Chapter 39 039 Heaven's Law He is Heaven's Law.
When this topic was mentioned, Master Kong fell silent.
Yes, he suddenly remembered this matter at this moment.
Yes, how could I forget the Empress Dowager.
Although this selection held every three years by the Ministry of Internal Affairs was for selecting candidates for the emperor and princes, according to ancestral rules, the Empress Dowager had always made the decision.
After all, although the queen is the head of the harem, if there is a queen mother, her status will obviously be higher. Especially in major events such as the selection of concubines, she usually has more say.
Moreover, at this point in time, there is no queen in Master Kang's harem.
On the tenth day of July five years ago, Queen Tong Jia passed away, and the throne has remained vacant until now.
Because Master Kang has already been stressed out about the issue of enthroning the queen.
Because, the Queen Tongjia who passed away five years ago was already the third queen of Master Kang.
Yes, Master Kang, who was only 36 years old at the time, had successfully outlasted three queens. This kind of record was truly unprecedented and unparalleled, enough to make the entire feudal dynasty look down upon him.
Therefore, Master Kang's reputation as a "wife-killer" was confirmed time and time again. After three consecutive times, it was completely impossible to get rid of it.
Oh, not only that, in fact, he is "unlucky to his father, mother and son". In short, he has a bit of the fate of being unlucky.
Although his parents died early, those two had long been gone, and although several of his sons had also died, he was still young, and his harem was full of talented people, so he could have more children in the future.
However, three queens had already died in just a few years, and he really didn't dare to appoint another one.
And if you look closely, these three queens are all quite miserable.
Let’s not talk about the first empress, Hesheli. She married into the palace at the age of twelve and gave birth to her first child at the age of sixteen, Chenghu, the eldest son of Kang Shifu. Unfortunately, he died at the age of two. At the age of twenty-one, she gave birth to her second child, the crown prince Yinreng. As a result, due to dystocia, this poor empress Hesheli died on the same day. In total, she was only the empress for nine years and passed away at a young age.
The second empress, Niu Hulu, was even more miserable. She entered the palace three years after the death of Empress Hesheli, and was crowned empress the following year. Unfortunately, she died of illness after only six months as empress, at the age of twenty.
Two consecutive queens died at a young age, only four years apart. This was a huge blow to Master Kang, who was less than 30 years old at the time. He probably believed at that time that he was "unlucky in marriage", so he did not appoint another queen in the next ten years.
It can be seen that he was really scared.
As for Queen Tongjia, firstly, she was his cousin and the niece of his biological mother, Queen Dowager Tongjia, and the relationship between them was definitely different since they had been childhood sweethearts; secondly, in order to bring good luck, she was canonized as queen the day before the death of this man who was apparently seriously ill, which was somewhat like "trying anything possible to save the patient in desperation".
Unfortunately, the appointment of the empress did not bring good luck, but instead became a death warrant. Tong Jia died the day after she became empress. She was empress for only one day, and successfully won the title of "the empress with the shortest reign in history".
Although Master Kang had been mentally prepared for the death of the seriously ill Tong Jia at that time, the fact that she died the day after she was crowned as the queen was still too much of a blow to him.
In particular, this was the third time such a thing had happened. From then on, the fact that the queen would die soon was deeply imprinted in Master Kang's mind, and it directly caused him to become stressed.
Therefore, he never appointed another queen from then on.
As for the Fourth Master's biological mother, Concubine De, Uya, she was posthumously honored after the Fourth Master ascended the throne. In fact, when Master Kang was in power, she was only Concubine De and had not even become a noble concubine, let alone a queen.
So whether Master Kang doesn't want to or doesn't dare to do it is not important. After all, compared to these intangible reputations, saving his life is more important.
How wonderful it would be to become the Empress Dowager instead of the Empress. Not only is there no risk, but it is also full of pleasure. Empress Defei said that she was very satisfied.
Anyway, when her biological son ascended the throne and became the Empress Dowager, Concubine De was already the actual manager of the harem, so it didn't matter whether she was the Empress or not.
That’s all for later.
It is now the 38th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, and the concubine with the highest status in the harem is Concubine Wenxi.
Coincidentally, this imperial concubine was the biological sister of Kang Shifu’s second empress, Niohuru... Don’t ask why sisters had to enter the palace one after the other. The reason is that the Manchus have had the tradition of sisters sharing a husband since the time of the tribes outside the Great Wall.
Not to mention sisters, even aunts and nieces are not impossible.
Huang Taiji did this, and Shunzhi did this too. The current Empress Dowager Renxian was the niece of Shunzhi Emperor's first empress. So, Master Kang just wanted a pair of sisters. Oh, Queen Tongjia's sister also entered the palace the year after she died. Now she is a concubine. When Concubine Wenxi dies this winter, she will also become a concubine next year...
In short, compared with his grandfather Huang Taiji and the late Emperor Fulin, Master Kang just had a few pairs of sisters or something, which is nothing.
All for the tribe!
As long as the alliance between tribes can be maintained, the marriage relationship must not be broken.
It's not impossible to marry sisters, aunts, nieces, or even granddaughters into the family.
This is a very natural thing in the grassland tribes with harsh living environment. The world is so big, but nothing is as important as living a good life. It is difficult for the Han people, who have abundant resources, rich life, and pay attention to etiquette, integrity, and human ethics to understand this.
