No matter how beautiful the dream is, there will come a day when you wake up.
When they were young and frivolous, they always thought that love could solve everything. Six years later, A Lei and Zhu Zhanji were 22 years old and had become parents. They were pressured by Emperor Hongxi from above and Concubine Guo and Prince Teng from below. Under such pressure, the two lovers became the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess.
The love is still there, but the fate is over.
First of all, as a large family with a throne to inherit, a crown prince without heirs would be easy for people to find evidence to attack him. The key to the fact that Emperor Hongxi was able to survive for twenty-one years was that he was able to give birth to a son, and a son as good as Zhu Zhanji.
Princess Hu Shanxiang was no longer the only one favoring the Crown Prince. She asked for the menstrual records of Concubine Sun and three concubines, and deleted the menstrual period as well as the seven days before and eight days after, and accurately found the five-day golden pregnancy period for each person.
This was a method secretly told to her by the female official of the Imperial Medical Bureau. They were all Hu Shanwei's connections, and they all wanted to help the Crown Princess. After all, she was the sister of Hu Shang Gong.
Four women, five days each. The Crown Princess arranged the prince's monthly sowing time clearly, and no one was allowed to compete for favor or cut in halfway, so as not to waste their golden pregnancy period.
The Crown Princess showed the Crown Prince the "attendance sheet" she had prepared and said, "Follow this, Your Highness should be able to gain something within three months."
There are thirty days in a month, twenty days are used for tilling the land and sowing, and ten days are used for rest. It is a good combination of work and rest. You can't ruin your body just to have a son. This is the lesson of Emperor Hongxi.
Among the four pieces of land, there will always be one that will bloom and bear fruit.
Arei is worthy of being called a hard-core science and engineering girl. She pays attention to planning, rules, calculations and of course science in everything. She does not believe in feudal superstitions such as worshiping Guanyin, the Goddess of Fertility, and insists on the scientific outlook on development.
Zhu Zhanji looked at the densely packed table and said half-jokingly and half-seriously: "You are so accurate, you are using my watch as a clock."
Are used the craftsman spirit of making watches to make the royal heir. Are, who used to focus on machinery in the studio, gradually returned.
The two agreed that they would be allies after the breakup, work together, face the outside world in unison, and not be sad in front of each other. They didn't have time to worry, and tried to appear in front of each other in a relaxed state.
A Lei cupped his hands and said with a smile, "Thank you for your hard work, Prince."
Zhu Zhanji closed the form and said, "It's not hard, I will devote myself to the East Palace."
That night, Concubine Sun slept with him. Five days later, it was Concubine Wu's turn. And so on. One month later, Concubine Sun still hadn't had her period. After the female doctor felt her pulse, she said that Concubine Sun was pregnant.
A Lei rewarded Concubine Sun generously, and Empress Zhang was also rewarded. Emperor Hongxi directly promoted Concubine Sun to the position of Liangdi!
Empress Zhang said, "Sun is only pregnant, and we don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl. It's too hasty to promote her to Liang Di so quickly. It won't be too late to promote her to Liang Di after she gives birth to a son."
Emperor Hongxi said: "There has been no cry of a baby in the East Palace for three years."
Emperor Hongxi was also cautious. He arranged Sun to be by the prince's side, so she shouldn't forget her benefactor once she had a child. It was natural to confer the title of Liangdi upon giving birth to a son, but conferring the title as Liangdi right after she became pregnant was definitely a favor from the emperor.
Emperor Hongxi wanted to make Sun understand who was the master who decided her fate.
Sun became pregnant and was promoted to Liangdi. When Arei arranged the list of sleeping companions for the next month, he crossed out Sun's name. There was one vacancy on the third place on the list, and Arei did not want to waste this spot, so he planned to get a healthy girl who looked like she could have children to enter the East Palace to fill the gap of five days on the list.
