Every failure is a lesson learned. Last time when Concubine Zhang was checking homework, she was almost humiliated by the two princesses. In the end, it was Hu Shanwei who saved the situation and smoothed things over. Now the two princesses are being instigated by the King of Han again. They cannot be beaten or scolded. Concubine Zhang has to ask Hu Shanwei for advice to keep the two princesses calm.
Hu Shanwei invited Princess Huaiqing.
Firstly, Princess Huaiqing is the elder; secondly, she has served as a follower of the emperor and helped a lot in the Yongle Emperor's ascension to the throne, so the Yongle Emperor trusts this princess sister very much; thirdly, she has a personal relationship with Princess Huaiqing, which started from the funeral specifications of the princess's mother, Concubine Chengmu Sun, so she can be invited - after all, Princess Huaiqing has always been in a neutral position in the open and secret struggles between the Crown Prince and the King of Han, and has never expressed her attitude. Now that Princess Huaiqing has entered the palace, it will be beneficial to the Eastern Palace to stabilize the two princesses.
Ever since the death of her husband Wang Ning, Princess Huaiqing has been in semi-seclusion. Apart from the memorial days of Emperor Gaozu, Empress Xiaoci, Consort Chengmu and Empress Renxiao, when she would go to the palace to pay homage to them in Fengxian Hall, and other important festivals such as the New Year, she has not set foot in the palace again.
Princess Huaiqing never expressed her opinion on politics. Her two sons with Wang Ning, Wang Zhenqing and Wang Zhenliang, only accepted honorary positions and rewards but never held real jobs. They usually devoted themselves to studying poetry and books and only interacted with idle literati. They stayed away from politics and remained unmoved no matter how the King of Han tried to please them.
Having experienced the pain of losing her husband in middle age, Princess Huaiqing really doesn't want to lose another loved one.
However, when Hu Shanwei came to invite her, Princess Huaiqing felt that her illness was so serious that it was necessary for the stability of the royal family to enter the palace.
Princess Huaiqing calmed down the situation immediately. Concubine Zhang expressed her gratitude. Princess Huaiqing said, "It's not easy to be a concubine in the Ming Dynasty. My mother was also a concubine. You don't have to thank me. I didn't come here for you. I haven't been to the palace for a long time. I want to go to my mother's Changchun Palace and take a look."
Concubine Zhang looked embarrassed, "This is easy, but... the head of Changchun Palace, Concubine Quan Xian, just died, I'm afraid..."
Princess Huaiqing asked, "Where is the coffin of Concubine Quan Xian placed?"
Concubine Zhang said: "In Rouyi Palace, we are waiting for the emperor to wake up and then prepare for the funeral." The coffin of Empress Renxiao was also parked there.
Princess Huaiqing said: "Since the coffin is not in Changchun Palace, I don't have to be superstitious."
Hu Shanwei accompanied Princess Huaiqing to Changchun Palace. After Concubine Quanxian died suddenly, the other seven lower-ranking concubines were placed in other palaces, and this place became empty.
As no one lived there, there was no one to clean the thick snow on the palace. The once glorious Changchun Palace now looked lonely and desolate.
Princess Huaiqing came to a swing in the courtyard and said, "This swing is still here. I grew up in Changchun Palace and often came here to play when I was a child."
Hu Shanwei told the truth, "The previous one was already decayed, so this one was dismantled and rebuilt. Consort Quan Xianfei came from North Korea and liked to play on the swing."
"Things have changed." Princess Huaiqing wiped the snow off the swing seat, "Mrs. Hu, push me."
Hu Shanwei gently pushed Princess Huaiqing's back.
Princess Huaiqing swung high up, and when she landed, she deliberately kicked the snow with the tip of her boots, as if she had returned to the carefree days of the princess before she got married. "In the middle of the night, I suddenly dreamed of my youth, and cried in my dream, my makeup was stained with tears. Last night, I dreamed of my husband."
Princess Huaiqing said, "I dreamed of the first time I met him. He shot three arrows at the willow tree during the Dragon Boat Festival. He played polo and he was honest and upright. I pretended to be a young man and sat behind him with a paddle. The boat capsized and I couldn't swim, so he dived to the bottom of the water and pulled me ashore."
Hu Shanwei had never imagined that there would be such a strange thing during dragon boat racing back then.
"I have been thinking about him all the time, every day, all these years." Princess Huaiqing was swinging on the swing, the north wind was raging on her face, and the tears she had tried hard to hold back formed a layer of white frost on her eyelashes.
