Cross the Sea in the Red Chamber

What should a concubine actually plan to assassinate the current prince, and even be suspected of assassinating His Majesty the Emperor?

No matter which dynasty or generation can only choose a decent way to die.

An old eunuch walked into Concubine Hua's bedroom carrying a lacquerware tray. On the tray were a dagger, a jug of poisoned wine and a long white silk.These three things can guarantee that the deceased will leave a whole body, and they are already considered the three most respectable ways of death in the Jing Dynasty.

The short dagger is a sharp weapon that cuts iron like mud. Whether it cuts the wrist, pierces the heart or cuts the neck, there will be no blockage, and it will not leave too much pain.Poisoned wine is a secret medicine prepared in the palace. Soon after taking it, one will fall into a coma, die in a coma, and pass away in a dream.The white satin is the best fabric from Jiangnan, it is soft and dense, it feels as smooth as a baby's skin, and it will never scratch the skin...

In the heart of the old eunuch, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is still very kind. Since Concubine Hua is involved in treason, her death is inevitable. It is kind enough to spare the extra pain of death.

It is estimated that any Jing Dynasty person thinks so, even if the crown prince hates the concubine Hua, even if the crown prince mercilessly ordered him to commit suicide, he still left the final dignity to his enemies, the dignity that belongs to the concubine, Wouldn't it be kind for her to die with this title?

It's a pity that Concubine Hua doesn't think so...

Concubine Hua has been in an inexplicable uneasiness ever since she knew that her subordinates were found by Jiang Ning for interrogation one by one. Now, what do you not understand when you see the items in the hands of the old eunuch who walked into the palace?She was exposed!She is going to die!

The once young and beautiful face was distorted in an instant, and the horror and viciousness made the once beautiful face dark and terrifying.She roared loudly, and her soft and gentle voice like a yellow oriole became hoarse and sharp at times. At this time, Concubine Hua was no longer the bright flower she used to be, but someone who people would not even bother to look at* Dirty dirt.

"No, His Majesty would not treat me like this... Yes, this must be the idea of ​​that bastard Situ Sheng, he must have thought of a way to frame me... I will go to His Majesty to clarify, Your Majesty will definitely You won't do this to me!" Concubine Hua struggled and tried to rush out of the palace to meet the old emperor, but was stopped by several strong nuns and held her down firmly.

"How dare you treat me like this? Don't you know who I am? I want to see Your Majesty, who dares to stop you?!" Concubine Hua struggled vigorously, and the combed bun also fell apart. The golden hairpins and jade ornaments on the bed fell to the ground with her movements, and the gorgeous clothes were also torn and messed up by the mother, as if she had changed from a noble concubine to a crazy woman in an instant.

How dare the nuns let Concubine Hua go to see the old emperor. The old emperor was so angry at Concubine Hua just now that he vomited blood. He strictly ordered that he never see Concubine Hua, and even ordered the prince to condemn her to death. How dare these rude nuns touch the emperor? His Majesty's bad luck.

The old eunuch who was holding the tray spoke at this time, his voice was a bit sharp and piercing, as if piercing into Concubine Hua's heart, "The sinner Chu, it is His Majesty who wants to execute you. Originally, His Majesty wanted to execute you for you. It was Ling Chi's punishment, or His Highness the Crown Prince's generosity and benevolence, that replaced it with self-judgment. Since you have already committed a heinous crime, do you still dare to refuse the punishment?"

"I don't, I don't! That bastard Situ Cheng... that lowly maid of the Jiang family... They harmed me, and His Majesty will never believe them!" Concubine Hua was still struggling there, but the person who saw her off Obviously impatient.

The old eunuch waved his hand and said, "Shouldn't you hurry and send Chu family on the road?"

The eunuch with his own subordinate took the order, took the poisoned wine from the tray and walked towards Concubine Hua, he grabbed Concubine Hua's jaw with one hand, and poured the poisoned wine down her throat with the other until Concubine Hua fell silent. stopped.After a while, the eunuch tested Concubine Hua's breath and saw that it was completely gone, so he turned around and returned to his life.

The items already prepared in the courtyard, they put Concubine Hua's remains on the stretcher, covered it with a white cloth and carried it away.Like Concubine Zhen and Concubine Rong who committed the crime at the beginning, Concubine Hua would never want to be buried in the imperial tomb if she committed the crime of treason.The body of the guilty concubine will not be handed over to her family for burial, and the entire Chu family cannot escape punishment, so what's the use of handing it over to them?She was directly buried in a mass grave outside the city, and she was not allowed to erect a monument. Even if she was honored and favored during her lifetime, she would only have a straw mat after her death.

Wealth and honor are like clouds and mist, and they are blown away by the wind in a blink of an eye. I don't know if Concubine Hua, who was escorted into Fengdu City by Wuchang, regrets her original choice and repents for the sins she committed at the beginning...

