The Prince of Lu was in pain and fear. He huddled in a corner with his head in his hands, sobbing and unable to answer.
Concubine Guo Ning beat her son and vented her anger. After all, she was a mother. Seeing her son's misfortune, she said to Madam Guo, "Quickly call Ru Siyao to see to what extent Prince Lu's health has been harmed by the elixir."
Nanny Guo felt sorry for Prince Lu and hurried out to summon him, but Hu Shanwei stopped her, "Wait a minute, Concubine Ning, you have something more important to do now..."
Concubine Guo Ning dragged Prince Lu, whose head was beaten like a pig, to the inner study to find Emperor Hongwu.
Emperor Hongwu almost didn't recognize the Tenth Prince who was crying and had a bruised face and nose. "What happened to Tan'er?"
Concubine Guo Ning took off her hairpin and knelt down to apologize, saying, "Your Majesty, I have failed to teach my son well, so I am here to apologize."
Hu Shanwei brought elixirs, folk paintings and other items to the emperor.
When Emperor Hongwu opened the book, he was so angry that his beard stood up straight. He picked up the book and threw it at Prince Lu's head, "You bastard! How did you get such a vulgar book into the palace? If the brothers in the East and West Five Offices saw it, wouldn't they be led astray by the evil ways?"
It doesn't matter if you are married, but the five princes in the East and West Palaces are all unmarried.
Prince Lu knew that he was in trouble. Before he came, Hu Shanwei had taught him how to minimize the punishment. No matter how Emperor Hongwu hit him with the book, he endured the pain and did not dodge, but just kept screaming in pain.
Concubine Guo Ning endured the pain in her heart and did not try to stop him. She cried, "Your Majesty, compared to the pills, these pornographic books are nothing."
Emperor Hongwu looked at the scarlet pills, feeling uneasy. "At the age of fourteen or fifteen, the kidney water is at its peak. Why do you need these—"
"Ahem." Hu Shanwei quickly interrupted Emperor Hongwu's wrong guess, "Your Majesty, Ru Si's prescription has just been confirmed. This is Wu Shi San, which was popular in the Wei and Jin dynasties. After taking it, you will feel like you are in heaven, but this thing is poisonous. Long-term use will cause full body heat, blindness, and even death."
Concubine Guo Ning and Hu Shanwei cried in unison, "I was not good at disciplining my child. I didn't even know that Tan'er had been taking the medicine for half a year."
Emperor Hongwu was a father after all. His son was ill, and he was angry and anxious. He asked the Prince of Lu, "How much did you eat?"
The King of Lu cried, "Your son... Your son can't remember clearly. When I can't remember the lessons or can't write my homework at night, I take a pill and I feel refreshed and not sleepy. I can recite it after two times and my thoughts flow like springs."
The Hongwu Emperor was so angry that he picked up the box containing the elixir and raised his hands to smash it. He raised his hands to the air, paused, and shouted, "Call the imperial physician! Call all the directors of the Imperial Hospital to the Qianqing Palace!"
Prince Lu was carried to the Qianqing Palace for consultation and treatment of erysipelas.
Emperor Hongwu looked at Consort Guo Ning, who was sobbing and had disheveled hair, and pointed at Hu Shanwei and said, "Tell me, what happened?"
Hu Shanwei spoke according to the speech he had prepared in advance.
Recently, Prince Lu went to Zhongcui Palace to pay his respects. Concubine Guo Ning felt that her son often looked tired and was worried about his health. She asked about it repeatedly, but Prince Lu and his entourage all said that he was fine.
As a mother, Concubine Guo Ning was naturally more careful. She noticed that after the beginning of autumn, while others wore padded jackets, Prince Lu was still wearing light clothes and said he was not cold.
At that time, Concubine Guo Ning did not know that Wu Shi San was hot in nature. After taking it, the body would feel hot and dry, so the medicinal properties needed to be dispersed. Therefore, most of the talented scholars in the Wei and Jin Dynasties were untidy in their clothes, and some even did not tie their hair up, just to make it easier to disperse the medicinal properties.
Concubine Guo Ning told Hu Shanwei about her doubts. Hu Shanwei felt that there was something wrong with the servants in Prince Lu's bedroom. It was obvious that Prince Lu was behaving abnormally, but everyone said that everything was fine. He seemed to be deceiving his superiors and concealing the truth from his subordinates. So when Prince Lu was practicing riding and shooting, Hu Shanwei took people to search and indeed found the problem.
After Hu Shanwei's earnest persuasion (intimidation), most of the attendants confessed that they had purchased these customs pictures and elixirs outside the palace in order to please Prince Lu, and then brought them back when following Prince Lu in and out of the palace. Because palace servants had to be searched when entering and leaving the palace, food and medicine were prohibited items and could not be brought into the palace at all, but they would not be searched on princes, princesses and other royal members.
