Chapter 216: Concubine De fell ill in Yonghe Palace. Of course, Kangxi was...

Kangxi was of course the first to know about the Yonghe Palace incident. He was silent for a moment before asking, "In what year was the third princess born?"

"Your Majesty," Liang Jiugong replied cautiously, "He was born in the 36th year of the Kangxi reign."

Thirty-six years! Kangxi was silent for a moment, "Little Twelve must have died this year."

Liang Jiugong knew that the "little twelfth" the emperor was asking about was not the twelfth prince, but the twelfth daughter of the emperor, born to Concubine De, who had died of an acute illness and for which Concubine De had even reprimanded the wife of Prince Yong. "Yes."

Kangxi sat for a while, picked up the memorial and began to review it. When he unfolded it, he saw that it was another impeachment of Wu Cunli for bribery. He flipped through it again and found that four out of five were about Wu Cunli.

"Where is Wu Cunli taken?" Kangxi's voice showed no emotion.

Liang Jiugong bent even lower: "According to our speed, we should have entered Zhili by now."

Once you enter Zhili, you're not far from the capital.

After much deliberation, Concubine De decided not to mention the matter of the Third Princess to Kangxi and just pretended not to know about it. Qi Buchen watched the news from the palace from afar and was not anxious when he saw that Concubine De had not made any move.

Within two days, Yinzhen formally submitted a memorial, requesting Kangxi to grant him a favor, canonize the deposed crown prince's daughter, and grant her a marriage.

Everyone in the court gasped, wondering why Prince Yong mentioned this person at this time.

The memorial was kept for two days. The Ministry of Rites and the harem received the imperial edict at the same time, conferring the title of Heshuo Gege on the daughter of the deposed Crown Princess and marrying her to the Mongolian Beile Arabtan. All matters concerning the wedding were to be prepared by the Imperial Household Department and Concubine De.

Defei gritted her teeth and accepted the order, and met Hongxi Fujin who came to express her gratitude in Yonghe Palace.

The matter of the third princess came to an end, and Qi Buchen began to think about what to do next.

"What are you going to do?" Qi Buchen looked at Yinzhen. Since that day, the couple always had a special tacit understanding.

Yinzhen remained calm: "Longkodo's arms are too long."

Qi Buchen nodded, and after a moment's silence, he said, "Then please invite the Emperor to the Old Summer Palace."

Yinzhen smiled and said, "Okay."

In August of the 58th year of the Kangxi reign, Wu Cunli was escorted to Beijing, and a list of bribes found in his home shocked the entire court.

The total number of people who bribed was 226, and the amount of bribes was as high as 440,000 taels of silver!

How much tax was collected last year?

What is even more soothing are the names above: the Third Prince, the Eighth Prince, the Ninth Prince, the Twelfth Prince, the Fourteenth Prince, Longkodo, Orondai, Alinga, Weizhu...

Shocking, shocking!

Kangxi was furious and ordered the Ministry of Justice to investigate thoroughly no matter who was involved.

Those princes and ministers were fine; even if they accepted bribes, they would not be thrown into prison immediately.

Wei Zhu was not so lucky. As one of the most popular figures around Kangxi, he had many enemies. When this incident happened, he was immediately attacked and taken to the Ministry of Punishment, where he was treated well.

Of course, a tiger in trouble is bullied by a dog, and the victors are the kings and the losers are the bandits. Wei Zhu, who has been in the palace for so long, certainly understands this, and he is not a pushover. If he admits defeat, the worst that can happen is that he will have to give up all the greed he has gained over the years. He still has some favor with the emperor, so at least he can save his life.

Unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes. Wei Zhu was confident that he could save his life, but he never thought that when the tree falls, the monkeys will scatter.

In this situation, it is not uncommon for a few traitors to defect to the enemy. To abandon darkness and join the light, one must have a token of loyalty.

Someone told the new boss a piece of information that Wei Zhu and the Fourteenth Prince were very close.

This is a big deal! The people who got the news didn't dare to think about how to make Wei Zhu suffer, and immediately took the person to see Kangxi.

Wei Zhu, who was still in the prison cell of the Ministry of Punishment, thinking about how to remind the emperor of his past loyalty, was brought before Kangxi.

Everything in the palace was quiet, not as loud as the Ministry of Justice.

With Kangxi's endorsement, the people on Wu Cunli's bribery list were indeed investigated one by one, but the results were not as earth-shattering as initially imagined.

Did these people accept the money? Yes. Did they do anything for Wu Cunli? Yes.

But, there is always a but.