Zhu Zhanji only felt a piercing pain in his heart, his legs trembled, but on the surface he could still joke lightly, "No need, just think of it as giving me five days off, I feel very tired."
"There's no need to discuss this matter. I don't care what you think, I care what I think." A Lei picked up a warm and nourishing oyster and put it in his bowl. "All follow my instructions. The prince has won the first battle. Don't be arrogant or impatient. Keep up the good work."
A Lei went to Kunning Palace to ask his mother-in-law, Empress Zhang, for someone. "I am young and I am afraid that I will not be able to judge the right person and delay the succession of the emperor. My mother has a good eye for talent. If there is a good one, the Eastern Palace will welcome her."
Ever since the last deep conversation between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law (mainly done by Empress Zhang), Arei has become a completely different person. The way he earnestly seeks a child is exactly the same as that of Empress Zhang when she was young.
Being a seven-point Crown Princess. If she had given birth to a legitimate son like Empress Zhang, she would have been a ten-point Crown Princess. However, it was impossible for the Eastern Palace to have a legitimate son. Ever since Zhu Zhanji cultivated the land and sowed seeds according to the table drawn up by A Lei, the two of them had only a pure alliance relationship. Even if they shared the same room and bed, there would be no unspeakable things. They just chatted under the quilt.
Empress Zhang saw her own shadow in A Lei and felt a little distressed. "Good boy, with you in the East Palace, there is no need to worry about not being able to make it."
Empress Zhang gave a maidservant to A Lei, "She was born as a government slave and has no surname. Since she is with you, you should give her a name."
Seeing that the girl had a well-proportioned figure, dignified features, and a pair of beautiful eyes that sparkled like a stream in the forest, clear and transparent, Arei called her Lin Xi.
Lin Xi entered the Eastern Palace and filled the vacancy of Concubine Sun for five days. Due to her low birth weight, she had no rank for the time being and was just an ordinary palace maid.
With four people gathered together, the prince's night work was fully arranged. A Lei felt unwell, with chest tightness, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, and a bloated stomach that was getting bigger and bigger. He called a female doctor to see her. The diagnosis caused a sensation in the East Palace:
The Crown Princess was pregnant for at least four months before Emperor Taizong passed away.
Arei was stunned. She had her period every month, but the amount was less than before. She thought it was because she was too tired from the funeral of Emperor Taizong and because of the pressure Emperor Hongxi had put on the Eastern Palace recently, which made her unhappy. She didn't take it seriously. Who knew she was pregnant again
The swim bladder failed again.
The female doctor said that there are also women who continue to have menstrual period even when they are pregnant.
Zhu Zhanji was shocked to hear about this and hurried back to the palace. It was already late autumn by then, and the late autumn in Beijing was colder than the winter in Nanjing. He lit the ground heating and brazier early, and the house was as warm as spring.
Zhu Zhanji tore up the attendance form written by A Lei and threw it into the brazier. "I will only watch over you from now on."
Arei touched his slightly bulging belly and said, "I don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. I hope it's a girl. I don't want my descendants to repeat the tragedy of the previous generation where fathers and sons became alienated, hurt each other and suspected each other. Let's stop here."
"I won't." Zhu Zhanji placed his palm on A'lei's belly. "If it's a legitimate son, I will raise him well. When he is capable of handling government affairs, I will immediately announce my abdication and give the throne to him. I will be a free and easy emperor, away from politics and the capital, and travel across the sea with you and around the world. Sister A'lei, you have to believe me. I am definitely not someone who covets imperial power."
"We grew up together, we know each other well, we've been childhood sweethearts, I believe in you." A Lei placed his hand on the back of Zhu Zhanji's palm, "But I don't trust our next generation. Imperial power corrupts people's hearts. If you abdicate and become the emperor, will your children believe in you? Will they let you go? What about the next generation's next generation? In the beginning, you and your father were a father and son who depended on and supported each other, but now it has become completely unrecognizable. I don't want this tragedy to repeat in future generations."
