Huayu: The director just wants to save money

Chapter 848 Death is not important, the most important thing is the impact after death

Seven o'clock that evening.

Zhou Mo got the data again. The total purchase volume of the first four episodes of "Zhu Lou" exceeded 5 million, and the purchase volume of episodes 8 to exceeded million, and it is still increasing rapidly.

Judging from the trend of the data, it is a foregone conclusion that "Zhu Lou" will eventually surpass "I Want to Be the Emperor". The only question is how much it can surpass.

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Mo picked up the dinner on the table and continued to eat happily.

The fifth episode of "Red House" is currently being broadcast on TV.

In the upper left corner of the screen, the number of people watching online at the same time still exceeded one million.

This time point is the first peak period for people to rest after get off work, and many people can watch TV series through online software.

The next peak will come in another four hours, that is, after 11 o'clock in the evening, when night owls end their daytime entertainment and start their nightlife.

Liu Shishi was a little disappointed that the software could not display the specific number once the number of simultaneous viewers exceeded one million.

“Why doesn’t your company show all the numbers?”

"Because there is no need for that. There are not many videos with more than one million people online at the same time." Zhou Mo said casually, and then prepared to bury his head in his food.

At this moment, Liu Shishi's surprised cry made his hands tremble and he almost threw away his dinner.

"what happened?"

Liu Shishi pointed at the screen and said, "Did the emperor realize that it was the emperor who attacked him, and did he take action to deal with the situation?"

Zhou Mo glanced at the TV screen and suddenly realized something.

The plot of the TV series at this moment is that after the emperor arranged the princes to enter the six ministries, he immediately began to investigate the news of "the emperor's lack of virtue" in the capital.

Soon, he discovered that the news originally came from the palace.

Without any hesitation, Dai, the chief steward beside the emperor, stepped in and started a purge in the palace.

Countless eunuchs and palace maids were singled out and executed directly.

The news of the purge in the palace soon spread out, but this time, no minister expressed his denial of the matter.

Eunuchs, after all, are nothing more than the emperor's household slaves.

And the court officials were the emperor's collaborators in governing the country together.

The prince killed a court official, and he needed to explain to his other collaborators.

But if the emperor killed a household slave, no one would think there was anything wrong with it.

Some people, even court officials, would applaud.

After watching this episode, Liu Shishi said with a little discomfort: "The pace of "I Want to Be the Emperor" was very fast at the beginning, and now the pace of "Red Tower" is even faster.

I guess many viewers will feel uncomfortable after watching the fifth episode. Logically, the palace search should have lasted for an entire episode, but it ended in just two sentences.

Zhou Mo had finished dinner at this time. When he heard Liu Shishi's words, he spread his hands helplessly.

"There's no other way. If the pace isn't faster, there's no way we can finish the storyline with over 60 levels of content. You don't know how many brain cells Teacher Liu and I wasted when editing the storyline, and how many plots we had to rethink.

Some of the plots are very long-winded, but they cannot be deleted because they contain many foreshadowings.

I think some plots can be deleted, but Teacher Liu wouldn't let me, saying that if they were deleted, some key points would not be connected.

Just because of the episode about the death of the retired emperor, Mr. Liu and I almost had a quarrel, because he wanted to split that plot into two episodes, but I only wanted to make it one episode. "

Liu Shishi really didn't expect that these things would happen during the post-production of the TV series.

She followed her memory and soon thought of the scene of the death of the retired emperor.

The death of the retired emperor was actually very strange in the middle period.

In the original script that Liu Shishi saw, Zhou Mo deliberately wrote several sentences in the blank space of the script:
"We can't present all the clues to the audience. We have to make them feel that the death of the emperor is not normal and there is something fishy going on."

"There are many people who have reasons to kill the emperor, and everyone has the opportunity to do it, and it's not just one person who does it."

"The emperor had a chance to act, because he discovered that the emperor wanted to return to the court and plot against him. As long as the emperor was not dead, he would never be able to hold power."