But there are also differences in the size of the tasks. What was the most common thing found here? It was helping Wu Cunli to speak well of him in the court, to drum up support, and to casually praise him in front of Emperor Kangxi.

Can you say that this is a severe punishment? No, right? There were no serious consequences, no deaths, no abuse of power, and even to some extent, it is not corruption.

You said that as a prince, what's wrong with accepting other people's filial piety, right?

There is no way to punish.

At most, Kangxi would issue an imperial decree to reprimand him, fine him his salary, and order him to reflect on his mistakes behind closed doors. Otherwise, could he even demote him to a lowered title?

Once the brothers were confined to reflect on their mistakes, Yinzhen became even busier. He had to clean up the mess left by his brothers. While cleaning up, Yinzhen discovered that his father's recent behavior was a little off.

Something must have happened that he didn't know about.

Yinzhen was more cautious. He had originally planned to use the Wu Cunli incident to set some traps for Longkodo, but now he held back.

When discussing with Qi Buchen in the evening, his brows were furrowed: "I have a feeling that we must find a way to completely draw a line between ourselves and Longkodo."

Although the two of them had no relationship, but because of the last time Defei proposed to Kangxi that the two families should get married, Kangxi must have still suspected in his heart whether the two had any connection.

"What should I do? Submit an impeachment petition?" Qi Buchen didn't ask why he felt this way, but went straight to thinking of a solution. "Or should I go find Li Si'er and make a scene?"

Yinzhen disagreed: "It's not necessary for you to come forward. She is not worthy."

Qi Buchen: "Then what should we do? There have been many impeachment memorials against Longkodo recently. All the possible impeachments have been made. What other reasons can we use to achieve immediate results?"

Yinzhen pondered and said, "I'll find someone to test Yue Xing'a first."

After a few days, he came back and kept shaking his head: "Yue Xing'a is not good enough, we need to wait and see."

In the fifty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign, it was winter and the wind was biting cold.

Several secretaries of the cabinet gathered together, roasting themselves by the fire and whispering about the gossip about the family of Duke Cheng'en.

"This family really gets along like enemies."

"That's right. The two elders are at odds, the relationship between the father and son in the eldest branch is terrible, and the brothers are so close that they want to stop talking to each other forever. Now, I don't know what the conflict is between these cousins ​​from the next branch, but they are actually submitting an impeachment petition."

"What do you think? Maybe that one has a crush on that one, too, huh? Two 'three' competing for 'four'."

Several people looked at each other, smiling in a way that everyone understood.

After laughing, he said seriously, "Not really. That girl is of the age where her daughter is about to get married. The Third Master of the First House has everything he wants."

One person lamented, "But this is going to get out of hand. My life is going to be miserable for a while. The evil spirit at home will definitely be upset when he hears about this and won't let me have any peace."

"Who isn't?" echoed the crowd. "Ever since Prince Yong came along, these women have become even less virtuous. They're so jealous that they dare to show it openly."

Few people took Kua Dai's memorial impeaching Longkodo seriously. After all, in the past few months, affected by the Wu Cunli incident, the censors of the Censorate were almost crazy. Impeachment memorials were submitted one after another, and there was no one on the list who had not been impeached on a hundred or eighty charges.

The fact was just as everyone expected, the memorial was kept and did not cause any waves.

Qi Buchen watched the whole process closely and asked Yinzhen, "If the emperor doesn't react, do you still want to do it?"

It took Yinzhen a whole night to answer her: "Yes."

If Longkodo had a good New Year, he would have a bad New Year.

On December 23, at the grand court meeting, Yinzhen stepped forward and impeached the infantry commander Longkodo for recruiting talented people and accepting bribes, forming cliques for personal gain, defying the emperor's authority, and privately keeping the imperial edict, which showed his disrespectful ambitions.

Kangxi was furious and ordered a search of the Cheng'en Mansion in court. As expected, the privately hidden jade edict was found, and Longkodo was immediately taken to the Ministry of Justice prison.

At the New Year's Eve banquet in the 58th year, Concubine De was bedridden due to overwork and was unable to attend.

Qi Buchen sat upright in the banquet hall, watching all kinds of people.

On the 18th day of the first lunar month in the 59th year, Prince Yong respectfully invited the emperor to a banquet at the Old Summer Palace. The emperor stayed for four hours and then returned to Changchun Garden.

On the second day of the second month, the Dragon Raises its Head, Prince Yong submitted a memorial on behalf of his wife, presenting several improved high-yield grain varieties, including but not limited to sorghum, wheat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. The Ministry of Revenue was overjoyed and Emperor Kangxi ordered their promotion nationwide.