Concubine Hua's death was just a prelude. The entire Chu family could not escape a painful fate. No matter how noble they were then, they are now humble. With the lessons learned from the Yang family, the Chu family will only be even more miserable.Back then they were "poor" and "sympathetic" to the plight of Yang's children, but their children were not so lucky to be sent to the teaching workshops and palaces. What awaited them were mines and salt ponds, where they would surely die. .

Situ Sheng did not touch King Shun. After all, he was also a "victim" of the assassination incident, and the royal family of the Jing Dynasty was not happy to kill brothers. There was only one person like Situ Yi who attacked his own brothers in decades. Situ Sheng No intention of breaking this family tradition.

Situ Hui was imprisoned in his palace, and he was not allowed to leave the palace without an edict. Although he did not deprive the king of his title, his life was no different from that of a prisoner.The man in charge of "guarding" the palace and guarding Situ Hui is a sergeant from the Gyeonggi Camp, who is absolutely loyal to Situ Sheng, even if Situ Hui has wings, he can't fly out.

Anyway, King Shun's influence will be removed little by little, and Situ Sheng doesn't mind keeping him to set a negative example for future generations, so that they will remember the fate of collaborating with the enemy and treason.

Different from the fierceness when Concubine Yang was taken away, Situ Hui was unusually calm when he heard the news that Concubine Hua was dead. He remained silent and did not make a sound.King Shun sat in an armchair in the yard, his back was bent, and his whole body was huddled in the chair.He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shook slightly, and tears fell silently, splashing on the ground.

For his ambition, he has already lost too much. Yang's wife is just clothes to him, but his concubine...he never thought that he would lose his concubine like this.

Ambition is everything to him, and the noble blood he thinks makes him look down on others.In his eyes, the eldest prince, Situ Xu, is just the offspring of mud-legged people who don't know a single word. The second prince, Situ Ang, is only relying on his own mother who was named a queen, but how can the blood of the dead queen be compared to that of the concubine? The blood of this centuries-old family?The mother of the third prince, Situ Sheng, was of low status, she was just a slave, and he didn't take it seriously at all. The fifth prince, Situ Yi, was just a stupid scholar, how could he care?

He had already been blinded by blind self-confidence, and it was too late when he woke up...

His arrogance has always only come from blood, but when his mother clan lost its once glorious status and fell to the mortal world, what is left of him?

Yes, he looks down on others, but how do you know if others are secretly and arrogantly looking down on him?

When Concubine Yang left, although his performance was fierce, but deep in his heart he remained calm. He was confident and arrogant. He thought that as long as he wanted to, a woman from a family like Concubine Yang would come and play at her will. to go?As much as you want?

But when Concubine Hua left, his heart kept roaring, but he couldn't utter a single word.His pride, everything about him is being trampled on, trampled under his feet, what else can he do?What else does he have?

He now understands what Yang Diaochan did back then, the feeling of being humiliated and bullied is too painful, life is worse than death...

How did Situ Sheng survive that year?

he does not know.

In the memory, the figure who was punished by his father to kneel in the snow, where everyone could bully him at will, gradually faded away, and was replaced by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince who stood on a high place and looked down on all of them.Is he really not as good as Situ Sheng?Why can that maid's son climb on top of all of them?

He doesn't believe...he doesn't believe it!He won't give up. The third child caused him to lose his wife, mother and concubine, and all his support. He will never let the third child go!

The Ministry of Rites has already set the time for Situ Sheng's ascension to the throne. According to the calculations by Qin Tianjian, the tenth day of February is an auspicious day for the zodiac.The old emperor finally resigned to his fate after lying in bed hysterically for a while. He used the seal on the edict and handed over the Jade Seal of Chuanguo. When that day comes, Situ Sheng will become the new emperor of Dajing.

Situ Sheng, who was not cared about at the beginning, has now become the final winner. Who would have imagined such a thing a few years ago?

Countless people were waiting to cling to him, relying on him, even the gates of Uncle Hongwu's Mansion and Guanyinghou Mansion were full of carriages.Within a few days, Jiang Yuan received a thick stack of greeting cards, and the people who invited him to the banquet could line up from the gate of the imperial city to the gate of Yongding.At the beginning, those princesses and sisters who looked down on Yuehua at all also handed in posts about viewing flowers. The first month in the capital has always been freezing cold. Even plum blossoms are too cold at this time. of.

The advisers and generals under Situ Sheng's command were all joyful, waiting for one of them to attain the Tao and ascend to heaven, but Jiang Yuan still kept his heart, neither sad nor happy.

