Daming Jingtai: I am the eternal benevolent king

Chapter 453 The Darkest Moment: The Mystery of Empress Dowager Zhang ()

"Before seizing the door, Queen Mother Sun tested me."

"Because the secret agents in the Qianqing Palace have not spread the news for a long time, she panicked."

"So come test me."

"I made the biggest mistake when I went to see her. I was almost poisoned to death."

"But if I don't go, the incident of seizing the door will probably not happen. Then these enemies will be hiding here, and I will have no way to find them."

"So, I took the risk and went to Renshou Palace to meet the Queen Mother Sun."

"I still remember that Queen Mother Sun almost poisoned me to death with a bowl of medicine. At that time, I really had no room to resist."

"Fortunately, Queen Mother Sun did not go to extremes."

"In other words, she is unwilling to trade her wealth for my life!"

"It took me many years to discover that she loved herself more than her son."

"After I escaped by luck, I realized that something was wrong."

"I will ask Wang Cheng to take back the palace key."

"At this time, I discovered that the guards at Donghua Gate were aware that something was wrong with Menda. I tortured Menda severely, but he did not confess."

"The more this happens, the more suspicious I become."

"It is even certain that Zhu Qizhen will be restored! I will make the fastest response within the limited time! This is the only preparation I can do!"

"Sure enough, at midnight, the incident of seizing the door happened!"

"I have never seen my brother be so brave. No wonder he can conquer Wala himself. No wonder he can lead the Wala army to attack Beijing!"

"It turns out that he is also a fierce general!"

"When he led his men to attack the palace gate, I realized that he was an unparalleled general!"

"He shouldn't be emperor."

"He should be a general!"

"He shouldn't beat Wala, he should beat his own people!"

"Just like in the first year of Jingtai, he led the Oara people to attack the city of Beijing, so I named him King of Mobei. He is really suitable to be King of Mobei."

Zhu Jianhang could see that his father hated Zhu Qizhen to the extreme.

But judging from his subsequent behavior, the old emperor didn't seem to take much revenge on Zhu Qizhen, which shows that his father's feelings for Zhu Qizhen were complicated.

"He is outside the palace gates, leading a strong army and fully controlling the situation."

"I am inside the palace gate, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. I don't know where the future is, and I don't know whether I will live or die?"

"I asked him, what is benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom and filial piety?"

"He became so angry that he led his army to storm the palace gate. I know that I have touched a sore spot in his heart!"

"It turns out that he also feels guilty, fearful, and uneasy!"

"I thought he would feel at ease after killing so many people!"

"But his uneasiness turned into anger, and he bombarded me! He launched a second attack on the throne!"

"It's so ridiculous and shameless!"

"Well, that game was a turning point in my life."

"You should have seen the archives in the palace."

"The whole process was very exciting. The rebels have already attacked Fengtian Temple!"

"Just a tiny bit, the arrow would have killed me!"

"It was Wang Qin who risked his life to save me and my throne."

"When Fan Guang jumped on his horse into Fengtian Palace, it was half an hour later than I estimated."

"It was precisely because of half an hour's delay that the rebels reached Fengtian Palace!"

"The main hall was completely destroyed!"

"The arrow missed me by just a tiny bit and took my life!"

"Fourth, who do you think I should blame?"

Zhu Qiyu laughed suddenly: "In the past eight years, I was indeed not a good emperor. Compared with the orthodox emperor who worked hard to govern, I was indeed not as good as him."

"After the Yi Chu incident, my thoughts were focused on having a son, which chilled the hearts of the loyal and good ministers in the court."

"They must be thinking in their hearts, they might as well allow the orthodox emperor to be restored. Anyway, the emperor sitting above him is a fool."

"No one else is to blame, blame me!"

"No wonder I'm too kind to them!"

"It's my fault that I thought they were human beings!"

"I was wrong!"

"When Fan Guangzong jumped into the Fengtian Palace to rescue him, I knew that I was wrong!"

"I treat everyone in the world as human beings!"

"So they don't treat me as a human being!"

"I regard the civil and military forces of the DPRK and China as gods!"

"So they treat me like a piece of shit!"

"Then let them see what a fart I am. The emperor will bleed millions in anger!"

"Zhu Qizhen's anger can make the whole north fall!"

"I am also the emperor! So what if the world falls!"

"I only had one crazy idea at that time. I would rather teach the world to betray me than teach the world to betray me!"

"Correct!"

"I'm crazy!"

"I went crazy from that moment on!"

"Killing people won't solve my problem! Then I will kill them all!"

