After rebirth, I became a national teacher

When everyone knelt down with Emperor Yong'an, someone suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs:

"A tyrant ruler, step down and let a wise man take over!"

When people looked up, they saw a raging fire suddenly rising above the palace in front of the Temple of Heaven under the clear sky and in broad daylight.

As everyone was in astonishment, they saw the palace suddenly surrounded by fire.

"Escort!"

"Quickly put out the fire!"

The orderly ceremony of offering sacrifices to the heaven suddenly turned into chaos.

Although the imperial guards were well-trained and put out the fire in the palace in about a moment, the entire palace was still burned beyond recognition and suffered heavy losses.

There is no doubt that someone is taking advantage of the opportunity to cause trouble.

Emperor Yong'an was furious and immediately ordered to keep the secrets secret and conduct a thorough investigation of the matter.

However, the palace maid and eunuch who were truly involved in the incident committed suicide directly after the incident, and all clues were completely cut off.

Two days later, Dali Temple still hadn't found the cause of the fire.

What’s worse is that despite Emperor Yong’an’s order to keep the matter secret, the matter spread like wildfire in the capital overnight.

Rumor has it in the capital that Emperor Yong'an was incompetent and poisoned Empress Dowager Xiaowen, which is why the gods sent down strange fire during the sacrifice to show their dissatisfaction.

You know, the ninth day of the ninth month is not only the Double Ninth Festival, but also the death anniversary of Empress Dowager Xiaowen.

Previously, people had always been skeptical about the sudden death of Empress Dowager Xiaowen.

After all, Empress Dowager Xiaowen had always been in good health, and it was very strange to say that she died of a sudden illness.

In addition, after her death, Emperor Yong'an carried out a severe and cruel purge of the reform party supported by the empress dowager. All these events add up to make it hard not to suspect that the death of Empress Dowager Xiaowen was planned by Emperor Yong'an.

Now, on the anniversary of the Empress Dowager's death, a strange fire descended from the Temple of Heaven. It was completely reasonable to say that this was heaven's dissatisfaction with Emperor Yong'an.

"Didn't someone say before that the reason why His Majesty has no heirs is because he was too immoral to poison the Queen Mother and slaughter the Reform Party, and he suffered retribution!"

"But didn't he have children later? Now he has an eldest prince."

"Who knows if this child was obtained by some unnatural means? Haven't you noticed that since the emperor started to have children and established themselves, natural disasters have begun to occur in various places?"

"Now that you mention it, it's true. Especially after the eldest prince was born, less than a year later, snowstorms, droughts and earthquakes occurred in various places. I'm afraid it's because the emperor should have accepted the punishment from heaven, but he chose to go against heaven, which caused the people of the world to suffer the disaster together!"

"So, today's sky fire is undoubtedly a clearer warning from heaven!"

"I heard that before the strange fire descended, there was a voice shouting, 'The emperor is incompetent and unjust, please abdicate and let a virtuous ruler take over.' What do you think? If the current emperor abdicates and lets a virtuous ruler take over, the people of the world will no longer have to suffer from the unprovoked disaster?"

Such rumors were reported to Emperor Yong'an through the Jinyiwei, which made him so angry that he smashed all the porcelain in the imperial study.

"Rebellious ministers and traitors, with ulterior motives!"

The so-called strange fire from heaven, plus these rumors that spread suddenly and quickly, were all aimed at shaking his throne. If this wasn't the work of traitors, then what else could it be!

Similar rumors have existed since the Empress Dowager passed away, but most of them were spontaneous actions among the people.

Now that the rumors are becoming more and more blatant and spreading unscrupulously, it may mean that these traitors who have always had ulterior motives will soon make a big move.

The first suspect is naturally the local princes.

They are the legitimate heirs to the throne besides him. If he does not have an eldest prince, he will choose one of their offspring as the crown prince.

The rebel army in Qin Province has not been wiped out yet, and the Hu people on the northern border have been eyeing it covetously. If another vassal king rebels now, the country may be in danger of being destroyed.

Thinking of this, Emperor Yong'an felt uneasy.

He immediately sent his most trusted Jinyiwei to select trustworthy people from the Beijing camp and secretly go to various places to monitor the movements of the princes.

It’s not that we didn’t send people before.

However, if some of the princes really had ulterior motives and he had not caught them for so many years, they might have bribed the local Jinyiwei and officials long ago, making it impossible for them to pass on any useful information to him.

But his mood did not improve after the Jinyiwei were dispatched.

This was because he knew very well that if the princes wanted to rebel, since they had so blatantly burned the palace in the Temple of Heaven and made such treasonous remarks that he should "abdicate and let others take over", they would probably have already built up their own troops and were just waiting for an opportunity to rebel.

Even if he reassigned people to monitor, he could not stop the rebellion.

"Your Majesty, someone from the Imperial Concubine's palace came to tell you that the eldest prince will call me father, and the Imperial Concubine wants you to go and see him!"

The eldest prince is just over ten months old, but he can make such complex pronunciations as his father, which is definitely a manifestation of his great talent and intelligence.

If it were in the past, Emperor Yong'an would have been so happy.

But now, he had no mood to go and see it at all, and just felt very annoyed.

He said coldly:

"Tell the Imperial Concubine that I am busy with government affairs and will visit them another day."

With just one sentence, he sent the man away.

On the other hand, the person sent to Jeju to verify the news by Minister Pang just happened to return.

"Sir, everyone in Jeju's Jewon County knows about the apparition of the Venerable Du'e. It was all witnessed and told by the people on the boat."

Minister Pang was overjoyed.

Taking the paper report handed in by his subordinates, he went to the palace and asked for a private meeting with Emperor Yong'an.

Emperor Yong'an was feeling upset, but when he heard that it was Minister Pang, his expression eased a little.

The Minister of War Pang Shengrong was a capable and loyal man who could speak to his heart's content. He was his most trusted minister.

He believed that Pang Shengrong's request for a meeting at this critical moment was definitely not for some trivial matter.

As expected, as soon as Pang Shengrong entered the inner study, he said with a happy face:

"Your Majesty, I am so happy!"

Emperor Yong'an frowned:

"Why are you so happy?"

Pang Shengrong said:

"I heard a few days ago that the former Anqing prefect Zuo Yujiang encountered a large group of pirates on his way to Beijing and nearly lost his life. At the critical moment, the Venerable Du'e appeared and killed the pirates in an instant, and also saved more than 20 seriously injured and dying people."

Emperor Yong'an was immediately cheered up.

"Is this true? Why hasn't it been reported?"

Pang Shengrong said:

"I think the local officials were greedy for credit and did not report the incident truthfully. However, after hearing about it, I immediately sent people to investigate the incident in Jeju Jewon County, and found that it was absolutely true and not exaggerated at all!"

"Your Majesty must be favored by the heavens, so the gods have come down to earth to bless the people and officials of our dynasty time and time again!"

Then he handed over the detailed report he had brought.

After reading it, Emperor Yong'an showed his delight.

"Great! Venerable Du'e has appeared again! You should immediately spread the news like you did last time."

In any case, the fact that the gods saved the imperial official could serve as proof that heaven was not dissatisfied with him.

However, this is still somewhat weak.

How wonderful it would be if the gods could come to court, accept his offerings directly, and even appear with him in front of the people.

All rumors will be dispelled on their own.

Emperor Yong'an couldn't help but have such an unrealistic idea in his mind.