"We can never go back." A Lei gently but firmly pulled Zhu Zhanji's octopus-like hand off his lower abdomen, "It's Miss Lin's turn tonight, don't let her wait too long."
We can never go back, even with children. A heart broken to the extreme, like the rain when the plums are yellow, disturbing and desolate.
Zhu Zhanji staggered out of the room as if he was walking on a pile of cotton.
The most painful breakup is not the one with hysterical roars or hoarse cries.
Try your best to remain decent, just like an actor taking his curtain call, too immersed in the play, blending himself into a passionate love, unable to distinguish between the role and the person, intoxicated and intoxicated. But no matter how beautiful the play is, it must come to an end. The lights on the stage go out one by one, awakening the actors who are too immersed in the play. The scenes of their passionate love emerge before their eyes, just like stills.
Five-year-old Arei, a bald boiled egg with muddy legs, woke him up from his deep sleep just to catch shrimps. The two of them sat under the porch, broke the watermelon, each took half, and ate it with a spoon.
Eight-year-old A Lei was in mourning and could not eat meat or watch plays, so she secretly hid the meat and gave him half of it, saying, "I'll help you eat half of the vegetarian food, so you won't be considered breaking the rules." She put on a Monkey King mask and imitated somersaults like a martial artist under a big tree, saying, "You can't watch the play, so I'll perform it for you, don't be unhappy."
When A Lei, 10 years old, entered the palace for the first time, his front teeth fell out and he dared not laugh. He knew her embarrassment and simply punched himself in the face, knocking out the loose front teeth. When they met again, he deliberately smiled first, showing his gapped teeth, and A Lei really laughed out loud.
When he was thirteen years old, he returned from the Northern Expedition with his grandfather and found that A Lei had grown into a beautiful young lady. He always wanted to get close to her, but the more he cared about her, the more stupid things he said and did. When he was chasing A Lei, A Lei's glasses fell off and were crushed by his horse's hoof - she finally forgave him. As long as he apologized sincerely, she would forgive him. She has been open-minded since she was a child.
When he was fifteen, he deliberately smashed his pocket watch and gave it to Are to play with as scrap. He also secretly hid a note written with lemonade in the interlayer of the box. Are saw through it and burned it with fire. He wrote a stupid sentence on it that makes him blush when he thinks about it now: "We are so in tune with each other. You really understand me."
At the age of sixteen, on an isolated island with Japanese pirates, she had a limp, and he fed her water and hugged her from behind. She did not refuse, which confirmed that she also liked him.
At Taicang Port, the candlelight could be extinguished, but the fire in his heart could not be calmed. He thought it was a farewell kiss, and he could no longer suppress his emotions and said, "Stay." She said, "Can you accept a wife who only intends to do 70% of what she wants?"
At the age of nineteen, she became a mother and he became a father. Holding the baby girl in her arms, he had a lucky fantasy that she would stay forever.
At twenty-two, she said, “We can never go back.”
A snowflake fell on the tip of Zhu Zhanji's nose and immediately turned into cold snow water, awakening him from his memories. The snow in Beijing came earlier than in Nanjing. The cicadas had only been silent for a few days before they couldn't wait to embrace winter.
Ice cold.
You had the courage to love then, but why are you so defeated now and no longer able to face the heartbreak
Zhu Zhanji half-knelt down and used his hands to pick at the thin snow on the ground. The first snow was fine and fragmented, just like his heart, scattered all over the mountains and plains. He picked at it for a long time, leaving a large area of snow on the ground, and then he could barely make a snowball the size of a heart.
My heart is as cold as a snowball.
Zhu Zhanji threw the snowball with force, and it flew out with a whoosh, hitting the green glazed tiles of the East Palace and exploded.
At the same time, the tears in Arei's eyes were rolling in countless circles. Finally, they could not bear the burden and rolled down, dripping into the brazier. With a hissing sound, a stick of green smoke rose.