"Yu Qian came late. I only asked him one question. Do you want to be Cao Cao? If you want to be Cao Cao, I will be here. Kill me. I will put Zhu Jianshen on the throne and make him Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty. You are Cao Cao!"

"At that time, Yu Qian held the military power, and all the military power in the capital camp was in his hands. There was no one available around me!"

"If it were anyone else, I wouldn't dare to question him like this. Besides, the Orthodox Emperor is still here. He can definitely kill me and install the Orthodox Emperor on the throne."

"But he is Yu Qian! Yu Qian, who won the battle to defend Beijing, may hate me, but he also hates the Orthodox Emperor! He may be late and procrastinate, but he will not rebel against me openly!"

"I didn't know him at all before, and I sent people to guard against him."

"But at that moment, I understood everything, and I understood him."

"I told you that Yu Qian is a very strange person. I have never figured him out in my whole life. I only know one thing. He wants to be a saint."

"Yes, he is a cynical person. He has strong opinions on the dim government and the weak country and the poor people. He should have escaped from the world."

"When he was young, he wanted to save the common people, but when he was old, he just wanted to be a reclusive immortal."

"It was the Ming Emperor who failed to live up to his expectations. He was forced to lead troops to fight, to save the Ming Dynasty, and to be a cynical person."

"Both the Orthodox Emperor and I are dissatisfied."

"But he talks little and doesn't know how to express himself."

"The moment he came belatedly, I understood. He looked down upon me, thinking that I had been emperor for eight years and guarded against Zhu Qizhen for six years, but actually failed to guard against him; he laughed at me for being emperor for eight years. It’s ridiculous that the emperor doesn’t even have a few hard-core generals.”

"At the same time, you are also laughing at the Orthodox Emperor. Do you want to seize the country again and lose Jiangnan?"

"Only the Zhengtong Emperor didn't understand, and still hoped that Yu Qian could support him."

"So, I asked him."

"Yu Qian didn't even dare to think about it. He has already passed away. How could he still be Cao Cao? I knew at that time that I won!"

"No matter how powerful Yu Qian is, the military power in his hands belongs to me!"

"He is just exercising military power for me!"

"That night, I killed many people."

"But killing people can't solve the problem, and killing people can't save Ming Dynasty."

"I can't even keep my throne."

"If Zhu Qizhen can escape from prison and rebel once, he will do it a second time!"

"In political struggles, there will always be people who fail, and there will always be people who are wishful thinking and trying to gain the power of Conglong, and they will definitely support Zhu Qizhen again."

"There is only one solution, kill Zhu Qizhen!"

"But!"

"I have no military power, no financial control, no official staff, nothing else, so why should I kill them?"

"I know very clearly that I can't kill him."

"Then I will kill another person who poses a great threat to the throne, Prince Xiang!"

"Emperor Renzong had three legitimate sons. One of them died, and only the old and immortal King Xiang was left!"

"He deserves to die!"

"Whether he is coveting the late emperor's queen or his status as Renzong's legitimate son!"

"He deserves to die!"

"If I hadn't killed an uncle, who would have known that I was the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty! This is inheritance!"

"Ignoring everyone's objections, I ordered to cook King Xiang!"

"Cook his whole family!"

"Even though I am sitting on the throne, in fact, there are still three people away from me, Prince Xiang, Zhu Jianshen, and Zhu Qizhen!"

"After cutting off these three people, I will be able to secure the throne!"

"So, the people killed on the night of seizing the door are just appetizers!"

"I thought it was a relief, but in the eyes of the court officials, it was just petty and they didn't understand politics at all."

"I know very well that the courtiers who were kneeling at my feet were laughing at me!"

"It doesn't matter if King Xiang is cooked. As long as Zhu Qizhen is preserved, those losers in the political struggle will continue to use Zhu Qizhen to rebel. The Jingtai Dynasty will never stop political struggles."

"And the more I kill people, the more people think I am incompetent."

Zhu Qiyu exhaled a breath: "After the incident of seizing the gate, the three things before me are to cure my illness, take control of the military, and regain the imperial power." "Each of them is extremely difficult."

"Moreover, there are many people in the palace, and spies from all forces are spread throughout the palace. This imperial city is like a ventilated pocket, and anything can be spread. Even I farted, what time did I fart, etc. Everyone knows the taste, there is no secret.”

"I have to clean up the palace first, and with everything crowded together, I can only drive everyone out of the palace."

"The entire imperial city has turned into a ghost town."

"No one."

"Then, I forced all the doctors in the capital to enter the palace, lock them in the palace, and diagnose my pulse."