Hu Shanwei deliberately concealed the source of Shen Qionglian's warning and made up half a lie, starting with Concubine Guo Ning's intuition as a mother, and the second half was all true.
Emperor Hongwu did not believe it. "Tan'er grew up in the palace. He read books of sages in the morning and practiced martial arts in the afternoon. His teachers and archery masters were carefully selected by me. Their morals are impeccable. How could he know these things? It must be these despicable people who instigated him!"
Hu Shanwei said: "The relevant people have been handed over to the Palace Justice Department for interrogation."
It is impossible for a concubine or a female official in the palace to beat to death someone who made a mistake. Once it becomes a suspicious case, it must be handed over to the Palace Justice Department, and only the Palace Justice Department has the right to punish palace people.
Hu Shanwei sighed in his heart: As expected, the emperor is not immune to this. Once his children do something wrong, their first reaction is always that they have been led astray by others. Fortunately, Shen Qionglian's existence was erased, otherwise she would have been implicated.
Emperor Hongwu summoned Mao Xiang, "The Jinyiwei and the Gongzhengsi will handle this case together. The Gongzhengsi can only handle the harem, while the Jinyiwei will go outside the palace to find out the source of the Wushisan and wipe out this poison that is harming the country and the people, so that it will not harm others again."
Mao Xiang agreed, but just as he reached the door, he was stopped by Emperor Hongwu.
Emperor Hongwu said: "The matter of Prince Lu is probably just the tip of the iceberg. The East and West Five Palaces are where the princes live. Far away from their birth mothers, they are not well managed. The people below only know how to please and flatter the superiors and bully the subordinates. I have long wanted to take good care of it."
"It is better to do it now than to wait for a day. Together with Fan Gongzheng from the Palace Administration Department, you will search the five east and west offices thoroughly. Those who hide forbidden objects will be locked up and interrogated. If you are short of manpower, you can mobilize troops from the Imperial Guards. Don't let any villain go, otherwise my prince will be in trouble!"
Concubine Guo Ning has only one son, but all the princes of the five palaces in the east and west are sons of Emperor Hongwu. The strict father must discipline his sons well today.
Mao Xiang and others continued to search and search, but this time they had the oral order from Emperor Hongwu, which gave them a legitimate reason.
After everyone left, Emperor Hongwu looked at Concubine Guo Ning who took off her hairpin and waited for punishment, and instantly thought of Empress Xiaoci. In the past, when the princes made mistakes, it was obviously not the queen's fault, but the queen would take off her hairpin and wait for punishment, pleading for the princes, blaming herself for not disciplining them strictly, and asking Emperor Hongwu to give them another chance...
Concubine Guo Ning's face was yellow from crying. She was not wearing any makeup and looked haggard and thin, vaguely resembling the character of Empress Xiaoci.
"Get up." The Hongwu Emperor was somewhat sympathetic and personally helped Concubine Guo Ning up. "It's not all your fault. Before, it was Concubine Li who was in charge of the harem. She didn't realize that the villain was at work and poisoned the prince. Now that things have come to this, I just hope that Tan'er was not poisoned too deeply."
Concubine Guo Ning wiped away her tears and said, "There are only thieves who have been thieves for a thousand years, but there is no one who can guard against thieves for a thousand years. Sister Li Guifei devoted herself to the harem and died of illness. I don't blame her, but I blame the treacherous villains who have evil thoughts in order to climb up the wealth and power. It is impossible to guard against them."
This was the strategy Hu Shanwei came up with for Concubine Guo Ning. According to Empress Xiaoci's previous style of dealing with crises, the first thing was to never evade, take responsibility on oneself, and not shirk it.
The second plan was to let Concubine Guo Ning make a big fuss, in order to divert the anger of Emperor Hongwu and use the emperor's thundering means to find the real culprit as soon as possible.
Secondly, all the princes in the five east and west palaces are underage princes. Regardless of whether Concubine Guo Ning and their mother have conflicts of interest, the children are innocent. If Prince Lu is implicated, there may be people with bad intentions around other princes. They are all at an age of curiosity and rebellion. If they go astray, it will be a disaster for their family and the country.
Hu Shanwei advised Concubine Guo Ning: "… If you want to be promoted to the position of the first wife, you must be tolerant and have the mind and foresight of a queen. You must bear the pressure from the superiors and be kind and tolerant to the subordinates. You must first act like a queen, so that the emperor will have the idea of promoting you. It is useless to just seize the power of the harem. What the emperor can give to you, he can also give to others."