The prince was obedient. No matter what the Hongxi Emperor asked, he obeyed his father without any disobedience. Moreover, the Crown Princess and Sun Liangdi were both pregnant. The Hongxi Emperor really couldn't find any fault with the Donggong, which was very troublesome. Concubine Guo took the opportunity to blow pillow wind, "Your Highness ascended the throne and announced it to the world, but you haven't gone to Nanjing Xiaoling Mausoleum or the ancestral mausoleum in Fengyang to pay homage to the emperor. The prince is the heir to the throne, why not send him to Nanjing to pay homage to the mausoleum?"
When Emperor Hongxi heard this, he said, "My beloved concubine, this is a brilliant idea!"
Emperor Hongxi summoned the prince.
When the prince heard this, he doubted his ears. "Move the capital? Father, hasn't it already moved to Beijing?"
"I want to move back to Nanjing." Emperor Hongxi said, "I have issued an edict and sent it to Yunnan, asking the former Concubine Hu to go to the old palace in Nanjing and repair it with the eunuch Zheng He who is guarding Nanjing. You move to the old palace with the East Palace and live there. Repair the entire palace, and then I will move back."
This is simply a fantasy. The prince said, "The construction of the Nanjing Imperial Palace is not a problem. The problem is that the palace is built on Yanque Lake, and the ground is sinking every year, especially the harem. I heard that it has collapsed into a small lake in recent years. With such a foundation, it is useless to renovate the buildings above. They collapse every few years."
Emperor Hongxi certainly knew how dilapidated the Nanjing Imperial Palace was. He was just looking for an excuse to send the Crown Prince away. If it was just about paying homage to the mausoleum as Concubine Guo said, he would return to the capital after the ceremony, which would only take a few months. However, moving the capital was different. He could use this excuse to keep the crown prince in Nanjing for many years.
Emperor Hongxi said, "It's just a rumor. You haven't seen it with your own eyes. Go back to Nanjing first and ask the Ministry of Works to survey and measure. If it really doesn't work, choose a new site in Nanjing and build a new palace."
The prince was as clear as a mirror. He knew that Emperor Hongxi was a man who valued the people's strength so much that he even banned voyages to the West, and would never do such an unthinkable thing as moving the capital back and forth. He just wanted to get rid of him so that he wouldn't be bothered by him out of sight.
The prince had been so frustrated by the discussion that he said, "For a major matter like moving the capital, we should discuss it with the ministers first."
Emperor Hongxi had practiced Tai Chi for twenty-one years and was familiar with all the twists and turns. He said, "Now our dynasty is mainly focusing on recuperation and replenishing the empty treasury. If we openly propose moving the capital at this time, it will definitely cause controversy and make people panic. Therefore, I should not bring up this matter now. I need you, the crown prince, to take the lead in Nanjing and make preparations for moving the capital. When everything is ready, I can persuade the ministers to move the capital."
The prince said, "But if I go to Nanjing, the ministers will surely guess what the emperor is planning."
The prince fell into the pit dug by Emperor Hongxi.
Emperor Hongxi quickly filled the pit with soil and buried his eldest son. "Your Highness is very thoughtful. Since I ascended the throne, I have been busy with state affairs and have no time to visit the imperial mausoleums in Fengyang and Nanjing. Since you are the crown prince, you can go to Nanjing on my behalf in the name of visiting the mausoleums. This is a great act of filial piety and the ministers will not have any doubts."
The prince said, "I will go to Nanjing right now."
Emperor Hongxi said, "Hurry up. The carriage is bumpy. There are two pregnant women in the East Palace, so we can only go by water. The East Palace must set out before the Grand Canal freezes. Don't bring too much stuff. Anyway, the Nanjing Palace has Hu Shanggong and Zheng He eunuchs ready to welcome the East Palace."
