After the whole family was swept away, I lay down flat

Chapter 392 The Seventh Prince

Haitang told his brother Hai Jiao what Wu Qiong revealed in his letter.

Haijiao has accepted the conjecture that "Emperor Deguang still has a legitimate prince alive". Now that he heard that Mrs. Gui's words and deeds further confirmed this, he felt quite calm.

He told his younger sister Haitang: "Whether or not there is really such a prince hiding in Cining Palace, Emperor Deguang's attitude is already very obvious. He will only support the eighth prince to establish a heir, and would rather pretend that the legitimate son does not exist. As long as outsiders don't know about it, there won't be any big changes in the situation between the DPRK and China. The Empress Dowager Zhou should be well aware of this. If she thought it was necessary for the Zhou family to know, she would tell Zhen Guo without us having to say anything. Sir. Since she didn’t mention it, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. We don’t need to continue to investigate anything, so as not to attract the attention of others. "

Haitang thought about it, and nodded: "Actually, there is really no need for this legitimate prince to appear now... Prince Ji cannot return to his clan, and he cannot be appointed as the crown prince. On the surface, he is the only one in the royal family who has The only one who is eligible to succeed to the throne is the eighth prince. If there is another direct prince born by Empress Wu, it will cause internal division among those who originally supported the eighth prince. It will not be beneficial to the smooth succession of the throne. In the end, only Sun will benefit. family."

"In the previous life, the emperor always concealed the news of this direct prince from the world. He must have taken this into consideration, right?" Hai Jiao sighed, "I didn't expect that Emperor Deguang had eight sons, except for Concubine Sun Guifei. Apart from the sixth prince, only the eighth prince born to Concubine Xu Xian could be so considerate in everything, even at the expense of the interests of other princes. In the past, my uncle and the others talked about Emperor Deguang's ruthlessness towards the third and fifth princes. We are heartbroken and complain that he should not be too partial to Sun Guifei's son; but now, we should be happy that he is a partial person and can be cruel enough to his son who is not partial."

If Emperor Deguang loved his other sons as much, the eighth prince would now have to face the competition between Prince Ji, who had been succeeded, and his true prince, who had been hiding for many years. One of these two people has the support of his beloved concubine and powerful ministers, and the other has the status of a direct descendant of the middle palace. Against them, the eighth prince really has little chance of winning.

Once there is chaos in the royal family with three sons competing for the throne, God knows what bad consequences it will lead to? The civil strife among the Hu people is the best example.

Speaking of this, Haitang was quite confused about one thing: "Brother just said that Emperor Deguang had eight sons...is it really only eight? Has the little prince born to Empress Wu been included?"

Hai Jiao was startled, recalling the situation of the princes under Emperor Deguang: the eldest prince and the second prince died young; the third prince was the eldest son of Queen Wu, and died together with Queen Wu in the fire of Kunning Palace; the fourth prince He was born by Lu Zhaorong, who succeeded him as the crown prince of Prince Ji a few years ago, and is now seeking to return to the clan; the fifth prince was born to Concubine Liu Shu, and died in an unknown manner, suspected to have been caused by Concubine Sun. Concubine Liu Shu wanted to avenge her injustice but was thrown into the cold palace. Even her natal family was implicated; the sixth prince was the son of Concubine Sun, and he was almost appointed as the crown prince, but he died inexplicably at the hands of Empress Wu's old servant Liuhua.

Concubine Xu Xian gave birth to the eighth prince. Before him, there was a seventh prince of unknown reputation. There is not much news about the Seventh Prince from the outside world. Hai Jiao guessed that he might have been born from the palace and died earlier than the sixth prince. Therefore, after the sixth prince died, the courtiers would be worried that the emperor would have no heir to inherit the throne. They considered letting Prince Ji return to the throne until The emperor married Concubine Xu Xian until she gave birth to the eighth prince.

But for a true prince, even if his birth mother is of low status and he himself dies young, no one should know about it. If the prince born to Concubine Xu Xian hadn't been called the eighth prince, I'm afraid the world wouldn't know that there was a seventh prince in the palace!

