Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 276 Complex Women, Crisis and Punishment!
"If His Royal Highness the Crown Prince likes Miss Xu and marries her, that would be a good outcome."

"Our goal is just to hope that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince can get married soon and give birth to a child soon, so that the country can be as stable as Mount Tai from now on."

"Miss Gu comes from a remote and wild family, with a clean background and no connection to the imperial court."

"Miss Xu is from a noble family with a distinguished background."

"If His Royal Highness the Crown Prince marries Miss Gu, he won't have to worry about foreign relatives interfering in government affairs in the future."

"If I marry Miss Xu, I can win over the Xu family and their nobles to support them."

"Or, His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince can marry both of them, which is also fine."

"But things in this world are not always as we wish."

"We let Miss Gu show up in public to attract attention, and secretly promoted public opinion. After the news spread, it first attracted the attention of a large number of playboys and even some older, lecherous officials."

"We had to warn people secretly and drive them away."

"But later, I never expected that Miss Xu from the Duke of Wei would also be attracted here."

"Xu Huizu is the Duke of Wei, and although he is not young anymore, he is still unmarried."

"When Miss Xu saw Miss Gu, she was so astonished that she wanted to make her the daughter-in-law of the Xu family and let Miss Gu marry her brother, Duke of Wei, Xu Huizu."

"She first found out Miss Gu's home address, then went directly to where her brother and sister-in-law were, and offered a large betrothal gift."

"In order to keep it secret and make the play more realistic, we only told Miss Gu and her parents about this, and did not tell her brother and sister-in-law."

"Later, Miss Gu's parents passed away due to illness, and Miss Gu's brother and sister-in-law were never aware of our plans."

"I suddenly learned that Xu Huizu, Duke of Wei of the Ming Dynasty, wanted to marry my sister, and promised to marry her as his legal wife, with a formal matchmaker and a sedan chair carried by eight people. I was naturally overjoyed and agreed on the spot."

"But Miss Xu believes that a girl's own lifelong affairs should be decided by her parents and the matchmaker, but she still needs to agree to it herself."

"That's why I didn't rush to marry her, but kept persuading Miss Gu."

"Our plan was almost interrupted because of this."

"Fortunately, Miss Gu's mind has not wavered."

Zhu Yunhuan certainly understood what he meant.

Their plan was to make Gu Panjun fall in love with them.

But whether it will work and whether he can fall in love with Gu Panjun is still unknown.

At this time, if Gu Panjun's thoughts were slightly shaken and she chose to marry Xu Huizu, Duke of Wei, their plan would be completely in vain.

All the schemes are calculated, but in the end they only serve to help others.

After all, they couldn't threaten Gu Panjun to listen to them. The Xu family was not someone to be trifled with.

At least, the Xu family has enough ability to protect Gu Panjun from being bullied by outsiders.

Compared to Zhu Yunhuan, whose answer is clear, Xu Huizu is actually a better choice.

Although His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's woman is of noble status, it is still unclear whether she will succeed.

Moreover, even if she succeeded, she might not be canonized as the Crown Prince's Queen.

The Duke's wife, the imperial lady, although not as noble as the Crown Prince's concubine in name, her actual life is probably much better.

This would remain the case even if Zhu Yunhuan ascended the throne and became emperor in the future.

The emperor has three thousand beauties in his harem, but if you cannot become the empress, it is not necessarily better than being the mistress of a duke's house.

Zhu Yunhuan glanced at Gu Panjun beside him calmly, then quickly looked away.

In this era, it is not surprising that a scholarly family in the countryside raises a person with excellent talents in all aspects and extraordinary mind and spirit.

This is because, unlike later generations, the ruling class in the feudal era was the landlord class.

Most of these people do not live in cities, but in rural areas.

After all, the urbanization rate in this era is very low.

If one did not serve as an official in the court, no matter how prominent the family was, they would live in the countryside.

But you must never think that living in the countryside means you are poor and have no knowledge.

People in later generations have such an idea because, with the continuous acceleration and deepening of the urbanization process, people with abilities and talents have basically moved to the cities, and not many people continue to stay in rural areas.

Therefore, it is easy for people to have a preconceived notion that those who stay in rural areas are people with weak abilities.

Or there may be some elderly people, children, left-behind children, etc.

Another reason for this is that after the founding of New China, the local tyrants were beaten and the land was divided. There were no more local tyrants occupying large amounts of land in the countryside. Everyone had equal status and equal opportunities. If one wanted to make a career, one could only go to the city.

