Chapter 225 Live Broadcast from the Sky 5
Of course, why can we be so certain that Kangxi was thinking of Yongzheng's best interests and that these punishments weren't out of genuine anger? Because soon after the birth of Yongzheng's first son, Honghui, Kangxi sent an imperial edict to the Fourth Prince's residence, saying that Honghui was his first legitimate grandson and that the full-month celebration should not be neglected.
What does this mean? It's essentially a disguised lifting of restrictions on Yongzheng. Furthermore, shortly after the full moon celebration, Yongzheng was allowed to return to his post in the Ministry of Revenue. Aside from the loss of his title, it can be said that Yongzheng suffered no loss whatsoever.
Those who knew of this imperial decree could naturally see Kangxi's satisfaction with Yongzheng. Therefore, Honghui's full-moon banquet was arguably the most bustling day in the Fourth Prince's residence in recent years. Many princes and ministers attended, essentially "attending the banquet by imperial decree." Because Yongzheng was a low-key person, this was the only time the ministers were not refused a visit and successfully gained access to his residence.
Because of Yongzheng's low-key nature, very few people were able to successfully send gifts into the Prince's Mansion before he ascended the throne, which made Honghui's full moon banquet increasingly valuable in the later stages.
Especially those who participated, as the achievements of Emperor Yongzheng and Emperor Chengtai increased, this banquet was mentioned more and more. Those who participated were extremely proud, and it also left behind a lot of classical Chinese texts that need to be memorized for later generations.
So, because of his father, Emperor Yongzheng, Honghui was destined to be remembered in history from the moment he was a month old.
The attitude of the Fourteenth Prince, Yinzhen, towards Yongzheng and Lady Uya also began to change starting from the full moon banquet.
According to Prince Xun's memoirs from his later years... I suddenly realized that during the Yongzheng reign, everyone loved writing these kinds of notes, memoirs, and diaries, though I don't know who started it. But they certainly provided a lot of vivid material for later generations to study history.
Getting back to the main point, according to Prince Xun, who was also the Fourteenth Prince Yinzhen in his later years, when he saw Yongzheng looking much thinner and sickly at Honghui's full moon banquet, the Fourteenth Prince felt guilty. Even though his relationship with Yongzheng wasn't good at that time, he still harbored some resentment because of the demotion of Lady Uya.
But upon seeing Yongzheng, Yinzhen felt a pang of unease. At this time, the 12-year-old Yinzhen, though somewhat unruly, was still a sensible child. It's true that Emperor Kangxi was good at teaching his children, and of course, it could also be due to the guidance of his elder brother, Yongzheng. Although Yinzhen was emotionally inclined towards Lady Uya, he rationally knew that Lady Uya had made a mistake.
Then, in the memoir, the next part is quite funny. Yinzhen wrote that all his brothers were watching him closely, afraid that he would cause trouble at the full moon banquet because he couldn't distinguish right from wrong.
He wrote a whole page about his grievances and his brothers' petty-mindedness. Every brother who read it was secretly scolded by him by name; not one escaped.
Reading his memoirs reveals that Prince Xun, Yinzhen, was a notoriously arrogant and talkative man. He was especially merciless when criticizing his brothers. Those interested can check it out; it's quite entertaining.
At the same time, Yinreng, who still had a very good relationship with Yongzheng, also felt sorry for his younger brother. After seeing him at the full moon banquet, he sent a steady stream of good medicinal herbs to the Fourth Prince's residence, completely ignoring Suo'etu's slander.
The relationship between Prince Li, Yinreng, one of Yongzheng's right-hand men in the later years, and Yongzheng was actually quite complicated. At one point, they became mortal enemies. The fact that Songgotu, whom Kangxi had labeled "the greatest sinner of the Qing Dynasty," had a significant impact on this is something we'll discuss later.
"thump"
Judging from the sound, everyone felt their knees were about to ache, but they could understand. After all, if they were called "the number one sinner of the Qing Dynasty" by Tianmu, they might kneel down even faster than Suo'etu.
"Your Majesty, I am innocent!"
