Reincarnation of the powerful minister

Cining Palace.

The Empress Dowager was using golden scissors to trim the freshly picked flower branches, cut off the excess leaf stems one by one, and inserted them into the peacock blue glaze vase.

Shengxia Fuqu set off her white jade-like fingers, and the fingertips were a strong red color, which matched the color of her lip balm.

The queen mother is in her fifties, but due to her natural beauty and proper maintenance, she looks only in her early forties.Graceful posture, bright eyes and fine lines around the corners of the eyes and lips all together contribute to her charming style that has been brewed by the years.

Emperor Jinglong walked into the hall amidst the prostration and kowtowing of all the court ladies and servants, and saluted, "Greetings to the empress."

"Get up." The Empress Dowager didn't lift her head, "Why is the emperor free today? He will come to me as soon as he comes to court."

Emperor Jing Long signaled all the palace attendants to retreat, and just now he took out a booklet from his sleeve and handed it over: "Come and report a case to the Queen Mother."

The queen mother sneered: "The harem doesn't interfere in politics. For such a big case, the emperor can make up his own mind, why bother to tell me."

The emperor insisted: "The queen mother reads the excerpt first before talking."

The queen mother had no choice but to put down the flower branches and golden scissors, took the booklet, and signaled the emperor to sit with her on the arhat couch.There were only two mothers and children in the hall, and the Empress Dowager no longer straightened her waist, leaning lazily, leaning on the kang table with her elbows, reading the fine handwriting.

Looking at it, his face gradually changed color, and the long and pointed thumbnail poked a hole in the edge of the paper.

She closed the booklet, took a deep breath, adjusted her emotions, and then asked: "This is a case handled by the Fusi of Beizhen. I know their usual methods. Emperor, tell me the truth, what is written on it?" How fake is it?"

The emperor looked directly at her, with a firm tone: "The case of Lingguang Temple is [-]% true. There are all physical and personal evidence. Secret passages have been found in every clean room. The lamp oil was tested by the imperial doctor, and it does contain drugs. , that night, all the believers who stayed in the house were found pills. The monks confessed that since Jiyao became the abbot, they have done a lot of evil things like this in order to show their sages and make themselves famous. , can be called a heinous crime!"

The queen mother was silent for a moment, then said coldly: "If that's the case, then kill it."

"Jiyao's death is not a pity, but his life can't repay the crimes he committed." The emperor said in a deep voice, "Your mother knows that after the trial of this case was issued and made public according to the law, more than 30 women in the capital voted for him." They committed suicide by civilian women and family members of officials. In one night, nearly a hundred corpses floated on the Tonghui River in the east of the city, all of which were the corpses of babies under one year old."

The queen mother seemed to be choking, with a stiff expression, and finally let out a long sigh.

After the truth of "Arhat giving birth to a child" came to light, some of the victimized female family members were forgiven by their husbands, some were immediately abandoned, and some committed suicide. Those who often stayed in Lingguang Temple were ashamed and rejected by their families , Passers-by poked their fingers and had to go to a dead end.All the babies who went to Lingguang Temple to seek heirs were even more pitiful. The older ones were expelled, and the younger ones drowned.

The governor of Yingtianfu, who was in charge of the aftermath, had to report it to the imperial court and ask for instructions.The emperor ordered that part of the gold and silver confiscated from Lingguang Temple be allocated to the Beijing Charity Orchard, which specially accommodates those abandoned babies, and an announcement was made to order the people not to kill infants, which basically curbed this trend.

The repercussions of this case are far more than that, and it has also shaken the popular foundation of Buddhism, Taoism and even other minority sects in the capital.

King Yu took the opportunity to submit a memorial requesting the imperial court to demolish thirteen temples and Taoist temples including Lingguang Temple, take back more than a thousand copies of the certificates of monks and Taoist priests, let these monks return to the common people, and return the monk's land and Taoist land to the people's land , re-measure the distribution.

As a result, the five academicians in the cabinet quarreled again, and each submitted a proposal, with three votes in favor and two votes against.After the emperor considered it, he approved it.

This wave of operations has greatly refreshed the perception of this prodigal prince in the court, and it has been praised a lot by the people.And those religious people and their believers hated him behind their backs, and many alchemists even rumored in private that King Yu blasphemed Buddha, destroyed Dao and disrespected gods, and they wanted to sue the heavenly court for their actions, so that the heavenly thunder would strike him.

King Yu laughed when he heard this, and said: "Let them do it, I wait for the thunder to strike. If it doesn't come, I don't mind being Ximen Leopard for a while, and let them go to heaven to be envoys."