This is the embarrassment of a concubine. No matter how high her status is, she is still a concubine. If the husband takes away the power of the housekeeper from his wife, he will be criticized for being incompetent. However, if a concubine takes care of the household affairs, he can change her at will, and outsiders cannot criticize him.
In order to prevent Concubine Guo Ning from becoming the second hopeless person, Hu Shanwei took drastic measures and made Concubine Guo Ning blush with anger. Yes, Empress Xiaoci's family did not even have an earl and she had no control over any troops, but her position as queen was as stable as a rock.
She is a concubine. No matter how powerful her family is and her elder brother is in charge of the imperial guards, she is just a concubine.
Concubine Guo Ning followed Hu Shanwei's advice and escaped the disaster.
The results of the consultation at the Imperial Medical Bureau came out. Prince Lu had contracted erysipelas, but it was not serious. From what we can see so far, he had not yet become addicted. With careful nursing and the elimination of the erysipelas, he would surely recover his health. However, he must never touch it again in the future.
Prince Lu was fine, and Emperor Hongwu and Concubine Guo Ning both breathed a sigh of relief. Hu Shanwei winked at Concubine Guo Ning and reminded her: If you want to be a queen, you must first act like a queen.
Concubine Guo Ning quickly put away her relaxed expression and asked the chief judge of the Imperial Hospital with concern, "What about the other princes? Do they have any suspicious symptoms?"
As a queen, all the children in the palace are her nominal children, and she cannot favor one over another.
Sure enough, when Emperor Hongwu heard that Concubine Guo Ning was concerned about other princes, his expression improved a little.
The judge did not dare to say anything final. "The other princes currently have no symptoms of erysipelas."
Soon, Fan Gongzheng came with the things confiscated from other princes. They were just some customs pictures and customs novels, but no Wushisan. However, when searching the rooms of the attendants, they found some stolen things and caught the criminals in the act. Now the prison of Gongzhengsi is full of people.
It seems that only Prince Lu was affected, and none of the other four young princes took the elixir secretly.
Currently, the 15-year-old eighth prince, Zhu Zi, Prince of Tan, 13-year-old Zhu Chun, Prince of Shu, 10-year-old Zhu Gui, Prince of Dai, and 8-year-old Zhu Jian, Prince of Su, live in the East and West Palaces. The rest of the princes are still young and live with their mothers in the East and West Palaces.
The genre paintings were collected by the young Princes of Tan and Shu. The Princes of Dai and Su were young, and their bedrooms were clean.
Hu Shanwei winked at Concubine Guo Ning again: Among the five princes, only Prince Lu swallowed the elixir, why don’t you apologize now!
Concubine Guo Ning knelt down again and took off her hairpin to plead guilty: "I am incompetent and failed to teach Tan Er well."
Emperor Hongwu's expression changed as fast as turning over a book. The good impression he had just had on Consort Guo Ning disappeared instantly. "You really should reflect on yourself. Why didn't the other princes do this? Don't always blame your subordinates for fawning on you. Flies don't bite cracked eggs. It's Tan'er's own misconduct that gave others the opportunity to take advantage of you!"
The change happened too fast.
It is difficult to prevent a naughty child from being raised by yourself. Concubine Guo Ning was almost successful in changing the impression of Emperor Hongwu on her, but she failed unexpectedly.
Concubine Guo Ning returned to Zhongcui Palace in a state of despair. She was unwilling to give up! She was almost there, just a little bit!
Concubine Guo Ning was extremely angry and smashed a vase to the ground to vent her anger. With a clang, the fragments of the vase flew next to Hu Shanwei's shoes.
Madam Guo hurried over and said, "Hu Siyan, our queen is upset. She didn't mean to treat you badly. Hu Siyan took every step right. Unfortunately, our Prince Lu was too disappointing and held the queen back."
Concubine Guo Ning has been following Hu Shanwei's advice these days and learning the words and deeds of Empress Xiaoci. She is almost hurting herself internally. If you don't learn, you won't know. Once you learn, you will be shocked!
She used to think that Empress Xiaoci was a rich and idle person. The harem was managed by six departments and one bureau, and she only had to nod and shake her head. She was admired by everyone, respected by the emperor, and her position as queen was stable.
When she put herself in Empress Xiaoci's shoes, she realized how tiring it was to be a good queen, how much it took the brain and the heart.
Concubine Guo Ning picked up a vase and smashed it wildly to vent her frustration.
Hu Shanwei said, "The Emperor did not immediately punish the Empress. The power of the harem is still in the hands of the Empress, so there is still hope. When the Empress calms down, I will come over to discuss it with her."
Hu Shanwei was about to leave, but Concubine Guo Ning stopped her again, "Don't go! If you leave, my son and I will probably be despised by the Emperor for the rest of our lives."