Kangxi looked at Suo'etu, who was kneeling on the ground with his head bowed, and remained silent. For his counterpart in that timeline to make such a conclusion, Suo'etu must have committed a heinous crime. Considering Suo'etu's constant instigation of Baocheng, Kangxi closed his eyes in disgust.
Yinreng clearly understood Kangxi; his expression revealed that he harbored murderous intent towards Suo'etu.
Yinreng didn't know what his great-uncle from another timeline had done. But at this moment, he was determined to protect Suo'etu. So Yinreng stepped forward and respectfully bowed to Kangxi: "Father, this happened in another timeline and can't prove anything. However, for the sake of the bigger picture, Father, why don't you place Suo'etu under house arrest for now and observe what happens next?"
Kangxi looked at Yinreng with a strange expression as he felt his dislike for Suo'etu intensify because of Suo'etu's "retreat to advance" tactic, but he did not show it: "Let's listen to the Crown Prince. Take Suo'etu away and lock him up in his residence."
"Your Majesty, I thank you. Your Highness, I thank you. Crown Prince."
Soetu kowtowed deeply in gratitude. He knew that after Tianmu's words, he would not fare well, but at least the Crown Prince had saved his life. For this, Soetu was both grateful and regretful, regretting that he would no longer be able to share the Crown Prince's burdens in the future.
Soetu took one last, deep look at the Crown Prince before being led away by the guards. A solemn silence fell before the Qianqing Palace; no one had expected that in such a short time, the once-powerful "Prime Minister Soetu" would fall, while the curtain of history continued to fall…
Prince Li, the former crown prince and a powerful minister in the later reigns of two dynasties, is a complex figure, deserving his own episode. We'll discuss his story later.
The focus here remains on the Fourteenth Prince, Yinzhen, because this marked the beginning of the "break between mother and son" mentioned earlier.
Combining Prince Xun's memoirs and the daily records of Emperor Kangxi, it's clear that Emperor Kangxi, ever since Emperor Yongzheng's downfall, never stopped monitoring Empress Wuya. This was truly the first time he had paid such close attention to the harem.
So what did they both know?
The reason was that Emperor Yongzheng took Ulanara Rouze into his household as a concubine, making her an ordinary princess. Emperor Kangxi thought to himself, "Is my son so magnanimous? He's even taking back the women who caused his downfall? Could he be like his 'love-struck' father, blinded by women?"
Shunzhi: "..." Who are you calling love-struck, who are you calling bewitched by women? If you're going to talk about Yongzheng, just talk about Yongzheng, why bring him up?
"It's all your fault!" Having inadvertently voiced his true feelings, Shunzhi once again received a barrage of glares from Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang.
Shunzhi was speechless. Shunzhi... Shunzhi patted little Xuan Ye's head: "You are 3 years old now, and you can read. Let's start with the Classic of Filial Piety. You must not gossip about your elders."
Xuan Ye: "..." Although he didn't know what his father was talking about, he felt that Tian Mu was right. He was young, but not stupid.
When Emperor Kangxi investigated, he found it was all the fault of Lady Uya. He was furious and, when he was unhappy, he would make things difficult for people. How did he make things difficult for them? He had the Fourteenth Prince lured to Yonghe Palace.
Ah, what a coincidence! The Fourteenth Prince just happened to hear Uya cursing Yongzheng to die. Her vicious appearance was completely different from what he remembered.
How could 12-year-old Yinzhen accept this? He immediately started arguing with Lady Wuya. He accused Lady Wuya of valuing her niece, who belonged to the Eighth Route Army, more than her son.
This was a slip of the tongue, but Yinzhen wrote in his memoirs that when he met Wuya's eyes, he suddenly realized that she was right; Wuya valued the glory of her maternal clan and her own face and status more than her son.
Even towards him who revealed the truth, she showed disgust.
When Yinzhen discovered that his mother, who claimed to love him, didn't actually love him that much, he couldn't accept it and stormed out of the house in a daze.
Guess where he went? That's right, he went to see Yongzheng. Surprising, isn't it? Logically, at this time, their relationship would seem very strained to outsiders. But our Fourteenth Prince, when faced with trouble, his first reaction was to run to his "unfriendly" Fourth Brother. How interesting!
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