Assisting Situ Sheng to become Emperor Dajing is only the first step in a long road. From the day Situ Sheng became the crown prince, this day will inevitably come. Is there anything to be excited about?

Jiang Yuan is not bad for an official position, he doesn't admire Juelu, all he wants is to show his talents and ambitions, since he can show his talents now, why should he lose his heart for foreign things?

There is a clear system for matters such as ascension to the throne. Situ Sheng followed the system once, and after a whole day of tossing around, he sat on the dragon chair and became the emperor.The old emperor abdicated and became the Supreme Emperor, but he resolutely continued to lie in the Qianqing Palace, and refused to give up the palace where the emperors of all dynasties lived. Situ Sheng didn't care, he didn't say anything, and he still lived in the East Palace of his crown prince. .

It's not that Situ Sheng is weak, but that he doesn't care at all.A person's power is not determined by where he lives, but by whom officials are willing to listen to.Now that he has become the justifiable co-lord of the world, the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty must obey his orders whether they want to or not, so what if the old emperor continues to live in Qianqing Palace?Will someone go to Qianqing Palace to ask him about political affairs?Will someone send the memorial there for his review?

Where Situ Sheng is, where is the power and status, where are the officials and memorials, where is the Qianqing Palace, the Shang Study Room, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and the core of Dajing's power!

Even if the old emperor lives above the Tiangong, what's the use?Not to mention that his sick body is almost unbearable at this time, and he is already a half-dead person. Even if he is still healthy, as long as he stays away from the center of power, he will be forgotten in a corner in a few years. The most terrifying reality in the world.

Jiang Yuan didn't care about the matter of rank, but Situ Sheng always remembered that he was a confidant general. He had only been enthroned for three days, and the edict for promotion had already come down.

——You moved to the Shangshu of the Ministry of War, added the prince and Taifu, and was promoted to a first-rank official.

Jiang Yuan, the Minister of the Ministry of War, had been in charge of the entire Ministry of War, and had been teaching Situ Ye and Situ Can. These two positions only made his work more legitimate, and it did not exceed other people's expectations.

Jiang Yuan, the minister of the Ministry of War who just came out of the oven, took over the new official seal and official uniform, and he will leave Beijing again before he has sat in the official office for a long time.Because Situ Sheng had already prepared all the officials who would replace Jiangnan's officialdom, as well as the soldiers and horses who would accompany him to the south, and he was waiting for Jiang Yuan to sit in town and learn about the big Jiangnan case.

Some things have to be done slowly, but some things must not be slow, the sooner the better, and when it is stopped, it must be stopped.This is the so-called quick knife to cut the mess. The more you delay, the more serious things will happen.

Now that the manpower is ready, the matter in the south of the Yangtze River must be completed at once, and there must be no delay. All the people involved in the case must be arrested when no one in the capital knows, otherwise chaos will occur in the capital court.The reason why those officials in the south of the Yangtze River were able to do so many things unscrupulously is that there must be people related to their interests in Beijing who are connected with them. Difficulty is also possible.

The matter was urgent, Jiang Yuan bid farewell to his wife and children and set off for the south of Beijing. He arrived in Zhao State within a few days and joined the third team that had assembled there.Zhang Dahai and Pang Liang stayed in Daying, Gyeonggi many years ago, and often saw Jiang Yuan, who was a Jiedu envoy, but Chen Youwei and Di Fei, who stayed in Zhao, Wei, and Qi, had not seen Jiang Yuan for several years. Yes, it is a pleasure to meet this time.

Chen Youwei was originally a calm and seasoned person, and after leading the army for several years, he became even more calm and sophisticated. Not only did he gain the aura of a general in charge of the army, but he was also more careful in his handling of affairs, and his words and deeds were quite magnanimous.The human way is to nourish the body and move the breath. If you sit in a higher position, your bearing will be different. After a long time no see, you have improved a lot.

Di Fei is also average. When he first met Jiang Yuan, he was still very detached. Now he seems to be a big shot who can stand on his own. Time really is the most tempering thing.

The reason why the soldiers of the Three Kingdoms were dispatched was because they were all Situ Sheng's confidantes, and the second was because Chen Youwei and Di Fei were both Jiang Yuan's subordinates, and they would absolutely obey his orders, and would not fight for merit or the like. Bad things happen.

The officials who went to the south of the Yangtze River to replace their official positions were all under Situ Sheng's command. This group of people had other leaders, and they were not on the same path as the army.Jiang Yuan's task is to lead the armies of the Three Kingdoms to take down the officials who have problems in the south of the Yangtze River, wipe out the local servants who manage the farms, and further attack the power of the aristocratic families and nobles.Situ Sheng will make arrangements for the subsequent matters, and there will be no way for people to pick out the reason, even if the people in the court want to pierce him, there is nothing they can do.

Jiangnan, Yangzhou City, Song Mansion.