Of course, this is something for later.Right now, King Yu was outside the Palace of Compassion and Ning, and he heard that the emperor was paying his respects inside, so instead of going in to join in the fun, he found a pavilion by the water to rest.

In the hall, the emperor saw the queen mother sighing, and suddenly said: "The queen mother can still remember that not long after I first ascended the throne, the queen mother wrote a poem for the favorite Qionghua variety-'Jubaxian' at the birthday banquet, "Pure white without any blemish, jade The imperial edict bestowed upon the royal family. The God of Flowers did not dare to split it lightly, and there should be no second flower in the world.” Once this poem came out, no one in the world dared to plant it privately. They all said it was a royal flower. Officials in Nanzhili, Lianghu and other places , They dug up the plants one after another, and sent them to the capital by car and boat, which cost a lot of money and people, and planted flower forests all over the mountains and plains to please the queen mother.

"It's a pity that this flower was not acclimatized to the soil and water in the capital, and all of them withered in the next year, and the 'Jubaxian' variety in the original place is now extinct."

The queen mother said sharply: "What the emperor wants to say, don't beat around the bush, just say it directly."

The emperor said softly: "As a superior, it's easy to be kind to your subordinates, but hard to love them; easy to grab them, but difficult to fulfill them. To yourself, it's easy to indulge yourself, but difficult to discipline yourself. The queen mother is the most honorable woman in the world, and the mother of hundreds of millions of people. Mother, you should lead by example."

"What a good example!" The queen mother slapped the kang table, "Do you want to say that it is because of my favor for Jiyao that he took advantage of the situation to commit great crimes and poison the people?"

The emperor cupped his hands and pleaded guilty: "My son dare not."

The queen mother sneered slightly: "The emperor is a good emperor, a good son raised by me. But how can my good son not understand mother's heart?"

The emperor still wanted to say something, but the queen mother brought tea to the guests directly: "Go back, I'm tired and need to rest."

The emperor had no choice but to get up and leave, put the bag back into his sleeve, and left a bundle on the kang table, saying: "This is something lost in the Palace of Compassion and Ning. My son helped to find it. I hope that the empress will keep it properly."

After he left, the Empress Dowager untied the bundle and was stunned when she saw it was a jade pillow.This jade pillow used to be used on her bed, and Jiyao pestered her to ask for it, saying that she would keep it as a memory.She felt inappropriate and did not agree.Unexpectedly, the servant was spoiled and spoiled, and secretly took the jade pillow away. She found out later that she reprimanded him a few times, but she didn't really insist on asking him to return it.

This time, because of Jiyao's incident, the jade pillow fell into the hands of the emperor.

The Empress Dowager was in extreme embarrassment, her face turned blue and white, she grabbed the jade pillow and smashed it on the ground, the strings were broken, and the jade pieces and beads rolled all over the ground.

After hearing the sound, Qionggu, the palace maid who was close to her, hurried into the hall and persuaded: "Your Majesty, calm down and take care of your phoenix body."

The queen mother gasped for breath, and after a while, she gritted her teeth and said: "The emperor has a heart! I also have a gift in return, you send it to him."

Emperor Jinglong walked out of the Palace of Compassion and Peace, stood on the corridor for a while, sighed silently, and was about to get up and drive back to the Hall of Mental Cultivation, when he suddenly saw a familiar figure in the gazebo by the lotus pond.He raised his hand and waved the servant back, and walked over.

King Yu was looking at Qinghe standing tall and straight on the water, he didn't know what he was thinking, when he heard footsteps approaching, and the figure was still three feet away, he turned around and saluted, "Greetings, Brother Emperor."

The emperor said: "Your kung fu has not fallen at all. However, I am far behind."

King Yu said with a smile: "Brother Huang is really flattering my younger brother. You have a lot of things to do every day, and I eat, drink and have fun, and I also don't have time to practice. Why don't you say that I have left more behind?"

Emperor Jing Long also shook his head with a smile: "Okay, okay, don't get cheap and act like a good boy. I know you have done a good job in the last few things, as long as you can continue to share my worries, I won't scold you for doing nothing in the future."

King Yu put away his smile, took a few steps forward, and asked in a low voice: "Brother Huang just came out of the mother's palace, is it because of Jiyao's matter? How is the mother's attitude?"

The emperor also smiled, and frowned slightly: "The attitude...is a bit subtle. Regarding Jiyao's death, the queen mother was not different, but because I persuaded her politely, she lost her temper."