"The prince had reason to kill the emperor because he knew that the emperor had only a little pity for him and mostly used him as a tool to influence the emperor. Once he was no longer useful, or even just failed to meet his expectations, he would be quickly abandoned."

"The princes also have reasons to want to kill the emperor. They are hostile to the emperor's camp, and the emperor has also pushed the prince to compete with them."

"But after all, it is better to wait until the end to reveal the true mystery of the emperor's death. Before that, we have to muddy the waters and make the audience feel extremely excited."

When Liu Shishi first saw these notes, she felt that Zhou Mo was a very bad guy.

I just like to play with the audience's emotions.

Until now, she still doesn't know who caused the death of the retired emperor.

Because Zhou Mo, this crazy guy, actually filmed several ideas all over again, so that the actors would not know what the real plot was, so as to avoid leaking the secrets of the TV series in advance when the TV series was broadcast.

It's really bad.

Liu Shishi paused the TV series and looked at Zhou Mo.

"Now that the TV series has been aired, you should at least tell me who killed the emperor in the end."

Zhou Mo also looked at her with hesitation in his eyes.

"You really want to know the answer?"

Liu Shishi saw that there was a chance and nodded repeatedly.

"Yes, I really want to know how the emperor died. His death was too strange, and there were too many clues. I read it several times but still couldn't find the final answer."

Zhou Mo sighed.

"Okay, since you want to know so much, then I'll tell you the answer. The answer is that I don't know how the emperor died."

Liu Shishi: ???

She felt like she had heard it wrong and looked at Zhou Mo with a confused look.

"Oh? Don't you know what it means? Weren't you responsible for filming this scene? Who filmed it? Teacher Liu Heping?"

Zhou Mo shook his head repeatedly and said seriously:
"No, no, no, Shi Shi, you didn't understand what I meant. I didn't even plan in the script who killed the emperor.

To tell you the truth, Mr. Liu and I have thought a lot about this plot, but we all feel that it is not very reliable, so we simply do not decide who killed him, and let the audience guess. "

Liu Shishi thought this answer was ridiculous. Such complicated paragraphs have been written in the script, and now you are telling me that you, the director and screenwriter, don’t even know who did it.

She thought Zhou Mo was joking.

"I'm asking you seriously, Zhou Mo, don't lie to me."

Zhou Mo looked at Liu Shishi's serious expression and a smile suddenly appeared at the corner of his mouth.

That expression seemed to say, "Hey, you believe it, you believe it."

"Shi Shi, when you were obsessed with who killed the retired emperor, you had already fallen into a trap." "Ah? What do you mean?" Liu Shi Shi was confused.

“Shi Shi, the death of the retired emperor is actually not important. What is important is the impact his death has brought.

Given his status as the retired emperor, his death was like an earthquake, and everyone related to him was greatly affected by his death.

This is the game I set for the audience.

So, when you focus all your energy on "who killed the emperor", you have actually fallen into a trap.

It is like the debate in history about whether Kangxi passed the throne to the fourth or the fourteenth son. Does it matter who Kangxi passed the throne to? In fact, it is not important anymore, because Yongzheng has become the emperor, the final winner, and even gave his brother the name "Aqina, Seshei".

As for other things, such as who killed the emperor, it is not important to me. You see, it was just a smokescreen for the audience to discuss. "

The emperor died in the middle of the plot, and his death was a very important node in the whole play.

Before this, due to the existence of the emperor emeritus, the emperor could not cover everything with one hand, and many people in the court did not obey the emperor's orders.

For example, some nobles who followed the retired emperor decades ago.

After the emperor retired, these nobles all met their end.

Some of them had secretly defected to the emperor before the death of the retired emperor, so after the death of the retired emperor they immediately transformed themselves and became representatives of the new generation of nobles.

The rest were "stubborn elements" who were unwilling to throw themselves into the emperor's arms. In the end, there was only one answer left:

Green garlic.

The above content is part of the reshuffle in the court.

In addition, there is also the shuffle within the palace.

After the death of the retired emperor, the emperor and the crown prince, who had been able to form an alliance before, immediately became competitors.

