Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 136: Old Zhu's fury! Crown Prince!

In the history of the Ming Dynasty, neither Lu nor her father Lu Ben were very eye-catching figures.

But if you take a closer look, you will find that these two people are not simple.

Lu Ben was once an official of the Yuan Dynasty, but he was from Fengyang and was a fellow villager of Lao Zhu.

To the Huaixi noble group, which had the strongest political power in the early Ming Dynasty, Lü Ben was a natural fit.

But he was different from most of the Huaixi nobles who were military generals.

He is a civil servant.

Lü Ben once served as the Minister of Personnel and the Minister of Rites.

The Minister of Personnel was known as the "Heavenly Official", while the Minister of Rites was the organizer of the imperial examinations.

Both of these positions hold great power over personnel matters!
Considering his background, one can imagine how many connections Lü Ben had in the court.

However, such a key and important figure was able to remain safe and sound and escape unscathed when the Hu Weiyong case broke out.

His daughter, Lu, was also very extraordinary.

As the second concubine, she outlasted Chang and her eldest son and ascended to the position of the principal concubine.

She also outlasted her husband and helped her son become the crown prince.

Although history books have not described it in detail, what exactly happened, what role the Lu family played, and what means they used are completely unknown to outsiders.

The details of history are always hidden deep inside.

Seeing Concubine Lu fall to the ground, Yoshigaki walked over and personally checked her breathing, then pressed on her pulse to feel it, and after confirming that there was no movement, he ordered: "Finish the makeup for Concubine Lu."

The palace maids and eunuchs hurried forward.

Yoshigaki turned and was about to leave, but suddenly stopped and his eyes fell on the desk.

Before Lu died, he seemed to look at the desk more than once, as if he was afraid that people would notice him. Could there be something hidden in the desk?
Yoshigaki walked over and flipped through it.

Soon, he found the notes written by Lu from a pile of manuscripts.

Just a glance and his face changed drastically.

He quickly put the notes into his arms, checked the desk and even the entire study carefully, and after making sure that nothing was missing, he left in a hurry.

……

Tianjie Temple.

It's time for the third watch.

Old Zhu still didn't fall asleep.

Sitting in the Buddhist temple, chanting Buddhist scriptures.

The dense candlelight in the hall illuminates the whole hall.

But although there are many candles, the range of the light source is not very wide.

If you look up at the tall Buddha statue from below, you will still feel that the Buddha's face is dim and unclear, as if smiling but not smiling, as if compassionate and pitying, as if laughing at the stupidity and sorrow of the world.

The arhats on both sides are even more majestic and solemn, with their hands holding weapons, as if they are ready to pounce down at any time.

The Buddhist temple at night gives people a gloomy and terrifying feeling.

But Old Zhu was completely unaware.

How could a man who had rebelled when he was young and killed countless people in his life, and had survived a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, be afraid of bronze and wooden statues of Buddha and arhats?

In the silent hall, only the sound of chanting, as soft as the hum of a mosquito, echoed.

Sudden.

"Creak" sound.

The door of the hall was slightly opened.

Yoshigaki bent over and walked in quietly.

"Your Majesty, Concubine Lu fell ill tonight and has gone with the late Crown Prince."

Old Zhu's chanting suddenly stopped.

Yoshigaki quickly took out the notes he had searched from his pocket and presented them respectfully.

"This is what I found on her desk. The contents inside..."

He paused, and did not continue speaking, but changed the subject and said, "Your Majesty, please have a look!"

Old Zhu took it casually, took a look at it, and his expression suddenly changed.

I then carefully read all the notes from beginning to end.

"Bastard!"

A terrifying roar suddenly sounded like thunder in the quiet hall.

The sound waves in the hall were resounding, the air was surging, and countless candle flames were shaking violently.

Even the Buddha, Bodhisattva and Arhat above seemed to change color in an instant.

"How dare she do such a thing?"

"How vicious he is! His entire clan should be killed!"

There are as many as thirty or forty notes.

The content of her writing was nothing more than how much she loved Zhu Yunhuan, and how Zhu Yunhuan persecuted her and Zhu Yunwen...