Hu Shanwei never thought that he would be able to serve for the fourth term.
Emperor Hongxi never imagined that Hu Shanwei was not in Kunming, Yunnan at this time, but in Beijing!
After Emperor Hongxi sent the crown prince away, he felt heavy-hearted. He drank a cup of tea and went to the toilet to urinate. After he finished urinating, a young eunuch immediately took the dirty toilet away.
The sewers in the palace were used to drain rainwater, and all feces and waste were transported out by human and animal power and sent to septic tanks to make fertilizer. The young eunuch secretly poured the "dragon urine" into a bamboo tube, sealed it with wax, and mixed it in the carriage that transported the toilet. After leaving the palace, someone took out the bamboo tube and sent it to a seemingly ordinary house.
A man stuffed a handful of bamboo strips into a bamboo tube, soaked it in urine, then took it out and placed it on a rack to dry slightly. After the moisture was lost from the bamboo strips, a translucent substance similar to paste was left. When the man tried to remove the bamboo strips from the wooden rack, the strips were stuck to the rack and had to be torn hard to remove them.
The ants on the ground smelled the sweet smell and climbed up the bamboo racks. Soon, the bamboo racks were densely packed with ants.
"Ru Siyao, according to your experience, how long can the emperor live?" Hu Shanwei handed the hand warmer to the woman doing the experiment.
Ru Siyao had just washed her hands with snow water and quickly took the hand warmer to warm them. "The diabetes has reached this stage, and he won't have much time left. If he continues to indulge in food and drink without restraint, within a year, the blood vessels in his head will be as fragile as ice cubes. If they encounter strong stimulation, they may burst at any time, just like the symptoms of a stroke. First, the whole body will be paralyzed and unable to speak, and then he will die in chaos."
Hu Shanwei took out a small box, took out a dessert and stuffed it into Ru Siyao's mouth, "What if I eat this every day? How long can I live?"
The snack was obviously crispy, but it melted in the mouth and was simply irresistible. Ru Siyao ate another one out of curiosity, "What is this?"
Hu Shanwei said: "It is basically made of oil and sugar. It is a recipe from a Western pastry chef. The oil is extracted from milk, so it doesn't taste greasy at all. The sugar is ground into powder, and eggs and a little flour are added to mix together. It is shaped with a mold and baked over charcoal. Even though each one is only a small bite, the amount of sugar and oil used is the amount of half a plate of osmanthus cake, and it doesn't taste greasy at all."
"This recipe has been handed over to the Imperial Food Bureau by Huang Shang Gong for trial making. It will probably be delivered to Imperial Concubine Guo in a few days. Imperial Concubine Guo wants to win favor and maintain her figure, so she won't touch these snacks. Therefore, these snacks will be eaten by the Emperor."
Ru Siyao said, "If he eats this, I think the Ming Dynasty will be in mourning in half a year at most. You are too anxious. According to the urine situation just now, it will be difficult for the emperor to survive for a year."
Hu Shanwei sighed towards the direction of the palace, "Given the current situation in the East Palace, Sun Liangdi is pregnant, and A Lei must have made up his mind to leave. If the prince cannot ascend the throne, A Lei will not be able to escape. I help the prince, which means I help A Lei. I did so much just because I felt sorry for my daughter."
The author has something to say: I would like to borrow some words from Mingxue in this chapter~ I don’t want to know what you think, I want to know what I think.
Hu Shanwei: Man, you are playing with fire.
Continue to give out 200 red envelopes tonight.
Ending countdown: Four, Hongxi Emperor 44444444 Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated me with nutrient solution~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:
Rolling around to get rid of toothache 135 bottles; Jiyan and Shuma 20 bottles; Bencao and Murong Feiyi 10 bottles; I want a little corgi, Dimple, Xixi who is chasing books, Thirteen is ready, Erxiang Foil 2 bottles; Timmy, 20487360, Ayun, Yijian Xieyue 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!