But it was different in the feudal era. Due to private ownership of land, even in rural areas there were many gentry families who occupied large amounts of land.

They passed down their family tradition of "farming and studying" in the countryside, and had a large number of tenants working for them. They had no intention of moving to the city.

In fact, in Europe and the United States where land reform has not been carried out, although capitalism has penetrated every pore, there are still many wealthy large farmers living in rural areas.

The situation in New China is, on the contrary, a special case.

Of course, since she lived in a rural village and no one in her family was a high-ranking official in the court, even if her family conditions were very wealthy compared to ordinary people, compared to a noble lady like Xu Miaojin from a duke's family, she was still a poor family at the bottom of society that was not worth mentioning.

Even in the eyes of Yao Guangxiao and Yang Shiqi, who were respected by Zhu Yunhuan, a local rich woman, even if her family had thousands of acres of fertile land and hundreds of servants, was still a girl from a poor family.

Even though she is just setting up a stall, the prices of the accessories produced by the manufacturing bureau are not cheap.

If converted into silver, the ornaments she sold at the stall were worth as much as what she could earn from hard labor and decades of not eating or drinking.

Really poor people really can’t do this “business”.

But no matter what, compared to the Xu family, she is still a poor family among poor families.

She frankly refused to become the wife of Duke Wei, but she also gambled on Zhu Yunhuan's affection for her.

This seemingly "innocent" girl in front of me actually has great ambitions.

Of course, it is not a sin to have dreams and aspirations.

Since ancient times, which genius did not have dreams and lofty ambitions?
In the feudal era after the establishment of the imperial examination system, most of the prime ministers of the court and high-ranking officials of the six ministries came from rural areas.

Of course, they are basically the relatively wealthy landlord class.

It is normal for scholars to have lofty ambitions.

Although Gu Panjun is a woman, since she is educated, it is not surprising that she has some ambition.

But even if a scholar swore that he would definitely become the top scholar in the imperial examination, and was full of high spirits, if he had the opportunity to not take the imperial examination but directly become a seventh-rank county magistrate, then except for the very few people whose parents were high-ranking officials of the court, most people would choose to take up the post of county magistrate directly.

Instead of taking a gamble on the imperial examination with extremely low chances.

This is true even if he is very talented and confident in himself.

After all, there are too many uncontrollable factors in the imperial examination.

People instinctively avoid unknown risks.

The same is true for Gu Panjun.

Even though she was extremely confident in her looks, even though she had the ambition to become a crown princess or a queen.

But it is extremely rare for one to remain unshakable in the face of the temptation of becoming the Duke's wife or a noble lady.

This woman's determination and high aspirations are far beyond what ordinary women can compare to.

Zhu Yunhuan's mind was racing with thoughts, but he did not feel too much disgust or aversion about this.

It is a good thing for a person to have dreams, ambitions and pursuits.

He won't think the other party did anything wrong because of this.

Of course, the specific situation needs further analysis. If this woman has other purposes, that is another matter.

Zhu Yunhuan did not expect his woman to be a naive and ignorant "silly white sweet". If she was just a low-ranking concubine who was occasionally favored, it would not matter.

On the contrary, if she is really to be made the Crown Prince's Consort and become the Queen and the mother of the country in the future, then she must be smart and talented enough.

It is not an easy task to command the harem and assist the emperor in handling household affairs.

A naive and innocent person would never do such a thing.

Even if she becomes the Crown Prince's concubine and is given the title of Imperial Consort in the future, it will be very difficult.

Because the imperial concubine also has to help deal with harem affairs.

With only beauty and innocence, she could only be an ordinary low-level concubine, waiting for the emperor's occasional visit.

How could an ordinary woman easily be the mistress of an imperial family?
Of course, there is no shortage of emperors in history who were commanded by their small heads, who impulsively appointed the wrong queens and arbitrarily conferred titles on concubines, but the price they paid later was not small.

Although Zhu Yunhuan had never been married, he had lived two lives as a human being and knew the truth well. He would never allow himself to be seduced by "beauty".

"Beauty" can be appreciated or possessed. It can be a night of pleasure, happy and simple.

But it should not and must not affect the way we handle state affairs.

He didn't want to have no freedom in his marriage and become a puppet of political marriage.

But at the same time, they will not be irrational and follow the orders of their little head and let their mind be controlled by hormones.