"Jiyao is extremely despicable. After the mother knows the truth, she will naturally not favor him. The younger brother has already said that he is just a plaything. The mother just uses him to make fun of him when she is bored. You don't have to pay too much attention to the emperor." Prince Yu Deliberately looking the emperor up and down, tut tut, "Besides, since I was a child, when did my mother really lose her temper with you? It was all for me. Last time I slapped Jiyao face to face, she threw me a rouge box. Look, here, it's all smashed into green."

King Yu leaned his forehead to show the emperor brother.The emperor pushed his face away and said mockingly: "Come on, even a crossbow can't hit you, but can a rouge box hit you?"

"Since I was a child, although my mother has scolded you more, she loves you more in my heart. I know—" the emperor raised his hand to stop King Yu from explaining, and continued, "You know what I am worried about now. At this moment, you I'm not a monarch, I'm just a brother, so you can tell me what to do."

Facing the widowed mother who was suspected to be in danger at the end of the festival, the two brothers had very consistent positions at this time, and their emotions were equally complicated, so they came together like never before.

King Yu always sneered at Zhu Zi's ethics. He himself was a rebel. After pondering, he said: "Actually, it's not that serious. My mother has been a widow for nearly 20 years. She is lonely in the deep palace. Take a small gadget to pass the time. As long as she doesn't come out again Jiyao and his like pickle, we sons, just turn a blind eye and close our eyes."

Let's just think that she has made a human figure for herself, King Yu swallowed the second half of the sentence, and did not dare to say it in front of the emperor's brother.

The emperor frowned: "I don't have to ask her to be pure-hearted and ascetic, but as the empress dowager, she doesn't consider her own reputation or the face of the emperor, but also considers the bad influence on the previous court and the harem, right? A dead heir Yao, if there is another successor to Shun and Yu, and if such bad things happen again in the future, I will still have to plow the court and sweep the holes, which will definitely hurt the relationship between mother and child."

King Yu was also very contradictory.He believes that the morals of the world are much more lenient to men than to women. It is not fair for a widower to raise a group of concubines and male favorites, but no one will criticize them, but a widow must be loyal and chaste all his life.But this widow was his own mother, and when something like this happened, as a son of man, on the one hand, he felt sorry for his mother's loneliness and suffering, and on the other hand, he felt embarrassed and embarrassing.

The two brothers were looking at each other silently, Qionggu, the maid of honor next to the Empress Dowager, approached the gazebo with a birdcage covered with a cloth cover, and saluted.

Aunt Qiong was an old man who came out of Prince Qin's mansion. She took care of the two young brothers. The emperor respected her a lot and asked her to live without courtesy, saying: "If you have anything to do, just tell the servants to handle it. Aunt Qiong is old. Don’t overwork yourself.”

Aunt Qiong offered the birdcage: "The Empress Dowager ordered the servants to hand over this object to the emperor, saying that the emperor would know what she wanted when he saw it." After saying that, she said goodbye.

The emperor took it over, opened the cloth cover, and saw that in the cage made of pure gold, the bird of paradise that the queen mother loved more than treasure had turned into a colorful corpse.

This kind of bird is produced in the forests of distant foreign countries. It was brought from the sea by ships on a long-distance voyage to the West and paid tribute to the Queen Mother. It is unique.Its feathers are gorgeous and its song is melodious. It is said that it is a kind of divine bird that lives in the Paradise of Heaven and feeds on the nectar of fairy dew, hence the name "Bliss".

The Empress Dowager loves this bird very much, and ordered her servants to take good care of it and not neglect it in the slightest.The emperor sometimes joked, "If I have a younger brother, the queen mother may not be so beloved."

But now, this bird of paradise has become a corpse.

King Yu opened the cage door, reached in and held the bird corpse, looked through it and said, "It's still warm, it's not long since it died. The bones of the whole body are broken, and the internal organs are squeezed out from the mouth. It's... squeezed to death."

He suddenly smiled lightly: "Brother Huang, what does the empress mean?"

The emperor stared at the bird corpse, feeling a little chilled in his heart, but his face was still calm and peaceful, and said: "The queen mother wants to use this bird to tell me that no matter how much she loves her, it is just a thing. If I don't like it, If I want to persuade her to be clean and self-disciplined, she would rather destroy this thing with her own hands than hurt the relationship between mother and child."

From the time King Yu heard the footsteps of the emperor until now, his heart, which has been suppressed, seeking integrity, and trying to show warmth, was ignited with uncontrollable anger because of a certain word in the emperor's last sentence— —

Clean yourself up!Self-denial!Everyone is qualified to say such things, but you are not!