Therefore, those princesses who were married off to distant places would feel helpless and humiliated when faced with the levirate marriage system where the son inherits the father's property after his death.
The main reason is that I can’t accept it psychologically and I have set too many restrictions on myself.
Back to Master Kang’s harem, although the highest-ranking concubine now is Concubine Wenxi, her health is not very good, so Empress Dowager Renxian is still in charge, and she is also the one who leads this selection.
Since Master Kang is just in his early forties and still in his prime, the Empress Dowager is planning to select a few young concubines for him this time.
After all, she was the mother-in-law of the concubines. In her opinion, the more children the royal family had, the better.
Moreover, this time the Empress Dowager was determined to select a few Manchu and Mongolian concubines. It was not because of any ethnic discrimination, but mainly because she felt that starting with Concubine Wang, the number of Han concubines in Master Kang's harem was already too high.
The key point is that the concubine actually gave birth to the fifteenth prince. Although the child is still young and destined to have no chance of becoming emperor, the empress dowager said that she did not dare to bet on what would happen in the future. What if the emperor suddenly had a brain accident and wanted to choose a younger one to inherit the throne?
History has proven that the Empress Dowager's worries were not groundless. Later, Master Kang really favored Concubine Wang for several years, allowing her to give birth to the 15th, 16th, and 18th princes, and even loved the 18th prince more than all his sons.
If the eighteenth prince had not died at the age of eight, it would be hard to say who would have inherited the throne in the end.
So sometimes the intuition of the elderly is quite scary.
In short, this time the Empress Dowager was determined to choose a few concubines of Manchu and Mongolian origin for Master Kang, but Master Kang himself had no objection to this. In fact, he mainly wanted to supplement the family members for his adult sons.
Especially the fourth prince Yinzhen, he doesn’t even have a woman until now. What a shame.
The Queen Mother also expressed her deep agreement with this.
Choosing for the emperor and for the princes, aren't they both choosing for the royal family?
What's more, there are so many Manchu and Mongolian girls of marriageable age, enough for the emperor and the princes to choose from, and there is no conflict at all.
Arrange, just select them all together and that’s it.
Once the Empress Dowager gave the final decision, the matter was happily settled.
Since Master Kang specifically mentioned the fourth son Yinzhen, the empress dowager also paid some attention to this taciturn grandson. She looked through the Manchu and Mongolian noble girls she had collected during this period, and finally chose Ulanara, the legitimate daughter of the infantry commander Fei Yanggu, who she was very satisfied with, as Yinzhen to show her care.
Master Kang certainly had no idea about this girl, but he was very familiar with her father Fei Yanggu.
The commander of the infantry is considered one of our own. With such a family background, he is qualified to be the legitimate wife of the fourth son. Although the fourth son's mother's family is not noble, he has been raised by his cousin, Empress Tong Jia, for many years. I heard that he has a good relationship with the Tong family, so let it be.
In fact, at that time, Master Kang was not impressed by his son Yinzhen, mainly because the crown prince and the eldest prince were too prominent. Even the third and eighth princes were more prominent than the fourth prince, so he really didn't care much about Yinzhen's affairs.
Since the Queen Mother has chosen the person for him, and it sounds like the person has a good status and position, then let it be.
Who would have thought that things would be different in just a few months?
Although the fourth brother seems to be quiet, he is reliable in doing his job. He made a lot of gains in a casual trip to the south of the Yangtze River and got a general idea of the imperial examination cheating case, which really impressed everyone.
What surprised him even more was that the girl from the family of Wang Ziteng, the governor of the Beijing Camp, not only caught his eye, but also possessed special abilities and brought auspiciousness. He would definitely not feel at ease until she was married to their royal family.
Isn't this more affordable than the daughter of the infantry commander?
However, he had agreed to the Empress Dowager's arrangement before, so now this matter is not easy to handle.
Seeing that Master Kang was a little worried about this, Liang Jiugong stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, there is no need to worry so much. It's still a long time before the selection of concubines. According to the rules, it will be held after the New Year and the beginning of spring. There is still more than half a year left. Didn't you order the girl from the Wang family to enter the palace to be the fifth princess's companion? It's a good opportunity for the Empress Dowager to take a good look at her. Who knows, she might have already taken a liking to this girl and arranged a marriage for her without you saying anything."
After Liang Jiugong said this, Master Kang suddenly understood.
Yeah, how could I forget about this.
There is something magical about the little girl from the Wang family. The Empress Dowager is old and likes this kind of auspicious sign the most. As long as she likes him and he says a few words, there is no need to worry about this matter not being successful.
After all, this is the girl that the fourth brother likes, so he has to get her to him no matter what.
Master Kang figured out the key point and became very happy. He praised Liang Jiugong verbally on the spot and then immediately issued an order for Xianyu to go to the palace the next day to pay her respects to the Empress Dowager.
So, Xianyu, who had just crawled out of the copy of the angry quarrel with the Fourth Uncle and had only rested at home for one day, received the notice to return to work. She took the order with a confused look on her face, and there was only one sentence in her mind: "Master Kang, please be a human being. You are making us go to work before the Mid-Autumn Festival has even passed. Is this fair?"
However, her roar was silent. In this evil feudal era, Master Kang was the justice of heaven.
Well, the main thing is that he gave too much, so why not go to the palace to show your appreciation.
With this mood, Xianyu prepared herself mentally and entered the palace again. What she never expected was that what greeted her this time was a big surprise.
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