Hu Shanwei said, "Your Majesty, I can give you some advice, but I can't help you discipline the Prince of Lu. Your Majesty must be determined to straighten the crooked saplings, which requires a lot of real effort, and no one else can replace you."
Concubine Guo Ning had been suppressed for too long, and her former left-wing nature began to rear its head. She refused to admit her fault for not raising her son properly, "I have said everything I should say. What else can I do? My son has been smart since he was young. He is a good child. He must have been kidnapped and corrupted."
Hu Shanwei thought: If that is the case, why is it that only the King of Lu swallowed the Five Stones Powder among the Five East and West Offices
Suddenly, there was a flash of light in my mind, and I could see the scene clearly in an instant, but it was gone in a flash.
Hu Shanwei closed his eyes tightly, trying to capture the "lightning" just now.
There are five princes in the East and West Five Palaces: Prince of Lu Zhu Tan, son of Concubine Guo Ning. Prince of Tan Zhu Zi, second son of Concubine Da Ding. Prince of Shu Zhu Chun and Prince of Dai Zhu Gui are both sons of Concubine Guo Hui. Prince of Su Zhu Jian, son of the unknown Concubine Gao, whose mother is of low status and only eight years old, can be ignored.
Therefore, the East and West Five Palaces can be said to be the world of the sons of the three concubines: Concubine Guo Dingfei, Concubine Da Dingfei, and Concubine Guo Huifei.
In the 15th year of Hongwu, the eldest son of Concubine Da Ding, Prince of Qi Zhu Bo, was immediately enfeoffed in Qingzhou, Shandong after Empress Xiaoci was assassinated by the silkworm mother during the silkworm ceremony.
Because when the silkworm mother was assassinating her, she said, "You evil woman! You destroyed the Han Dynasty! You killed the King of Han! You took my mother away! You deserve to be killed!"
Concubine Da Ding was the concubine of Chen Youliang, the Prince of Han, who was a warlord in the troubled times and divided Jiangnan with Emperor Hongwu. Emperor Hongwu defeated Chen Youliang and took Da into the palace, where she gave birth to the Prince of Qi and the Prince of Tan.
The Silkworm Mother came ostensibly for the King of Han, but the case later became an unsolved mystery. In order to avoid suspicion, Concubine Da Ding asked Emperor Hongwu to allow the 17-year-old King of Qi to become a fiefdom - it should be noted that the average age of the previous princes was 20 years old.
Zhu Chun, the Prince of Shu, and Zhu Gui, the Prince of Dai, were both sons of Concubine Guo Hui. The foundation of the Hongwu Emperor's power came from the political legacy of Concubine Guo Hui's father, Guo Zixing. Later, the Hongwu Emperor killed Concubine Guo Hui's only brother and took her as a concubine. It should be noted that Empress Xiaoci was Guo Zixing's adopted daughter, and Concubine Guo Hui's status was much higher than Empress Xiaoci's...
Wrong! I have been ignoring a possibility all along!
He self-righteously checked the suspects and at one point thought it was Concubine Guo Ning. In fact, he was blinded by a single leaf and failed to see the mountain!
I am so stupid! Empress Xiaoci has said many times that most of the affairs in the harem are related to the politics of the previous dynasty, but I have always limited my thinking to palace fighting and have not made bold assumptions... The women in the harem are not only after the position of empress or heir.
Maybe I misunderstood the motive of the mastermind behind this. The most unlikely possibility may be the truth!
The author has something to say: The truth will be revealed tomorrow. You can guess first, and the first one to guess correctly will receive a big red envelope of 100 points.
Congratulations to reader Tianyi Youlan for receiving a big red envelope of 100 points!
[-Collapse] №18 Netizen: Tianyi Youlan Comment: "Hu Shanwei" Score: 2 Published: 2019-02-15 21:10:25 Reviewed chapter: 116
Liang Chu
A reader said it very well, Huang Weide's niece marrying into the Liang family is just a Huangliang Yimeng combination, hahahaha.
The 14th year of Chenghua was a "high ranking". If you have read my Ming Dynasty trilogy series, you should know what a high ranking means. In layman's terms, it means "you are the most amazing class I have ever taught", which means that among the candidates who passed the imperial examination, there were ministers who entered the cabinet. In the spring examination of the 14th year of Chenghua, two cabinet ministers emerged, and they successively became the chief ministers of the cabinet, namely Liang Chu and Yang Tinghe. Yang Tinghe was only 19 years old, and he was a top-ranking jinshi of three families, and he and Liang Chu were admitted to the Hanlin Academy as Shujishi.
On the contrary, "dumb list" means "you are the worst batch I have ever taught", which means that the career of this batch of Jinshi is mediocre and no one is admitted to the cabinet.