"Regain the Jin Yiwei, reorganize the East Factory, seal the palace gate, and not allow anyone to open the door without an edict. Then win over Fan Guang, and mobilize the Henan Preparatory Army to Beijing."

"I will also bury all the living concubines from the previous dynasty, including the palace servants who served them."

"My food will be prepared by a few capable people in the Qianqing Palace. The simplest meals will suffice."

"I asked all the doctors to check my pulse to see what disease I have."

"Following the clues, I caught the spy in the hospital!"

"The results are shocking. Many of the imperial doctors are from Empress Dowager Sun and Zhu Qizhen. There are also many imperial doctors who don't even know the words. They are actually treating diseases of nobles in the palace and court! How ridiculous?"

"In my rage, I massacred the entire hospital!"

"Some of those who don't deserve to die will be assigned to serve as military doctors in the army, and the whole family will be enrolled in the military."

"Those damn ones will confiscate their homes and exterminate their clans!"

"As for the one who killed me, the whole clan is Lingchi!"

"I can't believe it at the Imperial Pharmacy. I ordered people to torture all the eunuchs, palace maids, imperial doctors, etc. in the Imperial Pharmacy. The innocent ones were sent out of the palace, and the guilty ones were all killed."

"I don't dare to use the medicine from the Royal Pharmacy."

"Send people to bring all the medicinal herbs from the capital into the palace, and let the eunuchs keep an eye on him while he boils them. After he drinks them, he will drink them first, and then he will select a hundred doctors to drink them!"

"Then the eunuchs drank, then Empress Tang drank, and Concubine Tan drank!"

"I drink it last!"

“Randomly pick someone to drink every day!”

"I'm afraid of death."

Zhu Qiyu said calmly: "I can't die either, I want revenge!"

"The same goes for the food. When the cook finishes it, he eats it first. From Shangshi Bureau to Qianqing Palace, everyone has to eat the whole way!"

"Send it to the Qianqing Palace. The eunuchs will eat it, the maids will eat it, the queen will eat it, the concubines will eat it, and finally I will eat it!"

"Every meal is like this."

"Concubine Tan treats me, but I can't trust her completely. Hu Hui is a master of medicine, so I will let him and Concubine Tan prescribe medicine at the same time to see who is right and who is wrong!"

"I'm walking on thin ice!"

"In those days, every second was taken apart."

"I have too many things to do. Health is the first priority. If the emperor is not in good health, no one will support you."

"Sure enough, no one was trying to harm me. My body recovered quickly and I started exercising."

Zhu Qiyu said: "In the past few days, I will not open the palace door and no one will be allowed in or out."

"I'm waiting for the opportunity."

"Waiting for the Henan Bei Cao Army to enter Beijing, at this time, I will send Song Jie and Song Wei to the palace to control the Bei Cao Army for me."

"Song Wei recommended Li Jin and Chen Shao. They were in charge of the horse army and imperial guards for me, so the safety of the imperial city was ensured."

"But the court officials will not see me taking the initiative. Various rumors have arisen among the people, all of which are accusing Sang and scolding me."

"To be an emperor, you must have a strong heart."

"When Bei Cao's army entered Beijing, I began to seize power."

"The biggest enemy standing in front of me is Chen Xun."

"Chen Xun is not a member of the orthodox emperor. I forced him to put a shit basin on his head."

"Chen Xun was promoted by me."

"But he has a backlash in his head. He doesn't want the emperor to take over the imperial power. He wants the cabinet to command the world. He just wants to be the chief minister."

"To be honest, the emperor's loss of imperial power started with Empress Dowager Zhang. She did not listen to politics behind the curtain, but she might as well listen to politics behind the curtain."

"She generously gave the imperial power to Sanyang. From then on, the decline of the Ming Emperor's imperial power started with her!"

"She died seven years after being orthodox. I have always suspected that she was a puppet of the civil servants."

"Looking at her after the torrent of history, I am almost convinced that she was raised by civil servants."

"It's also her family and a relative who was officially knighted."

"Let me tell you a little about this old lady. I have a deep impression on her. My childhood and youth were under the shadow of her."

"Empress Dowager Zhang is the empress of Emperor Renzong."

"She was able to escape the darkest political moments of the Yongle Dynasty, and she was at home in the Xuande Dynasty. In the Zhengtong Dynasty, she listened to the government behind the curtain and had power in both the government and the public."

"Although he is praised by later generations."

"But as the emperor, I know clearly that she is the main culprit for the decline of imperial power."

