The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 663: The Emperor's Family Background
On the second day of December, a warship escorting a merchant caravan will depart from Chongming Island and sail to Ryukyu Province to provide supplies to the local garrison.

According to the Emperor's decree, Chiyoko and her son will board a warship and head south to "the place where the cherry blossoms are in full bloom."

~~~~
As November approaches, the weather turns colder.

Liu Zhaosun began to have nightmares.

The ground was littered with corpses, the red fields were covered with millions of corpses, and the blood flowed for thousands of miles.

Zheng Zhilong, covered in blood, held his head in one hand and waved a long sword in the other to chase after the emperor.

For several consecutive nights, Liu Zhaosun woke up from nightmares, sweating profusely.

The negative emotions that have been accumulating in the heart for a long time have reached their limit.

Lin Yu’s death became a fuse.

The emperor hasn't eaten for several days.

He occasionally stared at the sky alone and lost interest in women.

According to later generations, this is a manifestation of depression.

Driven by instinct, Liu Zhaosun decided to give himself a long vacation.

He handed over all government affairs to Emperor Guangde, and hid in the Daqing Palace, continuing to practice Taoism and seek immortality with Taoist priests.

The successive departures of trusted ministers and the frequent massacres in ancient wars make people feel an inexplicable sense of powerlessness.

I don’t know which will come first, tomorrow or an accident.

Things in the world are unpredictable. Even an immortal steel giant like Lin Yu can die at any time.

~~~~
In a blink of an eye, it was the twelfth month of the third year of Guangde, and the Wanshou Festival on the eighth day of the twelfth month was approaching.

This year's Wanshou Festival will only be held in Chunhe Palace.

It's not for the so-called frugality. The power of the Great Qi is growing day by day, so hosting a few banquets is no problem.

It’s simply because the retired emperor’s former confidants have either died or are scattered across the country.

There are only a few old ministers left in Nanjing to accompany the retired emperor.

The retired emperor issued an order early this year, prohibiting all subjects in the country, regardless of their official rank, from offering tributes to the imperial palace in the name of birthday gifts.

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the emperor simply held a family banquet in Chunhe Palace.

Wu Xiaozhang, Dong Pei Dahu and several other old subordinates came early to drink tea. Among the civil officials, Sen Ti, Lu Xiangsheng, Xie Yang and Sun Chuanting were also invited.

Emperor Guangde Liu Kan, who had just presided over the abolition of the grain transport system in Yangzhou, was present with his sister Princess Liu Yufei, as well as the two Empress Dowagers and other concubines.

That night, Chunhe Palace was decorated with lights and flowers. Liu Zhaosun set off some fireworks and firecrackers for himself according to the customs of his hometown Junzhou, and then went to pay homage to the ancestral tablets.

After everyone was seated and the banquet began, the emperor said nothing. He first asked Amber to fill his glass with wine, then stood up, looked around, raised his glass and poured the wine at his feet.

"I come from a humble background. My father is a Taoist priest who makes a living by summoning spirits and chanting sutras. On weekdays, he farms and fishes. When he sees a dead person, he puts on his Taoist robes and prepares the body for the deceased. He collects small amounts of silver, and this is how our family makes a living."

"Back then, there was a ballad on Laoying Street in Wudang Mountain that went like this."

The emperor sang a childhood ditty in Junzhou dialect: "There's a Cuihua Street in Laoying, nine out of ten houses are crooked; only one is okay, it pulled out a Taoist priest from under its bed."

Liu Zhaosun's father was a crooked man who loved drinking and having fun.

In other words, the emperor emeritus was most likely an illegitimate child of humble origin.

Emperor Guangde and the eldest princess looked at their father in surprise, and even Jin Yuji Yang Qing'er found it unbelievable.

Even Mr. Meng Wu Yue did not know about this childhood memory of the retired emperor, so he had no idea where to start writing.

"Today is my birthday. If you don't know life, how can you know death? The same can be said the other way around: if you don't know death, how can you know life? So, let's talk about the dead first."

Just when everyone thought the emperor was going to call back the souls of the dead soldiers, he put down his wine glass:
"Many people died during the third year of Guangde. If my father were still alive, he would have been extremely busy, chanting sutras and waiting for the corpses all night long."

Liu Yufei interrupted, "Father, do Taoists also recite Buddhist scriptures?"

Liu Zhaosun was drunk and said kindly:

"As long as the boss gives him enough money, he can practice both Buddhism and Taoism. Not to mention reciting Buddhist scriptures, he can even recite eight-legged essays."

Liu Yufei laughed.

"When I was little, I loved seeing the dead the most, because every time I saw a dead person, my father and I would ask our host for food. I often ate the most famous snack in Junzhou, steamed cowpea noodles, when I was little."

"When I was very young, I went to the Medicine King Temple in Junzhou. No, maybe it was a Fox Fairy Temple. I made a wish, hoping that many people would die in the future."

Because only if someone died, Liu Zhaosun and his mother would not starve.

"There's a Taoist fortune teller in the Fox Fairy Temple who boasts that his divinations, performed by candlelight and tortoise shells, are accurate to the last detail. He claims he's the reincarnation of Chen Tuan and King Wen. One day, my father and I were returning from chanting sutras when this man ran into us. He pulled me close and told me that I was born under the Seven Evils, and that I would be harmed by my relatives. In the future, my parents, brothers, and neighbors would suffer disasters."

Everyone looked solemn.

Liu Yufei was heartless and chuckled.

The Emperor didn't care about his foodie daughter and continued:

"What the Taoist priest said came true. When I was thirteen, my father got drunk and fell into the Han River. My mother died of illness soon after. My adoptive father went to Mount Wudang to pay homage. He took pity on me and took me in as a soldier..."

Everyone was stunned when they heard this, and the palace maid Amber filled the wine glass.

The Emperor raised his glass and said to everyone:

"Hundreds of thousands of people died this year. Fortunately, you are still alive. God bless Da Qi."

The already sad and depressing atmosphere became even more gloomy.

"I don't shy away from talking about life and death... Fujian and Zhejiang have been pacified, and next will be Guangdong and Sichuan. Next year, more people will die, even more. The Great Qi may become hell or heaven, blessing or disaster, all depends on our thoughts."

"The great cause has not yet been accomplished, and you all still need to work hard."

A group of old subordinates raised their glasses and prayed for the emperor.

"I only wish that the Great Qi will last for thousands of years, and that my emperor will live as long as the heavens and be immortal."

(End of this chapter)