The queen mother has a face, even if she may not be very caring, even if it is just a thing, but at least she will not pretend to cover up, will not be inconsistent, will not talk about cherishing talents and fulfilling ambitions, While using aphrodisiacs to drag people into bed!

This resentment burned King Yu's chest with burning pain, as if even the blood in his whole body was transpired into a poisonous aura, and he even wanted to expose the hypocrisy of his superior emperor brother to his face, and declare to him: Your cover-up Hidden restraints, already belong to me!How do you treat me, put me in the high wall of Fengyang?

Originally, he planned to let the emperor see himself embracing the beauty with his own eyes. This kind of mentality is not so much hostile, but more like a younger brother fighting against his elder brother, with a kind of "I know you can't do anything to me, I just want to Take back what belongs to me, and make you mad." The innocence and straightforwardness.

But the dead bird, like a chime bell ringing suddenly, gave him a sharp warning——

In the past ten years, he has repeatedly provoked the imperial power, did not go to the court, did not observe the etiquette, came whenever he liked, and left whenever he liked.Therefore, the emperor often reprimanded him, but never actually punished him.

As an idle prince who has been relieved of his military power, what qualifications does he have to show his face?It's just because the emperor felt guilty and made up for him after depriving him of everything - even though he didn't want to admit it, he did rely on this.Like a log whose roots have been cut off, he can only lean on a hard and tall mountain. When the rock shakes, he has to fall to the ground.

Why did he think that if the actual interests of the emperor were touched, or the face of the emperor was humiliated, Zhu Jinwei would still care about the little blood relationship with him?The most ruthless emperor's family, is it for nothing?

King Yu held the gradually cold and stiff bird carcass in his palm, the flames in his heart gradually subsided and solidified, and gradually froze into ice.

He looked at Emperor Jinglong's silent side face, struggled with hope and impulse in despair, and said abruptly: "The so-called 'beloved' by the empress is nothing but carefully raised when she is lonely, and she can be resolutely discarded when necessary." But I am not like this. My "beloved" is the one who I have to win no matter what, and once identified, I will never leave."

The emperor was slightly shocked, and looked at him with fixed eyebrows, as if because of the same heart, he understood what he meant in an instant, and his face suddenly sank: "I know who you are referring to, and I have warned you several times. Don't get his idea, why are you still obsessed with it?"

King Yu clenched his fists and squeezed out a sentence with almost all his strength: "That man, if I only want him—brother Huang, can you not fight me?"

The emperor's face was calm, but his eyes were covered with frost, and he said coldly: "Zhu Xujing, you forgot, 'Is it the king's land under the whole world, and the king's subject on the shore of the land'? The word 'grab' is enough. It's a crime of disrespect. As a prince, your words and deeds should be in line with the etiquette, and you shouldn't speak without words."

King Yu raised the corners of his mouth and smiled with an ugly face: "It's my brother who was rude, I hope Brother Huang will forgive me."

The emperor took out the bird carcass from his palm and threw it into the cage, "Birds can't speak, they can't empathize, and they don't know when they are robbed and sold, but people don't.

"Xujing, you have to keep in mind that if my beloved is a bird, I will open the cage door and let it fly away, and cut off any one, aiming arrows or nets at its hands, regardless of Whether the hand wants to hurt it or to capture it.

"It can stay anywhere, pavilions, pavilions, mountains, waters, golden glazed roofs, or wild reeds. Of course, it is best on my knees, but everything has to be voluntary, understand?"

The emperor dropped the last sentence and left with his hands behind his back.

King Yu looked at the back of the bright yellow dragon robe, feeling extremely chilled.

For the stability of the throne and the peace of the country, the emperor sacrificed his wishes, ambitions and freedom.No matter how unwilling and full of complaints, he endured it for ten years.After the boundary monument agreement, he never stepped out of Gyeonggi again.

This was the only time in the past ten years that he begged the emperor's brother. He didn't even ask for a gift, but only asked the other party not to stop him, but he still only got a cold back, as the answer of the supreme being dismissive.

——Does it mean that only by becoming the supreme person can one not have to endure this kind of humiliation that is always manipulated, in order to obtain the freedom and beloved one?

As if in a dream, King Yu suddenly remembered a sentence he once said to Ye Donglou in the Forest Abode in Dongyuan on the day of Dragon Boat Festival:

"The good things in this world will never be taken up by one person. If you want wind and rain, you need rain and rain, except—"

He didn't say the last half of the sentence, because the idea was vague and far away, passing only a flash in his mind.

But now, he can finally finish this sentence very clearly:

"Except for the true dragon emperor, no one can get what he wants."