards to give brothers Cao Jixiang and Cao Qin a happy surprise. "
Tang Jie nodded in approval: "Uncle is right, Cao Jixiang and others definitely did it on purpose. Seeing that the situation was over, they began to do the dirty work for the emperor and kill the feudal king.
Only in this way can we reasonably explain why the Cao family suddenly went crazy and rushed to kill the vassal king's guards and noble servants.
Moreover, the old fox Cao Jixiang killed the feudal kings selectively, so it was such a coincidence that the feudal king with a poor reputation almost died, but the feudal king with a good reputation did not suffer much loss. "
When everyone heard this, they suddenly realized.
King Lu told everyone: "As long as our family understands this matter, you can't spread it to outsiders. You can't tell it to your own princess when you go back, or it will rot in your stomach.
Jie'er is still smart. After all, it is because of his family background and he has a thorough understanding of the twists and turns of the court. "
Tang Jie gave a wry smile. The Tang family deserved this compliment. Among the founding heroes of the Ming Dynasty, few could successfully survive the hands of Taizu, and one of the very few who had the last laugh was his own ancestor, Xin Guogong Tang He.
The descendants of the Tang family dare not say anything else. The ability to wait and see the direction of the wind and protect oneself wisely is really a family tradition.
It's just that after the Tumu Fort Incident, the Tang family was still too conservative. It was clear that the new emperor had sent people to invite the Tang family to join the King Qin, but after repeated weighing, the Tang family chose to wait and see for the time being.
Who would have thought that the war would end so quickly, and who would have thought that the new king not only defeated Wala, but even killed Ye Xian right after.
Tang Jie missed this opportunity and broke his thigh with regret. Li Xuan, who was almost the same age, easily took back the title of Duke of Cao just because he took hundreds of servants to Beijing to serve the king without making any special achievements.
Tang Jie regretted that if he had entered the capital early, he would have become Duke Xin by now just by taking a sword and swinging it a few times on the battlefield.
Turning things around will lead to destruction; wind and clouds will destroy the mutiny. After seeing the emperor's two great feats, Tang Jie was completely convinced.
A victory may be due to luck, but two consecutive victories like autumn leaves swept away by the autumn wind can never be explained by luck alone.
But the problem is that it is a bit late for Tang Jie to be loyal to the emperor now. Because now people who think the same as Tang Jie have begun to line up.
Now that you want to be loyal, the emperor must first ask: Who are you?
(End of chapter)