The death of a rabbit makes the fox mourn. Seeing Princess Huaiqing so sad, Hu Shanwei thought from his own perspective that if Mu Chun went to Jiaozhi to quell the rebellion and could not return, she would probably feel as much pain as Princess Huaiqing.
Hu Shanwei said: "The prince consort has always been an excellent person. He has not let down the country, nor has he let down the princess's deep love."
Princess Huaiqing stopped swinging and said, "But he failed you, don't you hate him?"
"I did." Hu Shanwei said, "But from the moment I stopped loving him, I stopped hating him."
Princess Huaiqing's right hand, which was holding the swing, suddenly grabbed Hu Shanwei's hand. "When I was suffering in pain these years, I always had a fantasy that I was ashamed to talk about. I imagined that Wang Ning refused when my father proposed it, and you reconciled with him, and you left the palace and became the wife of the Earl of Yongchun."
"The emperor's daughter has no trouble finding a husband. I was disappointed for a while, but I still followed the choice of my father, the emperor, the empress, and my mother, and married a man who is not as outstanding as Wang Ning. I can live a smooth life. The prince consort is just an accessory to me. It will not affect my life with or without him. If I don't love him, I don't care. If the prince consort dies, I can still live a rich and prosperous life without any worries. How wonderful it would be."
Hu Shanwei said, "If Wang Ning had rejected Emperor Gaozu at that time, both he and I would have died. This is the reality. Under the imperial power, if you can't get it, you will destroy it. No one can reconcile. Princess, don't let your imagination run wild. There is no if. Love is love. Don't deceive yourself. Wang Ning is worthy of your love."
Princess Huaiqing still refused to let go and seemed to be hesitant to speak.
Hu Shanwei said straightforwardly: "I have loved him. He was my first and most painful love."
Princess Huaiqing got the answer and finally let go. She smiled self-deprecatingly, "I am a princess of the Ming Dynasty, but I am still not as generous as you, Lady Hu. You never regretted loving him, but I imagined what my life would be like if I hadn't loved him."
"In this world, all love is sin. If you want to escape from the sea of suffering, you can only cut off all feelings and love. But all these years have passed, I have many children and grandchildren, and I am rich and glorious, but I still can't stop thinking about him and loving him. My body has been exhausted by sex and I can't get out. It seems that only death can bring me relief."
Princess Huaiqing became ill due to longing for her husband and died of depression in the early twelfth lunar month. Emperor Yongle ordered a grand funeral. According to royal rules, a princess could not be buried with her husband. Before she died, Princess Huaiqing asked her two sons to put her husband's clothes and hat in the coffin, side by side with hers.
The two sons cried and agreed. Princess Huaiqing was buried in Niu Shou Mountain in Jiangning County. After hundreds of years of wind and rain, the princess's tomb was harassed by tomb robbers. In 2017, the Nanjing Institute of Archaeology received a report and carried out a rescue excavation of the ancient tomb. Only pottery jars, bronze coffin rings, a small amount of scattered gold ornaments and bones were found.
Fortunately, the tombstone marked "Princess Huaiqing" behind the door stone is well preserved, proving that the owner of this ancient tomb is Princess Huaiqing, the sixth daughter of Emperor Gaozu of the Ming Dynasty.
Those regretful partings that started with joy and ended with hopeless waiting and tears, those loves where couples loved each other but could not grow old together, those marriages where couples were infatuated for a lifetime and could never get out of the sadness, all turned to dust in the end, leaving only a cold tombstone.
On the tenth day of Emperor Yongle's recuperation, he was finally able to speak complete sentences.
"Duke Yingguo Zhang Fu is in charge of the capital's defense." Before that, it was Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu.
"I am ill and need to recuperate. During this time, the Crown Prince will be the regent. However, any major matters involving the military, the state, and changes in officials above the third rank must be handled by me personally."
At the critical moment, Emperor Yongle could not trust either the Crown Prince or the King of Han. However, as a father, he would not rely on either of them.
Emperor Yongle acquiesced to Shen Qionglian's move to invite Concubine Zhang to take charge of the harem. After all, he trusted Concubine Zhang and the Zhang family, and the previous confinement was considered to have never happened. When he was weak, he felt safe only when he had the situation firmly in his own hands.
During the Yu-Lü Rebellion, the acting Shang Gong Shen Qionglian was guilty of negligence, but because she tried to remedy the situation and stabilized the situation, her crime was commuted to punishment, she was fined one year's salary, and returned to the Shang Yi Bureau, where she was demoted to Shang Yi.
Shen Qionglian had plenty of money. Apart from the emperor, she was probably the second richest person in the harem. She didn't care about the annual salary. As for being a Shangyi, she thought this arrangement was pretty good. She didn't want to be a Shanggong in the first place as the responsibility was too great. It would be easier for her to just write palace poems.