It might not be impossible to make a woman who has no roots in the court and comes from a grassroots background the queen.

In real history, the Ming Dynasty actually liked to do this.

Because the benefits are obvious, it can eliminate the risk of the harem interfering in politics.

But one’s background may be ordinary, but one’s personal abilities must not be ordinary.

We need to investigate carefully what kind of person Gu Panjun is.

As for Xu Miaojin.

She was a noble lady from the Duke of Wei, but suddenly and inexplicably she wanted her brother to marry Gu Panjun and even promised to make her his legal wife. Was it really that simple?

Or is there another purpose?

I'm afraid that neither Gu Panjun nor Xu Miaojin is as simple as they seem.

Yang Rong didn't know what Zhu Yunhuan was thinking, so he continued:
"Master Daoyan analyzed the situation and thought that since things have come to this point, we might as well go with the flow."

"Let His Royal Highness meet Miss Gu and Miss Xu at the same time. It is up to His Royal Highness to make the choice."

"No matter who His Royal Highness chooses, we can fulfill their wish."

“Then, what happened today happened.”

After Yang Rong finished speaking, he kowtowed heavily and said, "This is all my own decision. I shouldn't have done this. Your Highness, please punish me."

"You really shouldn't do that!" Zhu Yunhuan's majestic voice sounded.

He was filled with a lot of anger.

It would be fine if he could select beauties for himself in private and present them to him.

It’s not a big deal.

My lady, my gentleman is good.

It would be a lie to say that he was not attracted at all by a beauty like Gu Panjun.

Zhu Yunhuan is also a man after all.

It is also the age when hormone secretion is most active.

but.

If you want to offer a beautiful woman, why don't you just offer her directly?

Why do we have to take so many detours?

Are you setting up a trap to deceive me?

On the surface, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

The other party also did it out of good intentions.

But as a superior, Zhu Yunhuan was very wary of this.

It is definitely not a good sign that the people below have teamed up to cheat him, even if it is just a small matter.

Luckily, he saw through it.

If he hadn't seen through it, he would have been kept in the dark.

Then the subordinate will inevitably become complacent and even develop a contemptuous attitude towards his superior.

Next time something happens, maybe she will use the same trick again and continue to deceive him.

Over time, it will become a serious problem.

Only when those in power maintain sufficient dignity so that their subordinates dare not do anything deceptive can they ensure the stability of their power.

However, thinking about it the other way around, Zhu Yunhuan also understood the problem.

Yao Guangxiao and Yang Shiqi had mentioned directly to him that he should find a woman and get married as soon as possible, but Zhu Yunhuan avoided the topic every time.

As subordinates, Yao Guangxiao and Yang Shiqi wanted to advise and remonstrate, but they could not find any opportunity.

So, in the end, I came up with this play.

If he hadn't been avoiding the topic, even if they had chosen Gu Panjun, they would have presented her directly to Zhu Yunhuan without having to stage such a drama.

To put it bluntly, from their perspective, they had no other choice but to act together to "cheat" Zhu Yunhuan.

Letting His Royal Highness go to the market to randomly select people, not to mention whether he can select the right person, even if he does, it may cause serious uncontrollable problems.

Of course they have to prepare in advance.

It is necessary to present women to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, but at the same time, they cannot go too far beyond the control.

They were afraid that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was not lustful and would not get close to women.

I was also afraid that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would be seduced by beauty.

Therefore, we must plan and make arrangements early.

But no matter what, this matter violated Zhu Yunhuan's taboo.

As soon as he thought of this, he asked sternly, "Who are the people involved in this?"

"There are students, Master Daoyan, Mr. Yang, and Lord Xia." Yang Rong admitted honestly.

"As for the others, they were just following orders."

Even an honest man like Xia Yuanji was involved?
Zhu Yunhuan was deeply surprised.

But he quickly realized that the most fundamental reason for this incident was that the two sides had different ideas.

To put it bluntly, whether it was Yao Guangxiao, Yang Shiqi, Xia Yuanji, or even Yang Rong in front of him, none of them felt that there was anything wrong with doing such a thing.

Everyone discussed and decided to help the master find a woman so that he could give birth to a child as soon as possible. Is there anything wrong with that?

What to do with them?
These people were his trusted confidants who he had cultivated. They were his most capable subordinates and right-hand men. He also had to rely on them.

Zhu Yunhuan also had a headache.

……

(End of this chapter)