Chapter 347 Successor
With the arrival of midwinter, the weather was getting colder. At the same time, Mr. Zhao's condition became increasingly erratic. He would often feel better for a few days, and then be bedridden again within a few days.
Gradually, it was natural that some rumors arose.
At the beginning, the rumors were only about the official's illness itself, such as how serious it was, what the consequences would be if it recurred, and whether he should find a famous folk doctor.
At this time, people's hearts were actually unsettled. In November, the emperor once again missed the grand court meeting at the beginning of the month, and even the monthly quota of Northern Expedition bonds became unsalable to a certain extent in Tokyo.
It should be noted that according to the current policy of the court, the national debt quota has already been broken down into monthly quotas in order to ensure a steady flow of funds. The monthly quota of 150,000 is distributed in many cities such as Tokyo, Nanjing, Jinan, Xiacai, Yangzhou, Nanyang, Chang'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Jiangling, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, and Jiangling. In this case, the share of Tokyo has been greatly reduced, but because of its political and economic characteristics, this city still appears to be particularly strong in the national debt market. Often, the monthly quota of tens of thousands of strings is sold out immediately within the ten-day protection period as soon as it is released.
In fact, according to the arrangements of the court's top brass, at the end of the year or the middle of the year, the government still has to allocate a certain amount of national debt to dignitaries, court officials, and even those powerful and wealthy businessmen in the government...the so-called draining the pond to catch all the fish, any catch is a good one.
Therefore, after entering November, any slight delay in government bond sales in Tokyo immediately attracted everyone's attention.
Even though the national debt was quickly sold out as the ships from Japan and Goryeo returned one after another, it could not change the public sentiment affected by this incident.
Sure enough, soon after that, there were some additional theories about the emperor’s illness… For example, it was the retribution for the emperor having imprisoned his father and brother; another example was that the emperor came to power illegitimately and never went to the eight tombs in Luoyang to offer sacrifices, so he was punished by his ancestors; another example was that in the early years of Jianyan, the emperor had raided temples and monasteries several times, and the golden body of the Buddha was scraped off, which caused the Buddha’s retribution and so on.
This kind of talk is certainly not worthy of being in a respectable setting, but it will inevitably spread among the people because the common people like this kind of gimmick. Even the liaisons of the temples and monasteries left in Tokyo who spontaneously held prayer ceremonies for the government were said to be forced by the court.
By the middle of the month, as the emperor still did not leave his house and there were rumors that he was seriously ill and unable to get up, these rumors finally gradually merged and formed a complete version that was unbearable for people inside and outside the court.
According to this rumor, when the emperor ascended the throne, he promised to return the throne to the two emperors after their return, so he tried his best to fight against the Jin army halfway through. He was determined not to negotiate peace for any other reason, but to secretly kill the two emperors, the queen mother and his brothers and enjoy the throne alone.
After the two emperors returned, the emperor not only did not return the power to them, but directly imprisoned my father and brother in temples. As for forcing my father and brother to write insulting "Memoirs", putting all the blame for the Jingkang Incident on them, this was an even more outrageous act of unfilial piety.
Moreover, since ascending the throne, the Emperor Jianyan has always valued military power over culture, treated clan elders harshly, killed ministers at will, expelled loyal and good people, violated the teachings of the sages, plundered and abused people, and rewarded and punished people unfairly. He should have abdicated and repented long ago. Now he is seriously ill, which is also retribution.
Moreover, since the heir is young, the throne should be passed to Tai Shang Yuan Sheng or Tai Shang Dao Jun. At the worst, a virtuous and capable person should be chosen from among the brothers of the royal family to succeed him.
If this is really not possible, one should appoint a son as successor and have a virtuous king or queen to rule the country.
Otherwise, in the future, the country will be in doubt due to the young ruler, and there will be changes in the world. This will be the consequence of the current Emperor Jianyan's willful behavior.
Rather than being fabricated out of nothing, this rumor is more like a pieced-together construct. It pieces together all the controversial and unsatisfactory things that the current Emperor Jianyan has done, then draws an incredible conclusion, and finally gives a bunch of extremely absurd suggestions.
In addition, anyone with a little common sense knows that such large-scale, composite rumors could not have been formed spontaneously. There is no doubt that someone with ulterior motives deliberately mixed in.
And there is no need to infer this point at all, because the evidence is there... Hundreds of pieces of paper with rumors, written crookedly, were scattered on both sides of the Imperial Street, inside and outside the Jingyuan, and in front of the main stores and warehouses on Ma Xing Street at night.
Even a fool would know that someone is deliberately causing trouble.
Therefore, with the emergence of this extremely malicious rumor, overt political turmoil finally occurred in Tokyo.
First, at the Secret Council, at the daily routine meeting after the emperor fell ill that afternoon, the Grand Chancellor Zhao Shizhen, who had been absent from the meeting on the grounds of illness, came in person. He first severely criticized Zhao Ding, Zhang Jun and other prime ministers for their incompetence and for letting such rumors exist, which failed the emperor's trust. Then he asked the Minister of Justice Ma Shen to set a deadline on the spot to investigate the matter. Immediately afterwards, he handed Zhang Jun his own memorial in court, which was a memorial to be forwarded to the Privy Council to request the establishment of a crown prince. It clearly mentioned that the two emperors and the close branches of the royal family in Nanyang had lost their qualifications to become heirs, including regents, after the Jingkang Incident and the Northern Expedition. Finally, he stated that he was old and asked to resign.
The intensity of his words, his agitated emotions, and the hidden resentment and dissatisfaction within were really too much for the ministers to bear.
Even Chen Kangbo, the chief academic officer of the Imperial College who was originally scheduled to launch a massive attack on behalf of the young faction, subsequently lost some of his momentum.
It can only be said that Da Zong Zheng had experienced the Yaoshan orphan entrusting incident once, and had developed immunity and some intuition about such things. He also had a certain understanding of Emperor Zhao, so he dared to stab him to the end with such a veiled attack.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