It has been two hours since Song Chen locked himself in the study alone.He didn't do anything else, just drank cups of tea, staring blankly at the front, as if he was thinking about some major political affairs, but actually his mind was blank and confused.

Those important things were lost!

...Song Chen really didn't know what was going on. The day the prefect's office was on fire, he even moved a ladder to check it. It was clearly placed behind the plaque, but only two days later, when he went to check again, he found that Something is gone!How can this be? !

That is the magistrate's yamen in Yangzhou Prefecture. There are guards patrolling and guarding the yamen every day no matter what time of day, and the baggage is hidden in such a hidden place. No one can imagine why it suddenly disappeared and only a pile of waste is left. What about the paper furoshiki?

When the things disappeared, he immediately suspected that someone from the Wang family or the Liu family had stolen them, but according to his careful observation, Chen San and Liu Guanshi who lived in the Song Mansion seemed to know nothing, and they were still pestering him. Want to ask him for something.Many servants in the Song Mansion can prove that these two people have never left the Song Mansion these days, and it is impossible for both of them to steal from the mansion.

At the beginning, Song Chen thought that these two people were acting to confuse him, to cover up the theft of things by the Wang family or the Liu family, so that he did not know that the things had been stolen.But it doesn't look like that, this burden has been lost for a few months, if it's an act, it should be over, it's over, it doesn't make sense to get everything, and I'm still lying to him here.

Even if the Wang family and the Liu family are doing very well, even their own subordinates are hiding the truth, but since they have already got the things, shouldn't the next step be killing people to silence them?Could it be that the means of silence have not been prepared in a few months?How is that possible!

But if the Liu family and the Wang family didn't take it away, who would move the burden?

Song Chen couldn't imagine which Liang Shang gentleman visited the mansion and took away those things, but several months had passed and nothing happened, Song Chen could only continue to comfort himself.The person who stole the thing is probably a petty thief. He didn't know the usefulness of the thing at all. He only took it as something valuable. When he saw it, he threw away or burned a few books... Yes, that's it. .

Although it made Song Chen uncomfortable to lose the support in his hands, if the thing shook out, he would only feel more uncomfortable.Is it okay that nothing happened?

Song Chen hypnotized himself every day, thinking in his heart that these things were not stolen, and they were still in his hands... If he told too many lies, he would believe them. The deputy seemed confident, and didn't intend to let them see any flaws at all.

But he pretended to be very good there, but the two of them had no intention of leaving the Song Mansion at all. They lived there for several months, but they didn't say goodbye and left. Now Song Chen felt bad .

Why did the two of them stay for so long without leaving?That's because the two of them had received an order, and they had to get those things this time.This is obviously already the ultimatum given to him by the Liu family and the Wang family. They may kill him if they get the item, but they will definitely do it if they don't get the item.Now that those things are gone, even if he wants to surrender, he has no capital, so what should he do? !

Song Chen had no way to go to heaven, no way to go to earth, neither dared to say that things were gone, nor dared to turn against Liu and Wang, so he could only pretend to be greedy, pretending to ask for a higher price from the two.This kind of approach is entirely to delay time. Since he knows that the nobles of the family are bound to win, and he has the intention of killing people to silence them, no matter how much he wants, they will not turn their faces, but are willing to act with him.

It is very useful for him to do this. Dare to ask for such a desperate price, of course it means that the thing is still in his hands. Naturally, the aristocratic family and the nobles have never suspected that the thing is gone. Although they hate Song Chen, they have already agreed perfunctorily. , anyway, I plan to kill him when I get the item, so what if I promise temporarily?Can't you spit it out by then?

Stabilizing these two sides, Song Chen no longer cares about his official position and power. His wife and children are old and young, and his only thought is to escape. He is secretly preparing for the escape, intending to find a chance to escape to the north when no one pays attention to him, even if he will be a commoner all his life and change his name. Last name, he also recognized it!

After a few months of delay, the Liu family was a little impatient, but now that the Wang family also lived in the Song residence, they did not dare to kill Song Chen.To kill someone, one must be able to kill one's mouth. What if Song Chen escaped or disclosed the information to the Wang family before his death?Wouldn't that be cheaper for the Wang family?

The Liu family didn't dare to move, and Manager Liu didn't dare to move. Now he not only has to stare at Song Chen, but also at Chen San, for fear that the two will get connected before he knows it, and the Wang family will find out. where.For this reason, he didn't even dare to sleep too soundly, and put all his energy on keeping an eye on these two people, almost dragging his body down.

All the situation is under Lin Jun's control, but returning Chen San will force Song Chen, Liu's family and Wang's family to stand on their own, and no one dares to act rashly. I have to say that Jiang Yuan's fishing rod is quite remarkable. ...