In these notes, she portrayed herself as an innocent, pitiful and kind-hearted white lotus.

Zhu Yunhuan was a hateful and shameless person who disregarded the kindness of his mother and the affection of his brothers in order to fight for the throne.

Even though Zhu Yunhuan was so despicable, as a mother, she still loved her child, protected him to the death, and was unwilling to say a bad word about him in front of others.

She is the greatest and most respectable stepmother in the world!
Such a person was forced to death by the son he raised.

The front part of the note already has some traces of deliberate aging.

If Yoshigaki hadn't suddenly led his men there and interrupted her plan, she would have been able to make these notes perfectly if she had been given another day.

But now, Lao Zhu can still see a lot of problems.

Speaking of which, Lao Zhu's family was poor when he was a child and he never went to school.

He began to read and write after he became a monk and learned it in the temple.

But Lao Zhu was extremely talented and smart, and he quickly mastered a lot of knowledge.

In the days of marching and fighting that followed, whenever Zhu had free time, he would continue to work tirelessly to study on his own.

Naturally, he cannot be compared with those great scholars who came from aristocratic families and were well-read in poetry and books since childhood.

But compared with ordinary scholars and intellectuals, Lao Zhu's knowledge is far ahead of them.

More importantly, Lao Zhu also consulted a knowledgeable scholar and mastered a skill that ordinary people do not possess.

That is to identify handwriting!
Old Zhu can tell who wrote the handwriting at a glance, and can also tell whether the handwriting is forged, as well as the newness of the pen, ink, and paper, whether it is deliberately made old, etc.

The reason why we study hard and master this skill is that in the past when marching and fighting, when transmitting important military intelligence, we had to prevent people from falsifying and being deceived.

It is very important to identify the characters and whether the handwriting is forged, and whether the pen, ink and paper are deliberately made to look old.

To this end, Lao Zhu worked very hard.

Lu's handwriting is certainly not forged.

But Lao Zhu could see that although some of these notes showed signs of aging, if one carefully distinguished the handwriting, one could still tell that they were written all at once, rather than a little bit written every day.

This is not determined by the age of the pen, ink or paper.

Instead, it is identified by the difference in handwriting.

Words are the voice of the heart, and words are the painting of the heart. You can tell a person by his handwriting.

A person's mood and physical condition are different every day, so the words he writes will have subtle differences.

When something is written at one time, the mood and physical changes are different, and the handwriting will also be different.

Only those who have undergone professional study and training can distinguish this.

Ordinary people can't see it at all.

With Zhu's sharp eyes, it was easy to tell that these words of Lu were written in one go.

It's not that Lu was not cautious enough. He didn't know to separate the writing and write a little bit every day to avoid revealing any flaws.

It was because Lu went through a long psychological struggle before deciding to commit suicide.

If Zhu Yunwen and his teachers could deal with Zhu Yunhuan through other means, Lu would certainly not have committed suicide.

There is no need to forge notes.

It was not until later, when she realized that Zhu Yunwen really could not defeat Zhu Yunhuan, that Lu decided to die to fulfill her son's wish.

But time cannot be reversed.

Of course, it was impossible for Lu to forge notes by writing a little bit every day.

In her opinion, this was not a big flaw.

The differences between handwritings written by the same person at different times are very subtle.

Not to mention ordinary people, even professionals may not be able to distinguish them sometimes.

Besides, as long as the content gets out and the notes were indeed written by her, what does this tiny flaw that outsiders can't even notice matter?

No one will care.

Even Your Majesty probably wouldn't do that.

How could the emperor, in his rage, have the time to make a careful identification?

But what she didn't expect was that while she was making plans, Yang Shiqi and Yao Guangxiao, Zhu Yunhuan's subordinates, were also making plans.

Moreover, they got ahead of Lu.

This meant that the notes were discovered much earlier than she had originally planned.

She did not commit suicide, but was sentenced to death.

The notes were not leaked but went directly into Lao Zhu's hands.

Old Zhu had already been reminded by Yao Guangxiao that Lu might commit suicide to frame the King of Wu.

