When the news of Zhao Zhen's death came out, the whole country was shocked. People in Bianjing City wore mourning tributes, and white mourning flags were hung at the door of every house.
The benevolence of the late Emperor was known to all the world, and the people spontaneously went on strike in the streets and cried for several days.
Even beggars and children burned paper money and cried in front of the palace. The smoke spread so widely that there was no light in the sky above Bianjing City.
In the 150 years since the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, this was not the first time that an emperor had passed away, but the previous times combined were far less than the scene where the mountains and rivers were in pain and all the people mourned when Zhao Zhen died this time.
Wherever Zhao Zhen's obituary was delivered, there were loud cries and smoke filled the air. Even the Khitan emperor in the north couldn't help but shed tears and wail endlessly after hearing about it.
The Khitan emperor also ordered people to bury the clothes that Zhao Zhen had given him in the past as a burial mound. He paid homage every year and wrote poems to express his condolences.
In ancient times, mourning lasted for three years, but Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty created the system of "changing days to months" and changed the number of months of mourning to days, that is, mourning for thirty-six days replaced three years of mourning.
The funeral system of the Tianjia family in the Great Zhou Dynasty was also a system of "changing the sun to the moon". The twenty-fourth day after the death of the emperor was Daxiang (the second anniversary day).
Three days after Daxiang is the day of mourning, officials and people can take off their mourning clothes and resume normal life, and the court offices can operate in an orderly manner. Only the new emperor must continue to mourn in the inner court.
After the death of Gui, the Ministry of Rites began to prepare for the new king's enthronement ceremony.
Although the ministers had already begun to address the new monarch as "official" after reading out the imperial edict, a formal and grand enthronement ceremony was still needed to calm the hearts of the people.
The tenth year of the Great Zhou Dynasty, May 12th.
At the Yin time of the day, Zhao Zongquan sent three ministers and ministers to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth, the ancestral temple, and Sheji respectively.
Zhao Zongquan himself came to the late Emperor's Zi Palace wearing mourning robes. He bowed five times and kowtowed three times to complete his order. Then he could take off his mourning robes and put on the most solemn crown of the emperor.
When the auspicious time comes, the bells and drums in the imperial city will be ringing, and the main entrance of Xuande Gate and the left and right gates will be opened.
Civil and military officials, each in court uniform, filed in from Xuande Gate and lined up in the square in front of Zichen Hall.
Zhao Zongquan, dressed in Gunmian robes, came out of the middle gate and came to the Zichen Hall to ascend his throne.
When Zhao Zongquan sat down on the throne, the Imperial City Secretary blew his whip nine times, and thousands of officials knelt down and bowed five times and kowtowed three times.
After the ceremony, Han Zhang, a scholar of Longtuge, presented the imperial edict for enthronement that had been drawn up. Zhao Zongquan looked at it symbolically, stamped it with the treasure of bearing the mandate, and handed the edict to Shen Weizhong, the left minister of the Ministry of Rites.
Shen Weizhong respectfully carried the edict to Xuandemen and read it on the Xuandemen tower.
The main contents of the edict are: amnesty for the whole world, changing the next year to the first year of public security, appointing five envoys to the mountains and mausoleums to handle the funeral of the late emperor, etc. These are the intended meanings of the imperial edicts that have always been enthroned, and there is no need to elaborate.
In addition, the edict also ennobled the former emperor's empress Cao as the empress dowager, the crown prince Shen as the empress, and the prince of Gaoyang County Zhao Ceying as Prince Huan.
The prince's biological father, Zhao Huan, the prince of Yanping County, was also posthumously named King Shu.
Han Zhang, a bachelor of Longtuge, was added to the Grand Master; Wen Yanchang, a bachelor of Longtuge, was added to Shaobao; Shen Congxing, the Marquis of the Front Division of the Palace, was granted the title of Marquis of Weibei by Shen Congxing, and the deputy commander of the Front Division of the Palace was added.
The rest of the civil and military officials were all promoted to the first rank of casual officials according to the principle of great ceremony and general rank.
Wei Chen also benefited from it. He had just been awarded the title of Silver Green Guanglu Doctor, and he was promoted to the Golden Purple Guanglu Doctor, the third grade.
After the edict of enthronement was read out, Baiguanshan shouted long live. The brief but solemn enthronement ceremony came to an end. After that, the edict of enthronement would be sent to the Ministry of Rites, which would be issued to the world.
