The Second Prince looked around and saw that no one noticed him, so he spoke: "My Royal Highness, as long as you act according to our agreement, there will be no problem. I would like to remind you one more thing: the father and son of the Song family must be killed immediately."
As he spoke, the Second Prince handed the Crown Prince a sleeve arrow and said, "The arrows on these are all poisoned. To be on the safe side, when my brother gets the abdication edict, use this arrow to send the Song family father and son on their way."
"I have already made arrangements at the palace gate. The five thousand assassins will enter the palace smoothly, kill the imperial guards, and take over their protection of the imperial city."
"Also, the commander of the Shenji Camp, Lu Jing, is my subordinate. I have already made arrangements for him to be responsible for dealing with the Dragon Guards in the palace."
The Crown Prince was very satisfied with the Second Prince's arrangement, and then the two brothers returned to the Hall of Supreme Harmony one after another.
At this time, Shen Zhixiu and the Song family father and son were all sitting in their seats, and their expressions were no different from usual.
The prince felt more at ease, as it seemed that they had not noticed anything unusual.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the Lantern Festival banquet began. Emperor Xuande entered the palace, and the royal family, ministers, and civil and military officials rose to pay their respects.
"Everyone, please stand up. There is no need to be so polite today." Emperor Xuande said with a smile.
Afterwards, he was inspired to talk about the battle situation in the surrounding border areas last year, the harvest in the south of the Yangtze River, and the successful shipbuilding of the Fujian navy.
When talking about this, Emperor Xuande's face was filled with pride. With such achievements in hand, who would dare to say that he was not as good as Zhou Yangze?
Thousands of years later, history books would only say that Emperor Xuande was a man of great talent and wisdom, a wise ruler of the Great Zhou Dynasty. And Zhou Yangze, in the end, was labeled a traitor.
Civil and military officials knelt on the ground and said in unison to the emperor: "Your Majesty is wise, and God bless the Great Zhou."
As the Crown Prince knelt on the ground, he looked at the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony and thought to himself that this was the last time his father would sit there. At the next palace banquet, he would be the one sitting on the throne.
So this time, he performed the ceremony with earnestness and respect, without a hint of perfunctoriness, as if he were performing some ancient ritual, with sincere and devout faith.
Emperor Xuande spoke again, signaling everyone to stand and the banquet began.
After the prince sat down, he calculated the time in his mind. Prince Rong outside the palace should have started to take action.
Today he forced the emperor to abdicate. The person that civil officials need to be wary of is Shen Zhixiu, and the biggest threat to military generals is the Song family.
He was not afraid of the Song family. As long as he could trap the father and son of the Song family in the palace and wait until he had the imperial edict in hand, he would execute them.
But Shen Zhixiu was different from the father and son of the Song family. Shen Zhixiu had great prestige among the civil officials and scholars.
He hoped that Shen Zhixiu would show support for him after he ascended the throne.
Therefore, today, Prince Rong and his men not only took over the four gates of the capital and prevented the various government offices from taking any action, but also had to control the Shen family.
At that time, Shen Zhixiu would be afraid and would have no choice but to listen to him.
Of course, he didn't want to reuse Shen Zhixiu. He would just use him and get rid of him once he was firmly on the throne.
At this moment, in the Qingyuan Residence in the inner courtyard of the Shen family, the old lady was talking to Lin Wanyin, and several other ladies were also with her.
Chen Yue was chatting and playing with her brothers and sisters in the inner room, while Su Qingyu was resting on the side. Although she said she was resting, she was actually very nervous and kept checking the time.
At 1 p.m., Su Qingyu was still thinking that perhaps the Third Master would come in and say that the palace banquet was over.
Just as I was thinking about this, a little maid suddenly ran in hurriedly from outside.
"Madam, ladies..." The little maid who served in the outer courtyard swallowed hard and said, "Outside... outside is surrounded, someone is trying to break into our house."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