After the situation stabilized, Emperor Yongle took care of Concubine Quan's funeral.
"During the harem's Yulu Rebellion, Concubine Quan Xian was innocently killed. Her father and brother were summoned to Beijing to handle Concubine Quan Xian's funeral. The Imperial Household Department sent people to Korea to comfort Concubine Xian's mother."
More than a thousand people died in the harem at once. Most of the families from Korea who sent their daughters to the capital for marriage were nobles of the yangban class, and they also had to give an explanation. If the deaths were unclear and covered up, it would only cause more unbearable speculation.
The official version is that the tribute girl Lu was jealous of her fellow countryman Quan Xianfei's favor, and she colluded with Yu, a eunuch from Korea in the palace, to get poison/drug from outside the palace, poisoned Quan Xianfei and caused chaos in the palace. The principal offender, the accomplice, and the victim were all from Korea, and so were the people implicated, which was called the Yu Lu Rebellion.
Concubine Quan's coffin was to be carried out of the palace for burial.
Concubine Zhang came to Rouyi Hall to see Concubine Quan off for the last time. It was a cold winter, and the corpse had been embalmed and carefully dressed up. Concubine Quan was wearing a full set of 翟冠 and bright red court robes, lying in the coffin with a peaceful face. She was just much thinner than usual due to dehydration during the embalming.
Concubine Quan was already thin and frail, and she looked like Xi Shi holding her heart. At this moment, she looked even weaker and frailer, like a young girl who had not yet fully developed.
The person who least deserved to die died the most tragically, suffering such an unexpected disaster. Concubine Zhang looked at Concubine Quan Xian in the coffin, and a thousand kinds of feelings surged into her heart, and finally merged into bitterness.
Concubine Zhang sighed, "Don't worry, I have decided to put aside those false fantasies and hopeless love and be a good concubine...
An obedient chess piece. Because of love, there is sorrow, because of love, there is fear. If you let go of love, there will be no sorrow or fear. "
Life is sloppy and I am bending over.
Pride, love, children, hope, etc. are not what a royal concubine, especially a royal concubine of the Yongle Dynasty, can possess.
Eliminate emotions and love, have no desires and no demands. The self-cultivation of a concubine is to treat the imperial palace, the center of the world of fame and fortune, as a temple for cultivation, and cultivate her character in the interweaving of power, love and hate.
After a month of rest, Emperor Yongle recovered and returned to work. However, at this age, his vitality had been severely damaged and his health was not as good as before.
Emperor Yongle was busy reading the memorials that he missed when he was seriously ill. According to the rules of the Crown Prince Regent, military and national affairs had to be handled by Emperor Yongle himself. However, for such a huge empire, how could it be such a trivial matter that required submitting a letter to the emperor
In addition to major events, Emperor Yongle also needed to have a comprehensive understanding of what was happening in the country when he was seriously ill.
Emperor Yongle's gaze stopped on a memorial.
This was a letter from Xie Jin, who was once the empire's first confidential secretary, the president of the Yongle Encyclopedia, and was demoted to Jiaozhi by him.
Officials on exile had to return to Beijing to report to the emperor when their terms expired. Emperor Yongle had originally planned to cultivate Xie Jin, so he demoted him to Jiaozhi that year. One reason was to suppress the crown prince, and the other was to allow Xie Jin to gain some experience in Jiaozhi.
However, when Xie Jin returned to the capital to report on his work, he only met the crown prince and then hurriedly left the capital without waiting to be summoned by Emperor Yongle.
What did Xie Jin and the Crown Prince say? Why didn't the Crown Prince keep such an important minister and wait for me to wake up and listen to his report in person
Emperor Yongle had just suffered betrayal and was in weak health, so he became very suspicious. He immediately suspected the relationship between the crown prince and Xie Jin, so he ordered the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Ji Gang, to pursue Xie Jin, put him in prison, and interrogate him strictly.
The author has something to say: Princess Huaiqing's tomb is on my Weibo. Students who are interested can go and see Mulanzhou. Um, there are lunch boxes to be distributed tomorrow. Today is July 1st, and half of the year has passed. The students who scattered flowers yesterday have all distributed red envelopes. I will also distribute 100 red envelopes tonight to comfort everyone's injured hearts~
Thank you to the little angels who cast their votes for me or irrigated me with nutrient solution~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:
Tashi 39 bottles; Cross Rainbow 30 bottles; Xie Zhuoyan, 940215 10 bottles; Gudong is coming!, tity 5 bottles; Adai 2 2 bottles; Cut long hair, Little Star, 31782152 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!