If the seventh prince is Empress Wu's youngest son, everything would make sense. He is younger than the Sixth Prince, older than the Eighth Prince, and is ranked seventh. His existence was not known to the world, but the emperor knew about it, so he said that the youngest son ranked eighth.

Hai Jiao hesitated to express his thoughts, and then made a conclusion: "Since the age and ranking match, he should be the direct prince. Although the emperor refused to announce his information, he included him as the prince. Xu Zhi also accepted his close servant as his concubine, obviously considering his future life, so he is not completely ruthless..."

In the past two days, he tried his best to recall the gossip he had heard in his previous life. He could not remember the rumors about the direct prince, but he remembered another thing: he was once ordered to spy on an official from the Ministry of Industry, and he overheard the other person secretly talking to him. The wife said that when Empress Dowager Zhou was preparing to be buried in the imperial mausoleum, the emperor ordered them to temporarily dig a small tomb next to the main tomb so that a coffin and coffin could be arranged for burial. At that time, in order to rush the work, they were lazy and did not dig another tomb. They just stuffed the coffin into the main tomb. Due to the poor health of the emperor, he never went to inspect the tomb in person, so no one knew about their little tricks. Unexpectedly, he escaped the disaster at that time. When the new king came to the throne, the newly promoted elder started to investigate the matter. This official from the Ministry of Industry planned to destroy all the evidence left behind and seal the mouths of all insiders so that the cabinet would never know what he had committed.

Since Jin Yiwei knew the secret of this official, he would naturally not end well. However, it was impossible to reopen the Queen Mother's mausoleum after the tombstone had been lowered, so the coffin buried with it had not been removed and was still in the tomb with Accompanied by the Queen Mother.

After the case was made public, there were rumors that a prince was buried in the coffin, and the uniforms, burial objects, and coffin were all arranged according to the prince's specifications. Some people say that he was the son of Empress Dowager Zhou who died in his early years, but the prince of the late emperor's dynasty was buried in the late emperor's cemetery more than 40 years ago. Others said that he was actually the seventh prince, who had been raised by the Queen Mother since he was a child, so he was buried next to the Queen Mother.

Not long after this statement came out, other major events happened in the court. From then on, no one paid attention to the news about the Queen Mother's mausoleum, and Haijiao still didn't know who was lying in the coffin.

Looking back now, he felt that everything was in perspective: "The person buried in the tomb of the Queen Mother must be the direct prince, right? He happened to be in the seventh year of his life. He died young before he was crowned king and was not known to the world, so he could only do this. He was buried quietly, but he had all the decency a prince should have. The emperor was not too mean to him."

Haitang frowned: "So, he can only live until the Queen Mother dies and is buried in the cemetery? Wouldn't that be less than two years? How did he die? Did he die of illness? Or was he killed by the Sun family? "

"I don't know about that." Hai Jiao spread his hands, "Anyway, there are a lot of gossips about the cause of the Queen Mother's death. Although she was seriously ill at the time, she was not yet dying, so the emperor was relieved to go on tour. Unexpectedly, just a few days after Shengjia left Beijing, news of the death of the Queen Mother came out in the palace, and Shengjia had to return in a hurry.

"The court's theory is that the Queen Mother's old illness was caused by poor weather, and her condition suddenly worsened, and the medicine was ineffective. There are also rumors that she was angry to death by Concubine Sun. Later, the Sun family fell, and Empress Dowager Xu also blamed Concubine Sun for her death. It was just based on no evidence. Several years later, even the cabinet did not take it seriously. They only thought that the Queen Mother Xu was going to add insult to injury and put more charges on Concubine Sun."

Hai Jiao originally did not believe that there was anything wrong with the cause of the Queen Mother's death, because there was no need for Concubine Sun to kill the Queen Mother at that time. But now that he knew the existence of the legitimate prince, he was not so sure.

If Concubine Sun knew the existence of the legitimate prince and why Lihua wanted to kill the sixth prince, it would be possible for her to kill the legitimate prince and also kill the Queen Mother in order to take revenge. It's just that after he was reborn, he could no longer find the answer to this kind of thing.

Unless in this life, Concubine Sun discovers the secret of Cining Palace and becomes murderous again.

(End of this chapter)