When the emperor was clearing out the power of the retired emperor, he gave the prince many opportunities to develop, which greatly expanded his power.

At the same time, the prince also accepted a lot of the remaining power of the retired emperor.

When the plot progresses to the middle stage, the prince has also developed into a huge force that possesses both civil and military power.

At this point, it was no longer possible for the emperor to easily let the prince reflect on his mistakes behind closed doors like in episode 4.

However, the emperor has many ways to suppress the prince.

For example, he overestimated the status and power of the other two princes (the third and fourth) and caused his own three princes to fight against each other.

There is no family affection in heaven.

Situations like Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao are still rare.

What's more, even when Zhu Yuanzhang was still energetic, he did not give much power to Zhu Biao.

Not to mention other people.

In the royal family history, although most emperors had pure love for their children when they became fathers.

However, as children grow older and more and more power is mixed in between family ties, this family affection is suppressed to an extremely low level.

The only struggle over power was the tone of communication between the emperor and the princes.

It was during this period that the power of the Third Prince and the Fourth Prince developed rapidly.

Compared to the prince, their abilities are no worse than his.

The third prince is very good at people's livelihood and finance.

When the emperor was promoting reforms, the implementation of a series of policies in Jiangnan and other places was carried out by the third prince through a series of means. The whole process was bloodless, and the salt tax that had troubled the court was successfully rectified.

The fourth prince is very good at military affairs.

He was originally a director of the Ministry of War, and later on he personally participated in the invasion of the north. He fought many battles and was invincible. Many generals admired him, many soldiers respected him, and even some nobles secretly defected to him.

The emperor relied on the third and fourth princes to successfully disperse a lot of power in the hands of the crown prince.

However, he did not directly abolish the status of crown prince.

Although this thought popped up in his mind countless times when he was alone, he finally endured it.

The reason is that he really doesn't want to repeat the path of his father, the emperor emeritus.

The emperor at that time also had a very good relationship with the former crown prince at first.

It was not until the power of the former crown prince grew larger and larger, gradually becoming a threat to the emperor's position, that the two sides changed from a state of "father loving and son filial" to a state of "father quarreling and son yelling".

From then on, the retired emperor began to weaken the power of the former crown prince, until it was weakened to the point where there were rumors in the capital that "the emperor wants to depose the crown prince." The crown prince was forced to raise an army and fight with the retired emperor. Both sides suffered heavy losses and the former crown prince died.

Since the Tang Dynasty, later monarchs have basically learned the curse deeply rooted in the Tang Dynasty royal family, which is the legendary "Xuanwumen Succession Law."

Since Li Yuan, the position of "Crown Prince" in the Tang Dynasty has been an extremely dangerous position.

During the Tang Dynasty, more than one prince was granted the title of "crown prince", but less than three princes successfully succeeded to the throne.

In such a situation, the emperor was naturally very afraid that there would be a record of him "replicating the deeds of his predecessors".

The fight between the emperor and the crown prince was relatively new in the Ming Dynasty, and currently only the emperor emeritus and the crown prince were involved.

But if it happens to him too, it will probably become a common occurrence in the future.

"Why, why can't you just wait for me a hundred years later and quietly pass on the power?"

This is what the emperor said to himself once when he was alone.

But he didn't need anyone else to answer this question.

Because he himself knew the answer to this question completely.

Power is a monster that never stops. Once you are infected with it, you will never be able to stop expanding.

Otherwise, the monster will turn around and devour his master.

When Zhao Kuangyin was in Chenqiao and his subordinates put on yellow robes, the most he did was to scold them and accuse them of "harming themselves."

But if he should have said at that time, "I would never wear this robe even if I die."

Then he probably won't even have the chance to scold.

Under all the heavens, the greatest achievement is to follow the dragon.

Now that the prince has grown up, if we want him to return to his original state, I am afraid he himself will not agree, and even the people behind him may not agree.

The conflict between father and son in the future will actually only get bigger and bigger, and it will break out one day.

To a certain extent, the conflict between the emperor and the crown prince was actually inevitable.

(End of this chapter)