The best ring

In the house of Zhou Yanfeng, the Minister of Household Affairs, the lights were brightly lit.

Zhou Yanfeng naturally didn't go to tonight's dinner. The excuse he gave himself was that he was ill.

Also missing were Li Yang and Qi Kai.

Seeing that his two allies had the same attitude as him, Zhou Yanfeng felt much better.

Although Zhou Yanfeng and the others did not go to the second prince's residence to attend the dinner, they paid great attention to the dinner tonight and had been paying attention to the situation there.

Of course, the three of them were definitely not the only ones paying attention to the dinner at the Second Prince's residence tonight. It could be said that the dignitaries in the imperial capital were all paying attention. Regardless of whether they went there or not, they paid a lot of attention to this dinner.

To put it bluntly, the dinner held at the second prince Zhao Ke's residence tonight was the most solemn and the most watched event in the entire imperial capital.

"There are really a lot of people going to the banquet tonight." Li Yang said in a slightly frustrated tone: "Officials from the six major yamen are going, even several from my military department, these bastards! "

As he spoke, Li Yang's tone was already full of anger.

As the Minister of the Ministry of War, someone under his command actually crossed his path to attend Zhao Ke's dinner party. This was really a slap in his face. Moreover, Li Yang could also think of why he went to the dinner party. Someone was obviously thinking about it. Where is his position?

Faced with this situation, how could Li Yang not be angry.

The same thing happened in the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Etiquette. Although neither Zhou Yanfeng nor Qi Kai went to the dinner, officials from the yamen where they worked went to attend. Zhou Yanfeng was as annoyed as Li Yang. As for Qi Kai, Kai, on the other hand, was not worried or angry in his heart, because he had already joined Zhao Ke's camp. As soon as Zhao Ke ascended the throne and became emperor, he would leave the Ministry of Rites and be promoted to the Ministry of Households to be the Minister.

Of course, on the surface, Qi Kai also showed the same anger as Zhou Yanfeng and Li Yang.

"It seems that there are more people in the imperial capital who are optimistic about the second prince than we thought before!" Zhou Yanfeng said in a low tone: "There are people from the six major yamen, not to mention some other officials. After tonight , the second prince will be the most popular candidate for the new emperor, which is very detrimental to us. "

Zhou Yanfeng was in a bad mood. Although, from the current point of view, as long as they stick to their bottom line, it will undoubtedly be very difficult for Zhao Ke to ascend the throne and become emperor. But now there are so many officials attending the dinner, which also gave them There was a lot of pressure. Although those officials were not members of the seven-person group, they were still officials from Yanfeng Country. Some of them even had quite high status and considerable power. The appearance of those people would undoubtedly convey an unpleasant message to others. Good signal.

This is indeed not a good thing for Zhou Yanfeng and the others.

"Yes, I have heard the news. There are many officials. Why will His Highness the Second Highness be officially elected as the new emperor of our Yanfeng Kingdom tomorrow?" Qi Kai said: "Once someone takes the lead, it will inevitably form a chain reaction. , the general trend is, even if we want to stop it, it will be very difficult. "

When Zhou Yanfeng and Li Yang heard this, their expressions became even more ugly.

Things were indeed very bad, even worse than they expected!

As Qi Kai said, once the general trend becomes the trend, even if they disagree, it is estimated that it will be difficult to prevent the second prince from ascending the throne and proclaiming himself emperor.

"Is there any movement on the Third Prince's side?" Zhou Yanfeng asked.

Li Yang and Qi Kai shook their heads at the same time.

"It shouldn't be." Zhou Yanfeng said with some confusion: "Normally, the third prince should be more anxious than us. After all, once the ministers elect the second prince to become the new emperor tomorrow, he will completely bid farewell to the throne. He Are you willing to give up the throne?"

"I'm sure he can't let it go!" Li Yang said with great certainty: "Besides, according to his character, he is not a particularly tolerant person. It should be said that he should deal with it. How come there is no movement yet?"

"Yes, this is really confusing." Qi Kai also said.

Zhou Yanfeng and the three of them all knew what kind of person Zhao Lun was. They never believed that Zhao Lun would voluntarily give up his pursuit of the throne, nor did they believe that Zhao Lun could endure it forever. But now, there has been no movement from Zhao Lun's side. , watching Zhao Ke win over officials is really unreasonable.

"Perhaps, he has already taken action, but we didn't notice it," Zhou Yanfeng said.

"This is possible." Li Yang said: "No matter how bad Zhao Lun is, he is still a prince. If he wants to compete for the throne, he has some strength. He may have already taken action."

Qi Kai nodded and said, "I hope so."

He said this, but in his heart, Qi Kai naturally didn't want to see such a situation happen. After all, he was now Zhao Ke's man, so he naturally didn't want anything unexpected to happen to Zhao Ke.

While the three of them were speculating whether Zhao Lun had taken action, the banquet at Zhao Ke's house became more and more lively. A group of officials kept coming forward to toast. Everyone at the scene basically believed that the throne must belong to Zhao Ke. Naturally, everyone wants to leave an impression in front of Zhao Ke before he ascends the throne.

Zhao Ke refused to accept these toasts. He was in a very good mood today. He also knew the intentions of these people, so naturally he would not refute everyone's face. After all, if he wanted to successfully ascend the throne, he also needed to be in front of him. These people are so helpful.

Not long after, Zhao Ke was already a bit drunk and his eyes were misty. What remained unchanged was that the smile on his face never faded from beginning to end.

"Your Highness, you are already drunk, so don't drink any more." Yuan Ji stepped forward to persuade him.

"It's okay!" Zhao Ke waved his hand and said nonchalantly: "We are happy today, so we must drink a few more cups. You see, everyone is also very happy. Yuan Shangshu, don't spoil the fun."

Seeing Zhao Ke's persistence and the enthusiasm of other officials, Yuan Ji didn't say anything more.

Hou Yi also wanted to come up to persuade him, but seeing that Yuan Ji's words were useless, he didn't step forward. As for Guan Zhuo, he remained silent and had no intention of taking the initiative to talk to Zhao Ke, let alone being attentive like other officials.

"Come on, let's drink another cup!" Zhao Ke stood up with a flushed face, raised the glass high, and drank the wine in the glass.

"Thank you, Your Highness!"

Everyone responded in unison, and then drank the wine in the glass.

Plop!

Just when everyone had finished drinking and had not yet put down their glasses, Zhao Ke, who was supposed to be standing there, staggered and fell to the ground, unconscious.