Qi Buchen frowned: "Why are you offering it in my name?"

Even though Qi Buchen had not studied it specifically in her previous life, relying on that little theoretical knowledge, after ten or twenty years of continuous efforts and spending a lot of money, the group of people she employed still made some achievements. I dare not say that it can be compared with the per mu yield in later generations, but it is much better than the current per mu yield.

These things will have to be taken out sooner or later. She originally thought of spreading them quietly among the people, but now that she has the intention of competing for the throne, it is naturally better to hand them over. On the one hand, it can boost Yinzhen's momentum, and on the other hand, official promotion will have greater power and more people will benefit faster.

Yinzhen hugged her and said, "This is to give Honghui more leverage."

If he wants to compete for that position, someone will try every possible means to put people around him in the future. He naturally doesn't want that, but he is not a god and cannot be 100% sure of avoiding all calculations. If that day really comes, he dare not think about what will happen to Fu Jin and what will happen between them.

He could only fight against the future from now on and give the person in his arms and their child more.

Qi Buchen understood what he had not said yet and hugged him tightly in silence.

If that day really comes, will she regret her decision today?

As Yinzhen was about to fall asleep, he heard a voice in his ear saying, "...as long as you don't mean it, I...will not blame you..."

In March of the 59th year, Longkodo was demoted to a commoner and exiled to Ningguta on charges of forming a clique for personal gain and privately keeping imperial edicts.

In the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Department of Punishment, Wei Zhu died silently.

The Ministry of Rites was busy inside and outside, and finally finished the wedding of the deposed prince and the Heshuo princess.

Defei fell ill again due to overwork. Qi Buchen asked to enter the palace to take care of her, but Defei refused on the grounds that she was afraid of passing on the disease.

At the same time, the Fourteenth Lady stayed in the palace for half a month, and was praised for her filial piety by both inside and outside the palace.

In the intercalary seventh month, the armies of Fu Ning'an and Fu Erdan defeated the two reinforcements of the Dzungar. Along with the victory report, which was brought to the capital, was a memorial from the two generals impeaching the Fourteenth Prince, the General Fuyuan, for being lazy in fighting.

The Fourteenth set out from the capital in December of the fifty-seventh year, and stationed in Xining in April of the fifty-eighth year to reorganize the military. Now, more than a year has passed, and the court has continuously sent food and grass to the front line, but the army has never fought a battle with the rebels, and has not even found the whereabouts of Tsewang Arabtan a few times.

Such a record was hardly enough to convince the generals. That was fine; the princes were being gilded, and it had always been that way. But what the frontline soldiers could not tolerate was that when the imperial court's grain and fodder were transported from Shaanxi and Sichuan, they could have been divided into several routes to serve different armies. Instead, Sichuan Governor Nian Gengyao, under the pretext that the Fourteenth Army was the General in Charge of Fuyuan and in charge of suppressing the rebellion, sent all the grain and fodder to the Fourteenth Army, which then distributed it to the various armies.

Not only did he delay time, Fourteen also used food and supplies, kindness and force to win over the generals in the army.

Fu Ning'an and Fu Erdan are staunch royalists. They know very well that the emperor wants to control the army. How could they dare to allow Fourteenth to contact his generals? They would be the ones who would be implicated. But they dare not tell the emperor directly that your son is planning to seize military power.

He could only take advantage of this opportunity to impeach the Fourteenth Prince and prove his innocence.

According to convention, the result of such impeachment is to be dealt with lightly, with a few words of reprimand and an order to draw up a battle plan as soon as possible, and then the person can make meritorious contributions while serving his sentence.

But Kangxi's reaction was intriguing. He also issued an imperial edict to reprimand Fourteen, but he ordered him to resign on the spot and return to Beijing to defend himself.

In September, there was a good harvest around the capital. The Ministry of Revenue counted the output as quickly as possible and reported the good news to Emperor Kangxi. Emperor Kangxi was very pleased and conferred the title of Heshuo Gege on Yongxi, who was not even one year old yet. This was the highest honor a woman of the royal family could receive, and it was usually bestowed upon her wedding.

But Qi Buchen didn't really want it.

She was even a little irritable: "Heshuo Gege, how many of you haven't been nudged?"

Those who were able to be conferred the title of Heshuo Gege were all daughters of Yinzhen's brothers. So far, almost all of them have been married off to Mongolia.

Yinzhen comforted her: "Don't worry, it won't happen."

It’s not that he is unfilial, but the chances of the emperor’s father living to the age of Yongxi’s wedding are too small.

For more than half a year, the smell of medicine has never dissipated in the Qianqing Palace.