At the end of the ceremony, all the officials dispersed, but Wei Chen still had no time to relax. He was appointed as the Lu Book Envoy among the five envoys of Shanling, and he had to prepare for the funeral of the late emperor non-stop.
Due to the ancestral system, the Zhou emperor did not build mausoleums during his lifetime. Construction of imperial mausoleums could only begin after the emperor died.
The "Book of Rites? Kingship" also says, "The emperor was buried in the seventh month." That is to say, the emperor had to be buried seven months after his death.
Therefore, the time to build the mausoleum for the Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty was only seven months, and the construction period was very tight.
On the second day after the enthronement ceremony, Wei Chen, together with officials from Qin Tian Jian, rushed to Gongyi, Henan Province to conduct mausoleum surveys near the tombs of ancestors of all dynasties of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
Wei Chen and his men wandered around in the ravines for more than half a month, until they were all disgraced, and then they chose a lucky place as the late emperor's final resting place.
Wei Chen took the map he had drawn and rushed back to Bianjing without stopping to report his orders to the new king.
After completing the exploration of the late emperor's tomb, Wei Chen participated in the discussion of the late emperor's temple name and posthumous title as a courtier of third rank or above (here refers to official rank).
The first thing to be decided was the posthumous title, which had sixteen characters in total, embodying heaven's Dharma, being extremely meritorious and virtuous, being wise, wise, wise and filial.
The posthumous title of the late Emperor Zhao Zhen is: Emperor of Body, Heaven, Dharma, Dao, Perfect Virtues, Saint, Wu, Ruizhe, Mingxiao.
In ancient times, when evaluating the merits and demerits of emperors, they only looked at their posthumous titles. However, since the Tang Dynasty, the system of posthumous titles has gradually become corrupted.
From two or three words with a connotation of praise to more than ten words full of flattery, it is not only smelly and long, but also has lost its original effect.
The only thing that can truly conclude the emperor's life's merits and demerits is his temple name.
Therefore, before the Tang Dynasty, emperors were mostly called by their posthumous titles, but after the Tang Dynasty, they were basically called by their temple names. For example, no one would call Li Shimin the great civil and military sage Emperor Guangxiao, but his temple name, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.
Just one word in the temple name can praise or criticize the emperor for his whole life, so the word selection is extremely careful.
In order to agree on the name of the temple of the late emperor, the scene of ministers arguing endlessly and even getting into a war of words has happened more than once since the founding of the Zhou Dynasty.
However, when it came to Zhao Zhen, there was a rare difference between the government and the public. From the new monarch and the queen mother to the prime minister and ministers, they all agreed that the name of the former emperor's temple should be Renzong, which means a benevolent saint. .
When it came time to write the posthumous proposal for the late emperor, the ministers publicly recommended Wei Chen to write it, not only because Wei Chen was known as the literary emperor of the world and the author of the article on China, but also because Wei Chen had been deeply favored by the late emperor since he became an official.
Therefore, it can be said that it is most appropriate for Wei Chen to write this posthumous proposal.
Not long after, a scribe brought some paper and pen and placed them in front of Wei Chen.
Wei Chen sat in front of the table, polishing the ink himself and typing up the manuscript. However, he had been so full of literary thoughts in the past that he had no thoughts at all this time.
Wei Chen's mind kept replaying the scene where the late emperor nominated him as the number one scholar in the palace.
Thinking of the late emperor's great kindness to him during his lifetime, Wei Chen choked up and couldn't write for a long time. The officials around him couldn't help but be moved by the scene and quietly wiped away their tears.
After a while, under the urging of the chamberlain sent by Zhao Zongquan, Wei Chen regained his composure and started writing.
"The name of the temple in Guangdong has been around for a long time, but the sages and sages in its history are all known for their respect and virtue, or they have been passed down from generation to generation.
Isn't it possible that the great virtues of the benevolent saints were not fully recognized? Or was it that the great Confucian scholars at that time simply ignored the enlightenment of heaven and expected to be able to match the great temples?
The poem goes: The destiny of upholding heaven is in Mu's heart. This is what it is called. However, entrepreneurship is the ancestor of merit, and morality is the ancestral line, which is the great righteousness of respecting everyone.
The posthumous title of Emperor Daxing was Yi Tianxi, and he was named Emperor Renzong. "