Seeing these notes, how could I not carefully examine them?
Unfortunately, things happened in a hurry, so even if Lu started to make an old article after writing it, he still didn't do it well.

It can be said that there are flaws everywhere.

Wanting to use this to deal with Zhu Yunhuan was just a wishful thinking that she had when she was left with no other options before her death.

Old Zhu's anger was severely aroused by this frame-up note.

If Yang Shiqi had not reminded him, he would not have suspected Lu, and he would not have asked people to keep a close eye on her and investigate her secretly.

If it weren't for Yao Guangxiao's advice, Zhu would have waited until after the birthday party before deciding how to deal with Lu.

At that time, this notebook would most likely be circulated and known to the world under Lu's special arrangement.

Even if he could see through everything and discovered that it was Lu's conspiracy, would the officials believe it? Would the world believe it?

Hu'er would probably have to bear the infamy of forcing his mother to death and harming his brothers, and he would never be able to wash it off even if he jumped into the Yellow River.

"We should chop Lu into pieces, peel off his skin and stuff it with straw, and grind his bones to scatter his ashes."

A woman actually has such deep calculations.

At this time, Zhu had completely believed that the deaths of his son Zhu Biao, his eldest grandson Zhu Xiongying, Chang and others were all related to Lu.

Although no evidence was found.

But since Lu was so thoughtful and could come up with such a vicious conspiracy, it is not surprising that her previous actions were done perfectly without any flaws.

Old Zhu even suspected that Empress Ma’s death was also related to Lu.

After all, Empress Ma fell ill after Zhu Xiongying's death.

Thinking of this, one can imagine how deep Zhu's hatred for the Lu family was.

I'm afraid Lu never dreamed that the notes she painstakingly compiled would not become the knife that killed Zhu Yunhuan, but would instead plunge her own family, the Lu family, into an abyss from which there was no escape!
This is probably just a matter of tying oneself up in knots.

"We must kill her entire family and wipe out her entire clan!"

Old Zhu paced back and forth in the hall, extremely angry.

But after a moment, he slowly suppressed his emotions.

In any case, at least at this moment, we can't do this.

"Imperial decree, Concubine Lu was gentle and virtuous, and had both moral integrity and talent. Unfortunately, she has passed away today. I am deeply saddened to hear of this."

"I hereby confer her the title of Crown Princess Zhenmin."

"She was a simple and frugal person during her lifetime, and it is not appropriate to hold a grand funeral after her death, which is against her wishes."

"The body will remain in the coffin for three days, then it can be put into the coffin."

"Yes!" Yoshigaki responded quickly.

After Old Zhu finished speaking, he asked again: "Tonight, we will deal with all the people in the Lu family. Except for you, we must kill them all. No one can be left alive."

The secret execution of Lu must not leak out at all.

Of course, this doesn't mean we have to kill them all.

As his close attendant, Yoshigaki would never leak even a single word even if he had ten times the courage.

Besides, he already knew many of my secrets, so this one more thing didn't matter.

If we really want to kill him, this is not the time.

After all, he still needs to be kept to do things.

Even the most secretive things always need people to do them.

Yoshigaki's heart tightened. Although he had expected this, he still felt a wave of fear.

"The slaves obey the order."

Old Zhu looked up at the Buddha statue and said: "The matter of making Hu'er the crown prince cannot be delayed any longer."

The incident involving the Lu family gave Mr. Zhu a wake-up call.

Zhu Yunhuan's position is not right, and such things will happen again and again in the future.

He originally just wanted to temper Zhu Yunhuan and see if there would be any opposition forces that would emerge, so that he could help Hu'er while he was still alive, in case anything unexpected happened and Hu'er could not control the court officials and arrogant generals.

It now seems that Zhu Yunhuan's prestige has been initially established.

His ability to get things done was beyond Zhu's expectations.

After Lu's death, there was no one in the court that he could not control.

Continuing to delay the appointment of a crown prince will only bring too much unnecessary trouble.

It's time to name it.

"Go tell Hu'er to come to Tianjie Temple in three days. We have something to say to him."

……

(End of this chapter)