"The loss of the legitimate emperor's imperial power is directly related to her."

"Moreover, the Zhengtong Emperor was only fourteen years old during the seventh year of Zhengtong's reign, because the Empress Dowager Zhang passed away that year."

"The orthodox emperor will take charge ahead of schedule."

"Do you know that if Empress Dowager Zhang had not died, would the Orthodox Emperor be able to rule in person?"

Zhu Qiyu sneered: "In the sixth year of Zhengtong, Emperor Zhengtong began to take back the imperial power, but Empress Dowager Zhang refused to delegate power and had to wait until Emperor Zhengtong was sixteen."

"But she died suddenly!"

Zhu Jianji's face changed slightly: "What do you mean? The Zhengtong Emperor did it?"

"I don't know. I didn't dare to participate in government affairs at that time, but with the character of the orthodox emperor, he must have done it."

"The royal family, how can there be any blood ties?"

"It is impossible for the Empress Dowager Zhang to delegate power."

"How can you, as an emperor, be inferior to others if you hold on to power and refuse to let it go?"

"Do you know where the power of Empress Dowager Zhang comes from?"

"The courtier gave it to her!"

"At the same time, it was also given to Queen Mother Sun!"

"It's considered the ruler of two palaces!"

"After the death of Emperor Xuanzong, the courtiers asked the two queen mothers to come out and take charge."

"But later, only one palace was left in charge, and the Queen Mother Sun had never been in charge. I am sure of this."

"Moreover, when the court officials addressed Empress Dowager Zhang, they addressed her as Your Majesty!"

Zhu Qiyu had a cold look on his face: "Why should the officials give her the power to govern?"

"You have to know that in the Ming Dynasty's political system, the world can function normally even without an emperor. As long as the cabinet and the ceremonial supervisor check and balance each other, it doesn't matter if the emperor is young."

"It just happened that Empress Dowager Zhang was given the power to take charge."

"The late emperor's edict does not contain this clause!"

"The late emperor never thought of letting the two empress dowagers take charge!"

"Because, in the Hongwu Dynasty, there was a strict rule that concubines were not allowed to interfere in politics!"

"It was Yang Shiqi who broke the ancestral system of Emperor Taizu!"

"He is the sinner!"

"Humph, civil officials can break the ancestral rules at will, but the emperor is not allowed to break the ancestral rules. What's the logic behind this?"

"So, I dug into Yang Shiqi's roots!"

"Didn't Yang Shiqi want to expand the power of the gentry? Didn't he want his family to become an aristocratic family? Okay! I'll give him a good reputation, but kill all nine of his clans!"

"Didn't the Empress Dowager Zhang also throw away her imperial power for the sake of her own power?"

"Okay!"

"I also gave her a good reputation, but I destroyed her foreign clan!"

Zhu Qiyu's eyes were filled with madness: "The Zhengtong Emperor must have had the same idea as me at that time. I believe in my brother."

"His ability is stronger than mine."

"It must be him who killed Empress Dowager Zhang!"

“That’s why I was able to take charge in advance!”

"And the executor is Wang Zhen!"

Zhu Qiyu smiled and said: "There are many eunuchs around me, and there are many eunuchs who died for me, but my feelings for them are far from the Zhengtong Emperor's feelings for Wang Zhen."

"So, I conclude that the Zhengtong Emperor regards Wang Zhen as a father-like existence."

"And Wang Zhen lived up to the great trust and helped the Zhengtong Emperor get rid of the only stumbling block on the road to pro-government, the Empress Dowager Zhang!"

"Don't forget, the two empress dowagers of the two palaces were in charge of Shangshu at that time. In addition to Empress Dowager Zhang, there was also Empress Dowager Sun."

"How can Queen Mother Sun be willing to lose her political power?"

"So she must have been involved and played an extremely important role."

"Because her death is exactly the same as that of Emperor Xuanzong!"

Zhu Qiyu laughed: "It's so similar!"

"In the ninth year of Xuande, Emperor Xuanzong was still patrolling the border and his body was extremely strong. Just after arriving in the first month of the tenth year of Xuande, he suddenly fell seriously ill and died in the blink of an eye."

"The Empress Dowager Zhang was like this too. Suddenly she became seriously ill, and Yang Shiqi died before she was even finished!"

"too fast!"

"It's so fast that people are caught off guard!"

"And immediately, the Zhengtong Emperor came into power. He overthrew everything of Empress Dowager Zhang, drove away San Yang, and started his own ambitious political career."

"Tell me, did he do this?"

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(End of this chapter)